Posts

‘The Descent: The Official Movie Novelization’ – Christian Francis (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 220 Pages This blog has been running long enough now that I should probably stop mentioning how movie novelizations were essential reading, for me, back in the eighties. It’s not like you haven’t heard me say it already. They were though ;o) Anyway… I still have a soft spot for these books, and I never got round to watching ‘The Descent’ back in the day, so when I saw the novelization in Waterstones… Well, it pretty much bought itself. I’m already a fan of Francis’ novelization of ‘Session 9’ so that made things even easier ;o) After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive not only the monsters, but also each other. I’ll be honest, I struggled to finish ‘The Descent’ but not for the reasons you might think. Takin...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Couple of Orky Tales from ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ (Black Library)

Image
  As a rule, I generally stay away from Warhammer 40k stories that have Orks as main characters. Nothing against them per se; it’s just that as with the Hulk in the MCU, I think Orks make far better antagonists/supporting characters than leads. That’s just me though, feel free to tell me that I’m wrong and point me at something that I should be reading ;o) Anyway, that’s the reason I’d stayed away from the ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ collection, until now that is :o) The blurb is there for a reason… I took a look, saw mention of at least one old favourite, and decided to give the book a go after all ;o) You will always find a few short stories in these collections and I figured I’d start things off with a quick post about those. And it has ended up being an even quicker post than I’d planned as I’ve already spoken about Dan Abnett’s ‘Ork Hunter’ over Here . Which leads me onto a quick rant, hold on… This is the second time that I’ve come across ‘the same story featured in two separate...
2 comments
Read more

Trailer - 'V/H/S/ Mixtape' (2026)

Image
This is the post you get when the book I'm reading is taking far too long to get going and I don't leave myself enough time to finish anything else. Hopefully I'll finish something today and have a 'book post' for you tomorrow. Fingers crossed... ;o) In the meantime, the 'V/H/S/' franchise is pretty much my favourite 'Horror Anthology' series and this latest entry has Muppets in it (well, more like 'escapees' from Jim Henson's Workshop but, you know what I mean) so of course I was going to post the trailer :o) Here it is... 'V/H/S/ Mixtape' will be aired, on Shudder, on the 9th of October so you'll probably have my thoughts around about the 10th... Anyway, back to the books ;o)
2 comments
Read more

Movies… But No Comfy Chair To Watch Them From…

Image
A slightly extended weekend break from the blog, sorry about that :o) To cut a long, and not very exciting, story short… The comfy chair has gone to wherever comfy chairs go when they are no longer that comfy (the ‘tip’ in Lewisham) and I was left with a selection of chairs that are functional but not the kind of chair you can curl up in and read for a few hours. The search for a new comfy chair starts… Here :o) Anyway… Not a lot of reading happened over the weekend (hardly any actually) but I did manage to watch a few movies. Let me tell you about them… ‘The Descent’ (2005)   A caving expedition goes horribly wrong when a cave-in leaves the party trapped in unfamiliar tunnels with no idea how to escape. And while they can’t see what is stalking them through the tunnels, it can hear them… I’m reading the novelization, of ‘The Descent’, at the moment so when I saw the film was free to watch on Prime, well… I’d never seen it before so I had to give it a go :o) And… Well. It wasn’t a ...
2 comments
Read more

‘Come Sing For The Harrowing: Stories by Dan Coxon’ (Clash Books)

Image
  Page Count: 218 Pages I know that ‘Folk Horror’ books are a thing and that they are very likely to be my thing (I enjoyed ‘The Wicker Man’ the good one that is, you know what I mean..) For some reason though, I’d never got round to actually checking any books out until the other day. Don’t ask me why… I guess that when you read books ‘on a whim’ like me, that can happen :o) Anyway… I saw ‘Come Sing For The Harrowing’, in Waterstones, the other day and picked it up, you guessed it… on a whim. Not just a whim to be fair, I also figured that I had a better chance of actually finishing some shorter Folk Horror fiction; so many books, so little time etc. So that’s just what I did, and… From British and World Fantasy award-winning writer and editor Dan Coxon, Come Sing for the Harrowing is an uncanny folk horror collection for fans of John Langan and Robert Aickman. A young man working at a tourist attraction is singled out for unholy transformation, a gang of burglars are ambushed w...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘The First Wall’ – Gav Thorpe (Black Library)

Image
  Page Count: 385 Pages My readthrough of the ‘Siege of Terra’ books has been perhaps the most haphazard, and out of order, read through that I’ve ever done. Okay, there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it… Sometimes, you’ve just got no choice but to just read the books as they come to you ;o) Luckily, I already knew the rough outline of the Siege, and the Lexicanum helped too, so it hasn’t been the worst thing in the world but yeah, definitely not the recommended reading order. Anyway, here we are :o) I’ll be honest, I’ve been avoiding ‘The First Wall’ for a while, we’ll get into the ‘whys’ later on. The other day though, something finally clicked and it was time. I’m not quite sure what happened but again, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. So, that’s what I did. And… The war for the fate of mankind blazes on. Though the outer defences have fallen, the walls of the Palace itself remain inviolate as Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra himself, uses every known stratagem and ploy to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘There Is No Antimemetics Division’ – qntm (Penguin)

Image
  Page Count: 275 Pages If you frequent these parts you’ll know my reading tastes, it’s hard not to by now ;o) As a rule, it’s a rare thing to see me pick up any sci-fi that steps past the likes of Doctor Who, and Warhammer 40K, and into the realms of ‘high concept’ and ‘hard sci-fi’. Nothing against the stuff, it’s just that more and more, I read to relax (and escape) and I don’t find ‘high concept/hard sci-fi’ particularly relaxing. It’s that simple ;o) Every so often though… I’d heard a number of very complimentary words spoken about ‘There Is No Antimemetics Division’, more than enough to pique my interest, and the vague promise of a little cosmic horror was enough to swing it. I picked it up for a read and… An antimeme is an entity with self-censoring properties. Some are benign; others, less so… But how do you contain something you can’t record or remember? How do you fight against an enemy when you can never even know that you’re at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division....
3 comments
Read more