Lord Samper's Library

There should be five books in that picture but one has mysteriously vanished and the other is an eBook, what can you do...? And who would want to see a picture of my Kindle anyway? So a couple of days ago I was wondering what happened to Christmas. A blink of an eye later and I'm wondering just where 2019 has gone... I don't know about you but it kind of feels like 2020 can't wait to get started, hopefully it will be a good year for us all; I've got all my fingers crossed for a year that's as good as 2019 has been to me.  Because 2019 has been pretty good to me as it happens, I'm in a place that I never thought I would be just a couple of years ago. I won't bore you with you the details but I've got a lot to be thankful for :o) But enough of that. Lets be honest, you're here to find out what my favourite books of 2019 are, aren't you? Of course you are :o) Before I do that though, thanks to everyone who has stopped by the blog since I kic

Some people will pick their next read based on a favourite author while others will pick theirs based on a certain genre that they quite fancy dipping into. I will quite happily do both of these but what you will see me do just as often is go for the book with the coolest sounding name. The more sombre it sounds, the better. The sillier it sounds, also the better. This is why I read ' Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes' one time and why I will be reading 'Exit Wounds', on the bus, in the morning when I go back to work. This is one of the reasons I've been reading 'Clowns vs Spiders' over the last day or two. I mean, how could anyone not pick up a book with a title like that? If you can then you're a stronger person than I am but you're also missing out on a little treat by 'rapidly becomng a new favourite author of mine' Jeff Strand. Jaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families with light

Seriously though, what happened to Christmas? Feels like I blinked at the wrong time and it just vanished... Of course, I'm not at all bitter that my week off work as just entered its last day and I'm back at the grindstone tomorrow. No, not at all... Actually, it's only a four day week so I can't really complain too much. And it wasn't actually a bad Christmas at all, thanks for asking :o) The kids loved their presents and I loved being there for the big present opening, followed by a whole day of what felt like constantly eating great food. You can't ask for a lot more than that really and I've got a nice little stash of chocolates etc to keep me going into the New Year. Which isn't that far away now, I ought to start thinking about some New Years Reading Resolutions... But the books, the books! It may have been Christmas but that hasn't stopped me filling in a few gaps in the TBR pile (which in itself is a New Years resolution in the m

I'm a big fan of Brian Keene's work (just thought I'd clear that one up now before we get into the review proper) but I let a lot of things slide, when I was seriously depressed a couple of years ago, and staying abreast of his books was unfortunately one of them. Things are looking brighter these days and my re-read of the 'Clickers' books (currently working my way through 'Clickers Forever' and then it's all about waiting for the reboot series) reminded me that there was a lot more quality horror waiting to be re-read. Being me, I promptly decided to give 'White Fire' a shot, a book that I'd never read until now. I'm not going to lie, I'm still enjoying having my Kindle back and have pumped it full of books over the last couple of days, 'White Fire' was one of them. A quiet evening in, last night, seemed like the ideal time to settle down, pour myself a glass of Baileys and read about an outbreak of something really

I wasn't originally planning on reviewing 'Black Colossus' but my foray into Marvel's new Conan books, a few weeks ago, got me a little nostalgic for the Dark Horse books and eBay very kindly pointed me in the direction of this one... Sometimes, you just can't argue with eBay ;o) It has been years since I last read 'Black Colossus' so thought it might be fun to revisit it and see if I still feel the same about it as I did last time. The big difference, between 'Dark Horse Conan' and 'Marvel Conan', is that the Dark Horse run generally preferred to adapt the original Robert E. Howard stories while Marvel are just going ahead and doing their own thing (up to and including teaming Conan up with the Punisher for one issue of 'Savage Avengers, more on that another time though...) Don't get me wrong, I liked the Marvel books but this time round, my 'Conan' reading needed to go back to the source, as it were (look it's Ch

It's going to be another short post today and not because of a slight 'post Christmas' hangover... Keep reading and all will become clear. 'Deadpool Kills Deadpool' is the final part of the 'Deadpool Killogy' where an alternate universe Deadpool realises that everyone in his universe is part of a story that they have no control over. What's a Deadpool got to do in order to tease the writers out of hiding and kill them? Well, once he's killed every hero and villain in the Marvel Universe then moved into the Realm of Ideas and killed all your favourite literary characters there's only one thing to do... Go through every strand of the Multiverse and kill off the one thing that he hasn't killed yet, himself... Luckily for us, 'our' Deadpool isn't having any of that and neither are a whole bunch of other Deadpool's that you haven't met yet. So yeah, I probably should have written something about 'Deadpool

Just a really quick post to say Merry Christmas to anyone who happens to pop by today (and everyone else who doesn't!) I hope you have a good one and that the day is everything you need it to be. Have fun and I'll see you tomorrow...

It's going to be a short post as I've got a whole load of stuff to get done today. Thinking about it... If you're reading this on Christms Eve then I tip my cap to a person who is clearly so organised that Christmas preparations are all done and sorted. Or you're just procastinating so in which case, a tip of the cap to you for being honest ;o) When 'The Goon' wound down to its original ending I thought that would be pretty much it for me seeing anything more from Eric Powell. Not that he's a one trick pony, his sketchbook work (which can be found in the back of various 'Goon' trades) says otherwise. I just couldn't see him topping all that was good about 'The Goon' ; I didn't think it would be possible. So news of a new series called 'Hillbilly'absolutely piqued my interest in all the ways that a new series will have you asking questions of the output of a favourite author. Basically, these all boil down to one q

My 'to be read' pile has taken a little bit of a back seat, just recently, to my reaccquaintance with my Kindle and some of the weird shit that I purchased back when... nope, I've got no idea what I was doing (or thinking) when I purchased some of the stuff that my Kindle recommends I read again. It's a good job then that I love my horror a little bit weird, irreverent in all the right places and just pouring with gore and bits that make me wince. What can I say? I was born in the seventies but being a child of the eighties opened my eyes to a lot of stuff that you can tell is a big influence on the direction that this blog finds itself travelling sometimes ;o) I had a lot of fun re-reading 'Mandibles', the other week, and so it wasn't a big leap to tackle pre-Christmas work stress by going back and re-reading 'Benjamin's Parasite'. It's not a particularly Christmassy read, okay it's not a Christmassy read at all ; it's a

Yeah, that would be me... We've already established that in times of stress, this blogger purchases books . Well, this week was particularly stressful (what with one thing and another) so you know what happened next. Lets put it this way, I'm not going to be short of a book to read this Christmas Week (and that's not counting all the others that were already waiting to be read...) Shall we have a look at what I bought? Go on then... :o) I treated myself to a little payday trip to the comic exchange, in Notting Hill, where I totally went old school with these two books (the pickings were a little slim that day but still...) I'm an occasional reader of Glen Cook's 'Garrett PI' books (so occasional that I had to remind myself how to spell Garrett...) so 'Red Iron Nights' was a no-brainer really. 'Worms of the Earth' was a gentle reminder that there is a lot more to Robert E. Howard than just 'Conan' so into my bag it went. These wi

Yesterday was all about sorting work stuff out, before leaving for Christmas, and I didn't get out of the office until about nine last night... 'Past Me' is looking at this new 'Non-Slacker Me' in awe and perhaps a little fear to go with it... Anyway, I've got a few cool looking books lined up for reading but didn't fancy any of them for a commute read on the bus home. Instead, I relied on my habit of hoovering up free reads, on my Kindle, to give me something short and sweet for the trip back to the house. At only twenty pages long, 'A Ring to Rule Them All' looked like a safe bet. I'd enjoyed the first two 'Grim Company' books but never made it all the way through the third, for reasons that may become clear if I ever do a re-read of the books (a possibility). I had some high hopes for this read then and happily enough, they were all met. A week inside a wicker cage will break a regular man. A month will push the brave

I've had a great time making my way through the 'Clicker-verse' but all good things have to come to an end and that's where this review finds me (until my next re-read). You know when you binge on a whole series all at once and then you're done and you literally have no idea what you are going to read next because what could possibly be as awesome as what you've just read? Yep, that's me right now. I've got a few ideas but while I sort myself out for my final day of work before the Christmas break, what could possibly be more cool than a book about Clickers? The answer is in the title above... In the aftermath of a devastating tsunami and a series of undersea earthquakes, hordes of Clickers swarm onto the California coastline, slaughtering everything in their path. As the attacks spread to other parts of the world, humanity fights back, unaware that a second foe is about to emerge - Ob, the leader of a supernatural race of beings known as

If you looked through my Kindle Library, you'd look at me and say, “Dude, what on earth is that book doing there? That's not your thing at all...” I'd look you straight in the eye, smile ruefully and say, “It was 99p and the cover looked really cool...” This is one of the resons why I'm paying off a rather large overdraft. With that in mind then, do you think the cover for 'Nunslinger' looks really cool? You can also probably guess how much it cost... I'd actually forgotten it was on my Kindle at all until yesterday when I was looking for something short and sweet to read on the way home from the hospital (I'm fine but getting a little bit tired of blood tests now). I also thought this blog could do with a day where it doesn't feature a 'Clickers' review but that's another story (hint: come back tomorrow for the final one). And the book is called 'Nunslinger'. 'Nunslinger'... What's not to like? There's a l

At this point, I am making no apologies for how what should have been a once weekly visit to the 'Clickers' universe has now become a mad dash through all the books as quickly as I can read them. I'm enjoying myself and isn't that what reading fiction is meant to be all about? The answer is 'partly' but that's a post for another day (and probably not on this blog) so lets stick with what's in front of us. I had no idea where Gonzalez and Keene would take 'Clickers' next, especially as a resurgent United States had bombed the Clickers and Dark Ones pretty much to extinction at the end of the last book. Or at least... that's what they thought. You see, half the fun with giant monsters is that they keep coming back and that's exactly what happens here. The end result? You know the end result and it's awesome. They thought it was over, but the second wave was only the beginning. In the aftermath of the Clickers and Dark On

As I make my way through a couple of other books (slowly but surely...), lets have a little look at a book I read not long before this blog became more than just a passing fancy. You step away from genre fiction for a few years (which then turn into a few more) and when you come back, everything has changed... I mean, of course it changes (how can it not) but it's still really interesting to see that change and track it back to what you used to know. Like John French's work for the Black Library. When I used to run another blog, way back, John French was a short story writer whose work could be found in 'Horus Heresy' anthologies. These days, French is writing whole books for the line which is a pretty big step up in anyone's book, no pun intended (but I like the way it worked). That kind of move will always pique my interest as the 'Horus Heresy' line has always been the preserve of the Black Library's brightest and best writers. The questio

The plan definitely wasn't to be reviewing 'Clickers II' quite so soon (and you'll see why in a few paragraphs time...) but I had so much fun with the first 'Clickers' book that it was all too easy to just keep going. This time round, Mark Williams had unfortunately passed away and so Gonzalez invited one Brian Keene to share the writing duties on the sequel. I'm really glad that he did, 'Clickers II: The Next Wave' is a more than worthy sequel to 'Clickers' and it's this pairing that makes it all possible. The first wave was just the beginning . . . The United States is in ruins. It has just suffered one of the worst hurricanes in history, the people are demoralized, and the president is a religious fanatic. Then things get really bad - the Clickers return. Thousands of the monsters swarm across the entire nation and march inland, slaughtering anyone and anything they come across. But this time the Clickers aren't blindly

To be honest, when 'The Goon' finished, a few years ago now, I was actually quite glad to see it go. The series has always been a favourite of mine but after the Labrazio storyline finished, I felt that the books suffered a little from not having a cohesive plot driving them forwards. Don't get wrong, there was still a lot of good stuff there but it felt to me like Powell was coasting a little until 'Occasion of Revenge' and 'Once upon a Hard Time' when things picked up a little bit. All good things have to come to an end otherwise they don't remain good things for long (I'm looking at you, 'The Walking Dead' tv show) and it was just a little bit past time that 'The Goon' did just that, at least as far as I was concerned. All of this made 'A Ragged Return to Lonely Street' a book that I had mixed feelings about when I saw its release date was imminent. On the one hand, it's 'The Goon' and I'll alwa