Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 368 Pages This week has been a real week for reading horror, so much so that I don’t want to break the streak now. I’m making it official; I don’t know whether it will be another novel, or some short stories, but I’ll be keeping it ‘horror related’ for the rest of the week (or until something else catches my eye, whichever comes first). Lets see how it goes… Anyway :o) I last read ‘Outpost’ (just over) fifteen years ago so when I saw a copy on the shelf, at Waterstones, not so long ago, I thought it was time for a re-read. I had vague memories of an oil rig, a world shattering virus and… that was it :o) That was all I needed though, I was in the mood for something apocalyptic and the blurb certainly promised that… They took the job to escape the world, they didn’t expect the world to end… Kasker Rampart is a derelict refinery platform moored in the Arctic Ocean. A skeleton crew of fifteen fight boredom and despair as their wait for a relief ship to take them home. But...

  Page Count: 293 Pages I told you that I was all excited about reading ‘Offspring’… :o) Excited enough that after another ‘one of those days’ at work yesterday (there’ll be a few more of those this month, I think), I stepped away from my work laptop and settled down for a read.  And…? I should have picked something different to read, last night, but not for the reasons you’re probably thinking… The former sheriff of Dead River, Maine, thought he had killed them off ten years ago – a primitive cave-dwelling tribe of cannibalistic savages. But somehow, the clan survived. To breed. To hunt. To kill and eat. And now, the peaceful residents of this isolated town are fighting for their lives… If it ain’t broke and all that… ;o) In ‘Off Season’, Jack Ketchum struck gold and discovered the formula for telling a gripping tale of survival horror; one that turns your stomach while really showing you just what a person will do to make it through the night. Well, time may have passed in D...

  Page Count: 308 Pages (incorporating the short story ‘Winter Child’, included with this edition) I came across this copy in Greenwich Oxfam on Saturday afternoon, no surprise, that shop is being very good to me at the moment :o) After a brief internal discussion over whether I already had a copy (bloody ‘chemo-brain’…), I chanced it and… I didn’t already have a copy after all. All’s well that ends well. Yesterday was a designated ‘reading in the comfy chair day’, and ‘Off Season’ was right there in front of me, so I thought I’d give it a go. In case you hadn’t realised, there is nothing scientific about how I choose my ‘next read’. It’s very much a case of fancying a certain genre and then seeing which book catches my eye first ;o) Anyway… September. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River – off season – awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family, with a taste for flesh, lurks in the darkenin...

It's been a 'bit of a week' and to be honest, I'll be glad to see the back of it. Good job it's Friday then ;o)  With various bits and pieces going on (mostly around tying up loose ends at work before I leave), my reading hasn't exactly hit a brick wall but it has slowed right down with the usual dose of 'inability to focus' and so on. I'll get it back though, I always do. In the meantime, and while I'm trying to figure out which pieces of work can be completed/handed over, I thought I'd revisit a series of posts that I haven't touched since March last year . Yep, it's time once again for me to show off a couple of shelves and see if I can come up with some 'interesting facts' about them. It might even remind me to actually read some of these books. Wish me luck...  Not so much a 'shelfie' then, I lost the final remaining shelf (in the move) so this is more of a... I don't know... It's wooden and it holds books...

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...