The Vampire’s Assistant (The Saga of Darren Shan, Book 2) - Softcover

Shan, Darren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007320884 ISBN 13: 9780007320882

Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, 2009

Synopsis

The amazing manga retelling of Darren Shan’s international best-selling vampire saga, with illustrations by Japanese artist Takahiro Arai.

Darren joins the vampire, Mr Crepsley, as his assistant and they return to the Cirque du Freak. There, Darren makes friends with the snake-boy, Evra Von (who knows what Darren has become). He also meets a local boy, Sam, and RV, an eco-warrior and animal lover (who do not).
Darren begins to enjoy his life among the Cirque performers and starts coming to terms with his half-vampire existence. But he defiantly refuses to drink human blood and tries desperately to cling on to the part of him which is still human.
Then disaster strikes, and Darren has to make a terrible choice...

The stunning illustrations and manga format give a new dimension to this ever-popular vampire saga, available for the first time in translation in the UK. This will be a must-have for Shan fans and manga aficionados alike.

About this title

Review

Readers familiar with The Saga of Darren Shan will enjoy this second instalment on audio cassette. The Vampire's Assistant is read gleefully and yet touchingly by Alan Cumming. Darren is now living with Mr Crepsley, and struggling to be a "real" vampire, but his squeamishness about drinking human blood is becoming an obstacle to fully embracing the lifestyle. As he is still only half a vampire, and therefore partly a normal teenage boy, his wants and desires are hard to be satisfied by the ageing Mr Crepsley. Meeting Evra the snake boy when he and Mr Crepsley join the Cirque du Freak ensures he has a friend (however peculiar) his own age, as does meeting the more ordinary Sam, who is mesmerised by the Cirque du Freak.

Alan Cumming reads the story with sensitivity for Darren's loneliness and new life and yet with some enjoyment of the gruesomeness of drinking blood and bizarreness of some of the characters in the Cirque du Freak. The tale may not make very peaceful bedtime reading, but will definitely keep children with a thirst for shivers and sweats engrossed. The breaks in the readings are sometimes laboured, so that the next chapter feels anticlimactic, but also are timed so that before you realise it, you'll have listened to most of the tale, always wanting to have your suspicions of what happens next confirmed. Darren's adventures, and encounters with a variety of characters (whether part of the Cirque du Freak or not) are particularly enthralling with Cumming's different voices, so that it almost feels as if Mr Crepsley or Mr Tiny are really in the room with you. The ending explores from a very original angle the importance of friendship and such everyday themes as these ensure that it seems likely that any number of seemingly ordinary teenage boys could be part-time vampires. --Olivia Dickinson

Review

Cirque Du Freak
“...fast-paced and compelling book which leaves the reader hungry for more.” JK Rowling

"I read Cirque Du Freak last week. I loved it. I love the way you manage to juggle the funny with the unpleasant, the affection with the hurt. It's
great story-telling."
Roddy Doyle

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0007320884
• ISBN 13: 9780007320882
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192