Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 159 Pages Given that this book was first published in 1974, the word ‘New’ (in the title) is starting to look more and more redundant but… Given that I’m of an age now where shaving my head actually makes me look less bald (seriously), I’m a fine one to talk ;o) Anyway… I saw this collection in Greenwich Market, a few months ago, and had to grab it as it reminded me of the lesser frequented shelves, at my old primary school, where a kid like me could find all the old horror and supernatural anthologies, and did. It is surprisingly easy to lose a book at my place, a flat that is literally full of books, but I came across ‘Frighteners’ the other day and last night, finally settled down for a read. A beach inhabited by man-eating jellyfish… A death-mask which returns to life… A village of monster-mad zombies… A hideous body which refuses to die… A hospital menaced by a ghostly visitor… A withered corpse in search of a friend… Stories of stark originality and chilling hum...

  Page Count: 208 Pages My ongoing journey to read more of the books that I buy is going… Well… You all saw yesterday’s post :o) It’s not going brilliantly but not only do I really enjoy reading fantasy and horror, I’m also dogged and relentless with my TBR pile. Erm… Well, more the former than the latter ;o) I’ll get there, eventually… Anyway. The other day, said journey saw me take a little trek through the Hyborian Age with some quick detours along the way to take in 16th Century France and Hungary, as well as 1930s Egypt. Yep, I finally read that copy of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’, that has been been giving me reproachful looks for far too long. Lets talk a little about it :o) The second volume of ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’ collects issues #4-6 of the ongoing series and kicks things off with one of my pet hates about comic books… The humble ‘crossover’ event. That’s not the book’s fault, lets be clear, but here we are. I’m the kind of guy who settles on a title and sticks with it...

Just a mini-reset, I bet you didn't even realize that I'd gone ;o) With one thing and another (and then another), last week wasn't a good one; mostly work stuff and mental health. I thought I'd give myself a little 'time off' this weekend, just to get my head straight. Still, new week and all that, fingers crossed for a better week this week. Let's see... :o) Backing up a little bit though. Payday was last Friday and that meant 'Walking Dead Night' (for me and my eldest) was accompanied by Dominos Pizza. It also meant that on Saturday, I was able to take my daughters to Greenwich for nachos and book shopping. They like nachos and I 'really deserved' a little book shopping ;o) Lets take a little look at what came home with us... The lady who runs the bookstall, on Greenwich market, saw me coming and immediately pointed me at the small pile of 'Doctor Who' books on the table. I've never read 'Time-flight' (and I've only...

  This was originally going to be a post about the REH short tale ‘The Black Stone’; well, that was the plan until I realised that I’d already posted about it, way back in 2022 . No worries, I thought to myself, ‘The Little People’ is an intriguing title, I’ll give that a go. And to be honest, it wasn’t a bad tale either; for an entry in a collection of horror stories it certainly didn’t end how I’d expected it to (and that’s not a bad thing). The only problem I had with the tale is that while it’s certainly not a ‘fragment’, a page was missing from REH’s typescript and so ‘The Little People’ has a gap in the middle where the only thing I could gather was that the narrators sister was still annoyed with him. Not a bad tale to read, maybe not one for a whole post here though. I wasn’t in the mood to be beaten though so I took a chance and decided to do something that I very rarely do, if ever. Yep, I thought I’d read me some poetry :o) It might be the poetry that I had to study at s...

It’s kind of nice to get to Thursday and realise that no matter how hectic this week has been so far, I’ve still managed to get a decent bit of reading under my belt and write about it here. And I’ve noticed a little pattern to my weekly posts; which often start off with a full length book (or two) before moving on to comic books and finally short stories. That’s a pretty big clue as to how my energy levels progress over a week ;o) Well, I changed the order slightly this week and that’s what happens when my day in the office gets brought forward a couple of days. It wouldn’t feel the same, here, without a comic book post though so… Lets take a quick look at a couple that I’ve had on the go… ‘Die!Die!Die!’ Volume 1 – Kirkman, Gimple, Burnham, Fairbairn (Image Comics) Page Count: 128 Pages We don't like to admit it, but this is an evil world where evil people do evil stuff all the time. Thankfully, there is a secret cabal with the United States government that works outside our nor...

I’ll be honest, I’m really not sure how Wednesday has turned up so quickly, given that the last couple of days have gone so slowly. I’ll take it though, just a few more days until the weekend :o) Yesterday was a day in the office and I had a book in my bag all ready for the bus ride there and back. That was the plan anyway… What actually happened was that I overslept and had to take a train instead. Have you ever tried reading on the rush hour train? Yeah… And if that wasn’t bad enough, I fell asleep on the bus going home; not the best day for reading then ;o) And that means today’s post is one about the little bits and pieces that I’ve managed to read/listen to over the last couple of days. Hope you don’t mind… ‘More Sinned Against’ – Karl Edward Wagner Page Count: 15 Pages I’ve had a copy of Karl Edward Wagner’s ‘In A Lonely Place’ sat on my shelf for far too long now and I thought I’d dip into it and pick a story, at random, for a read. For a little context, I’ve read some of Wagner...