#demonata

[wyrmswears]

vein<3

[daisycaulfield]

Darren Shan is such a "Who cares about love? It's a children's book. It should be all about pain and suffering" writer:)

[words-and-coffee]

As long as you’re breathing, your story’s still going.

Darren Shan, Slawter

[dragontamer05]

I know this is still early (like extremely early) days but you have no idea how HYPED I am just to hear that discussions are even happening.

Fingers crossed it goes better then the Cirque du Freak Movie

Also I think it's just so cool that Shan wants to keep fans in the loop even if in like these earliest stages.

[pundyg]

Ok this might be too much of a reach but Darren Shan (and especially cirque du freak) have been my biggest special interest for the past 7 or 8 years since I read the books for the first time. I have a shelf full of his books and I’m working on collecting the different cover sets but I wish there was stuff I could decorate the shelves with.

This is where I need help. I’ve gotten some film cells from the movie from someone on etsy to put up by the lights but I would love more things to decorate with. If anyone has any suggestions or knows someone who makes merch or anything of his books I would greatly greatly appreciate it 🙏🙏

[jasminedragonart]

I don't want to get EXCITED excited yet but one of my favourite book series from when i was a kid is getting its own tv show/ maybe movie.

It's early days and it's not a renowned film company that's took it but I will still sign up to watch it when it comes out.

That being said I am now going to gush about this book series because this literally shaped my childhood.

I don't know what people's experience with young adult horror is but Darren Shan's Demonata series reshaped everything for me.

I remember being young, in secondary school (year 7 I think) and being invited to those free book fairs that they sometimes have. For some reason Wolf Island, the ninth book in the series was on the table. Now, I have always been interested in werewolves and vampires and everything supernatural, I literally spent all of my year nine years reading twilight on my morning and lunch breaks because it was twilight and that was the hype back then. So, naturally, when I saw that cover of a werewolf with a half man half wolf face I had to pick it up.

I read it in like a week, and it was... confusing. But I liked it. I really liked it.

Then I found out it was the ninth book in a series and I had that lightbulb moment that this was the reason I didn't understand half of what was going on. I set about buying the rest of the books and reading them.

My first read around I skipped the second and fourth books in the series. In my opinion even now when I go to read the series I always skip them because I'm more interested in Grub's story than I am theirs. That being said when I did read the second and fourth books I did enjoy them, they were fun and I thought that if they were maybe just like extras instead of actually joining into the main plot I would have probably read them after I finished reading the others and not avoided them the first read around.

Now, onto the good stuff.

So I, as an adult, have been putting off rereading the Demonata series because they are for younger readers and I was afraid they wouldn't hold up. This is slightly true and it's making me wary of reading the vampire series (which I also read as a child but didn't enjoy as much as this one.) My main issues with these books are how they're written. Darren Shan has a very interesting writing style that often feels like it's third person even if it's told from a first person perspective. His sentence structure is short and snappy and oftentimes will be the odd word that works in some parts but not in others.

It's not bad. But it does sometimes bother me when I'm reading. Again, this is because I'm older and reading this. For kids, this is great. It works and it makes the books easy to read. I literally finished the first and third book in like a day because of this.

Another gripe I have is that after the fifth book the series kind of goes down hill. It's fine. But, like the vampire series I don't think Darren Shan had a definitive end for these series and ended up cobbling something together to maybe satisfy whatever time frame he had been given to write these books in.

But, again, it's a fine series and the first, third and fifth books are amazing.

I don't want to get too into it because I don't want to spoil anything if you do want to go and read it. All I will say is that it is an extremely interesting take on the werewolf myth. Also, magic and demons and, it's so good and I'm very excited.

Also, if they even end up making another Cirque Du Freak movie I think that would be cool too. I did see the one they made but I think it would have worked better as a series than a movie. Too much happens to whittle it down to an hour and a half and also Darren is like 12.

But the Demonata series could easily be movies and I... if they made Slawter a movie I would actually scream from the meta take of it all.

[toasterghostie]

Peace and love on the planet earth <- got a second kudos on my dead fandom rare pair fanfic

[antisocialproblem]

I have no idea how to use tumblr but I want to see people talk about the demonata 😭

[thomthinks]

Demonata by Darren Shan

✓ I liked it

And I hated it. It was extremely good, and extremely flawed. I wanted it to be over, at the same time, couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed it but it was so hard to get through and yet worth it.

If I haven’t made it obvious by now, I have mixed feelings on this series. And by that, I mean a lot of mixed feelings.

There are ten books in this series: 1.Lord loss 2.Demon thief 3.Slawter 4.Bec 5.Blood beast 6.Demon apocalypse 7.Death’s shadow 8.Wolf island 9.Dark calling 10.Hell’s heroes. Each book is usually less than 300 pages, and pretty easy to read.

It's young adult fantasy horror mostly aimed at younger teenagers. They’re officially listed as “middle grade” however I personally don’t think this amount of gore and horror (very descriptive & graphic) is appropriate for an 8 year old. I remember reading the first 3 books at 14 and loving them.

There are 3 protagonists present by the names of Grubbs, Kernel, and Bec. Each book is told from a different point of view.

Now on to my opinion (minor spoilers):

The first 4 books? Great. Amazing. Perfect even. The ones that come after? Downhill. (Well, mostly downhill. Death’s shadow was still as good as the first ones.)

The first 4 books give the series a very strong start. Each one is about a different protagonist in a different timeline and it sets up the plot and characters quite nicely. But as soon as the timelines crash and the 3 protagonists meet and unite? The story starts becoming stale and dragging on wayyyy too much.

Each of the first 4 books have their own stand alone stories while setting up future plot points, but afterwards it’s just set up after set up, with little pay off and too high stakes, to the point that you don’t even care anymore. It kinda reminds me of MCU actually.

I mean, for example book 9. Dark calling has no actual story of its own. It’s just 186 pages of exposition about information you need to know so that the next book makes sense.

There is a sort of? Inverse? Character? Development?? I’m not sure what it’s called, but instead of unlikable characters becoming likable, the cast of lovable characters becoming completely appalling by the end.

You will start to notic a pattern when it comes to side characters. Most of which aren’t important and get introduced only to be killed later, without any purpose or development.

While I find plot twists to be one of the biggest strength of Darren Shan and I love him for it, I don’t think every single book needed to have one. Now don’t get me wrong, he writes plot twists so well, I’m in shock and awe. I cannot emphasize how good he is with plot twists, but as the story progresses, you start to anticipate them and they lose their intended effect. (Except for book 7, ofc. God that one was so delicious)

All of this complaining might make it sound I didn’t like or enjoy the series, but I assure you that I truly did. My annoyance and fury stems from a place of love. I’m just mourning the lost potential and nitpicking the issues that stopped a good series from becoming a great series. But I would still recommend reading this to anyone between the ages of 12 - 15 I come across.

Lastly, my favorite characters were “Lord Loss” and “Dervish”. (And to a lesser extent Beck. She was pretty great too. Definitely well written and interesting. She's the star of book 7 and she shines.)

I used to like Grubbs and Kernel in the first few books, but like I said, by the end there was nothing likable left about them.

I absolutely loved Dervish. (Even though he was pretty pathetic at times, ngl) he was a good character and a good person, and he stayed that way until the very end. Most importantly he was cool, interesting, sarcastic, and charismatic, lol. His arc and development were good too.

But my all time favorite has to be Lord Loss. Yes the villain. But God, he’s just sooo good at being bad. He makes an amazing antagonist. He’s evil, literally a demon with no redeeming qualities, his presence is dark and chilling and he doesn’t pull back ANY punches. See that people? THAT’S how you right a good villain. If this was a movie he would absolutely steal every single scene he was in. Whenever he showed up I just KNEW things were about to become hella intense and interesting XD

That’s pretty much all I have to say on this book series. It might be worth mentioning that the whole story is rather forgettable. But I guess on the bright side, that means you can read it again and still enjoy it as much as the first time ;)

Farewell for now ~

[thegirlwiththedream]

[forestdwellingrat]

did anyone else get super into the Darren Shan saga (cirque du freak) and the demonata series when they were teenagers bc ngl I think that might have been what properly got me into horror

[wyrmswears]

sketch of the fucked up protagonist of my favourite childhood book series. grubbs grady you will always be famous (to me)

[daisycaulfield]

Hey. It's my first post on Tumblr.

Hey guys. This is my first post on Tumblr. And I'm talking to a very very quiet fandom. Demonata fans! who do you all ship? I really wanna know. Cause it's not really a love-based series. And reading fanfics I saw a lot of Grubbs and Lord Loss works. I just wanted to know your favorites:)

[words-and-coffee]

I’m alone. I always will be. That’s my life now. That’s just the way it is.

Darren Shan, Lord Loss

[stepharts]

Six Fanarts for the final Fanart Friday of 2022 - Darren Shan edition!

[williowdrake]

Wouldn't it be cool if the Fringe team meets the call of duty modern warfare taskforce 141 maybe with König as well? Or maybe have the Taskforce 141 meet the Five nights at freddys crews? Or have the Fringe team meet the FNAF crews? What about having any of the Darren Shan characters (demonata, cirque du freak, zom-b, etc) meet the taskforce 141 or the fringe team? Can you guys imagine how the taskforce 141 would respond to a zombie with a conscious?