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It's seven years
since Darren
Shan's novel
Cirque du Freak
made its
debut on the boookshelves.
In that time,
he's clocked up
sales of ten
million, built
up a loyal and bloodthirsty
fan base and
earned himself
the title Number
One Master of
Horror in
children's
books.
It's no wonder
then that Shan
fans have their
own name
— Shansters — to
flaunt their
demonic devotion
to the master
of the macabre.
Blood Beast
is the fifth
book
in his second
series, and
while
his first series
of twelve books
was primarily
concerned with
vampires, this
second series,
The Demonata,
is all about
demons in their
various forms,
and more
specifically as
the series
progresses,
werewolves.
In the fourth
book of The
Demonata
sequence,
Bec, Shan
moved into
uncharted
territory,
flexing his
writing muscles
and focusing on
a female
narrator for
the first time,
a twice-cursed
teen
priestess in
fifth-century
Ireland.
It was a book
that showed a
new side to Shan
(real name
O'Shaughnessy)
beyond the
murder and
mayhem, weaving
historical fact
and folklore
into a
convincing and
compulsive tale.
Book five sees
Darren Shan
returning to
familiar
territory,
and fans won't
be disappointed.
Set one year on
from book three,
Slawter,
our hero Grubbs
Grady
is settling into
life with his
mysterious and
solitary Uncle
Dervish at his
palatial home.
Grubbs is
growing up but
still
haunted by
nightmares
following
the horrendous
slaughter of his
family - mother,
father and
sister - at the
beginning of
book one,
Lord Loss.
He's beginning
to take
an interest in
girls, and his
friend
Loch's sister
Reni in
particular,
and finds he has
less in common
with his young
friend Bill-E
(yes,
he's also his
brother, but
Bill-E
doesn't know
that).
The only thing
getting in the
way of Grubbs's
new-found party
lifestyle is the
fear that, like
other
members of his
family, he's a
werewolf in the
making. Scared
and desperate,
Grubbs shares
his fears with
his uncle, but
later
overhears him on
the phone to
a group of
assassins, the
Lambs.
If he is indeed,
a werewolf, it
appears that
Uncle Dervish
has no
qualms about
cutting his
nephew loose,
and throwing him
to the
ruthless Lambs.
Unlike other
children's
authors who fret
over the death
of a single
character, Shan
is an
indiscriminate
killer. He needs
to sacrifice
plenty of
victims,
and as his
compulsive
narratives
unfold, the body
count inevitably
rises. Shan
knows his
audience is
baying for
blood, and as
the title of the
book implies,
there's more
gore than at
your average
blood bank. Yes,
Shansters may
have to
wait till the
bitter end to
satisfy
their lust for
blood-letting on
a
grand scale, but
they won't love
this book any
the less for
that.
I heard Shan
give an
exclusive
reading of the
book's gruesome
climax to a
packed house at
the
South Bank's
Imagine festival
of
literature in
the spring. He
held
the audience so
rapt, you could
almost
hear the blood
drip. |
