A fan called Steven was doing some organising recently and came across these books of mine which I signed and personalised for him twenty years ago, in 2001, when Vampire Mountain was first released. He got them signed at Waterstones in Newcastle (UK). He was 11 years old, and had been made to read part of Cirque Du Freak after it was discovered that he'd been replying to his school on posts on the old message board on my site, and impersonating ME! That explains my message in The Vampire's Assistant!!!

It was lovely to see these books that I signed so long ago. I was also interested to note that I hadn't dated them. These days I almost always date a book when I include a personal message. (I usually don't date it if I'm only signing the book.) I thought I'd done that since the very beginning, but evidently not. I also used fairly cheap pens back in those days. I experiemented with pens for many years, before settling on Sharpies for a long time, although now I have a nice Mont Blanc pen which I use when signing. I also have special, quick-drying silver pens for when I sign on black pages (some of my books have black interior pages at the start of them), although I mostly used those during my Demonata tours.

There you go -- some useless Darren Shan knowldedge to take into the weekend!! Steven's post first appeared on the Darren Shan Discussions fan page on Facebook, which is well worth checking out if you want to join a thriving community of Shan fans who post regularly about my books and other odds and sods. The link is below, along with the photos of Steven's signed books.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/839821919370288/permalink/4267870979898681/