A fan called Luke wrote to me recently to see if I could possibly help him out with a most unique problem...

"I'm 26 and have been a massive fan of your works from as far back as I can remember. I'm not certain you'll remember this, but before Demon Apocalypse came out, you ran a competition called 'What the Hell's coming next?" where fans could design cover art for the next book in the series. The winners would be included on the back inside cover in I believe the second edition of that book. I was somehow chosen as a winner (thanks MS Paint) but here's the rub; I already owned a copy of Demon Apocalypse from when it was first released, one that didn't include the winning designs.

"I've been on the hunt for a copy of Demon Apocalypse with those winning designs in them for over 10 years now and have been unable to find them as subsequent editions didn't include them. This is a loooong shot but would you happen to know where I could find a copy? Someone suggested I contact you directly as authors might have multiple copies from different printings still. I mostly want to see it so I can confirm that it was, in fact, a fairly crap design when compared to the other winner (which even then I could see was miles better). Let me know if this is something you can help out with or if it's complete gibberish to you."

I'll be honest -- at first it WAS gibberish to me! I had absolutely no recollection of that competition, but I looked back through the Shanville Monthly newsletters from around that time (every issue is archived on my site), and found the info about it here:

https://www.darrenshan.com/news/shanville-archives/2007/10/

Then I went looking on my bookshelves and found a first edition UK paperback copy (which is where the winning photos were meant to appear). I fully expected them not to be there (publishers often fail to follow through on things like that)... but they were -- hurrah!!! I've taken a photo of the inside back cover, and attached it to this post, so you can all see Luke's entry (it's the top one). One winner was chosen by the public, the other be ME -- Luke was MY choice and I still stand by it!!! ��