Posts

Reading Short Stories...

Image
What with one thing and another, and then another, this week hasn’t been the best week for reading. Not every week is, it happens :o) I just need to get through today and then I’ve got all my fingers crossed for either Saturday or Sunday (I’m not fussy) being a good day to read something. Lets see… In the meantime, I did manage to read a few short stories yesterday. Well, my laptop froze ‘mid job hunt’ and I thought that if ‘I don’t read something now… So that’s what I did :o) A little ‘Age of Sigmar’ and a couple of ghost stories… ‘Past Returns’ – Hal Wilson (Black Library) Page Count: 28 Pages I was looking at the Warhammer Community pages and saw mention of a new ‘Age of Sigmar’ novel, by Hal Wilson , about the Freeguilds. I have a bit of a soft spot for Freeguild soldiers but had never read anything by Hal Wilson so… I went looking for a copy of ‘The Wanderer’ (a prequel to this new novel) but couldn’t find it so went for ‘Past Returns’ instead. I really should have paid closer att...
2 comments
Read more

Scary Movie Time…

Image
It’s that time of year again. You know the time… You don’t? Well… It’s the time when I realise that we’re a week into October and this prompts me to make loads of bold statements about making it an October where I really make a dent in all the horror that I need to watch and read. Then it gets to the beginning of November, I look back and… you guessed it. Well, we’re a week into October. Lets see how much of a dent I can make in all the horror, lurking about the place, that I still need to watch or read ;o) We’ll start off with an easy post. Reading hasn’t come easy, this week, but I’ve had a little more luck watching movies so… lets talk about those. ‘Pet Sematary 2’ (1992) Some movies don’t need a whole blurb included here… :o) If you’ve seen, or read, ‘Pet Sematary’ then you’ll know what ‘Pet Sematary 2’ is all about. And that was kind of the problem here; the names (and pets) may have been changed but it felt like an awful lot of trouble was taken to basically tell the same story ...
2 comments
Read more

‘The Savage Sword of Conan #16’ – Zub, Scott, Campana, Izaakse (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
  Just a quick post today because, well… I’m not sure what happened to be honest. I started off in good form, getting stuff done left, right and centre. The next thing I knew, it was almost the end of the day and there was still loads to do. I won’t embarrass myself by dwelling on the backlog; lets just say that there wasn’t a lot of time left to read anything. You know me though, I’ve got reading matter, to hand, for the shortest intervals and so of course I had a copy of the latest ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ to hand. It’s like ‘Past Me’ is keeping an eye open for ‘Present Me’, I’m very grateful ;o) Since Robert E. Howard’s work found its way to Titan & Heroic Signatures, we’ve had a couple of cross-over events; namely the ‘Battle of the Black Stone’ and ‘The Scourge of the Serpent’. Well, I’m not sure how these events are timed but apparently, it’s time to start getting ready for the return of an old enemy in ‘Tides of the Tyrant King’. And it looks like it’s all kicking off in ...
2 comments
Read more

‘I Am Slaughter’ – Dan Abnett (Black Library)

Image
  Page Count: 120 Pages (taken from the ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ Collection, where the print size is tiny, my poor eyes…) I wasn’t a big reader of ‘Black Library’ books back in 2015 (when ‘I Am Slaughter’ was first published) so I pretty much missed all of the ‘Beast Arises’ series, both as individual volumes and again when it was reprinted in omnibus editions (a couple of years later). To be fair, those years weren’t good for reading anything at all, that’s another story though. As far as things stand then (and given the price these books go for second-hand), it looks like I’ll be getting my history of ‘The War of the Beast’ via the likes of Lexicanum. That’s part of the reason I picked up ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ The inclusion of ‘I Am Slaughter’ means that even if I don’t get to read the rest of the series, at least I got to see how it all kicked off. And… It is the thirty-second millennium and the Imperium is at peace. The Traitor Legions of Chaos are but a distant memory and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Hillbilly, a Puritan Adventurer, the X-Men and a bunch of Xenomorphs walk into a bar…

Image
Well, they should have done but they didn’t; I just really (really) wanted to use that as the title for todays post :o) Sorry, it’s been one of those weeks, not the worst week ever but far from a favourite. Oh well, it’s over and done with now. Anyway… A week like that normally involves me heading to Forbidden Planet at some point, just to try and dull the pain a little. That’s what I did yesterday, here are some quick thoughts on a couple of comics that I picked up (and one that I should have posted about earlier but… didn’t) ‘Hillbilly: The Treason of Twelve-Toe Maggie #1’ – Eric Powell (Dark Horse Comics/Albatross Funnybooks) It has been an absolute age since I’ve read any ‘Hillbilly’ (or anything by Eric Powell for that matter) so it was kind of nice to see ‘Hillbilly’ on the shelf and remember that Powell is still out there, doing his thing. And ‘The Treason of Twelve-Toe Maggie’ is only three issues long so of course I had to take it home for a read. I’ll be honest, I’m going to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘The Descent: The Official Movie Novelization’ – Christian Francis (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 220 Pages This blog has been running long enough now that I should probably stop mentioning how movie novelizations were essential reading, for me, back in the eighties. It’s not like you haven’t heard me say it already. They were though ;o) Anyway… I still have a soft spot for these books, and I never got round to watching ‘The Descent’ back in the day, so when I saw the novelization in Waterstones… Well, it pretty much bought itself. I’m already a fan of Francis’ novelization of ‘Session 9’ so that made things even easier ;o) After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive not only the monsters, but also each other. I’ll be honest, I struggled to finish ‘The Descent’ but not for the reasons you might think. Takin...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Couple of Orky Tales from ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ (Black Library)

Image
  As a rule, I generally stay away from Warhammer 40k stories that have Orks as main characters. Nothing against them per se; it’s just that as with the Hulk in the MCU, I think Orks make far better antagonists/supporting characters than leads. That’s just me though, feel free to tell me that I’m wrong and point me at something that I should be reading ;o) Anyway, that’s the reason I’d stayed away from the ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ collection, until now that is :o) The blurb is there for a reason… I took a look, saw mention of at least one old favourite, and decided to give the book a go after all ;o) You will always find a few short stories in these collections and I figured I’d start things off with a quick post about those. And it has ended up being an even quicker post than I’d planned as I’ve already spoken about Dan Abnett’s ‘Ork Hunter’ over Here . Which leads me onto a quick rant, hold on… This is the second time that I’ve come across ‘the same story featured in two separate...
2 comments
Read more