Darren Shan's Blog, page 4

When Adaptations Go Wrong

Proving, once again, that I really do need to start sharing links from my "rainy day" folder more regularly that I have been doing... Here's a link to an article from about this time last year (!!!!) called When Adaptations Go Wrong: 15 Book-to-Movie Flops https://startefact.com/news/when-adap... It's hard to make a case for most of these flops, although I really enjoyed the Gold Compass movie myself. And I really enjoyed the entry that pops up at...

Cirque Du Freak fanzine 2024

The Cirque Du Freak Fanzine is a lovely little online freebie that's been going for quite a few years now. Put together each year by a fan of the book, who invites other fans to submit drawings or stories or poems or cosplay photos (or a mixture of those). I always love checking it out when it goes live around Halloween. It's going ahead again this year, and is now open to submissions, so if you want to submit a piece of work -- or create a piece of work to submit -- click on the link below....

Hungarian gifts

I received quite a few presents on my recent trip to Hungary, which came as a pleasant surprise -- I genuinely wasn't expecting anything. Art, postcards, snacks, some alcoholic drinks (hic!!) and more. While every gift was of course warmly accepted and cherished, two in particular just blew me away. The first, by a fan called ANNA, is what she terms a booknook -- a display to sit between books on a bookshelf. She made it from scratch, providing us with a glimpse backstage at the Cirque Du Fr...

Native James

My son Dante is big into rap. It's not something I've ever delved into deeply, but maybe I'll have to start broadening my field, as at least ONE rapper appears to have devled deeply into MY work!! An article about a rapper called NATIVE JAMES popped up in my timeline recently. He's released a new song called "Field," which fuses rap with nu-metal. I've listened to it a few times, and it's a catchy number (although rather sweary, like many rap tunes, so approach with caution if easilly offend...

Cirque Du uh-oh!!

Mr Tall wasn't too happy when he saw the name of this upcoming burlesque night at a craft kitchen and brewery in Oregon!! https://www.mycentraloregon.com/event... I have it on good authority that he's sending his team of lawyers round to "have a quiet word" with the organisers. That would be worrying in the best of circumstances, but Mr Tall's lawers are... LITTLE PEOPLE!!!! I think it won't be so much a case of "Cease and desist!!" as "DEcease and...

Ten worst horror movies ever?!?

A new month = a new "Cirque Du Freak is one of the worst movies ever" article!!! :-) This time round it's the good folk at COLLIDER, who compiled a list of the 10 Worst Horror Movies Based On Great Books, and placed Cirque Du Freak in the #10 spot. Which I guess is tragedy heaped on insult -- if a film of yours is going to make a list like this, I imagine you'd probably want to at least be #1 on the list, is only for the notoriety value!!!! A list like this is always something of a mixed...

Budapest event summary

Wow! Saturday in Budapest was a crazy, fabulous day!! I've had some epic signings in Hungary in the past, and this was certainly one to add to the list! The day started at 10am, when I met with a small group of fans who had signed up for a pre-event event (if that makes sense!). This was a nice, relaxed start to the day -- I was able to take my time singing their books, answered lots of questions, and hung out with them for a while. There was a 45 minutes delay after that, while the orga...

Q&A in Budapest

A fan in the crowd recorded the whole of my Q&A at the event in Budapest yesterday. It runs 46 minutes in total, but that includes the translations to my answers -- if you fast forward through those (as I assume all non-Hungarian speakers will), you should shave a good 20 minutes or so off the running time. There was a scheduled interview to begin with, where I was asked questions by the interviewer on stage, then we threw it open to the crowd. We covered LOTS of ground and touched on all so...

Never MEDIOCRE!!!

A post was trending on Twitter: "Nobody understands the bond between a girl and the mediocre book she read when she was 13 years old." Several people mentioned my books (mainly my Cirque Du Freak and Demonata series), which was lovely, but I do bristle at that word MEDIOCRE. I get what she means -- sometimes a book can play a huge part in your life when you're a teenager, and if you try to read it again as an adult it doesn't have the same impact on you, and can even seem a bit (maybe a ...

First Hungarian review for Archie Vol 2

The first Hungarian review for the second Archibald Lox Volume hit the web today: https://www.roboraptor.hu/2024/08/21/... It's a solid 7/10 review. The reviewer felt there was a bit too much focus on Grop (a sport that is hugely popular in the worlds of The Megre in the series), but that the series was building nicely and that answers to certain key questions would probably come in the third Volume -- which they certainly do! O...