Lord Samper's Library

It's been ages since I've read anything by Tom Lloyd, years in fact. I don't know how that happened as I enjoyed reading 'Stormcaller' but life well and truly got in the way and the next thing I know, it's years later and I'm wondering where the time went. Damn... Anyway... 'The Twilight Reign' series may be beyond me now (a bit gutted about this but the fact is, I'm just rubbish at finishing big series) but Lloyd has written other series since then and I thought I'd check one of those out instead. I'll be totally honest, what swung it for 'The God Fragments' series was 'The Man With No Name' only being £1.99 on Kindle and also only being 68 pages long. I'm all about the quick reads these days so I bought 'The Man With One Name' and started reading... I'll talk about it in greater detail a paragraph or two down the page but what I'll tell you now is that when I finished 'The Man With One N...

The end of the half term holiday is starting to loom large now so this is probably the last 'Fighting Fantasy' review that you'll see here for a while, at least with my kids playing through a book. I've got a couple left ('Appointment with F.E.A.R' and 'The Shamutanti Hills' in case you were wondering) but will leave these until we have at least a good couple of hours spare for a good read-through. Bearing in mind that I'm back at work (well, sitting downstairs with my laptop but you know what I mean...) next week, as well, it will be a while before I get round to doing another one of these. With that in mind that, what better way to temporarily bow out than to talk about 'Deathtrap Dungeon', my joint favourite adventure ('Forest of Doom' is the other one) and, I'm willing to bet, the book that springs to mind for most people when they think about 'Fighting Fantasy'. Same rules as before, no dice and an overly leni...

I've got about four books on the go at the moment but had no time yesterday to make headway on any of them. That's just how it is when you have two young daughters who enlist you to help turn the back garden into a venue for a cafe, it's hard work getting everything just right and that's not counting dealing with the invasion of snails (which gave me flashbacks of reading 'Breeding Ground', thanks for that Shaun Hutson...) Hopefully I'll find a little time for reading later on today (after the cafe's grand opening of course) but in the meantime, I found a few minutes (last night) to read Chris Wraight's latest Black Library short story. You've probably heard a little too much, by now, about how much I enjoy Wraight's work so I'll try and tone that down here. Suffice it to say that when I heard there was a new Horus Heresy short story to be had, I was all over it. And it's not just any old short story either. Oh no, this one...

I don't know if it's an English thing, a generational thing or just a 'me thing' but I've never really been into Westerns. I read the first installment of 'Nunslinger', way back in December, last year, and I think that was the first time I've ever read a Western; I'll watch 'The Magnificent Seven' if it's on but I'm the kind of contrary guy that prefers to watch 'Battle Beyond the Stars' instead. So what am I doing here, having just read 'The Magpie Coffin' and gearing myself up to tell you how great it was (sorry, spoiler...)? It's that Wile E. Young, that's who it is... I've enjoyed what I've read of his work and when I saw mention of a 'splatter Western', I knew I had to have it on my Kindle. And so I did. It took me a little while to get round to reading 'The Magpie Coffin' (homeschooling during Lockdown is a nightmare for the likes of me, the girls are refusing to let me ...

I'm no Lovecraft scholar; I know what I like of his work and I very much disagree with the man's views on race, that's about the size of it really. I do enjoy his work though, dry as it is (I think Lovecraft's vision of mankind set against gods who barely notice our existence far surpasses his ability to tell it on the page), and 'The Colour Out Of Space' is a favourite of mine so when I heard it was going to be adapted into a film, I knew that I'd be watching it sooner rather than later. Well, 'sooner' finally came round, I watched it last night and it was great. 'It came from the stars, where things aren't like they are here... 'Color Out Of Space' follows the Gardener family, whose recent retreat to rural life crumbles when a meteorite crashes into their front yard. The mysterious rock melts into the earth, infecting both the land and the properties of space-time. Mutant technicolor flora start sprouting, and local ...

I won't lie, my original plan was to buy a few Fighting Fantasy books and get all nostalgic, during Lockdown, while the kids were asleep. Little did I know that they'd both end up really getting into it. I don't get to read to them nearly enough (I don't live with them) so they're enjoying that and there's also the fact that they've never read anything like it before; a book where they get to have a direct influence on how the story pans out. The slight (and it is very slight) downside is that my own reading has fallen to the wayside while I read these books to them... Small price to pay though ;o) 'Forest of Doom'  went down  a treat the other day and I was going to follow it up with 'Deathtrap Dungeon' (my own personal favourite) but the vote went against me. They wanted 'Island of the Lizard King' so 'Island of the Lizard King' it was... As with last time, there was no dice involved (I really want them to get into...

One of my resolutions for this year was to try and follow more comic books to their natural conclusion (or to whatever event Marvel has planned this time round, whatever comes first). I'm tired of being that guy who picks up a story, a couple of years later, and finds that he's missing a whole load of backstory. From now on, I want to be in on it right from the start... This means that Skottie Young's run on 'Deadpool' (all of three trades...) marks the first time that I managed to read a Marvel 'run' all the way to the end. Erm... yay me? The reason for the question mark is that I'm a little perplexed that Young's run didn't go on for as long as I thought it would. Skottie Young and Deadpool are a writer and 'hero' partnership that are just made for each other with Deadpool being the ideal vehicle for Young's humour. Maybe it was only ever going to be three trades worth, who knows? I hope Young comes back to this title, in ...

*Sings* It's the weekend and I'm not at work, it's the weekend and I'm not at work, it's the weekend and I'm not at work... :o) It hasn't been the worst week ever but I've earned the leave that I'm taking next week. Totally earned it. And to mark the occasion of my first annual leave since Christmas, I went a little nuts on Amazon... Okay, to mark the occasion of my first annual leave since Christmas and the fact that I got paid last week, I went a little nuts on Amazon. Have a look at what's been turning up on the doorstep ever since... I'm not going to lie, I have no idea why I bought 'Conan the Mercenary'... I think I may have just been really happy that I'd been paid :o)  Anyway... It's here now so I guess I'll be reading it at some point. I've been putting off reading 'The Shepherd's Crown', because I've got a horrible feeling that I'll get really sad at the end, but bowed to the i...

A long time ago, and on another blog entirely, I said I'd revisit a few Fighting Fantasy books and post a little about them. That blog died before I got round to writing anything but this blog is in pretty rude health so I thought to myself, why don't I post something here instead...? I owe Fighting Fantasy books a great debt, not least because they gave me a way out of a childhood that it seemed, more often than not, I wasn't cut out for. I was a shy, awkward kid who was a bit rubbish at making friends and if that wasn't bad enough, games lessons were an absolute nightmare. When I opened a Fighting Fantasy book though, I was so much more. They were the first books where I really identified with the main character because... it was me! :o) I had adventures and made a fortune in gold pieces and treasure, killed an impressive amount of monsters too. I won't lie, I sometimes kept a finger on the last entry (just in case I died) but who didn't? If you rea...

I feel like a bit of a cheat following up a Black Library short story with another Black Library short story but, in my defence, it has been one hell of a day. I was working until 2am this morning, grabbed a few hours sleep then got up and did it all again, only this time I had to pretend that I was awake and that I knew what I was doing... It's over and done with now though and if that wasn't enough, I've looking right down the barrel of a week off work. I'm not going anywhere (who is?) but I am going to sleep lots. It's all good. The other thing that attracted me to this particular short story (and the last one to be honest) is that it's focussing on probably my favourite Chaos god and the Warhammer 40K. Nurgle, the happy god, the god of spreading all kinds of grim diseases but doing it in his own sweet time because, hey, everything dies in the end doesn't it? When life pushes me too hard, I often cast an envious look at Nurgle, a god who works to ...

Work has been giving me a right kicking this week; not in a bad way but very much in a ‘not giving me time to do anything else but sleep once I’ve turned my laptop off’ kind of way. That’s the way it goes sometimes and, if the rumours about recession are true, I’m just glad to have a job to be honest. It’s a good job then that I have a few Black Library short stories, lurking on my Kindle, and it’s even better than one of these is by my favourite Black Library author, Chris Wraight. Wraight had covered many areas of the Warhammer 40K universe and I’ve been there for most of them. Today will see me cover an area previously unread; the Death Guard Traitor Legion and their mission to spread the many diseases of Nurgle across the galaxy, and fight stuff at the same time… Lystra is a hive world, with a population of billions… or at least it was. Now Lystra is a corpse, overrun by the walking dead, with just a small force of Astra Militarum and a handful of Space Marines defendin...

Or 'Piranha Sharks' depending on, I don't know... where you watch it? You won't want to watch it more than once so just be aware that this film is doing its thing under an alias... It's been a tough couple of days, what with one thing and another, so last night was all about choosing the most brainless thing I could possibly find and just letting my brain unwind a bit. Now, as someone who has seen 'Hard Rock Zombies' more than once, it's surprisingly difficult to find something truly awful to watch. As someone who has seen 'Jurassic Piranha' though, I knew it would be just what I was after. And it was, it was awful but when that's what you're after, can you really complain? Great white sharks bio-engineered to be the size of piranhas with the purpose of living in rich people's exotic aquariums terrorize New York City when they get into the water supply and do what great white sharks do best. Now I'm a fan of a co...

It really doesn't feel like it was December last year when I read 'The Life and Death of Conan, Book One' but apparently it was ... Sometimes it really does feel like we've had a year's worth of crap happen in the last five and a bit months. But anyway... 'The Life and Death of Conan, Book One' was a happy reminder that there is life after Dark Horse's superlative Conan collection and that Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar and Gerardo Zaffino are the team to put your money behind. Sorry Mr Duggan, if it's any consolation though it was a close run race. So I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I mean, we all know that Conan won't die (especially now he's with Marvel, he'll probably end up being a teacher to the next group of young mutants...) but the fun is in the journey and not the destination. So then, lets take that journey... The many loves of Conan! Beyond his lusts for ale, battle and gold, there have been many wome...

I've got a feeling that this week isn't going to hang around and it's going to be a bit of a nightmare trying to keep up... It's a good job then that I have a couple of short stories in reserve that I'll chat about this week (while I try and keep the demands of work and two young children in check, wish me luck and pray that I don't end up having to teach fractions again...) The past week, or so, has seen me reading a few of the Black Library short stories, filling in gaps in the 'Horus Heresy' storyline that I didn't even know were there until I started reading these short stories. It used to be that I'd have a right old moan about the Horus Heresy series and its uncanny ability to dig deep into my wallet and bleed it dry. These strange days though, I'm just grateful for some extra stuff to read, especially when it's by Aaron Dembski-Bowden and it's about the World Eaters Legion. I love those angry guys and I love anything wr...

Well, today was going to be about a bit of Conan and then it was going to be about whatever film I ended up watching last night. As it turned out though, I slept pretty much all of last night and spent this afternoon playing 'Deadpool School' with my six year old daughter... Time definitely well spent but I've ended up with absolutely nothing to post about today... apart from the books that I've bought this week that is ;o) It's a little late in the day but better late than never, right? I had a couple of particularly stressful days, over the last week, and as we all know, when that happens I inevitably find myself trawling Amazon to see what the latest Kindle deals are. I really need to find a less expensive way of de-stressing...  There were deals (of course there were...) and there were a couple of other books that I liked the look of as well. Let me introduce some of them to you... 'Elric: The Fortress of the Pearl' - Michael Moorcock No blurb ...