Posts

‘Green and Grey’ & ‘Waiting Death’ (From ‘Soldiers of the Imperium: An Astra Miltarum Omnibus’ – Black Library’)

Image
  The weather is cooling down a bit, at least for now, but my tired (slightly overheated) old brain is taking a little while to catch up so, as you’ve probably gathered, I’m all about the short reads this week. Bits and pieces to keep me ticking over and entertained. And ‘Alien Harvest’, as well, but I already moaned about that yesterday , no more moaning about it today ;o) Anyway… I’m doing pretty well with my, kind of, resolution to read more books that I already own (it’s still a ‘work in progress’ but I’m happy with it) so it was no surprise that I decided to go for a couple of Imperial Guard short stories from the ‘Soldiers of the Imperium’ collection – a book that has gone unread for… lets just say ‘too long’. I picked one tale from an author that I’ve never read and the other tale? Well, does it count as a re-read if I listened to the audio-book years ago and could barely remember the plot when I came back to it the other day? Technically, yes, I guess ;o) Enough of that, le...
2 comments
Read more

‘Alien Harvest’ – Robert Sheckley (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 326 Pages It feels like a while since I last had an ‘Aliens’ post here (‘Aliens: Genocide’, back in May , just in case you were wondering…) but I have been pecking away at ‘Alien Harvest’, a page here and then a few pages here. And that should be a little bit of a red flag right there. The four preceding ‘Aliens’ novels (or, one and a half omnibuses) were all very readable and, ultimately, a lot of fun despite a few misgivings here and there. ‘Alien Harvest’ though…? Honestly, it has taken me weeks to get through and if it wasn’t for my generally enjoying the franchise (and being an awkward middle-aged chap who sometimes, just won’t let a book beat him…), I’d have DNF’d this book and moved on without a second thought. I didn’t though (because I’m awkward and needed the win) and here I am, trying to make a little sense of how I feel about ‘Alien Harvest’. Lets see how I do… Royal jelly, the most illicit of Alien by-products, is keeping Dr, Stan Myakovsky alive. A once ...
2 comments
Read more

‘The Burial of the Rats’ – Bram Stoker (Penguin)

Image
  Page Count: 138 Pages ‘The bones were still warm; but they were picked clean. They had even eaten their own dead.’ This spine-chilling collection from Bram Stoker showcases five haunting tales, including the newly discovered ‘Gibbet Hill’. From ‘Dracula’s Guest’, thought to be the original excised opening of Dracula itself, to the sinister ‘The Judge’s House’, each gripping story will leave you breathless, perhaps afraid to turn out the lights. Dare you explore the darkness? Like I said yesterday, I came across ‘The Burial of the Rats’ (in Waterstones) and had the exact amount of change on me. That was all it took :o) A little bit impulsive of me but that’s half the fun of spending time in bookshops. And again, other than ‘Dracula’, I’d never read anything else of Stoker’s so it felt like a good time to do something about that. Well, that’s exactly what I did, and… I’ll be honest, none of the stories left me particularly breathless and when I went to bed last night, I still turne...
2 comments
Read more

Books for the TBR Pile... 'It is far too hot now' Edition

Image
Apologies for the blogging silence over the last couple of days... In the end, it just got so hot that I had to focus my energy on getting work done and just park the blog for a little bit. When I wasn't working, I was either taking a nap or watching the 'Chucky' TV show (better than I thought it would be); once I'm done with the third season, I'll see about getting a post up here ;o) And then it got to yesterday afternoon and I realised that I'd pretty much been stuck in the house for a couple of days (it's hot inside and out but 'inside' is a lot more comfortable). Greenwich is only down the road from mine so I figured I'd pop out and find a couple of bookshops with decent air-conditioning, or a big ol' fan up a corner. Yep, I bought books... I'd try and come up with a decent (and humorous) excuse but it is far too hot for that as well. It was the least I could do... ;o) Just a short one today as, well... You can see the photo ;o) '...
2 comments
Read more

'Slither' (2006), 'Dolly' (2026) and 'Revenge' (2017)

Image
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that while it's never too cold to curl up with a good book (or I'm assuming, a bad one), it can definitely be too warm. Well, we're in the middle of another heat-wave over here and yep, I've got very little reading under my belt this week. I mean, I have managed a couple of books but you should see the pile of books where I've either read a few pages or picked the book up, only to put it straight back down again. Oh well, there's always next week etc ;o) So, what have I been doing in the meantime? I've been watching movies of course ;o) Nothing too demanding (no surprise there...), just good fun to watch, that's all I'm good for at the moment. Lets take a quick look at them then... 'Slither' (2006) Something falls out of the sky and crashes in the woods outside Wheelsy, South Carolina; local resident Grant Grant finds it but it also finds him... Soon, local pets are going missing and then, the residents of Wheelsy...
2 comments
Read more

‘Wolverine : Old Man Logan’ – Millar, McNiven (Marvel)

Image
  Page Count: 256 Pages Long ago, there lived a Graeme who was having a pretty rough time and bought loads of comic books to cheer himself up. Some tough lessons, about the transient nature of money, followed but the comic books stuck around for a little longer so, things (kind of) balanced out ;o) One of those comic books was the collected ‘Old Man Logan’ and it was an awesome read (yes, I was that Graeme, in case you hadn’t worked it out). Thanks to the aforementioned transient nature of money, and the need for more, I had to get rid of my old copy but a couple of weeks ago, I saw another copy for sale and figured that it was time to pay ‘Old Man Logan’ another visit. When eBay is full of overpriced second hand copies, it’s nice to see Marvel do the decent thing and publish a new edition. Or, more likely, see an opportunity to make more money. Either way, I have a new book so I’m happy :o) A future world savaged and sundered by super villains, the United States ain’t what it used...
Post a Comment
Read more

A ‘Did Not Finish’… ‘The Babysitter Lives’ – Stephen Graham Jones (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 242 Pages A ‘Did Not Finish’ is something that you hope you will never meet but the law of averages makes it pretty much inevitable that you will. The thing is though, the tricky little beasts are brilliant at disguising themselves as regular books… You never see the ambush coming until it’s too late for you to do anything about it. Before you even really know what’s happened, the cool looking book, that you thought you’d try, turned out to be a ‘Did Not Finish’ and you’re left looking for another book to read instead. Oh well, not the worst problem to have but infuriating at the same time, especially when you’ve had a rough day and fancied a quiet read. All of which is a slightly long-winded way of saying that I never thought I’d see the day where a book by Stephen Graham Jones ended up being a ‘Did Not Finish’ in its most devilish disguise yet. But here we are :o) The good news though, is that I think that it was more about me than any fault in the book itself. Some...
2 comments
Read more