Lord Samper's Library

It’s been a tough couple of days, kind of a mixture of ‘Summer Holidays Stuff’ and getting things in order before my job comes to an end. I’ve still got four weeks to go but I think it’s going to go quicker than I expect. Anyway… My reading has understandably taken a hit then but you know me. The reading may slow down a bit but it never stops, not entirely ;o) I’ve got anthologies all over the flat, full of short stories that will keep me ticking over, but this time, I picked up my phone and went for a couple of tales from the ‘Horus Heresy’. Well... One tale from the Heresy, one from a little bit beforehand. One that I really got into and one, one that I couldn’t quite see the point of. Lets start with that one first… ‘The Wolf of Ash and Fire’ – Graham McNeill (Black Library) Page Count: 43 Pages Horus Lupercal, ever the favoured son of the Emperor of Mankind, stands ready to lead his Legion against the Ork-held planetoid of Gorro. After nearly two centuries of warfare in the name o...

  Page Count: 152 Pages. Another ‘shorter’ post for today… All of a sudden, work has become about handing over to the people who will stay on after I leave; kind of obvious really but the need to get it done has kicked up a notch. On top of that, I’ve also got my two daughters coming round so today is going to be about juggling stuff and seeing how long I can keep it all in the air. Definitely a ‘short post day’ then, you understand ;o) Last night felt like a good time then to pick up the next instalment of ‘Saga’ and keep moving forwards on what will hopefully be a full readthrough of the whole series. A nice short read for what ended up what felt like a short evening. Thanks to her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana, newborn baby Hazel has already survived lethal assassins, rampaging armies, and alien monstrosities, but in the cold vastness of outer space, the little girl encounters something truly frightening: her grandparents! Collects Issues #7-12 The ‘volume number’ is a r...

I love going to the cinema but these days (what with the cost, my being a grumpy middle-aged man and oh yes, my job coming to an end), I don’t go as often as I’d like. Basically, if I am going to go, it has to be the kind of movie where you can’t imagine watching it on the TV without having seen it in the cinema first. You know what I mean ;o) I’ve been pretty excited about the new ‘Masters of the Universe’ film but it didn’t quite meet the threshold for a cinema trip; don’t ask me how I came to that decision, it just didn’t. What I wasn’t expecting though was for the movie to end up on Prime (and free to watch) quite so quickly… I don’t follow the numbers too closely but I had heard that the movie didn’t do too well at the box office; was Amazon trying to claw a little extra revenue back by dropping it into Prime early? Or was I just overthinking it when I could have been watching the movie…? Either way, I thought I’d give ‘Masters of the Universe’ a go, so that’s what I did last nigh...

  Page Count: 253 Pages (I didn’t read them all though, not this time) Before I kick this post off, I just want to start off by saying that I’m pretty proud of myself over here :o) Yep, I’ve made it through ten days of ‘cat-sitting’ without mistakenly calling out the emergency vet; you’d think that’s a low bar to aim for but it’s a surprisingly easy one for me to miss completely. And ‘Cat Number One’ really knows how to hold a grudge. Anyway, lets actually talk about the book, shall we…? ;o) When I’m trawling charity shop bookshelves, I will invariably grab any Black Library book that I come across, especially the older ones that seem to go for an absolute fortune on eBay. If you don’t take a chance right there, you might not get another one; it’s either that or I just really want to buy a book (any book…), both reasons are valid as far as I’m concerned ;o) Now a lot of the time, this approach will more or less guarantee me a decent read but every now and then, I get one that doesn...

We all know that I've spent the last week looking after my ex-wife's cats (at time of writing, only for a few more hours...) but what people may not know is that I've also spent the last week fighting a secret war. A secret war that I must always fight, if only because I've never managed to land the decisive blow. And this last week was no exception... Yep, it's summer and I've spent the week squaring off against at least one mosquito (likely more) that is quite literally out for my blood. The end result? A very fat, content mosquito and me heading out to find something to stop my legs looking like pepperoni pizza ;o) I couldn't sort that problem out but, no surprise to anyone, I ended up buying a few books instead. Of course I did... ;o) Presented by, well... I haven't named him yet but he was happy to carry on in the meantime. Anyway... As seems to be the rule these days, all three books were found in Greenwich Oxfam :o) I've always meant to read J...

I'll be honest... After the news about my job, on Tuesday, my brain is (a little bit) scrambled right now and I'm just trying to make it to the weekend. Luckily for me, it's Friday ;o) There may be a 'short story post' later, lets just see how work goes in the meantime, but for now, here's the official trailer for the new 'Resident Evil' - out in September. It's looking more and more like a real departure from the Mila Jovovich movies but, I'm feeling pretty optimistic...