Lord Samper's Library

Hello everyone, it's time again for another 'it's been a hell of a week so it's long past time for a bit of a lie down and watching some Doctor Who' post. Today sees us go back to 1970 and 'Inferno', a story that freaked me right out when I read the novelisation in high school. Hopefully that wasn't just me and you'll see why as we go further into this post... I'd never seen 'Inferno' until this morning when the music from downstairs woke me up, far earlier than I wanted, and I thought that I may as well get started with this. Seven episodes later and wow... That was one of the most intense Doctor Who stories that I've ever seen. Still chafing at his exile to the planet Earth, the Doctor is called in to observe the Inferno drilling experiment of Professor Stahlman. Stahlman's search for a new form of energy goes horribly wrong when a green slime emitted from the drill site transforms any who come into contact with it int

So there I am, banging on about which 'Conan' comics you should and shouldn't be reading, and it occurred to me that I haven't actually covered any of Howard's original tales (not here, anyway). Yesterday evening then, saw me pick a 'Conan' tale more or less at random (the one criteria being that it needed to be short enough for me to read before I fell asleep...) and that tale was 'The God in the Bowl'. An interesting fact before I talk about the content of the story itself... 'The God in the Bowl' was actually rejected by 'Weird Tales' and not actually published until long after Robert E. Howard's death; in September 1952's edition of 'Space Science Fiction' as it happens. So there you go, now on with the story. In the Nemedian city of Numalia, a night watchman enters the great museum to find the strangled corpse of the owner and curator. Above the corpse stands none other Conan of Cimmeria... The Watch ar

If you've pre-ordered your copy of the Grim Oak Press edition of 'The Red Queen's War, Omnibus' (if you haven't, it's a limited edition of 1000 copies so I would seriously consider clicking Here if I were you) then you can look forward to reading 'The New World', included as an extra in the book, when your copy arrives. I don't have a mysterious, and wealthy, benefactor (which is what it would take for me to be able to afford my own copy right now) but what I did have was a very kind offer from none other than Mark Lawrence himself to partake of a copy of 'The New World' in return for a fair and honest review. Having never read any of the 'Red Queen's War' books (it's been a tough few years, a couple of which saw me lose all ability to focus on a book, let alone actually read it) Having finished 'The New World' last night, I can safely say that I will be buying the 'Red Queen's War' books when I next

Marvel's new 'Conan' stuff doesn't feel like it's been round long enough for me to really be able to form an opinion on just how good it could be. Let's just say, for now, that I'm quite enjoying the Conan titles but anything where Conan gets lumped in modern day Marvel heroes... Not so much. And yes I'm looking at you 'Savage Avengers', put Conan down and then go to your room and think about what you've done... Thank Crom then that we will always have Dark Horse's 'Conan' run, a series that really shows Marvel how it should be done. I had to duck out of collecting the books partway through that run (because of particularly boring reasons that would add nothing to this post) but have read enough to be able to confidently say that the Timothy Truman and Tomas Giorello partnership on ‘Conan’ is the best that I’ve come across. Until now…? Well, let’s see what ‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ gives us with it’s combination of Fred Va

Because I've been putting it off for well over a year now but there's no way round it. I need reading glasses as words everywhere have been getting blurry for slightly longer than I'm going to admit to. It's not like I can't read now so it's not a massive big deal. It's just that if I do read anything at the moment, I have to stop and give my eyes a break. Glasses it is then and while I'm waiting to get those sorted, you'll probably see a few more comic books and movies being reviewed here (more pictures and not so many words...) Which leads me, in a slightly roundabout way, to this cover post... To me, cover art is all about catching the readers eye and getting them to think to themselves, 'I'm going to read that book'.All this cover art does for me is to make me feel slightly bemused and that's a real shame as I'm enjoying 'The Ruin of Kings' ... Possible spoilers in the blurb that I'm going to post just under the

A quick 'search and scroll' through an old blog of mine told me that it was way back in 2008 that I came across the Goon for the first time in #25. Have a quick look at the cover because I'm feeling properly nostalgic right now... Comics are full of heroes hanging up their capes while dealing with some personal crisis but even I could tell this was something a little different and that I needed to check it out. Little did I know then that some half hearted thoughts about picking up a trade (or maybe even two) would turn into almost twelve years of following one man's attempts to just survive while the world keeps crapping on him from a great height; running all the criminal rackets in Lonely Street while struggling with an internal voice that keeps telling him that he is far better than he thinks he is. And glittery vampires, mollusks in hot air balloons a very well meaning mad scientist and a psychotic best friend amongst the most zombies you've seen

Because it's not just the one TBR pile now... It's like the TBR pile had babies and now they're breeding with other TBR piles. I open a cupboard and there's another TBR pile, I look on the floor and there's another TBR pile. I look under the bed and... ok, there isn't a TBR pile under the bed but I think it's only a matter of time before there is one. It's not neccessarily a bad thing, it's always good to have a little choice about what to read next, but I do need to start reading a little quicker. We'll see how that goes then but in the meantime, shall we take a little look at the books that found their way to my place this week? Of course we should... Can you tell that I've got a phone with a working camera now? Makes these posts a little easier on the eye...  ;o)  I've read a fair bit of Moorcock, in my time, but I've never read 'Warrior of Mars', not even when I had a copy a few years ago. The plan then is to change

Good morning and welcome once again to another post where I look at Doctor Who like it used to be in the days when colour TV was only just a thing; well... in my house anyway... So, 'The Five Doctors' was all about celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the TV show but as an eight year old, I had no idea about any of that. No, for me it was the culmination of several weeks of watching old Doctor Who stories (the BBC really pulled out all the stops) and really looking forward to seeing Tom Baker's Doctor again, only to see him shoved into a time vortex before the story had even got started.(because Tom Baker agreed to appear in the story then changed his mind, meaning the writers had to be extra creative...) It was still good though, here's some blurb from the Terrance Dicks novelisation that I used to have... A twentieth anniversary special featuring the Doctor in all five of his regenerations. Why are all five Doctors being removed from their separate ti

It has been one of those weeks and I am so glad that it’s over, done and dusted. I will hopefully have some actual books ready to be reviewed next week but in the meantime, lets round this week off with a comic book about a massive bloke cutting a swathe through Roman history with his sword. It can only be… Aquila! If you were reading 2000AD around the first half of the 2010’s, you would very likely have come across the ‘Aquila’ storyline. I seem to be incapable of collecting single issues these days and so prefer to wait for a cheap trade edition to catch my eye. This is how I first came across ‘Aquila’ last year. Having read ‘Aquila’ already, I knew it would be just the ticket to sort my head out after the week I’ve just had; reading a bit of faux historical ‘Sword and Sorcery’ fiction usually does the trick as a bit of a palate cleanser before getting into anything else. I thought I’d also see if I could be a little more critical of ‘Aquila’ this time round, instead of the ‘

Sometimes, the best films in life are the ones that you pick up in Sainsburys, on a complete whim, whilst engaged in the internal (and eternal) debate of what cheese melts best on a bagel. It was a lovely bagel by the way but I digress... I hadn't planned on watching 'Little Monsters' for a long time (until the price dropped on Amazon or until eBay threw up a cheapish copy, whichever came first) but it had been one of those days, one of those days that you can only put right by watching a zombie film and eating a melted cheese and marmite bagel. I am a man of simple tastes after all :o) So 'Little Monsters' it was then and I will admit to a little apprehension given that my last choice of zombie film was 'The Dead Don't Die' which was all style and no substance (and not really an awful lot of style come to think of it). It turns out that I needn't have worried too much. It wouldn't take an awful lot for any zombie film to beat 'The

The week is only a few days old and it’s already shaping up to be a bit of a bastard… I can’t wait for my day off on Thursday… So not a lot of time for reading big thick books, or short slim books for that matter, but plenty of time to be reading comic books instead so that’s what you’ll mostly be seeing here this week. Hope you don’t mind ;o) I’ll pretty much read any comic that comes my way but naturally gravitate towards Deadpool’s madcap (yet slightly tragic) self-awareness, The Goon’s childish humour and masterful storytelling, anything where the hero (or heroine) carries a big sword and, most of all, zombies. I love zombie comics. I love the way that, in the right hands, writer and artist can combine to create a dead landscape for some powerful drama to play out against. You know the series that I’m talking about, don’t you? Well, actually maybe you don’t. While ‘The Walking Dead’ is the series that caught everyone’s eye (and went on to, well… you know), there are loads

Tad Williams' 'The Burning Man' can be found in either 'Epic: Legends of Fantasy' (Edited by John Joseph Adams) or 'Legends' (Edited by Robert Silverberg). I came across it in 'Legends', far too long ago now to admit. I had finished re-reading 'Memory, Sorrow and Thorn', for the nth time, and was looking for something that would start me off on that long slow circle round to the next re-read (Have I ever told you how much I adore 'Memory, Sorrow and Thorn'? Well, I really do) 'Legends' was a bit of a lifesaver then; I can take or leave the 'Pern' books (still want my own dragon though) but loved Terry Pratchett and was pretty keen on reading some George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan for the first time. Best of all though? There was a whole new Tad Williams story that I'd never seen before. Even better than that? It was a brand new (to me) tale of Osten Ard. It was a lovely read, over far too soon, and now (fa

So I had a pretty busy weekend, lots of fun but very busy and that ended up meaning that I didn't get any reading done at all. Not one page. Once everythng finally quietened down yesterday evening, all I was in any state to do was watch something deliberately awful on Prime. I was going to watch 'House Shark' but figured there's only so much you can do with that concept and the run time was under two hours long... Not for me then. In the end, I settled on 'The Rezort', purely because I'd seen it before so could zone out a bit if I needed to. Not only that but I remembered it being a half decent film as well. Couldn't go wrong with that, surely... As it happened no, no I couldn't. DAY ONE: RELAX. DAY TWO: HUNT. DAY THREE: RUN Following a near-apocalyptic zombie outbreak, humans are once again in control. If an occasional rogue zombie finds its way into everyday life, it is quickly disposed of by the authorities. In this day and age, peop

Without going into loads of detail, I've found myself shedding books left, right and centre over the last few years. Sometimes I needed to lighten the load when I was moving from one room to another, sometimes the memories that inevitably get trapped in a book were too painful, sometimes I just needed some quick cash. Whatever the reason, I went from being a person who relentlessly hoarded books to someone who only kept the books that really mattered. Even that was far too many books but it didn't feel like it at the time ;o) This last week has been a bit of a funny one then as the books that I've found, in my semi regular trawl through various charity shops, have all been ones that I left behind, back in the day, and am now ready to pick up again. Bad memories fade and I'm settled enough where I am now that I'm not worried about having a few extra books around the place. So I picked up those books and here they are... 'The Book of Ultimate Truths' -

Long time readers of this blog (by which I mean 'since about a week ago', what?) already know that I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was tiny. They also know that I found a whole load of Doctor Who DVDs in an Oxfam shop, in Wimbledon, and am posting about them here. Now you know as well ;o) This week's Doctor is a bit of a favourite of mine (although not my absolute favourite, you'll meet him next week), the one and only Tom Baker. He was the first Doctor that I came across on TV, only to see him regnerate after a couple of stories (so that was pretty short lived). What this means is that there's a lot of Tom Baker's 'Doctor Who' that I've never seen, 'Horror of Fang Rock' being one of those stories. So when I saw it in Oxfam then, it pretty much bought itself and here we are... It is the turn of the century, and the TARDIS materialises by a lighthouse on the desolate isle of Fang Rock. When the engineer dies in mysteriou