Lord Samper's Library

After a particularly heavy week, it's finally annual leave time. Go me! :o) Most of the week is going on keeping the kids entertained so I'm not too sure what the blog will look like over the next few days. Lets see, shall we...? In the meantime, today saw the kids at Dover Castle (with friends) so after a half successful attempt at sleeping in, thanks downstairs neighbour, I thought I'd catch up on a little 'Doctor Who'. I've still got a few that I haven't watched, yet, but I thought I'd finish off the 'Ace Adventures' box set and watch 'The Happiness Patrol'... On the planet Terra Alpha, bright fluorescent lights and garish candy striped colours abound. The population constantly display happy smiles. There's no sadness on Terra Alpha. Anyone feelng remoely glum disappears and quickly. Having heard disturbing rumours, the Doctor and Ace arrive to topple the entire regime overnight. But they haven't reckoned on the varied punit...

After yesterday's post on 'The Empire of the Necromancers', a little chat on Twitter pointed me in the direction of two other tales, of 'Zothique', that should be read at the same time. Now, my prior reading of Clark Ashton Smith's work (I haven't read a lot but I'm getting there) hinted at an inclination to give the narrator an easier ride than the villain of the piece. Bad things happen but there is some kind of natural justice (Karma? I don't know) that will shield bystanders from the worst of the fall out. Reading 'Empire' was a bit of a shock then in that the best you could hope for, from that 'natural justice', was that you got to die all over again; for good this time but even so... Evil will fall but it will also take much that is good with it. That's pretty dark then and I found myself wanting more of that (it has been one of those days...) so I thought I'd give 'The Isle of the Torturers' a go and see what ...

Trying to read anything this week has been like having teeth pulled, drawn out and really painful. There are reasons why but nothing worth bulking out a paragraph for ;o) It has just been one of those weeks where reading is a painful business, which is annoying at the best of times but even more annoying when I'd promised myself that I'd do more book posts... Yeah, that went well. But anyway... It's times like this where I tend to end up reading more short stories, just to keep myself ticking over as it were. It has also been ages since I read any Clark Ashton Smith so off I went to my copy of 'The Emperor of Dreams' and picked out the story with the most eye-catching title, 'Empire of the Necromancers' it was then... The legend of Mmatmuor and Sodosma shall arise only in the latter cycles of Earth, when the glad legends of the prime have been forgotten. Before the time of its telling, many epochs shall have passed away, and the seas shall have fallen in t...

If you’ve been around these parts for a while, you’ll know by now that I have a real weakness for horror anthology films. I will watch them wherever I find them, no matter how bad they look. ‘Southbound’ has been on my radar for a while now but I’ve never quite managed to get round to watching it, until a couple of days ago when a refund on my phone bill and the DVD being on offer coincided in the happiest of ways 😊 And because it’s me, I bought the DVD only to find that StudioCanal have made the whole film available for free on YouTube… Seriously, here it is, I’m not going to say too much about the film then as you can watch it for yourself 😉 What I will say is that while there’s no real ‘overt horror’ here (well, a couple of moments that made me jump but no much else), the creeping sense of dread, and general ‘whatthefuckery’, really made this film work for me. Most horror anthologies  have at least one ‘dud’ effort where you watch it and say to yourself, ‘well, at least the ...

I’ve seen a fair bit of ‘Doctor Who’ in my time and I pretty much grew up on the Target novelisations, as a kid, but I’ve never really tapped the comic book side of things (I read ‘The Only Good Dalek’ and ‘The Dalek Project’ years ago now but nothing else) so when I saw a couple of ‘Doctor Who’ comic books for sale, at the Hilly Fields Fair the other week , I snapped them right up. I had to really, they were only a quid each and it’s always fun to find out what happens, to the Doctor and his friends, in between what we see on TV. The only ‘slight’ problem with my ‘trying to save a little money’ approach is that you never know quite what you’re going to end up until you’re reading it. This time round, I jumped into the adventures of the Tenth Doctor at Volume 5… Trapped in the Arena of Fear, and with their memories wiped, the Tenth Doctor and Gabriella Gonzalez, along with their friends Cindy, Cleo, and even Captain Jack Harkness are forced to battle against one another – to the deat...

I really want to get more book posts in this week so thought I’d kick things off with a short story as it feels like ages since I’ve done one of those (the last one was 'The Fall and Rise of the House of the Wizard Malkuril' back at the beginning of July). It’s been even longer since I read any Michael Moorcock (there’s something about ‘the Revenge of the Rose’ where I just can’t get into it) so I thought I’d combine the two and I ended up reading ‘The Time Dweller’. I found it in ‘Breakfast In The Ruins And Other Stories’, I don’t know where else you might find it.   Dusk had come to the universe, albeit the small universe inhabited by Man. The sun of Earth had dimmed, the moon had retreated and salt clogged the sluggish oceans, filled the rivers that toiled slowly between white crystalline banks, beneath darkened, moody skies that slumbered in eternal evening.   I don’t think it’s any coincidence that just after the title, Moorcock choses to lead with an opening parag...

 If you have ever wondered why you never find any interesting looking books in charity shops (well, in Lewisham, anyway), I'm a little bit embarrassed about it but have to confess that it's all because I generally get there first. If I'm halfway between A & B and see a charity shop along the way, I have to stop off and have a quick browse through the bookshelves. I won't say that I can't help it (because I probably could) but that's how it ends up more often than not. I love not knowing what will be on the shelves, there could be nothing worth picking up at all... or there could be something amazing. You never know until you look. This week's post is all about what the British Heart Foundation shop (in Lewisham town centre) threw my way when I popped my head round the door. I don't know when I'll be getting round to these books, I've got a lot of other books to get through first, but I fond some good ones over the last few days. Lets take a l...

A lot of my posts seem to be starting with 'Sorry, but this is going to be a quick one...' Guess what? Today is no different ;o) On top of work, the girls are on summer holiday now so things are going to get busy over the next few weeks. No work today, of course, but I was out of the house for a large chunk of it, having a look at the Wildlife Photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Hence this being a quick post, hope you don't mind ;o) It's a Saturday so it's time to look at another 'Classic Doctor Who' of yesteryear, this time with added Daleks... London, 1963, and the Doctor returns to Coal Hill School with his new companion Ace, where he has unfinished business. His oldest foes, the Daleks, are on the trail of Time Lord technology – an artefact the Doctor himself left behind on Earth. Enlisting the assistance of the local military, the Doctor must protect the Gallifrey an secret of time travel as two opposing Dalek factions meet in an exp...

With Brian Keene and Bryan Smith’s ‘Suburban Gothic’ being released at the end of the month; I thought it would be a good time to look at the two books that are going to feed into this new arrival. I’ve already had a few things to say about Brian Keene’s ‘Urban Gothic’ and you can read my review over Here ; now Bryan Smith’s ‘The Freakshow’ gets it’s moment, and what a moment. I’ve spent the last couple of days reading ‘The Freakshow’ and I think I’ve got my head round it, lets see if I can do it justice… The Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow has come to the quiet town of Pleasant Hills, Tennessee. But this is no ordinary sideshow and these are not the usual "freaks" on display. As the unsuspecting townsfolk gather for an evening of strange spectacle, the slaughter is set to begin... ‘The Freakshow’ took a little while to get into but once I was there… Well, it was just brilliant. I was creeped out and freaked out in equal measure and it was so much fu...

I had loads of reading plans for this week until all the 'End of Year' review stuff took over and laughed right in the face of my TBR pile... It's ok, it happens and it's all done for another year; just makes for a really stressy week in places, like last night for instance... There I was, trying to get all my review notes into the HR system and I'd just about done it when my laptop decided to do the electronic equivalent of scribbling all over my work and then running off giggling. I swore loudly and long :o) And then, before going back and having another go, I decided to watch 'Guns Akimbo' first. I'm not a massive fan of Daniel Radcliffe's films but I've got a lot of time for the lengths he will go to in order not to be only remembered as Harry Potter (by appearing in as many different films as he possibly can). This one apparently involved him running around with guns screwed and/or nailed to his hands. I couldn't say no, could I...? ;o)...

It has been far too long since I last read 'Urban Gothic', something that became all too clear when I saw the cover for 'Suburban Gothic' and realised that I had no idea who was on the cover... (I found out later that it was Scug and the son of Noigel but the damage was done, I used to just know stuff like this). The Deadite Press edition of 'Suburban Gothic' is due to be published at the end of the month so I thought that now would be the best time for a re-read of 'Urban Gothic', as well as a first time read of Bryan Smith's 'The Freakshow'; just to get myself up to speed for the two books coming together in 'Suburban Gothic'. I tossed a coin to decide on which book to read first and 'Urban Gothic' it was... No one gets out alive! When their car broke down in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood, Kerri and her friends thought they would find shelter inside an old, dark row home. They thought it was abandoned. They thought t...

I've got my end of year review later on this morning, an event that's never as bad as I expect it to be but still plays on my nerves like a harp. It'll be fine, I keep telling myself, but anyway... It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to get much reading done last night so I thought I'd take my mind off things with a couple of movies instead. One that I'd seen before, a few times actually, and one that was 'The Dark Tower' ;o) Both 'Overlord' and 'The Dark Tower' seemed like light(ish) fare that would take my mind off things and they did. Let me tell you all about them... 'The Dark Tower' (2017) The last Gunslinger, Roland, has been locked in an eternal battle with the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in epic battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black... Right at the e...

It's going to be a bit of an odd week, this week, kicking off with my Year End Review tomorrow. They never turn out as bad as I expect them to but it always kicks my anxiety up a few notches while I'm waiting for the meeting with my boss. Any plans that I had for reading over the weekend took a bit of a hit then (plus I was playing Roblox and watching 'Delta and the Bannermen' with my eldest, priorities and all that) so I'm moving another 'Doctor Who' post into today instead. I hope you don't mind ;o) I'll see if I can get a couple of books read this week as well... It's always a bit of an odd feeling when I look back at these stories and realise that a story that still feels fresh in my head is a lot older than it has any right to be, you know what I mean. Like 'Dragonfire' for instance, a quick look (at the back of the DVD case) shows that it aired midway through my first term at high school and is approaching its thirty fourth birthda...

I always look forward to the Hilly Fields Fair, even more so this year after last year's event had to be cancelled, it's a lot of fun with loads to do for pretty much anyone who goes. Little mini petting zoo, dog show, fairground rides, you name it really. For me, most of the fun lies in... you guessed it, rooting through the bric-a-brac stalls and seeing if there are books that catch my eye ;o) And it turned out that this time round, there were more than a few books that caught my eye. I don't know if it was just luck of the draw or if everyone was having a big ol' clearout after the last year and a bit; either way, I did very well out of it thank you very much :o) Let me show you... I have 'The Silmarillion' and 'The Two Towers' already but these books were only 30p each and the covers look lovely, I couldn't say no :o) I've never read (or owned) 'Roverandom' though so it had to come home with me, no question about it. I might read it t...

I think out of all the incarnations of the Doctor, Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor is probably my favourite; Peter Davison is 'my Doctor' but there's something about the glee in the Fourth Doctor's eyes, and his flair for the dramatic, that keeps him in top spot. At least for now, anyway... ;o) With that in mind then, it's a little embarrassing how many of the Fourth Doctor stories there are that I haven't seen. I thought I ought to do something about that and after watching 'Planet of the Spiders' where better to start than with 'Robot', the first story of Tom Baker's tenure as the Doctor... Mortally weakened by the Spider Queen on Metebelis 3, the Doctor is forced to regenerate. His recuperation is cut short as UNIT investigate a spate of robberies involving components for a top-secret disintegrator gun. The culprit is quickly identified as a highly sophisticated robot built by Professor Kettlewell, which is being ordered to act against its...

Where does the time go...? I can't believe that it was November of 2019 when I read 'The Black Hawks' but it was. Apparently, time flies when you’re in a pandemic, but anyway… If you were around when I read ‘The Black Hawks’, you’ll have a good idea about how much I’ve been looking forward to reading ‘The Righteous’. If you weren’t, that’s ok, here’s my Review . I was really excited to get going then and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting reacquainted with Chel, Prince Tarfel and the Black Hawks. Was it time well spent though? Of course it was, why would you even ask? It was awesome from start to finish, and what a finish… Bound by oath and honour, Vedren Chel found himself drawn to the heart of a deadly rebellion. With him stood the mercenaries of the Black Hawk Company, who were only ever in it for the money. But the uprising failed. Now, Chel and the sell-sword Rennic languish in prison, watching as their comrades are taken one by one for execution. A dari...

Yep, I know... I'm coming in at around about the time everyone has finished talking about 'Loki' and is in the process of starting to look forward to whatever MCU show is next. My broadband threw one hell of a tantrum, these last couple of days, and I've only just caught up with my work. So here I am, grasping frantically for something new to add. Or you know what? I could just have a bit of a rant instead, couldn't I? I could... I've really wanted to enjoy 'Loki' and I did (a bit) to start off with. As time went on though, the show started to dawdle and considering this season was only six episodes long... You can't do that, you just can't. But they did and so I went into the last episode of the season, really hoping that a big old rabbit was about to be pulled out of the hat... And it wasn't, unfortunately. Consider this small paragraph your regular spoiler warning for what is about to happen over the rest of this post. For those of you w...

I love 'Deadite Press' cover art (I have a lot of their books on my Kindle and it's really annoying how it my Kindle jumps straight to the story instead letting me spend some time with the artwork first...) so while I'm waiting for the last episode of 'Loki' to turn up, I thought we could take a look at the cover to a book that I have been waiting for a long old time... It's been too long since I last read 'Urban Gothic', and I've never read Bryan Smith's 'Freakshow' (I need to do something about that before 'Suburban Gothic' lands), so I have no idea who these two are... My initial impressions are that 'pumpkin headed guy' either really likes being on the cover (look at that little smile!) or that he's keen to get to fucking people up with that tree he's carrying... Either way, he's going to have a great time, you can tell ;o) The other one? I'm calling them 'The Ringmaster', for now, and they...