The Saga of Darren Shan: Vampire Destiny Trilogy by Darren Shan

I seem to have been putting off this post for a while now as I finished The Saga of Darren Shan quite some time ago. Overall, I loved the entire saga; it was everything a young adult book series should be. To summarise, the series follows a young boy by the name of Darren Shan who becomes a half vampire in order to save his best friend’s life. Throughout the series we see Darren mature as a person (or should I say vampire) and adapt to his new way of life.

At the beginning of the Vampire War Trilogy, Darren, along with his mentor Larten Crepsley and Vampire Prince, Vancha March are destined to hunt the infamous Vampaneze Lord who is fated to destroy the vampire world if his plans succeed. During the Vampire War Trilogy they battle courageously but without succeeding in their mission, also resulting in a few casualties along the way.

The Vampire Destiny Trilogy contains the final three instalments of the series: The Lake of Souls, Lord of the Shadows and Sons of Destiny.

In The Lake of Souls, a much needed break from the war between the vampires and vampaneze is taken. Darren and his friend Harkat travel to an unknown land to discover Harkat’s true identity. Harkat is what’s known as a Little Person who is a servant to Mr Tiny. Mr Tiny creates his servants from the souls who have died who had not gone to paradise (heaven) and creates ghost type creatures out of them. Mr Tiny sends Harkat and Darren on a dangerous journey to discover the true identity of Harkat.

In Lord of the Shadows we return to the goings on in the war where Darren contemplates the meaning of the prophecy which states that one of the three hunters (Darren, Mr Crepsley and Vancha March) have the power to defeat the Vampaneze Lord. It is also prophesised that either Darren or the Vampaneze Lord will become the Lord of the Shadows who will destroy the world as Darren knows it. The idea of this torments Darren throughout the book. Also in this book we see Darren returns to his hometown, leading up to the final confrontation with the Vampaneze Lord.

Sons of Destiny is the final instalment of the series which takes place in Darren’s hometown (where the series began). The majority of this book is taken up with battles between the vampaneze and the vampires and their friends. As easily predicted the final showdown is between Darren himself and the Vampaneze Lord. During this battle Mr Tiny makes some timely revelations which change the course of events.

Again, this trilogy is written magnificently by Shan who clearly had carefully planned how events would turn out and made every plot point link so seamlessly. The series is very good at showing the development of Darren as he starts of as a naive child and gradually adjusts and grows into a mature adult (despite looking about half his actual age).  All the characters throughout the series were very likeable in different ways and I found myself being upset when they died or injured.

Out of this trilogy The Lake of Souls is my least favourite. I by no means at all am saying that it’s a bad book, it isn’t. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. This may be due to that it was set in a whole different setting which kind of took away from what I had grown used to. However I do realise that a slight break from the war and prophecies was much needed and that the revelations that occur during this book were necessary.

The ending of the series is completely amazing, to the point where I almost cried, with a mixture of happiness of what was happening and the sadness that I had finished the series. The ending was totally unpredictable but fantastic and made perfect sense.

The entire series is written in retrospect, in first person from the view point of Darren. It is mentioned in the first book (Cirque Du Freak) that the events of what happens in the series are true and that names have been changed to hide people’s identities. This brings a massive sense of realism to the books and immediately draws you in. At the end of the series, Darren has a monologue in which he refers to his previous statements where he encourages Shan to write these books and hopes they sell well (that might not make sense until you’ve read the series). This section is very emotional for Darren and the reader as you can see that it voices Shan’s personal worries of becoming a writer.

Overall, I would say that The Saga of Darren Shan is suitable for everyone, young or old, despite its status as a young person’s series.  It is amazingly written and I have gained a whole new respect for Shan as a writer and I intend on reading more of his works. These books are quick and easy to read and are full of likeable characters and exciting adventures so I’d definitely recommend them to anyone.

The Saga of Darren Shan: Vampire War Trilogy by Darren Shan

At the end of the Vampire Rites Trilogy, I was excited. There were so many ways in which things could turn out over the next few books and knowing Shan’s way of storytelling I knew the last six books wouldn’t be dull. I was totally right, the Vampire War Trilogy is one of the most exciting books I’ve read in a long time so much so I stayed up all night and read the entire thing in one sitting!

The Vampire Rites Trilogy revealed to us that a prophecy had been made many many hundreds of years ago. The prophecy states that one day a war would break out amongst the vampires and vampaneze which would destroy the vampire race. It says that this war will commence when the Lord of the Vampaneze reveals himself. During the events of Vampire Rites it is revealed that “the night of the Vampaneze Lord is at hand”. A war is about to begin...

The Vampire War Trilogy consists of Hunters of the Dusk, Allies of the Night and Killers of the Dawn.

In Hunters of the Dusk it is revealed that only three vampires can kill the Vampaneze Lord. The first two, predictably are Darren and his mentor Mr Crepsley. They are joined by the Little Person, Harkat. The three of them meet the third hunter on their journey. This hunter is Vancha March who is one of the Vampire Princes. The hunters (and Harkat) make their way to see Lady Evanna (some sort of witch) for more information on the prophecy and their task. After meeting with Evanna they set out in search for the Vampaneze Lord.

In Allies of the Night, Mr Crepsley, Darren and Harkat return to Mr Crepsley’s hometown (the town where the majority of Tunnels of Blood took place). Here Darren comes across old friends which have appeared in the other books, such as his childhood girlfriend, Debbie (Tunnels of Blood). Debbie is now much older and has grown into a woman, however Darren’s old feelings still remain but as he is a half vampire he ages at the fifth of the rate that ordinary humans do, meaning that he only looks a couple of years older from when he last saw Debbie.

A lot of things happen in Killers of the Dawn and I don’t wish to spoil them at all so I’m going to say as little as possible. There is a big exciting battle where lots of stuff happens. That’s pretty much all I can say without spoiling anything.

The Vampire War Trilogy is by far the most exciting one of the trilogies so far, there is action around every corner and there are some very surprising plot twists and turns which kept me up until around 7am in the morning reading them.

I got so deeply immersed in this trilogy that I felt emotionally involved with the characters and what they were going through. Again, it is hard not to spoil things but there is one part near the end of the trilogy which absolutely devastated me into a state of near shock!

The ending battle (and the entire trilogy) is written brilliantly and with the massive revelation at the end to I had to restrain myself from reading the next trilogy as it was nearly midmorning and I hadn’t slept.

One thing, about all of the books, is that there is a small prologue at the beginning which serves as a quick recap of the events of the previous book. I can imagine this is highly useful if you haven’t read any of the previous books, have only read some of them or haven’t read them in a while. This is a great way to invite new readers to the books, so it isn’t absolutely necessary for you to have read all of the books, which is what I think puts off a lot of people starting an existing series as they feel they have to read all of the previous books to understand what’s going on. It is highly useful to do this with The Saga of Darren Shan but not completely necessary.

I feel that this trilogy and the next trilogy are a lot of people’s favourites as there is a lot of action and so much happens in the space of three fairly short books. This trilogy sets up the next fantastically and doesn’t feel like three separate books at all. As with the others they are easy and quick to read as well as extraordinarily engaging. Yet again the ending of this trilogy makes you eager to read the next! 

Next: The epic finale - Vampire Destiny

Morning, Noon and Night by Sidney Sheldon

I picked this book up simply because I was bored and it happened to be there. I wasn’t expecting much from this book. I’d never read any Sidney Sheldon before and really didn’t expect to enjoy the book as much as I actually did. However I was bored and wanted to read something, so I read.

Morning, Noon and Night is a crime mystery novel. The plot is a lot more complex than the blurb made it out to be. It all starts off with multi-millionaire Harry Stanford being pursued by a group of three people. Harry, his dog, bodyguard and hired young lady friend set off to lose the followers. Leaving his hired lady friend behind, they board his boat. On this boat Harry dies in a freak thunderstorm, despite being advised by his captain that travelling in the conditions would be risky.

However this only takes up the first few chapters. The rest of the plot is based around Harry’s four children. Three of whom share the same mother, Harry’s wife. The other is the product of an affair Harry had with the children’s nanny, who after ran away with her child to escape the publicity after the scandal.  

It is strongly pointed out that Harry was a poor father and sent his three children away to separate boarding schools and constantly lowered their self esteem when he did see them. Because of this his three children openly hate him and disconnect themselves as much a possible from his name. Tyler, the eldest son became a well known court judge, Kendall, the daughter, became a famous fashion designer and Woody grew into a nine hole polo player. When they hear of their father’s death, they are all eager to get their hands on their share of his money.

Everything seems set for the three of them to get an equal share of their father’s money, until Harry’s other child; Julia comes along to rightfully claim her share. This is as far as I’m willing to go with the plot as there are so many twists and turns in the novel, I do not wish to spoil them. 

Morning, Noon and Night is amazingly well written with Sheldon leading the reader on to believe certain parts of the plot then suddenly chucking in a totally unexpected twist, making the story much more interesting. However, there are certain points where you question character’s motives throughout the novel but all these questions are cleared up rather nicely by the story’s conclusion.

I enjoyed the novel’s ending as it was bitter sweet with justice being served with an addition of disappointment. There is only one minor fault that I found with this novel and that is the romance between Julia and the family lawyer Steve. Personally, I found it to happen all a bit quickly and was the only part of the novel I found far too predictable. Throughout the story it is often pointed out that Julia is single. There is also an entire chapter containing some sort of montage of Julia going on various dates with men her flatmate knows, all leading to failure. Then all of a sudden once she’s in Boston she meets Steve with whom she has an instant connection with and proceeds to live with him whilst legalities are being sorted out. I’m not saying that the romance between the two is unrealistic; I just feel it was far too expected and easily predicted in comparison to the rest of the plot points.

 

Sheldon also does a fantastic job in character development. There are multiple chapters dedicated to each of the Stanford children, all are engrossing and even if they don’t seem it at the time, related to the overall outcome of the novel. These chapters make you feel somehow attached to the characters and have more sympathy with them when disaster strikes. For me, it was one of the best things about the book. All the children’s individual story lines link in with the overall plot. All of this is done pretty much flawlessly with a great flow to it.

I found Morning, Noon and Night a surprisingly entertaining read. It was also quick and easy, there wasn’t much you really had to think about you just had let Sheldon take you through. It was a definite change to what I would usually read but I’m very glad I did. It’s not a revolutionary piece of literature but it was enjoyable nonetheless and made me want to read more by Sidney Sheldon at some point.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

This book is one of the classics and like most of the classics I’ve read it took me a long time to read. Maybe it’s because of the heavy influence on setting and character description that it takes me a while to get my head round it. I started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in around January as I remember it was on the recommended reading list for my English Literature A-Level. Unfortunately, at the time I never really found the time to read anything that wasn’t completely necessary.

Written in 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray tell the story of a beautiful young man who is part of the well-off society of the time who is fully taken with the new idea of hedonism which is introduced to him by Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry speaks to Dorian telling him that he is beautiful and should live his life to suit him. Dorian’s friend and well known painter Basil Hallward finds great pleasure in painting portraits of Dorian and soon becomes infatuated.

One particular piece is painted, which is where the book begins, which is seen as absolutely astounding by all three men. The portrait captures Dorian’s beauty magnificently and Dorian wishes for the portrait to grow old instead of him. Little did he know that his wish had come true.

Due to the influence of Lord Henry, Dorian begins to live his life to please himself with his own beauty being the centre of his life. He meets lowly young actress, Sybil Vane becomes besotted and proposes to her. Dorian, so taken with Sybil’s talent, invites Lord Henry and Basil to accompany him to one of her shows. However Sybil had fallen so deeply in love with her ‘Prince Charming’ her talent had faded which angered Dorian as her beauty, which was her acting had gone and no longer had interest in her. He returns home and notices the portrait had changed and realises that the sins he commits are reflected onto the portrait rather than him.

Over the next years Dorian experiments with many vices and committing many sins, with his portrait becoming uglier over time. Eventually Dorian’s conscience catches up with him and he begins to realise the damage he’s done by looking at the terrifying portrait. He decides that a confession is what is needed to repent. However this isn’t enough so he takes a knife and stabs the portrait, killing himself.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fascinating piece of literature; it concentrates so much on how beauty and aesthetics are important in life. It is often mentions throughout the book how beautiful Dorian is, or how certain objects or scenes are beautiful. There is also constant talk of ‘falling in love’. I specifically remember Dorian saying ‘I haven’t fallen in love in at least a week’. The concept of love then (or at least to the higher members of society) is very different to the ones we hold today. I often translated characters ‘falling in love’ as just them being fascinated or admiring someone or something rather than the affection and feelings we associate love with today.

The novel also highlights the difficulties of leading a dual life. Dorian lives his life being a socialite attending various well-to-do people’s houses for dinners and luncheons as well as attending events; on the other hand his life is full of hedonism, vanity and criminality which are shown through the degradation and his detest for the portrait.

It is very apparent that Dorian is heavily influenced by Lord Henry’s hedonistic ideals, this is picked up upon by Basil, who is distraught at the thought of Dorian’s dark descent into vanity. Dorian had served as a muse to Basil’s work and deems his portrait of him as his best work and is mortified when Dorian shows him what the portrait has become. Basil confesses his attraction and fascination with Gray, who then almost mercilessly murders him, adding more deformity to the portrait.

The character of Basil is by far my favourite as he doesn’t seem to be influenced by vanity and hedonism as much as Dorian and Lord Henry have. However, Dorian, unable to take responsibility for his terrible actions blames Basil and his portrait for what he has become and even blames the knife he used to kill Basil as responsible for the murder.

Basil also represents the homosexual undercurrent of the book. As previously mentioned, Basil is infatuated with Gray and revels in his beauty. The Picture of Dorian Gray was used against Wilde in court for him being a homosexual which at that time was definitely an offence which he spent time imprisoned for.

The original publication in Lippincott's Magazine

Even though The Picture of Dorian Gray took me a very long time to read, I truly enjoyed it. Reading the slow dark decent of Dorian is upsetting and something I feel is still apparent today, many people are easily influenced into behaviours which are immoral sometimes never escape from them. This leads me to question if Dorian ever really repented for his sins and if we feel a sense of catharsis in his death. Personally I think not, Dorian was simply driven insane by the ugliness of his portrait and couldn’t bear to see himself in that way but due to the hedonistic state of mind he was in I highly doubt that he felt truly apologetic for the crimes he had committed.

50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James

I chose to read this book before I knew what a massive ‘hit’ it had become. I ordered this book just over a month ago as I had never read an erotic fiction book before and was curious as to what they were like. I also didn’t know that this book was based on an online Twilight fan fiction, if I had known this I probably wouldn’t have bought it as I do not rate the Twilight ‘saga’ in any way (even though the poor acting in the films amuses me). However, I decided to ignore this and went in to read 50 Shades of Grey with an open mind.

Warning: May contain SPOILERS!

The premise of 50 Shades of Grey is rather simple, Anastasia Steele, an English graduate, meets dashing high-up business man Christian Grey. They become infatuated with each other; however Grey tells her that she doesn’t want to get caught up in his world and to leave him, despite turning up at her place of work and taking her out for coffee. It is revealed that Grey is heavily into BDSM and has his own ‘playroom’ full of implements of that nature including whips, riding crops, floggers, chains and the like. Steele is of course shocked by this but her infatuation for Grey makes her stay. It is revealed that Steele is a virgin; this is shocking to Grey and seems quite taken aback that Steele still has her cherry intact. Then he does something which he states is out of character and has something called ‘vanilla sex’ with her, which to us normal people is just plain, ordinary, enjoyable sex. There is a heavy focus in the sex scenes on ‘foil packets’, which James uses to refer to condoms (can’t really argue with the promotion of safe sex). Things go on like this for a while, with the interruptions of arguments which end in intercourse wherever they happen to be at the time. I say they go on like this for a while; they go on like this for the remainder of the book until she leaves him at the end.

There isn’t much else to say about the overall plot really, they just have sex in different places, the kitchen, the bathroom, her bedroom, his bedroom, the ‘playroom’, various hotel bathrooms etc and to be honest it gets boring very quickly, in fact it was never really interesting to begin with. I feel this is something to do with James’ poor standard of writing. I find that she is very repetitive in her writing style. Common occurrences are, Steele saying “holy crap”, ‘foil packets’, the constant lip biting leading to sex and the sex scenes are very similar to each other, even the ones in the ‘playroom’ which you’d expect to be exciting and new but no, the worst it really gets (or the scene I found the least boring) is with Steele tied up and blindfolded on a bed with Grey doing various things to her.

The most irritating things about the way the sex scenes are written is that the ‘action’ is often interrupted by Steele’s sub conscious and inner goddess. James decides to personify these concepts and fails miserably. They appear on pretty much every page, with the inner goddess doing crazy acrobatics whenever things are about to get a bit kinky and the sub conscious seems to be the sensible side of Steele’s thoughts. Both are irritating and interrupt the mood when things have the opportunity to get a bit steamy.   I also feel that James only put them in the book as a device to show some sort of internal struggle Steele was having with herself, that also failed.

The BDSM aspect of the so called plot seems to only feature this contract that Grey gets all his submissives to sign. The contract includes items such as “15.22 The Submissive shall not look directly into the eyes of the Dominant except when specifically instructed to do so. The Submissive shall keep her yes cast down and maintain a quiet and respectful bearing in the presence of the Dominant.” As well as sticking to a strict food list, which is apparently a massive deal breaker for Steele even though we never get to understand why as we never get to see a copy of this food list and she never explains why it’s such a big deal to her. There is also seems to be some big debate in Steele’s mind if she should sign the contract or not even though we all no she will and it the contract even has a the get out clause having a trial period and she can ask to leave the contract at any point, so I didn’t see it as too much of a problem.

Despite all this, I found myself sitting for hours at a time reading 50 Shades of Grey I am unsure as to why though, it’s poorly written to the point of hilarity, you can’t relate to Steele in anyway shape or form, you relate more to Grey and find him a much more sensible person compared to Steele’s immature and argumentative attitude. I say that but I feel the whole idea of the book is for its readers to fall in love with Grey, I didn’t, I just felt pity for having to put up with Steele’s childishness and also slight annoyance at him for staying with her whilst she was being a moany bitch and the constant comparisons to Tess of the D’Ubervilles and other literature which have pretty much nothing to do with her situation (suppose it was James’ way of making Steele seem intelligent or something).

I’d say give it a read and see what you think, even if you don’t like it you can learn to laugh at it, my boyfriend and I spent a long time laughing at how poor it was (not sure that was James’ intention for the readers). I still enjoyed it as it was easy to read and kind of a guilty pleasure read, which by no means suggests that it’s a good book. I think that it may have done a bit better with me if it was a parody of erotic fiction, making it overly silly and comedic rather than trying and failing to make it serious. I am curious about 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed but not so much that I’d go and buy them after hearing roughly what happens in them. There are also rumours of the series being made into a film possibly starring Robert Pattinson . . . don’t think I’ll be going to see that somehow.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

 I had always been curious about this series of books as they seemed to be a massive hit a few years ago when they were first released. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first of Larsson’s millennium trilogy. There have been several film adaptations of the book, the latest being released last year starring Daniel Craig (another reason for my curiosity of the trilogy to increase) with the first film being produced by a Swedish film company (Yellow Brid) as Larsson himself is Swedish and the English versions of the books have been translated from Swedish.  

The book focuses on a journalist called Mikael Blomkvist who is a part owner of the Millennium magazine alongside his lover Erika Berger. We start off with the revelation that Blomkvist has just lost a libel case against billionaire monopolist Hana-Erik Wennerstrom and is therefore sentenced to three months imprisonment, his career as a journalist in tatters.

We then are taken to surveillance company Milton Security which is run by Dragan Armansky. We gain an insight into his thoughts and affections for a rather strange employee by the name of Lisbeth Salander, who, it is overly, stated that she is different, sticks out from the rest of the employees and would’ve been sacked from any other company. She is however incredibly skilled at her job, researching into other people’s lives as a personal investigator. Armansky is approached by Dirch Frode,  a lawyer acting on behalf of his client, he wants a thorough investigation into Mikael Blomkvist.

Moving back to Blomkvist we see more of the aftermath of the court case and realise how he will never be trusted as a journalist again. He is then approached by Frode to accompany him to meet with his client. His client, Henrik Vanger is an elderly man who wants Blomkvist to investigate the murder of his great niece Harriet who went missing 36 years previously. Blomkvist is offered a substantial sum of money as well as evidence to ruin Wennerstrom, he, to the upset of Berger, accepts the job and moves to the island with Vanger to investigate the case.

I will leave it there for describing the plot as I do not want to spoil the highly gripping story that follows and believe me you don’t want the rest spoiled for you.

Also, just as a quick warning, the book does contain scenes of rather brutal rape and torture so if that would make you feel uncomfortable I would recommend reading with caution, however these scenes are written very well in a sensitive manner. Interestingly Larsson was inspired to write this book through a personal feeling of regret as when he was 15 years old he witnessed a girl getting raped and regretting not helping her, which probably would explain why the rape scenes are written with sensitivity and affects the reader so.

One very important part of the book besides the main plot of Harriet case is the character development a Lisbeth Salander, as you may have been able to guess, Salander joins Blomkvist on his mission to find out what happened to Harriet. The pair at first the pair don’t get on too well as Salander is very cautious and sceptical but she is driven through the pure curiosity of the case to get an answer to the mystery of Harriet. Salander who is previously described by the Swedish government to have various mental health issues and is under the care of a guardian provided by the authorities , speaks little of her life and doesn’t let anybody into it. However the, to Salander, remarkable way in which Blomkvist introduces himself to her (he barges into her house with coffee and breakfast) takes her by surprise and from that point on her affections steadily grow for him.

This provides a commentary on the possible feminist/misogynistic reading of this book. The title itself can be translated to men who hate women, which obviously suggests misogyny and implies violence against women.  The book portrays some women as strong, Berger and Salander but then some women as weak, the women who were murdered. It also portrays men in a mixed way, for example Blomkvist wouldn’t have been able to solve the mystery without the help of Salander, on the other hand Salander is being oppressed by her guardian Nills Bjurman. However Salander breaks triumphantly breaks free from this oppression, showing the reader how strong she is personally and how strong women overall can be.

The majority of the book is well written and easy enough to follow with the inclusion of a  family tree for the Vanger family, which I had to constantly refer back to see how each character was related. This might’ve been a hassle to some people as there are so many members of the Vanger family alone it is hard to keep a track of who is related to who, I personally enjoyed it as it engrossed me further in the story and helped me to related to Blomkvist as he was trying to solve the mystery at the same rate the reader is.

As you may have been able to notice, I 

thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to read the sequels in the millennium trilogy The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and The Girl who Played with Fire. These two books also follow Blomkvist and Salander on other cases and I thoroughly look forward to reading them.  I have also watched the 2011 film version of the book after finishing it. I feel it was a rather accurate version of the story but doesn’t include some of the vital parts of the story and details of the characters which made me enjoy the book so much.