Darren Shan

[opengoal]

Finally read the last Darren Shan book. So many things in the series made me go WTF? but since I'd started reading it I felt duty-bound to read 'til the end. Glad it's all over now.

Comments

[deewhydeeax.livejournal.com]

I read the first book and never read it again >:S

[opengoal.livejournal.com]

I thought there were some vibes between Steve and Darren in the first book. But they didn't meet each other again several books later and when they die meet, the scene was like it's written by a boneheaded man.

In the second book, I had hope for Evra/Darren too after seeing some fanart on them. But sadly it seems the author is careful to kill off any possibility at all. I don't know what planet that author is on! His plots aren't that good (Steve and Darren are half brother?!), his morals dubious, and his writing... It is indeed like a boy who's dropped out from junior high, I'd give him that. It just fails to involve the reader emotionally and that's a fatal flaw in fiction.

But still there are these paragraphs in Sons of Destiny:

And then Darren went on moralising and they fought. But still that bit wasn't deleted.

[deewhydeeax.livejournal.com]

What happened to Steve in the end?

[opengoal.livejournal.com]

The whole story is roughly like this:

Darren became a Vampire Prince (one of the leaders of the race) by accident when the vampires and the vampenzees were on the verge of war. The vampenzees is a race very similar to the vampires. Their biggest difference is that vampenzees kill people before they drink while vampires don't kill.

The new Lord of Vampenzee was planning to conquer the vampires. And because Des Tiny had a prophecy that only Darren, Mr Crepsley and Vancha (another Vampire Prince) could kill the Lord of Vampenzee, they went out to look for him.
It turns out Steve was the Lord of Vampenzee.

A lot of things happened, and Darren found that they were almost all Steve's deliberate plans to get back at him.

In the final showdown between Steve and Darren, Darren gave Steve a mortal blow. But before they died, Des Tiny explained everything. He was actually both Steve's and Darren's father and he'd deliberately set them against each other. He then asked Darren to join him in ruling this world or something. Darren refused. But Mr Tiny said it's in his blood to become the Lord of Shadows.

Darren then signalled Steve to kill him. So in the end they both died. Sort of.

Because later Evanna, Mr Tiny's daughter and therefore Darren's half-sister, saved Darren from the Lake of Souls as part of her bargain with Mr Tiny. Mr Tiny then made Darren into a Little Person. But only for a couple of days.

This Little Person was sent back in time when Darren first snuck into the circus. This future Darren scared away the past Darren so the past Darren won't meet Madame Octa or Mr Crepsley and none of the other things would happen to him.

[deewhydeeax.livejournal.com]

Whoa >:O That's pretty intense. It's too bad, as you said, the author writes like a junior-high droupout. That really, really irked me when I read the first book. There's some pretty awful writing in there that makes me goggle and go, "WTF????"