The Vampire's Assistant question

I first started reading this series when Darren Shan came in to our school and read out part of Cirque Du Freak for us, by this time he'd only just realised Vampire Mountain and we were the first to get copies. He even signed books 1 - 4 for me! But hearing him read it really made a difference. Absolutely love the style and books like Twilight have nothing on it! Shan's Vampire saga was what sort of interested me in the supernatural world to begin with and I have him to thank for that. :)

I read these books when I first became interested in urban fantasy. I was 14 then and I'm 18 now and they are still in my top 5 favourite series and is the one i've reread the most. I loved the unique take on vampires and the focus on friendship and discovering who you are, rather than romance which seems to be the main focus of a lot of other vampire series.

Anne Rice's take on vampires is still my favorite but Darren Shan's will always hold a special place in my heart. :)

I haven't changed my opinion on vampires. To me, they are like fae or satyrs because they all have their own historical fables or folktales with old rules that apply to the mythos, but a modern take is always a modern take. I like the direction Darren Shan went with his vampires, creating a society of much more durable species and, in some ways, taking away the supernatural aspect of vampirism and adding a more animalistic idea to them instead. But to me, vampires will always be vampires, just as centaurs will always be centaurs even if modern writing might depict them as men with robotic limbs (as a silly comparison).

But being fictional creatures, there is a lot of room to experiment and make your own take on them, just as J. K. Rowling has done, and Stephanie Meyers, and (my favorite) David Sosnowski :)

This did change my opinion on vampires because it showed that there are different types of them. I always saw them as the enemy of werewolfs but after this I see that there are good. I found this out when i saw that vampires do not kill when they drink blood but simply take a sip and do not really cause any harm.

my opinion in vampires has changed because they seem nice and are people that seem very organized and things that don't hurt a lot of people at all unlike the Vampaneze who are hurtful creatures.

After reading the first book of the series I though that Vampires were a the bad race and that they were the ones that the humans should be careful of. I though that they were evil because they had to turned Darren into a vampire. But after the second book I realized the vampires were good and instead it was the vampaneze who were the bads ones. They feasted on human blood until they died where as vampires only feasted to a certain amount.

read it when i was 12 of course i wanted to be a vampire i wanted to have all that strength and i guess you could say the responsibilities of being darren.

then i found twilight which just made me want to hunt a vampire and down and make him mine.

Then i grew up and realized reality can be just as exciting:)

I have all of his books, there are a few parts to his story that I don't care for however his concept of vampires taking a "Sip" rather then drain the person was definitely different. The first book was a bit slow however I was addicted and kept reading the entire series until I finally finished. I love vampire books in general and its refreshing to have some that are different. This one really delved into the life and honor of a vampire.

who has opinions on vampires! seriously people they aren't even real so please get a life

The Saga Of Darren Shan is what Vampire books should be with a good story and lots of action. I was getting a bit sick of all these forbidden love stories where all the characters seem to do is moan and nothing else

My friend first told me to read these, I have to admit I was hesitant at first. but I take it back. one of my fav. books

Mattie wrote: "when I read Cirque Du Freak I had a whole different opinion on vampires from that day forward I wanted to be a vampire"

IK OOK !!!!! : )

I stumbled upon Darren Shan at the local library and rent 2 at a time and love them. I am almost finished Sons of Destiny and will miss these characters that i have been with the past 2 months.

i had a whole different opinion about vamps....I got really interested in vamps then but I think this is one of my favs.

What do you people think of The Vampire's Assistant?

Yes! Like a lot. I got so interested with vampires in this book. :)

i love thease books i think there amazing i will always love vampires but it is true twilight has nothing on these books im on book 5 and i have the firs two movies.

My opinion of vampires has not changed. They are evil and soulless. All should be eliminated. That said, the universe in the 'Cirque Du Freak' series assign more humane attributes to the vampires. However, the vampires didn't make a truce with humans out of kindness. They did it for survival (which is understandable). They still violate the human's free will by sucking their blood. Crepsley commited a terrible crime against Darren. I like the series. The writing is good and the stories flow well.

Like most of darren shans books, the ending is unsatisfactory...but for the most part the series was alright. Although i do wish he merged the books aswell as they are so thin and it would be pretty easy to combine 2 or 3 of them into 1. If you guys havent already, you should check out his other series which i find to be better:Lord Loss
On another note...why the hell did he name the main charater after himself? lol

i had never really thought about anything to do with horror until i read darren shan, i just fell in love with his books, i had never really heard of vampires as i was young when i read his books i have read all the twilight books and its fair to say shan's is the best vampire ever!

I was never really interested in vampires until I read Darren Shan's series. I can't say they are my favorite creatures but IMHO I consider the Shan's version of them to be the best. (Though the idea of any creature sparkling is intriguing.) I enjoyed the horror elements cooperating with the twisted yet traditional fantasy elements like witch and dragons.

I'm not gonna lie, Twilight was kind of appealing to me. I found it interesting, in all honesty. The only thing I didn't understand was why they had to sparkle. I overlooked it because I didn't think it was that big a deal. Then I read Cirque Du Freak. I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THOSE GIRLY, SISSY, SPARKLY CULLENS.

I definatley did. I read it before I started hearing all the hype about Twilight, which I thought was totally lame. But, Shan takes vampires and makes them bad-ass again! like they used to be back in the good old days. :)