News: Book Cover - Brothers To The Death by Darren Shan (Saga of Larten Crepsley Book 4)

Unfortunately the fourth book in the so far brilliant Saga of Larten Crepsley will not be on sale until May, but in the meantime feast your eyes on this image, the artwork for the front cover of that book, to be titled Brothers To The Death. Illustrator David Wyatt has outdone himself yet again with this incredible image which I found on his blog, along with an earlier version of the cover. It looks like Larten is going to be heading to New York in the finale to the series, and the blood splattered evidence on the cover suggests that this one could be quite a gore-fest! 2012 is going to be another massive year for Darren Shan, with this final Larten Crepsley book and then in the autumn the first in his twelve book Zom-B series. I can't wait!

Edit: 15th January 2012


I've just been trawling though the HarperCollins website looking at their future releases and I spotted that the final cover of Brothers To The Death is now there for all to see. It has changed a little from David's original image (above) with the red tones being far more dominant - it really does look like hell is about to descend on the cityscape.

I am also loving the blurb about the book, sounds  like it could be a great end to the quadrilogy:

Just as Larten is finding a new place for himself in vampire society, trying to help vampires escape the Nazi menace, horrifying tragedy falls on his own family, thanks to the nefarious Vampaneze.

With his old friend Wester calling for war against the ancient enemies of vampires, Larten finds himself a figurehead of the campaign.

But there are more evil things than just the Vampaneze stirring. And soon, Larten might find himself grieving again – as he faces the worst and final betrayal…

Review: Palace of the Damned by Darren Shan (The Saga of Larten Crepsley Book Three)

In the third instalment in the creepy, captivating Larten Crepsley series, Larten finds out what it means to love… but is he also damned to find out what it means to lose?

Lost in the arctic waste, carrying a baby whose love he could never deserve, Larten faces the darkest time he has ever known.

But hope has a way of shining through even the smallest of cracks, and just as Larten reaches the end, a new beginning presents itself. The trouble is, for Larten, the violence of his youth is never far from the surface… and those he loves are the ones he hurts the most. As Larten experiences heaven and hell, and tries to save the soul of a child, the question is: can he save his own?

Has Darren Shan sold his soul to the devil? That's a question I have asked myself after finishing all three of the books I have read so far in The Saga of Larten Crepsley. Why? Because the man has not failed to deliver even once, so surely there must be more than natural talent at play here?

I will try to make this review as spoiler-free as possible as far as Palace of the Damned is concerned, but if you have not yet read Ocean of Blood yet then you may want to navigate away from this page now by clicking here now. OK... for those of you still reading, Palace of the Damned picks up pretty much straight after the dramatic and bloody conclusion to the second book in the series. Larten is full of self-loathing following his actions on the Pearly Tornado, and he is now heading into the frozen Arctic wasteland where he intends to put himself out of his misery for good. Things are slightly complicated by the fact that he is still carrying the baby he 'rescued' from the ship, and with no sign of any form of civilization it looks as if this young child may die with him. However, after what seems like days he finds himself led to the legendary Palace of the book's title where something happens that changes everything. And there is no way that I am going to tell you what that is, although we do witness the naming of the baby.

Following the release of Ocean of Blood, and Larten's taking of the baby, there was some excitement among many fans as they speculated as to who the baby was, with most of them getting it spot on, and as this happens in the first few chapters of the book I don't think it is too much of a spoiler to say that it is Gavner Purl (but I'm not taking any chances.... highlight that space if you're not bothered about finding out the identity of the child). Yet again, Darren Shan treats his readers to another key morsel in the history of Larten Crepsley and this character goes on to play an important role in the rest of this book.

As in the previous two books in this series Palace of the Damned is split into several parts, with sometimes lengthy jumps in time between each one. So, after the first three chapters we leap forward from the Arctic wasteland to Paris, 1906, and herein lies my only criticism of this this book - I wanted it to be much longer. It is only 256 pages in length and I reckon there is easily another 50 plus pages of story that could be told to fill in some of the jumps in time (how did Larten and the child get to Paris for starters?). Maybe I am being just a little too picky as not all of the jumps in time are quite so huge though; in fact, the jump from Paris to Larten's next destination happens at just the right time in the story, and to fill in that journey with more detail would not have added to the story. I guess I am just greedy for more history of this great character.

I loved Ocean of Blood because of its focus on Larten's formative 'teenage' years, when he was initially full of reckless abandon, and then later seeing the influence various others had on his development towards 'adult' vampirehood. In this book we see yet another change in Larten as his life journey continues: he is still full of regret at his massacre of the people on the Pearly Tornado, but in Paris he faces another challenge as he falls in love with a human. Of course, Larten being Larten he omits to inform her that he is a vampire and therefore it was only going to be a matter of time before..... (I told you it would be spoiler free). However, his relationships with Alicia (for that is her name) and the child he rescued that she adopts as her own, are of paramount importance to the rest of his story in this instalment, right up until the final page where we are left hanging with those dreaded words To be continued..... If you are weak like me you will then go on to read the sample opening chapter of book four, to be titled Brothers To The Death. I kind of wish I hadn't done this, and I wish HarperCollins hadn't included it at the end of the book, as on reflection I qould have liked to be kept in suspense for the next six months or so. However, it wasn't all bad as this sample chapter does itself end on a cracking 'ooohhh-can't-wait-to-read-the-next-book' moment.

All in all Palace of the Damned is yet another superb addition to the saga from Darren Shan and I loved the way he has developed his character even more and we are now really beginning to see the Larten we first met in Cirque du Freak, although I am saddened a little by the fact that there is only one more book left in the series. I wonder what Darren has planned for his legion of fans once he has finished telling Larten's story? Palace of the Damned was released in the UK yesterday and my thanks go to the good people at HarperCollins for sending me a copy to review. Tonight I am off to see Darren Shan with Charlie Higson at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature and I am really looking forward to it. Watch this space for a report on the event.

News: Book Cover - Palace of the Damned by Darren Shan (Saga of Larten Crepsley Book Three)

Back on 12th June I wrote a short post about the book cover for Palace of the Damned, the third book in Darren Shan's brilliant Saga of Larten Crepsley. If you remember, the image I showed you on the day was of the brilliant artwork by David Wyatt, without the title and author text added. Now HarperCollins have released the final version of the front cover, with all the necessary details added, and I think it is stunning, and definitely my favourite of the series so far. With the book due to be released on the 29th September, I know I am not the only Shan fan waiting impatiently to find out what happens to Larten next.

News: Book Cover - Palace of the Damned by Darren Shan (Saga of Larten Crepsley Book 3)

Unfortunately the third book in the so far brilliant Saga of Larten Crepsley will not be on sale until October, but in the meantime Darren Shan recently released this image, the artwork for the front cover of that book, to be titled Palace of the Damned. It isn't often that we get to see images like this in their full, original glory, without the accompanying title and author text so I thought I would share it with you in case you missed it on Darren's site. As with the previous two covers for the UK editions of the series the artwork is by illustrator David Wyatt. The end of Ocean of Blood was pretty nasty, and left fans on something of a cliffhanger, and I think that this image is a great taster of what is to come in the next book. If you go to this page on Darren's website you will also be able to see some of David's earlier drafts of the cover.

Review: Ocean of Blood by Darren Shan (The Saga of Larten Crepsley)

The epic tale of the vampire Larten Crepsley continues. The question is – how far can Larten go… alone?

Free from their mentor Seba Nile, Larten Crepsley and Wester Flack join the Cubs – wild young vampires with little respect for human life, and a taste for mindless enjoyment.

For the Cubs, everything is easy. But nothing has ever been easy for Larten, and soon fate throws his life into another spin. With dark paths to travel, Larten finds himself far from the Vampire Mountain and its rules. A long way from home, sick and alone, he must decide what kind of vampire he will be. Whether he will stand firm, be true to his master and his princples – or whether he will lose himself in blood…

The publication of a new Darren Shan book is always something of an event at the school where I teach - in the weeks running up to release date we have a constant stream of boys coming in to the library to ask if we have it yet. There are only a very small number of authors whose books have this effect on our boys, which goes to show how important Darren's books have become in encouraging boys to read. Anthony Horowitz brought the action genre to life with his Alex Rider books, and in the same way Mr Shan has done this for horror. We often read about new YA horror authors being heralded as the new Darren Shan, but many people probably don't know that Darren received many rejections when he first took his original Saga to publishers - horror for kids didn't exist outside R.L. Sine and the output of Point Horror, and publishers were very nervous about books like this. With some of the titles on the market these days it is hard to believe how things have changed in only ten years, with horror now being one of the most popular geners for younger readers, and especially boys.

Being the kind, thoughtful teacher that I had great fun in making the boys at school aware that I had already received my copy of Ocean of Blood some time ago. I didn't even hold back from telling them just how good it was - possibly one of my favourite books from the Saga of Sarren Shan/Larten Crepsely world. It was worth it just to see the envy and frustration on their sad little faces (I am of course joking now). However, it is release date for Ocean of Blood today and I am sure a good number of them will be begging their parents to stop watching a certain wedding on the TV so that they can be taken into town to buy it.

So what makes Oceans of Blood so good? Well for me it is all down to the period of Larten's life that it focuses on. In Birth of a Killer we are introduced to Larten as a young boy, and we discover how he first became a vampire (and more importantly for some, how he got his bright orange hair), but in Ocean of Blood we reach his tempestuous 'teenage' years. These are the years that are amongst the most important in the development of what will be a person's adult personality; personality traits that can be dramatically altered by even the slightest intervention of an influential person or by what to others might seem like a minor event and yet they become the traits that a person will carry with them for the rest of their life. 

Of course, Larten isn't actually a teenager in this book: when we left him in Birth of a Killer he was at least in his forties, and Ocean of Blood starts off several years on from this, and goes on to span a further handful of decades. It's not often that a kid's books will tell the tale of an adult, and yet when reading this you rarely get the impression that you are reading about a grown man. Darren has written this book as if Larten is a stroppy, indecisive, hormonal teenager, which in vampire terms he is, and it works so well. Larten really does not know which direction he wants his life to take, and so he flits around trying to find the person or event that will help him make a decision. The opening of the books sees him running with the Cubs, a group of 'young' vampires who like to drink, gamble, fight and generally lark around. Life is all about having fun, and sounds pretty much like any gang of disaffected young people living in small town Britain, or students in a university town. Well it would if the favourite past-time of these vampires wasn't being part of a war pack, where they treat human wars as a spectator sport, visiting battles mid-action, watching the carnage and then feasting on the gallons of blood that soak these battlefields at the close of a day's fighting. However, saying that, it is amazing how many kids in schools around the world will quickly gather around and watch a fight in the playground at break time.

Soon, however, Larten gets itchy feet again and he and Wester returned to their master, Seba, and spen some time travelling the wilds of America with him, watching the battles of the American Civil War from a distance, rather than participate in the war pack activities that they had previously found so enjoyable. During this time they also hook up with the foul-smelling vampire General Vancha March, before finding themselves at the door of Lady Evanna, the powerful witch who is of great importance to vampires, and a person who will have a significant impact on Larten as he continues to mature as a vampire. 

It isn't long before Larten, Wester and Seba return to Vampire Mountain, and it is this period in the story where we begin to see Larten at his most indecisive - he really does not know what he wants from life: should he focus on his training to eventually become a General, or should he spend more time travelling the vast world outside Vampire Mountain and make the most of this before taking on any kind of responsibility. These are decisions that many teenager and young adult has to make at some point, and in my years as a teacher I have seen many students go through this agonising process. However, I am not going to tell you which direction Larten chooses as I want you to find out for yourself, all I will say is that the choice he makes leads to moments of great sorrow, and also some scenes of great horror (it ain't called Ocean of Blood for nothing) which are amongst the best that Darren Shan has written.

Fans of Darren Shan will certainly not be disappointed with this book - I didn't want it to end as I desperately wanted to continue to observe Larten's personality slowly developing as he begins to become the complex character we first met in Cirque Du freak. The ending of Ocean of Blood will certainly have you gasping for breath and begging for your next fix of The Saga of Larten Crepsely, and fortunately we only have to wait until October for book three in the series, titled Palace of the Damned. My thanks go to HarperCollins for sending me a copy to review.

Darren Shan Wants Your Blood - Ocean of Blood Promo Game/Competition

edit: It seems there have been a few technical problems with this feature and so it has been taken offline for a couple of days.


To celebrate the release of the second book in the Saga of Larten Crepsley series, Ocean of Blood, HarperCollins Children's Books have teamed up with Firebelly, a creative agency specialising in the entertainment industry, to help teen horror author Darren Shan collect 1 MILLION virtual drops of blood from his dedicated followers.

Darren is thirsty for your blood, and here’s how he’s going to get it:

Simply donate a drop of blood to the virtual ocean with a click of your mouse and be in with a chance to win one of 1,000 prizes instantly. These vary from free wallpapers, to signed books, iTunes vouchers and iPod Nanos. If users are unsuccessful first time round, they have the chance to donate as many drops as they like in order to win an instant prize, so keep bleeding to win! Once the 1 MILLION drops have been donated and the ocean is full, one user will win the top prize of an iPad 2 with all of Darren’s teen books pre-loaded and a personalised Saga of Larten Crespley book cover framed and signed by Darren.

What are you waiting for? It won’t hurt...much! 

Visit www.facebook.com/darrenshanofficial. Please give generously.

*** Birth of a Killer Contest Result

The lucky winner of a copy of Birth of a Killer is:

Harvey 

Well done and thank you to everyone who entered. I will now endeavour to contact the winner through by email. Please reply within 48 hours or I will draw another name out of the hat. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for providing the prize.

(Note: all names were drawn randomly using a nifty little freeware programme called The Hat)

*** Contest: WIN a copy of Birth of a Killer by Darren Shan (saga of Larten Crepsley)

I recently posted a review of Birth of a Killer, the first book in Darren Shan's new series, The Saga of Larten Crepsley. Now, thanks to the generous people at HarperCollins I have ended up with a spare copy which I have decided to  give away to a reader of The Book Zone. In order to be in with a chance of winning a copy of this book all you have to do is answer the simple question and fill in your details on the form below.

The first name drawn at random after the closing date will win a copy of the book. Deadline for entries is 8pm Saturday 9th October. This contest is open to UK residents only.



Contest open to UK residents only.
I will not be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Review: Birth of a Killer by Darren Shan (The Saga of Larten Crepsley)

Following the massive success of the Demonata series, Darren Shan is back where it all started – telling the life story of the vampire Larten Crepsley. Spanning centuries and continents, taking in sea voyages, murder, war and love, this is the epic, bloodsoaked tale of a vampire who started out a nobody… and ended up changing the world forever.

When Larten escapes the terrible workhouse in which he toils, he doesn’t know that he is running from an early death… into another kind of transformation. After meeting the mysterious vampire Seba Nile while sheltering for the night in a crypt, Larten finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the vampire Clan. As he travels and learns, Larten finds himself enjoying the adventure he has always dreamed of, seeing a world beyond any he suspected in his poverty-stricken youth.

But Larten begins to discover something else, too. Much like death, becoming a vampire is something you can’t come back from…

Most readers of The Book Zone will not need me to tell them that Birth of a Killer, the new book from Darren Shan, is actually a prequel to his fantastically successful Saga of Darren Shan series. One of the key characters in that series was Larten Crepsley, the vampire that first blooded Darren Shan, thus turning him into a creature of the night. Larten is a very popular character with Shan fans, and in my opinion is one of the author's greatest creations: his personality seemed so well developed, with his emphasis on the correct use of grammar when speaking, his moody, withdrawn manner and his flame orange hair (who ever heard of a vampire with ginger hair???). When I first read the original Saga I was left with many questions about the back history of this great character, and it would appear that Darren Shan felt the same.

The book opens with Larten as a young boy, working all hours loosening silk from the cocoons of silk worms in a factory with his cousin Vur Horston (a name familiar to Saga fans). Immediately we discover the reason for the bright orange hair, and inventive it is too (and no I'm not going to tell you what it is - you will have to read the book yourself). Darren Shan also does not keep us waiting long before revealing the life-changing moment in his hero's life, the moment that has him running away from home and very soon finding himself in the company of the vampire that will become his mentor and eventually blood him, Seba Nile. Birth of a Killer does not have the blood-splatter moments of the Demonata series, but it is still violent enough in places to keep fans grinning from ear to ear, and this early scene is one of those moments.

Although in familiar territory this book never seems like a reproduction of the previous series. Those stories were very much a coming-of-age story for the main character, whereas these are spaced over a much greater period of time. As such we start off with Larten as a boy, and then pretty much immediately after he has met Seba Nile we get to part two of the book, and we jump five years in time. Eight short chapters later and the narrative jumps through time again, with Larten now at the age of 30. The author set out to tell the story of a man who is over two hundred years old, in a mere four volumes, so temporal jumps in narrative like this are going to be essential for the story to be told. At times I felt that although getting older in years, Larten's character did not necessarily seem to be maturing in the same way. However, once Larten attended his first Council I realised just how immature and naive he was in vampire terms and this side of his personality made much more sense. I am still trying to decide whether I would have liked to see more of the time between when Larten meets Seba, and when he hits thirty - I think I will reserve judgement on that area until I have read the next three books in the series (the fourth due out in May 2012).

What I loved about this book was the way that Darren Shan explores the vampire world he created in more detail. These aren't your girly, romantic Twilight vampires, but neither are they at times the debonair, aristocrats of the Dracula movies. These vampires get drunk; they gamble; their personal hygiene occasionally sucks big time. At the event I went to yesterday Darren Shan explained when he created his vampire clans he had in mind the likes of the Masai, Samurai, Native Americans and the Celts - tribes of people where the male was dominant, and where you had all levels of people - from mighty warriors and hunters to beggars and thieves. This is exactly the kind of society that we see with his vampires - some wish to lord it over all and sundry, testing their physical abilities to the extreme during the Festival of Death, whilst disaffected younger vampires rebel by playing cards and drinking in a side tunnel.

If you have not yet discovered The Saga of Darren Shan then you could read this book before you read those others. However, I would recommend that you do read the original Saga first as I have. In my opinion it will be a far more rewarding experience to  get to know the adult Larten first, and then discover the events and experiences that made him the vampire the fans love so much. Birth of a Killer will then have you nodding sagely to yourself as you spot a familiar name, or discover the answer to a long-wondered question (such as the whole orange haired vampire thing).

Yet again Darren Shan has delivered a book that will please his legion of fans. I must thank HarperCollins for the review copy they sent me. It is now availabe to buy in hardcover.

(That's book three finished and reviewed as part of the R.I.P. Challenge)