Lord Samper's Library

  Way back in 2022, I rounded off a ‘Richard Matheson Short Story Post’ by saying that ‘I’ll be looking at more of these short stories in the near future’. Well, I’m not sure what the actual threshold is but I’m pretty sure that ‘four years later’ is more of a ‘medium term thing’ at the very least, more likely ‘long term’. I’m not sure what happened but, here we are ;o) Anyway… I took a days leave, yesterday, and while the original plan was to get a few bits and pieces done, what actually happened was I spent a lot of time in the comfy chair, wrapped up in a blanket and trying to get over the Covid vaccine. And reading, I managed to get some reading done as well :o) I saw ‘The Best of Richard Matheson’ lurking on a shelf and thought it was way past time I paid it a visit so… that’s exactly what I did. Let me tell you about them. ‘Long Distance Call’ Page Count: 13 Pages Miss Elva Keene is bed-bound and on her own, in the house, while a storm rages outside. And then the phone ring...

I won't go into too much detail about last night... Lets just say that life took a look at my reading plans, smiled sympathetically and then proceeded to wipe its feet all over them (and considering I was only planning on reading another short story...) I wanted to post though and figured that it was time to pay another visit to 'Past Me' and 'borrow' the post I'd written about the next 'Low Town' book, 'Tomorrow the Killing'. Well, that was the plan, but... I did read 'Tomorrow the Killing', way back in the day, but it fell between the closure of my first blog and the creation of the second. Typical ;o) All I can say then, is that if you enjoyed 'Low Town' then you're in for more of the same with 'Tomorrow the Killing'. Where does that mean for today's post? Well, we're going straight to the finale, 'She Who Waits'. You can find my original review Here but seeing as I've copied and pasted it here ...

  The Bank Holiday Weekend may be well and truly over (at least until the next one comes along) but it left a final present in that the rest of the working week is that little bit shorter. Today feels like a Tuesday but it isn’t, is it? No, it isn’t :o) Anyway, we’re all about short reads here at the moment (a natural fit for a shorter week); mostly because of work, partly because it’s still far too hot for anything more substantial, but also because yesterdays Covid vaccination is starting to make its presence felt. In the spirit of ‘trying to focus on my shelves instead of the shelves in Waterstones’, I thought I’d (finally) check out Ronald Malfi’s ‘Ghostwritten’ collection. I had a lot of fun with ‘They Lurk’ , and four novellas means four posts here, so it all made kind of sense. And in the spirit of ‘keeping things nice and simple’, I’m starting off with the first novella in the collection. That made sense too ;o) Page Count: 86 Pages A lot of money is riding on whether the s...

I think we can all agree that it’s never too cold to curl up with a good book; it is literally what warm, fluffy blankets were invented for. We’re having a bit of a heat wave here though and I can confirm that yesterday was far too hot to curl up with a book, good or bad. The title gives it away a little bit though… I’ve watched more films, than read books, over the weekend (more on that in another post) but I did get a couple of Warhammer 40K short stories under my belt; one from a book that I picked up on Saturday, one from a book that has been stuck on my shelf for far too long… ‘Tattershield’ – William Crowe (Black Library) Page Count: 24 Pages Under the leadership of the indomitable Sergeant Taikon, the Kasrkin squad known as the Tattershields forms the elite core of a desperate defence force on a world all but lost to Chaos. When an opportunity presents itself, Taikon leads the Tattershields in a valiant attempt to eliminate the traitor commander and bring disarray to their rank...

Apologies for the silence here over the last couple of days. I had to take a couple of days off work (sickness) and that spilled over into the weekend. I'd love to say that I caught up with some reading but that would be a complete and utter lie. I did catch up with a lot of sleep though so I still came out ahead of the game, just about ;o) Anyway... I'll be spending today browsing my shelves and adding a few select reads to the TBR pile, I may even read a couple of short stories, we'll see. While I do that... Remember, back in November last year, when I read Virginia Feito's 'Victorian Psycho' and really enjoyed it ? Well, it turns out that a film adaptation is on the horizon. If the film is half as good as the book, it's going to be a lot of fun. I'll be watching it, just to make sure ;o) Here's the trailer... Seriously though, you should read the book. You're welcome ;o)

Nope, it’s a not a ‘Conan’ book that no-one has ever heard of… I had a hospital appointment, yesterday afternoon, and followed it up with a trip to Forbidden Planet on the way home. It made sense ;o) They didn’t have exactly what I was looking for but that’s OK, I can always go back. In the meantime then, here’s a what I came home with; a small lesson in remembering to stay up to date with single issues… ‘Conan the Barbarian #30’ – Zub, Braithwaite, Rodriguez (Titan Comics/Heroic Signature) This one would have made a lot more sense if I had picked up #29 but, here I am; that’s on me, not the comic. What we have here then is Conan as seen through the eyes of an assassin on a mission to kill him; there’s just no context as to why etc. And that’s not the showstopper you’d think. It was very interesting to see Conan’s character (and the lands of Shem) unfold under the gaze of the Son of the Tooth and I could see this issue working very well as a starting point for new readers. It looks lik...