I've no idea why I was tagged when this meme was shared on a Facebook post recently. No idea at all... :-) :-) :-)

Heh heh. I know I sometimes seem cruel with my treatment of my central characters, but it all harks back to the prologue of Cirque Du Freak. In those few pages, I said that this was a true story, and in real life bad things sometimes happen. As fantastical as they are, I always treat my stories as if they're really happening, and I apply real-world logic and consequences. So if I weave a tale where the characters face overwhelming odds and risk their lives, it's only logical that some of those won't make it to the end. Indeed, I think it's cheating when none of the main characters dies in a book where danger lurks around every corner. I don't kill off characters cheaply or lightly, but with the kind of stories I tell, they do have to die every now and then. Otherwise the stories would be a sham.

I did actually think that I might make it to the end of my Archibald Lox series without losing any of my main cast. Since it's not a horror series, I hope to be kinder to my main characters than usual. But, sadly, things start to darken over the course of Volumes 2 and 3, and... well... don't go getting too close to them, OK? :-(

For more about those Archibald Lox books, along with all the latest Darren Shan news and updates (including the release of Volume One of the Cirque Du Freak manga omnibus), see the February issue of the Shanville Monthly: https://www.darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly