Darren Shan

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Darren O'Shaughnessey

Darren Shan and Helen Basini in Killarney, Ireland, in the summer of 2005.
Born: July 2, 1972
London, England
Occupation(s): Novelist
Genre(s): Horror, Fantasy
Website: http://www.darrenshan.com
This article is about the author. For the book series, see The Saga of Darren Shan.

Darren Shan (born July 2, 1972 in London, England) is the pen name of the Irish author Darren O'Shaughnessey, as well as the name of the protagonist of his book series The Saga of Darren Shan. This series is also known as The Cirque Du Freak Series in the United States. He also is currently writing The Demonata series.

Universal Studios have bought the film rights to the first three books of The Saga and plan to combine them to make a single movie. Brian Helgeland is writing the script and Laura Donner is producing it. It will be named after the American name, The Cirque Du Freak Series as simply, Cirque Du Freak.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Darren O'Shaughnessy was born on July 2, 1972, in St Thomas' Hospital, London, England. He lived in southeast London, close to Elephant and Castle. At the age of three, he started school at English Martyr's. When he was six, he moved, with his parents and younger brother, to Limerick, Ireland, were he has been living ever since. He received his primary education in Askeaton, and went to secondary school at Copsewood College in Pallaskenry. He then traveled back to London to study Sociology and English at Roehampton University.

Darren worked for a cable television company in Limerick for a few years and then decided to become a full-time writer. He bought his first typewriter when he was fourteen and wrote several short stories, comic scripts, and books that he never finished. His first success came to him at age fifteen, when he was a runner-up in a TV script-writing competition for Radio Telefís Éireann in Ireland, with a dark comedy story entitled A Day in the Morgue. He finished his first novel at age seventeen. Mute Pursuit was never published, but Shan loved the writing experience, so he started focusing on novels more and not on short stories.

All of Shan's first books were oriented to adults. He thought of writing children's books a nice idea for the future but adult books were his main focus. His first breakthrough was with his book, Ayuamarca, written under his full name instead of his pen name. It was published in February 1999 by Orion Publishing Group, and did not sell very well. The sequel, Hell's Horizon, published in February 2000, was thought to be a better book, but it sold fewer copies than did the first.

Then between the two adult books, Darren published his first children's book, Cirque Du Freak, and it launched him into becoming a best selling author as he started The Saga of Darren Shan which he would finish twelve books and five years later. After The Saga, he started his new series, The Demonata with four books already released and six more on the way.

By 2006, Shan's books were on sale on every continent, in 30 countries, and in over 20 languages. He has been a children's bestseller in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and other countries and he has topped the adult bestsellers charts in Hungary, Japan and Taiwan. His books have sold over 10 million copies.

Darren Shan always makes an appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival. He also sits for hours afterwards signing books and talking to fans.

Darren has a collection of thousands of movies, and he also likes to collect original artwork. He enjoys reading books and comic books, taking long walks, watching football (soccer) (a Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and Republic of Ireland fan), listening to pop and rock music, and traveling worldwide.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] The Saga of Darren Shan

The series is comprised of 12 volumes:

The Cirque du Freak trilogy (Vampire Blood)

The Vampire Mountain trilogy (Vampire Rites)

The Hunters trilogy (Vampire War)

The Destiny trilogy (Vampire Destiny)

Short stories

In 2001, the novel Cirque Du Freak (the first in the series) won the Sheffield Children's Book Award.

[edit] The Demonata

Current event marker This article or section contains information regarding scheduled, forthcoming or expected future book(s).
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the product release approaches and more information becomes available.		 Books

The Demonata series currently has three books released, with a fourth fifth and sixth confirmed. The series will be made up of 10 books.

Ordered by spot in the series and by publication date

  1. Lord Loss
  2. Demon Thief
  3. Slawter
  4. Bec (to be released in the US May 2007)
  5. Blood Beast(June 2007)
  6. Demonata Book 6(October 2007)
  7. Books 7-10 (to be released every June and October until October 2009)

Ordered chronologically (Note that this is only for books 1-6 and past that is yet to be known where they'll fit in)

  1. Bec (1600ish years before...)
  2. Demon Thief (30ish years before...)
  3. Lord Loss (a few months before...)
  4. Slawter (sometime before...)
  5. Blood Beast (sometime before Demonata Book 6)
  6. Demonata Book 6 (sometime before Demonata Book 7)

[edit] The City Book Trilogy

The City Book Trilogy was written for adult readers and was under the name Darren O'Shaughnessey instead of Darren Shan. The third book was never published and they are now out of print. They were published by Orion Publishing Group.

    1. Ayuamarca - First published in the United Kingdom in February 1999 and then in Russia.
    2. Hell's Horizon - Sequel to Ayuamarca. First published in the United Kingdom in February 2000.
    3. City of the Snakes - Never Published

[edit] Other books

  1. Koyasan - A special book released for World Book Day 2006
  2. Saga of the Vile Thing

[edit] Short stories

  1. "Hagurosan" - Originally written for Kids' Night In.
  2. "Young Alan Moore" - Originally written for Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, a book written to celebrate the 50th birthday of Alan Moore.
  3. "The Good Ship Tree" - Originally written for the Times Educational Supplement, and accepted.
  4. "Life's a Beach" - Originally written for the Times Educational Supplement, but rejected.
  5. "Guyifesto-Who We Are"
  6. The Saga of Darren Shan tie-in short stories - See above

[edit] Unpublished books

  1. The Contender - Code name for a book that Darren wrote before The Demonata and plans to release after it is finished.
  2. Mute Pursuit - A futuristic cross between The Terminator and Stephen King's The Dark Tower; Darren's first complete book
  3. City of the Snakes - See above
  4. The Cannibal King - The planned 12th book of The Saga of Darren Shan. Never published because it was originally part of the planned 24-book Saga. Darren had planned to write 18–24 books for The Saga, with half of them taking place in the future wasteworld shown in Book 10, The Lake of Souls. This book was never published because Darren decided to end the series with Sons of Destiny, which was to be the 11th book if the series went the way originally intended.

[edit] External links

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