The Saga of Darren Shan
(Note to readers: This review contains spoilers.)
The Saga of Darren Shan is a serial novel about a half boy-vampire's adventure. The series combines elements of many genres, mainly horror and action, but also mystery and comedy. There are a total of 12 books of Darren Shan's Saga with 12 different stories. The first seven books tell about different stories — although they are time related — but from the eighth book, the story turned more complicated and started the usual type of serial novels. These novels are interesting because the author uses his own name as the protagonist (Darren Shan) and is likely defying the traditional ideas about vampires, as written by Bram Stoker. Different from other old novels about vampires, Darren Shan as the author tries to give a different point of view about vampires. This saga is considered to be successful and pretty accepted by the readers; as of October 2008, the book is published in 37 countries around the world, in 30 different languages. Even the Japanese publisher has produced a manga — Japanese comics — for all The Saga of Darren Shan. Receiving good reviews for its storyline, the first trilogy Vampire Blood was released by Universal Pictures in theaters October 23, 2009, entitled Darren Shan — The Vampire's Assistant.
The Darren Shan saga is divided into four trilogies; Vampire Blood, Vampire Rites, Vampire War, and Vampire Destiny. The Saga of Darren Shan follows the story of Darren Shan, a normal boy who becomes a half-vampire to save his friend's life and is forced to leave his family and become a vampire assistant to learn how to survive and live the vampire's rules.
In the first trilogy, known as Vampire Blood, Darren learns about and finally accepts his vampirism. Book One, Cirque du Freak, Mr. Crepsley made Darren a half-vampire for saving the life of Darren's best friend, Steve Leonard. In Book Two, The Vampire's Assistant, Crepsley noted that Darren was quite lonely and brought him back to the Freak Show, where he found his best friend, Evra Von, a snake boy, and a human, Sam Grest, who would die in this second book. In Book Three, Tunnels of Blood, Crepsley went back to his hometown after hearing news that one of the vampire's enemies, a Vampaneze, was murdering the innocents.
In the second trilogy, known as Vampire Rites, Darren learned about the vampire clan and sought their acceptance as one of the vampire clan. In Book Four, Vampire Mountain, Mr. Crepsley and Darren made their way to Vampire Mountain and learned about the rites of the vampires. In Book Five, Trials of Death, Darren faced the Trials of Initiation, called Trials of Death, to gain the recognition of the other vampires as one of the youngest vampires to be recruited in decades. In Book Six, The Vampire Prince, Darren found out about the traitor and tried to stop plans to destroy the vampire clan; for his service, he was then initiated to be one of the vampire prince.
In the third trilogy, known as Vampire War, Darren learned he might have a larger role to play in the fate of the vampires — and also the worlds — than he had ever thought. In Book Seven, Hunters of the Dusk, Darren and Mr. Crepsley, accompanied by Harkat Mulds, hunted for the Lord of the Vampaneze, who was destined to destroy the vampire clan. In Book Eight, Allies of the Night, Darren met one of his past friends — Gavner Prul, a vampire prince — who now fit into his quest. In Book Nine, Killers of the Dawn, Darren faced the Lord of the Vampaneze for the second time, but failed the mission to kill him. Larten Crepsley was killed during this mission.
In the fourth trilogy, known as Vampire Destiny, Darren was forced to make some difficult decisions, finally taking his destiny into his own hands and dealing with the consequences. In Book Ten, The Lake of Souls, Darren travelled to an unfamiliar land to find out who his best ally, Harkat Mulds, used to be; as a "Little Person", Harkat's mind sans memories was placed into a new body after his death. Darren found out that he was actually Kurda Smahlt, the previous vampire prince and the traitor of the vampires. Despite this fact, Darren accepted Harkat as who he was right now and still befriended him. In Book Eleven, Lord of the Shadows, Darren found out more about the Lord of the Shadows and got closer to his last confrontation with the Lord of the Vampaneze. Book Twelve, Sons of Destiny, Darren faced the Lord of the Vampaneze for a final fight and learned the truth about his parentage and his role on the events was actually planned by one single person, Desmond Tiny.
Darren Shan — true name Darren O'Shaughnessy — writes a different tradition of vampires. He describes a vampire that is different from the popular vampire, introduced by Bram Stoker years ago. There are two different types of vampires: the vampire, and the vampaneze. Both of them are mortal; they can be killed by several means. Vampires aren't evil, but Vampaneze are evil. Vampires don't kill their victims while drinking blood — they only need some to keep them alive — while Vampaneze — this is a breakaway group — insisted that they should kill their victim while drinking their blood. Vampires don't die in the sunlight; it will burn them easily, and extreme exposure will kill them. They aren't bothered by garlic and holy objects, such as a cross or holy water (Darren writes how ridiculous it is to be killed only by sprinkling some water on someone).
A vampire's healing factor is not as effective as in most fiction, and, unlike the beautiful vampires of Anne Rice, most of Shan's vampires are heavily scarred and unattractive. Vampires can't dematerialize — change its form — into a mist, nor can they transform into bats, rats, or even wolves — although it's said that the Vampire clan came from the wolves (too complicated to summarize in one sentence). Darren writes that, much like human society, vampire society is ruled by honor, personal pride, and tradition. They have a strict hierarchy with higher ranking vampires having absolute rule over lower ranking ones, though they exercise their powers in moderation and are respectful of those beneath them. Vampires are prohibited from using guns, bows, or crossbows while fighting; they only may use swords, axes, shuriken, or empty-handed. Vampires see humans as a chaotic and slightly inferior race, but most value human lives. Some vampires form friendships with humans, and many fall in love with human.
In The Saga of Darren Shan the Vampaneze are sworn enemies to the vampires, cousins in fact. They were vampires who broke away from the clan (600 years before the third book) and claimed themselves a new race because of the different customs they held. The Vampaneze are considered the antagonists, though they only appear that way due to the misleading image of Murlough (a mad Vampaneze), the Vampaneze Lord and the War of the Scars. The Vampaneze have purple skin and red hair, eyes, lips, and fingernails. This is a side effect due to drinking a lot of blood.
Reading The Saga of Darren Shan the readers are given different point of view and also different description of who the vampires are. Like the Twilight books, vampires aren't evil — well, some of them are evil. I personally think that the Twilight Saga, in some extent, copy the original idea of Darren Shan's vampires, making it a bit teenager-like rather than action-like. I think this is one of the reasons why the readers are thinking that the saga is interesting. He doesn't show the vampires in the conventional way like in Dracula or Blade, but he had created vampire world set in the modern times.
Darren gives readers not only action in his books, but also some love stories to add some flavor to his books. Darren Shan has its own way to make the storyline unpredictable; he has a lots of twisting ways, making it hard to guess. From the first trilogy, the story starts as Darren's adventure of being a half-vampire, working in the freak show, making new friends, and becoming a Vampaneze hunter. The story then develops into Darren having a big role on the vampire society, then suddenly it changes into the world's destiny if Darren doesn't win in the War of Scars, and in the end he gives us really a shocking truth about Darren and Steve. Although it's unpredictable, the storyline is easy to follow and very interesting; these are the factors making the readers want to read the second book, and then third book, until the twelfth book.
He has some kind of unique way of writing this saga. Aside from the first person point-of-view he used in his books, he used his own name in the story. He also develops the story, making it diary-like, as if the readers would have to believe that vampires are truly alive, that what happened to him is true. In the last book, the interval part, he even writes that after he is dead, he is revived to give Mr. Tall, the owner of Cirque du Freak &mdash, his diary books to be given to the normal Darren Shan to be published. This gives more force that he insisted to the readers that his adventure is true. As with all the other books, the writing is fast-paced and descriptive. The author creates a very good sense of the world and the characters within it. The characters are mostly supernatural, but they are all believable.
In short, The Saga of Darren Shan gives a different type of action and horror story. The action is fast and non-stop, with brilliant turn of events. The plot has many kinks and angles, and keeps the readers guessing until the last page; every story has unpredictable endings. Shan writes compelling, scary stories for kids, but while they have blood and gore and violence attached on them, these books also address some moral issues and show the importance of friendship and sticking to your moral and ethical standards. It seems that the story might be a bit too frightening for kids 10 years and under, and of course it's not recommended to read this book. For young adult readers who enjoy horror and anyone who is interested to the myths of vampires, these books are worth collecting; it's an exceptional series and a great addition to vampire literature.