Month: June 2010

Book Review: Cheat the Grave

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Cheat the Grave, by Vicki Pettersson, is the 5th book in the Sign of the Zodiac series. Joanna Archer is now a mortal, having given up her powers to save a young girl. Her troop has abandoned her. Now, all she has are her socialite friends, from her late sister’s life. But when she left … Read more

Giveaway & Exclusive Interview with Darren Shan!

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Procession of the Dead ShanDarren[1]

SciFiChick.com was granted an exclusive interview with Darren Shan, author of the children’s series Cirque Du Freak and The Demonata. His latest trilogy The City, is his first geared towards adults. You can read more about Darren Shan and his books at his official website: http://darrenshan.com. And keep reading for a chance to win one of five copies of the first in the trilogy, Procession of the Dead!

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Can you tell us a bit about your new adult trilogy, The City?

The first two books can be read independently of each other, as they are stand-alone stories which are set at the same time. Events do overlap, but it isn’t until the third book that the plot threads are pulled firmly together. The first, Procession of the Dead, is about a young man who comes to a mysterious city to become a gangster. He soon falls in with The Cardinal, the city’s criminal kingpin, and begins a meteoric rise to the top. It should be a smooth ride, except he soon becomes aware that all is not well in the city – people vanish without trace, a legendary serial killer operates freely, blind Incan priests seem to pop up everywhere he looks, and most worryingly of all he can’t recall anything before coming to the city…

How different was it for you, switching from a focus on young readers to adults? Any difference to your writing style or technique?

They’re actually not as different as you might think. My children’s books have always been dark, vicious affairs, so the leap to adult fiction wasn’t as great as it probably would have been for many authors in my position. Having said that, the language is certainly a lot rougher in my adult books, and I don’t have to shy away from sexual references!! The main difference is that these are more amoral – in my children’s books there is a fairly clear divide between good and evil, right and wrong, whereas in my books for older readers I like to be more ambiguous.

I read that it took over 14 years for the final version of the story to come about! How much of it changed throughout the years and editing?

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