When I publish a book, I always write up some author notes about it. I cover all sorts of things in the notes, such as where the idea might have originated, how long it took to write, who certain characters were named after, and so on. I try to make them as informative as possible, to give fans as much insight into the creation of the story as I can. Over the last year or more, I've been updating those notes, and also writing new notes for a few that I missed over the years. I'm almost up to date -- the most recent notes I published were for Zom-B Goddess, so I now only have to add notes for the two most recent books for adults that I released under the name of Darren Dash. I meant to post them last month, but they got lost in the mix. I'm really going to add them this month, no excuses! I'll be publishing them on Facebook, but also on my website, where all the rest of the notes are collected, and you can check them out over there any time you want, by clicking THIS LINK.

A fan called Zelda was tasked by her art teacher with creatively destroying one of her favourite books, in order to generate art from it. She chose Cirque Du Freak and you can see some photos of the project here. Personally I love what Zelda created, and I don't mind the damage she had to inflict on the book. Most books, when read, simply spend the rest of their lives sitting on a shelf, gathering dust -- I like that this copy got a second life and was transformed into an object of freakish beauty. The one constant in life is change -- why shouldn't our books change along with us? And, hey, it's not like it's a rare beast -- if this was one of a limited edition, I'd be of a different mindset, but it's easily enough replaced.

Other people didn't agree when Zelda shared these photos on Twitter, and she picked up a few angry remarks along the lines of "Nobody should EVER destroy a book, under any circumstances whatsoever!" They weren't too pleased with her teacher either, and said no teacher should ever demand such a sacrifice of a student. I can see their point -- and maybe the teacher was someone who doesn't love books, and it would be interesting to know if they would ask a student to destroy a piece of art as part of an art project -- but, as I said, personally I love that my art found new life in another person's art, so I've no problems with this at all.

What about you guys??? Let the jury of Shansters decide!

I imagine most of you know that there's a Cirque Du Freak manga -- I've certainly posted about it plenty of times here -- but then again, we should never take anything for granted in this life, so it's probably a good idea to flag it up every so often. Anyway, yes, all twelve books in the series were adapted into 12 manga volumes years ago, by a VERY talented Japanese artist called Takahiro Arai. They were released initially in Japan, but were later translated and released in the UK, USA and lots of other countries. They're very faithful to the books, although the style is very much their own, and a few tweaks were made to help the story work better in a visual format.

I'm always happy to highly recommend the manga. I think the team did an amazing job with them. I helped choose the artist, but had no further input into the project -- although I did help with the English translations, going through the translated text and doctoring it in places to make it more like the text in the books. You should be able to order all twelve volumes from your local bookseller, or else you can get them through one of the internet sellers like Amazon, or resellers like Abebooks or Alibris.

THE PERFECT CAST?!?

Over the years, many fans have speculated about their dream cast for a Cirque Du Freak movie or TV show, but few have gone to the lengths of a fan called Samuel Davis (that's Davis without an e, he'll have you know!), who put together a lengthy YouTube video on the topic. You might not agree with every choice of Samuel's, but if you have 13 or so minutes to kill, this will certainly get you thinking... maybe you'll even decide to come up with a fan casting video of you own...

A CAUTIOUS REVIEW

A new review for the first Zom-B book appeared on the A Little Fool Reads blog recently, and you can read it by CLICKING HERE.

I had a little chuckle at the lengths the reviewer went to avoid mentioning B's gender. The Zom-B series finished a few years ago, and I figure most of you reading this will be aware of them, and even if you haven't yet read them, you'll know that the main character is a girl. But that fact is cunningly disguised in the first book. One of the key messages of Zom-B is that it's dangerous to make assumptions about people, based on the colour of their skin, or their religion, or how they look, or what they wear.

The thing is, I think most of us are guilty of that to an extent in our day-to-day lives -- it's just human nature. I wanted to highlight this for those who would argue that no, they never judge a person superficially -- so I wrote B in a very specific way in the first book, to make people assume as if the story was being told by a boy. At no point does B describe herself as a boy -- indeed, there are some very clear indicators that the character is a girl, such as when she sits down to do a wee on the toilet -- yet pretty much everyone assumed she was, because... well, because, as I said above, we all make those sorts of assumptions all the time, and we need to be aware of them and work on them, especially if we're going to be critical of other people who make them.

To put it another way -- I think the vast majority of us like to think of ourselves as "the good guys" in the story of our lives, but I don't think we can truly fill those good guy boots unless we spot when we're acting like "the bad guys" and work hard to correct our course and change. It's a life-long job, and as a general rule of thumb, anyone who thinks they've achieved perfection... almost certainly hasn't. "Must try harder" is my motto as a writer. I try to make it my motto as a human being too.

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF THE UNDEAD!

Vampires. They're a complicated bunch, aren't they? I think most people assume they know all there is to know about vampires. They drink blood, live forever, sleep in coffins, and only come out when it's dark -- right?

Well, no, that wasn't even true in the key defining work about vampires -- Bram Stoker's Dracula -- which laid the groundwork for the entire genre. In Dracula the vampires actually CAN come out in the day -- they just don't have any supernatural powers when the sun in shining.

In the century-plus since Dracula was released, there have been LOADS of books and movies about the creatures of the night, and the rules keep changing and being re-written. Handily for those who like to keep abreast of the changes, someone has put together a list over on Wikipedia, of vampire traits in folklore and fiction. It includes references to loads of books, including my Saga of Darren Shan books (aka the Cirque Du Freak series). It's a bit clumsily constructed, and scrolls down forever, but for those who are interested, CLICK HERE.

"The children of Wikipedia -- what music they make!!!"

TWITTER DEBATES PART 1

There were some amusing posts on Twitter last month, by fans speculating about the location of Vampire Mountain. Is it in the Himalayas, America, Northern Europe? People weren't sure, and that's exactly the way I like it! I kept the settings of Cirque Du Freak and the rest of my vampire books deliberately vague most of the time, so that readers could supply their own locations and personalize the books. A few found that unsatisfying -- "Damnit, Shan, just tell us where the mountain is!!!" -- but I think it worked for most and might be one of the reasons why the stories have worked so well in so many different countries around the world.

The Demonata is largely set in Ireland (even though I don't make that crystal clear in the books), and Zom-B is pretty much all set in London, and perhaps the settings worked against the stories going global. But Cirque Du Freak and the rest of the Saga... they could be set just about anywhere, which might be why they spread so far, as readers had the freedom to imagine the story happening in places familiar to them.

TWITTER DEBATES PART 2

Again on Twitter last month, there was also a quizzical thread started by a fan called Vampire Council, who asked if there were vampire interpreters or if all the vampires spoke a common language -- and if they did, what was it? This is a question that, to my surprise, hardly ever gets asked. If you think about it logically, the vampires in my books come from all corners of the world, and speak all sorts of different languages, so this obviously must be an issue. They can live for centuries, of course, which gives them plenty of time to learn a new language common to the clan -- but what would that language be?!?

English? Well, yes, it's the most common global language today, but it wouldn't have been when the older vampires were nippers and following the example of their elders.

Maybe they speak the language that is spoken in whatever country Vampire Mountain is set? Possibly, although as I make clear in the books, the mountain is set very far away from any human settlements, so there would be no real reason for them to use a "local" language, since the vampires are the only locals in the area.

Perhaps they invented a language of their own thousands of years ago, and use that whenever they get together? Very likely. It makes the most sense, and is most probably the actual answer. But then when did Darren learn it, and why does he never mention it in the books?!?

Heh heh! To be honest, it was never something I thought about too deeply, and it goes to show just how much you can get away with if your story is strong enough. Some writers think it's important to include all the relevant details when telling a fantastical story, to cover even the most minor of explanations, so that readers can fully understand the world that is being created for them. But in truth, it's amazing the amount that you can leave out. At the end of the day, the story is king. Give readers characters they can care about and get invested in. Throw lots of crafty plot twists their way. Build up to some shocking reveals and have your heroes go on a journey of change and enlightenment. If you do all that, virtually no one will care about the "small" details... such as what language everyone is actually speaking!!

SPIT IT OUT!

IT'S A WRAP!