Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 240 Pages If I was still the kind of blogger that did ‘Best of’ lists (I’ve got nothing against them, these days I’d just rather be reading)… You can see where this is going :o) I think I’ve found one of my favourite reads for this year. I’m not just a sucker for some good cover art; it turns out that I can also be hooked by the right title. And what is there not to be intrigued about by the concept of eight billion genies, all with one wish to grant to ‘their person’? Yep, me neither so that is why I grabbed myself a copy and last night, sat down for a read… Everywhere, at precisely the same moment, everyone on Earth gets a Genie and one wish. As people all over the world make wishes profane and profound, the world - and humanity – change forever.We follow eight characters who find themselves in a Detroit dive bar as ‘G-Day’ descends upon humanity. They navigate their hopes, fears, dreams and wishes over the first eight seconds… The first eight hours… And ultimately…...

  Page Count: 130 Pages I’m a little bit annoyed with myself for caving in and buying the ‘Flames of Betrayal’ collection but, I really wanted to read ‘Knight of Grey’ so… :o) You see, ‘Flames of Betrayal’ is actually ‘Garro: Knight of Grey’ and then all the stories collected in ‘Era of Ruin’ which funnily enough, I went and reviewed over Here , back in March this year. So… Half annoyed at Black Library for packaging a novella alongside a collection that I already own (I mean, why didn’t they do that when they published ‘Era of Ruin’ in hardback?), half annoyed that I’m just the kind of sucker who will buy the same book twice. Oh well, if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this week… (it won’t be, my job ends on Friday) Anyway :o) One of the things that I love about the ‘Horus Heresy’, and ‘Siege of Terra’, books is that you can pretty much pick a character and then follow them through any number of novels, short stories and so on. I’ve got a few favourites and one that I’ve...

  Page Count: 300 Pages These days, what with various bits and pieces going on, I try and make sure that for at least one day over the weekend, I do as little as I can; mostly sitting in my favourite chair and trying to make a dent in my TBR pile. Gives me a chance to recharge ahead of starting over again the following week ;o) Well, that was pretty much my Saturday and while I didn’t get an awful lot of reading under my belt, I did manage a little. I was kind of ‘half and half’ about Steve Lyons’ ‘Krieg’ books until he came up with ‘Siege of Vraks’ and all of a sudden, I found that I needed to read more :o) Well, I finally got the chance, over the weekend, with ‘The Relentless Dead’ and… Five hundred years ago, Oleris III was ravaged by a Chaos plague. Now it is a world of tombs and catacombs. It belongs to the dead. Colonel Graven and his 401st Krieg Regiment are charged with searching for a missing inquisitor in the bone-filled ossuary tunnels beneath the planet. But the dead...

Posting a little later than normal because last night was weird... Every time I tried to do something I fell asleep but every time I tried to fall asleep... you guessed it. I'm taking it easy today then, a comfy chair and a couple of books should take care of it ;o) In the meantime, this week has been a bit of a weird one, in general, and whenever that happens, a few more books seem to find their way back to my place. Funny how that happens :o) Lets take a little look shall we? It's all a little Warhammer 40k this week with a couple of new(ish) releases and 'Scourge The Heretic' , a paperback that tried to hide away, in Oxfam, but didn't hide well enough; not from me... ;o) In terms of my reading today, I've already made a start on 'The Relentless Dead' and I'll be dipping into the 'Garro: Knight of Grey' novella in 'Flames of Betrayal'. 'Out There Screaming' is a collection that I've had my eye on for a little while. I...

  Page Count: 101 Pages ‘Exit 8’ has been making itself known all over my Prime Video, and so the plan was to give it a watch at some point i.e. in about a weeks time when my job ends and I have a little more time on my hands. And then I was in Forbidden Planet yesterday and discovered that ‘Exit 8’ isn’t just a film based on a video game… It’s also a book and that book was staring at me from a shelf. It was just over a hundred pages long and there was a ‘money off’ sticker on the front… That was all the excuse I needed ;o) Quick thoughts (very quick thoughts…) are the order of the day as, well… That page count speaks for itself. ‘Exit 8’ is worth the read though, let me tell you about it. A young man is riding the Tokyo subway when he receives a life-changing text message from his ex-girlfriend. He exits the train, but extraordinary things begin to happen, and he finds that he cannot escape. The subway will loop endlessly unless he follows very precise rules: Do not overlook any a...

Not mine, my eldest daughters (I did my GCSEs far too long ago for them to make for an interesting blog post), I think she’ll be ok, she certainly put the work in, we just need to head to the school, later today, and collect her results. Wish her luck… :o) While I’m off doing that, let me leave you with some quick thoughts on some movies that I’ve watched recently. It’s a bit of a mixed bag this time round; some just weren’t up to much while others were more of a case of ‘right movie, wrong time’ (the focus is all on finishing up with work right now, not the best state of mind to settle down with a movie). Oh well, you can’t win em’ all… ‘Scared Shitless’ (2024) A plumber and his germophobic son find themselves working unpaid overtime when a callout for a blocked toilet turns into a battle for survival against a creature lurking in the pipes… Scared Shitless? Erm… I wasn’t and while toilet humour is a favourite brand of mine, it didn’t stretch to a whole films worth of humour. Steven O...