I have always heard that Darren Shan’s Demonata series and The Saga
of Darren Shan series were very good and well written stories. I remember
buying a couple of the Demonata books
for my brothers, which they thoroughly enjoyed. However, I had always regarded
them as young adult books aimed at teenage boys. I was very wrong in this
judgement.
The Saga of Darren
Shan follows a young boy by the name of Darren Shan. He is half a vampire
and the twelve books in the series follow his adventures. The twelve books are
divided into four trilogies, each showing different phases of Darren’s journey.
The first of these is the Vampire Blood Trilogy.
This trilogy contains Cirque Du Freak,
The Vampire’s Assistant and Tunnels
of Blood.
Cirque Du Freak being
the first book of the trilogy introduces us to Darren, his friends and family.
We quickly gather that he is a good hearted boy with good relationships with
his friends, teachers and family. The first part of the story gives us a nice
introduction to Darren, how he thinks and what his world is like. The story
really begins when one of his friends finds a leaflet for the travelling circus
‘Cirque Du Freak’. All of the four boys are eager to attend, however they were
only manage to get hold of two tickets. Darren and his best friend Steve go to
the show, scaring and astounding both boys. There is one particular act that
fascinates Darren, a deadly poisonous spider by the name of Madame Octa who is
controlled by a Mr Crepsley. It was pointed out earlier on in the story that
Darren is fascinated by spiders and after the show Darren becomes obsessed with
Madame Octa’s beauty and later steals her from ‘Cirque Du Freak’ to have a
train for his own.
After the show Darren’s friend Steve outs Mr Crepsley as a
real vampire and demands to be turned into one. However Mr Crepsley sees that
Steve had bad blood and would not be able to be a good vampire, which upsets
Steve greatly. Darren shows Steve Madame Octa and controls her. Steve is
fatally bitten by the spider and is rushed to hospital. Darren in a state of
guilt and fear that Steve may not recover rushes to find Mr Crepsley who is
waiting for him. Darren strikes a deal with Mr Crepsley in order to save
Steve’s life. He must become a half vampire and travel with Mr Crepsley, Darren
begrudgingly accepts and is blooded by Mr Crepsley. Once they save Steve,
Darren and Mr Crepsley go about faking Darren’s death so he can travel with Mr
Crepsely freely. Before they leave Darren’s hometown, Darren is cornered by
Steve who vows to hunt him down and kill him in the future.
The Vampire’s
Assistant follows Darren’s journey of adjustment to the vampire way of
life. It is very apparent that Darren is lonely after leaving all his family
and friends behind. Mr Crepsley takes Darren to ‘Cirque Du Freak’ where he
makes good friends with Evra Von. A boy his own age who is a snake boy as his
skin is made out of scales rather than human skin. The main focus of this book
is Darren’s refusal to drink human blood which he needs to survive. Throughout
the book Darren grows weak and is facing death due to the lack of human blood. Darren
and Evra make friends with a local boy named Sam and environmentalist R.V. This
story shows Darren’s adjustment in living away from home and adjusting to vampire
life.
Tunnels of Blood sees
Darren, Mr Crepsley and Evra embark on an adventure away from ‘Cirque Du Freak’.
Where they are in pursuit of a vampaneeze (rouge vampire which kill humans
instead of taking a small part of their boold like regular vampires) in Mr
Crepsley’s home town. Here Darren meets a girl his age called Debbie who he has
a small romance with. Here Darren gains more knowledge about the vampire race
and their ways, as well as developing his rocky relationship with Mr Crepsley.
This first trilogy is a fantastic introduction to the
series. It is fantastically written and deals with some rather adult issues for
a young adult book. Darren is subjected to faking his own death and watching
his family grieve over him, having to drink a blood of a friend and rescue a
friend in peril as well as dealing with his own transformation into a half
vampire. Scenes can get rather graphic at times and very emotional.
Throughout the books, I found myself getting more and more
attached to Darren and his companions, making the traumatic events even more
upsetting. Shan does a brilliant job in transmitting the thoughts of a child in
a way which doesn’t feel simplistic or patronising. He leads the reader on, so
the reader doesn’t have a clue about the twists which even Darren is in on. This
builds tension within the reader and fully sucks us into the story and
characters.
At the beginning of each book there is a brief summary of
the events of the past book to give a quick refresher to the reader and points
from past books are also summarised in Darren’s narrative. Everything to do
with Darren’s journey and the vampire world is easily explained and very well
created by Shan. These constant
reminders do get a bit irritating for people, like me, who read all the books
in a row but you can understand their necessity and the face that the books are
designed for people younger than myself who would benefit from reminders.
As I said earlier, I had assumed that these books would be only
really enjoyed by teenage boys. This is definitely not the case. I thoroughly
enjoyed this trilogy and found it totally immersive, making the books
un-put-down-able. I managed to read these three books within three or four days
and could not wait to start the next.
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| Next: The Vampire Rites Trilogy |
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