Twenty-seven years ago, on May 8th 1997, I was sitting in a car, babysitting a young cousin who was asleep in the back, when I had an idea for a book about a young boy who runs into a vampire at a circus and ends up reluctantly becoming his assistant as a creature of the night. A few days later I began writing the first draft of the book that I had decided to call... Cirque Du Freak!!

I had no idea at the time that this would change my life forever. I'd been writing full-time for a couple of years, and had written lots of books, all intended for adult readers. I was making a bit of headway with them, and assumed they would be my bread-and-butter if I was going to be able to make a career out of this writing lark. Cirque Du Freak was a side-project. I didn't think there was any money to be made writing for children, and I wasn't sure if I'd be any good at it -- I thought it would be difficult to rein in the darkness of my adult work. But, what the hell, I thought I could have some fun with it, so I went ahead and wrote it regardless!

When I'd finished my first draft, I asked my agent Chris if he'd like to have a look at it. He said he would, and he really enjoyed it. He saw commercial potential that I hadn't seen, and submitted it to twenty different publishers in the UK, hoping to start a bidding war for the rights... only for all twenty of them to reject it!! It looked like my experiment in books for children had been a huge failure, and commonsense told me to push it aside and focus on my books for adults again.

But I'd already written the first draft of the second book (I worked FAST back in those days!), and Chris didn't want to let it drop, as he still believed in its potential. So he set up meetings for me with three of the publishers who'd rejected it, to chat about what they had liked ot hadn't liked, and if they might be interested in other work from me. One of those editors, a lady called Domenica De Rosa, re-read the manuscript ahead of our meeting, to refresh herself with the material, and second time round it snagged her interest. She made a few very helpful suggestions -- such as making early mention of Darren's love of spiders, which didn't appear in the first draft until he was at the Cirque Du Freak and saw Madam Octa.

Buoyed by this, I went away and did a re-write, and Domenica ended up commissioning it for HarperCollins. She then went off to have twins and never returned, and her replacement didn't like the book and tried to sell the rights back to us! But Chris stood firm and insisted they go ahead and publish it, and although they sat on it for a couple of years, they did put it out eventually, and... well... it did OK when it started appearing on bookshelves of shops, didn't it?!?

Happy birthday, Cirque Du Freak. Thanks for bringing so much dark joy into the lives of millions of readers around the world, and giving me a fairytale kind of life that I couldn't even have imagined in my wildest dreams back in 1997, when I was drawing unemployment benefits and living with my parents.

NEWSTALK

BEYOND THE SPINES

There was a lovely review for Father Of The Future, my latest Darren Dash novel for adult readers, on BEYOND THE SPINES REVIEWS. It was the first of my books for older readers that the reviewer had read, and while at first uncertain of what to expect, she enjoyed it immensely in the end, as best illustrated by this little snippet:

"For me, this book felt like 1984 meets Netflix’s Loki meets 2001 meets I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, except that I enjoyed this novel more than any of those four fictions."

High praise indeed, especially as 1984 and 2001 were BIG influences on my work in general, and Father Of The Future in particular!! If you'd like to read the full review, you can do so by CLICKING HERE

And if you'd like to read the book, you can buy the very reasonably priced eBook on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Smashwords and lots of other sites. Or you can get it as a hardback or paperback through Amazon stores worldwide.

CIRQUE DU CHOO-CHOO!

A mother of a student went to his school recently, and was impressed to spot a "literary Tube map" -- this is like the famous London Tube Map, only every "train line" represents a genre of books, with various novels and schools dotted along the way.

The Shantastic parent sent me a picture of part of the map, and I was delighted to see a freakishly fabulous book at the start (or end) of the black horror line! All aboard for the Cirque Du Freak!! Choo-choo!!!!!

NO MORE FREE FREAKS!

I had a few people asking me recently if the Cirque Du Freak audiobooks were being removed from Audible. No they're not -- but, as you can see from the screenshot that one fan sent me, they HAVE been withdrawn from the FREE downloads list.

I've got to be honest -- I know next to nothing about audiobooks! I don't listen to audiobooks, and had little to do with those of mine which have been recorded and released by my publishers over the years, aside from rubber-stamping their choice of narrators. But I'm aware that fans on Audible have been able to listen to the Cirque Du Freak books for free, for a few years now. (Don't worry -- I do still get paid!) Or at least some fans in some countries have been able to, depending on their subscription model.

That has now changed -- but I don't know if it's everywhere or just in certain zones. But the books ARE still on Audible -- you just have to pay for them now, or use your monthly credits to download them if you have that set up. (As my wife does. She's always keenly looking around for new audiobooks to spend her credits on, though I don't think she ever spends them on mine!! Then again, I did read a few of my books to her on long car journeys years ago, so I suppose when you've have a private Darren Shan narrating experience, every other narrator will inevitably come up short!!!)

BUZZFEED RE-READ

There was a nice little article on Buzzfeed recently, about people's favourite books, although it had a rather cumbersome heading: Here Are 15 Books That Are So Good, People Wish They Could Relive Reading Them Again For The First Time. That header writer needed a good editor!!! :-)

Anyway, there's a sweet mention for Cirque Du Freak in among the mix. To read what they had to say about it, and to check out the other books that got highlighted, CLICK HERE

OLD FOR YOUNG

Nice to see Cirque Du Freak make a list of "old" series on Gamespot entitled: Introduce Your Kids To Some Of The Most Popular Books From Your Childhood This Summer -- even though I still find it hard to believe that almost a quarter of a century has passed since Cirque Du Freak was first released!!

The set that they've included an Amazon link for is actually the boxset of the British editions, where the series is known by its original and official title -- The Saga Of Darren Shan. (Though I'm happy to refer to it as the Cirque Du Freak series too!) As long as you don't mind the covers, which are VERY different to the American covers, it's incredibly good value -- all 12 books, in a stylish slipcase, for about $45?!? Yes please!!!! For the article and the Amazon link, CLICK HERE

AN EVIL RECOMMENDATION

This meme, posted by a fan called SARA JO, is maybe the best recommendation for The Evil And The Pure (one of my Darren Dash books for adult readers) that I've ever seen!!! :-)

ALLIES RE-READ

What's Allies Of The Night (the 8th book of my Cirque Du Freak series) like if you re-read it as an adult?? A fan called LUKE decided to find out, and documented his take on the book -- CLICK HERE

***SPOILERS ***

I'm going to talk about events from the book here, so if you haven't read it, and don't want spoilers, my advice is to stop reading NOW.

Luke raises a very interesting point about the Vampets, and their similarity to fascists like the Nazis. This was definitely deliberate. Luke doesn't like it, because it casts the Vampaneze as out-and-out bad guys, and he felt I'd been much more nuanced in my presentation of them up to that point. He's absolutely correct, but at the same time I think he's misinterpreted what's going on with the vampets, and the reason why I went all-out bad with them.

The vampaneze are NOT automatic bad guys. They have different beliefs to the vampires, and I'd absolutely be more with the vampires than the vampaneze, but they're not inherently evil. But that changes when Steve comes into the mix. Because of Mr Tiny's prophecy, and their belief that their Lord will see them conquer the vampires, they follow Steve blindly, which allows him to corrupt them. The Vampets are HIS henchmen. HE ordered their recruitment, and directs their actions. The vast majority of the vampaneze disapprove of the Vampets, but Steve is their Lord, and his word is law, so they allow it to happen.

Although I didn't get into politics heavily in Cirque Du Freak, the state of the world WAS on my mind all the same, and I addressed it with the Vampets and the negative impact they have on the vampaneze. They're a warning not to put too much power into the hands of our leaders, as corrupt officials can then lead us disastrously astray, as happened with Germans in the 1930s. I don't think any groups of people are inherently bad -- we're all one big family, and we sway the same ways. But the systems we implement can allow individuals in positions of authority to move big groups in sinister ways, and what I was saying with the Vampets was that we should never have a system where our leaders are granted God-like powers, where they're placed above our laws and rules, because such systems will always, eventually, be abused, to the harm of the wider populace.

VIJAY REVIEWS

A short but sweet review of Tunnels Of Blood, by a YouTuber called VIJAY. Have a look by CLICKING HERE, and if you like it, give him a thumbs up to thank him for his time.

ZOMBIES VS PEPPA PIG

HOW TO READ

With work ongoing on a potential TV adaptation of The Demonata (still VERY early days, so don't go getting TOO excited!), this might be a good time for a re-read of the series, to refresh yourselves with the storyline, if only to be able to accurately judge just how savagely it ends up being butchered!!!! :-) :-) :-)

But with ten books to work your way through, you might not recall where to start or in what order to proceed from there. Luckily, the HOW TO READ ME site has listed the running order, along with a brief synopsis for each book -- plus they've also listed the chrnological order, in case any of you want to read the story in the way the time would have unfolded, rather than in the backwards-and-forwards way that I structured things.

(I think the BEST way to read the series is the way I structured it, but it might be fun to start with Bec and work forward from there, especially if you've read the books before.)

For your directions in the demon-ravaged darks, CLICK HERE

CIRQUE DU QUIZ

Ther are two teachers in California, KEVIN and JENNIFER, happily married and teaching in the same school. Every year, for the last 17 years, they have read Cirque Du Freak to their students, and are still enjoying it after all this time! They get the kids to send me a letter when they've finished the book, and I always love replying.

They also give the kids a Cirque Du Freak QUIZ each year, and the one who scores highest wins a copy of the Cirque Du Freak omnibus!! They sent me a copy of this year's quiz, and I have to say, it's INCREDIBLY hard!!! There are 16 questions in total, and I think most readers will struggle to get even half of those right! (I didn't dare test myself, as I don't want to fail it!!!!)

But hey! if you want to prove me wrong, I've attached scans of the quiz here, so go ahead and test yourself! Just, please, no cheating! It's a fun quiz, designed to find out how much you've actually retained abut the book. So no peeking or Googling the answers!!! Take on the challenge squarely, as any vampire of good standing would, and see how you fare. I'll be eagerly awaiting your scores in the replies to this post -- just don't expect any free books from me at the end!!!!

IT'S A WRAP!

And that's it for June. With the holiday season kicking off in earnest, I hope you all have a wonderful time if you have any trips planned -- the Shan Clan will be returning to Disneyland Paris this month, having visited last year and enjoyed it immensely. I'll see you back here at the start of July for the annual BIRTHDAY issue of my monthly newsletter, celebrating both the Shanville Monthly's entry into the world, along with MY entry into it some years earlier! Until then, all my bloody best, Darren Shan. x x x

Follow Darren Shan on Facebook and Twitter. He also has a (very rarely updated!) YouTube page.

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