Lord Samper's Library

We're getting to that point of the summer holiday where we're trying to cram as much as we can into what's left before the kids go back to school. And it's been good today, I took my youngest on a little journey round the Natural History Museum and to the 'Comic and Book Exchange' at Notting Hill Gate. Lets just say that she was more impressed with one than the other, I'll let you guess which was which... ;o) It didn't leave a lot of time for reading though. Funnily enough, it feels like I'll get more reading done when I go back to work tomorrow (and the kids go back to school). Luckily though, I had a 'Warhammer 40K, Quick Read' on my Kindle, waiting to be read, and here I am, ready to share some thoughts on the whole thing. I've always had a soft spot for the Chaos Marines who are in it for nothing more than to glorify their patron gods by just doing what they do. The World Eaters are an obvious example and I do love my fighty little ...

Happy Bank Holiday if you're lucky enough to live somewhere that does Bank Holidays and you don't have to be at work today. If you're not, or you do have to be at work today, erm... sorry about that. Maybe just pretend that this post starts at the next sentence or something ;o) It's only been a couple of weeks since I last did a 'Doctor Who' post but somehow it feels like a lot longer. Well, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy... Half the fun in these posts is going round the charity shops, and second hand music & DVD places, and seeing if there are any 'Doctor Who' DVDs that I haven't covered yet. Given how long the show has been running for, you'd think that there would always be something 'new' for me to pick up but it always seems to be the same old stuff that I keep running across. So when I saw 'Kinda' on sale for a quid, I had to quickly grab it before someone else did ;o) I was all of about six years old w...

Just to be clear, I've got nothing against cats in general; I think they're quite sweet and everything. It's just the cats that I'm looking after while my friends are away, they're the ones that I have a bit of a problem with and mostly because they've suddenly decided that pooping in the litter box isn't for them any more. Oh no, while I'm here they've got no problem with pooping wherever the need takes them and leaving it for me to find and clean up. And coughing up hair balls as well, the little dicks... Having said all that though, one of them did kill a massive spider and leave it on the kitchen floor me. Possibly, a peace offering, I'm not sure... Anyway, rant over ;o) Maybe I'm not such a cat person after all... Books though? I'm definitely a book person and as luck would have it, the last week was a good one for coming across interesting books during my 'charity shop trawls'. It was all comic books this time which is cool,...

I say 'Movie Night' but it was more like 'Movie Morning', watching telly and eating bacon rolls, it was glorious... :o) I've been house-sitting and giving my mates cat his insulin injection, twice a day, and it's safe to say that one of these activities has been going better than the other one. I am pretty sure that the cat took it's revenge by throwing up and tracking it's vomit around the house (the little shit), I'm going to be so glad when my mates get back... But anyway. It hasn't been all bad :o) My mates have Netflix so I took the chance to tick off a couple of movies that can only be found there. And here's what I thought of them... 'Army of the Dead' (2021) Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted. I loved Zack Snyder's 'Dawn of the Dead' (even more than the original Romero film, s...

It hasn't been a bad week but it has been a week where a little break in my routine has led to a lot of self doubt kicking in and my brain asking those questions of me at all the wrong times (and drawing conclusions that feed into a vicious circle of shit quite frankly). Am I good enough? Do I deserve to be in a decent job? Am I doing everything I can for my children? Don't worry, you don't have to answer all that by the way ;o) I'm just venting a little. By the time yesterday came round then, I needed to stop and distract myself with some reading that I knew I'd enjoy and my TBR pile had just the book for me. I've been looking forward to Brian Keene and Bryan Smith's 'Suburban Gothic' for a while now, long enough for me to re-read 'Urban Gothic' and read 'The Freakshow' for the first time. Both are excellent horror novels (you've already read them, I reckon, but I'm going to recommend them anyway) that not only tell a co...

I'll be honest, there's a large gap in my 'Hellraiser' movie experience, namely almost every movie between 'Bloodline' and 'Judgement' (which I reviewed not so long ago ). I've just never come across them to watch, especially now I'm getting all middle-aged and have discovered that there's only so much I'll pay for a DVD... ;o) What is happening to me? Anyway... All those slightly harder to get hold of 'Hellraiser' movies look like they've been reissued so I thought I'd grab a couple and see how I went with them. That couple ended up being 'Hellworld' (which I've never seen) and 'Hellseeker' (which I had seen but that was years ago and I didn't have a copy so...) Yesterday was a bit hectic (one day back at work and loads to catch up on) and I couldn't settle on a book so after watching yesterday's 'What If...?', I thought I'd have me a little movie night... 'Hellworld' ...

It’s been a hell of a week this week, who would have thought that giving a cat insulin injections could be so traumatic for all concerned…? Not me but I learned, oh did I learn… But anyway. What with everything, the fact that it was suddenly Wednesday totally escaped my attention until Twitter started to make noises about it being ‘What If…?’ time again. I feel like I’ve earned this one… 😉 As always, the title is a massive spoiler for what the story is about but what do you expect from a show like this? 😉 The good news though is that the title doesn’t give away too much more than that and there is a lot more going on here than you’d think. I’ll try not to give too much away then but I’m not making any promises at all so be warned before you keep reading, you might just want to give the show a quick watch before you read on. If you’re still here, let’s go shall we…? It is a bad time to be one of Earth’s mightiest heroes… The Avengers haven’t even teamed up yet and already, someone...

 Me watching the trailer for 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'... 'Damn, poor Spider-Man...' 'He called Dr. Strange 'Stephen'...That's adorable' :o)  'Hang on...' 'Wasn't that...?' 'Isn't that...?' 'Does that mean...?' 'OH MY GOD IT'S HIM!' What a time to be alive ;o) I still haven't got round to watching the last 'Spider-Man' film but now I'm going to have to so that I can get all caught up and ready for Christmas when 'No Way Home' drops. It's going to be amazing :o) Oh yeah, here's the trailer if you haven't seen it already ;o)

If I'm posting about the latest book in a series, I'll usually go back to the last post to remind myself what has already happened and how I felt about it. That was the plan before starting on this post and so I scrolled back, back and back again... It hasn't been that long since I read Volume 30, has it? It has, you know. I read 'New World Order' back in February last year and then nothing since. To be fair, there has been plenty of other stuff happening. But anyway, we're here now and I'm off a mind to polish off Volume 32 in no short order after I have a few things to say about 'The Rotten Core', I'm not leaving it so long before reading the next book (even though everyone has finished 'The Walking Dead' and moved on to whatever is currently cool). So lets go :o) Before we talk about the book itself though, a little lesson in 'try before you buy'... My copy of 'The Rotten Core' was only a pound and I thought, I've...

It's an early post today as I can't sleep at all right now... It's for a good reason though :o) After seven years of trying to clear overdrafts and loans, I am finally debt free as of last night and am riding high on all sorts of feelings about this. Relief mostly :o) It feels like the final door has closed on a particularly shitty point of my life (although can you call sevenish years a point? I don't know...) and I can move forward now. Getting some sleep would be a good start ;o) But as cool as all that is, you're here because you saw 'Books for the TBR Pile' in the title and thought you'd have a look. Don't worry, we're almost there ;o) I took a day off, all to myself (I thoroughly recommend you all do the same every now and again), last week and a large chunk of it was spent visiting some favourite bookshops of mine. My cash card took a bit of a beating but that's ok as a one off, I haven't been to Notting Hill Comic Exchange in a co...

By the end of yesterday, I was more than ready for the weekend... Not a bad week at work but as ever, loads to do and only one of me to do it all before my leave next week. Oh well, I did what I could and I'm pretty sure that I haven't left anything that can't wait until I get back (fingers crossed...) I wasn't in any real state for reading though but that was ok as I went to see 'The Suicide Squad' last night and followed it up with 'Godzilla vs Kong', over breakfast, this morning. Both films were just what the Doctor ordered, albeit for very different reasons. Okay... Both of them were filled with explosions but apart from that.. ;o) Which film should I start things off with? 'Godzilla vs. Kong' I'm starting off with 'Godzilla vs. Kong' as although it is a lot of fun to watch, it's also lightweight to the point where it would float off in a stiff breeze. It doesn't give you a lot to write about but you know what? That...

'Born on a battlefield, trained to be a warrior, destined to be king, he rode from the north, searching for adventure and dealing death to any that stood in his way. His name was preceded by legend and none could stand against his strength and cunning. Adventurer, Pirate, Barbarian... His name is Conan!' I'm no scholar of Robert E. Howard (not in the least bit actually, I just enjoy the stories) but I've read enough 'Conan' stories (books and comics) by now to have a decent idea of what works and what doesn't. It's pretty much 'every Conan story by REH works and the rest kind of work to varying degrees' ;o) I've still to find out how Robert Jordan's 'Conan' stories work (I can't quite bring myself to try these, am I missing anything special?) and until recently, I hadn't read any of Roy Thomas' original 'Conan the Barbarian' comic book run either. I don't know why, I'd heard good things but just never ...

I still know next to nothing about Marvel's 'Eternals' (outside of what the first trailer told me) but I'm very much up for it if this trailer has left some good bits for the actual film... Go on, take a look. It's somehow heartening to see that no matter what happens in the multi-verse, there's always a Jon Snow and that Jon Snow knows absolutely nothing ;o) A fixed point in all timelines... 'Eternals' will be with us in November, which isn't that far away now... Where has this year gone?

'The coat. It was elegant. It was beautiful. It was so close that he could have reached out and touched it. And it was unquestionably his .' It has been far too long since I last read 'Neverwhere' so I'd totally forgotten that the Marquis de Carabas had even lost his coat, let alone that he needed to get it back (which of course he would have had to, it's his coat ). But while I was looking for a little treat (to sweeten the prospect of going back to work after my holiday) I saw this title and it wasn't enough to know that the Marquis got his coat back, I needed to find out the 'how' as well. So I grabbed a copy and read it pretty much as soon as it came through the door (but not before realising that I already had the story in my copy of the Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin collection 'Rogues', oh well...) It turned out that a short trip back to London Below was just what I needed; in fact it was almost like I'd never been away. G...

After being a little bit disappointed by 'Loki' (sorry but I was...), all it took was one episode of 'What If?' to have me fall in love with the MCU all over again. Which is really ironic given that the events of 'Loki' set the scene for all these 'What Ifs' to play out across this suddenly expanding multiverse. Basically, it really doesn't take a lot to get me back on side; I'm easily swayed ;o) All of a sudden then, this week's 'What If...?' was suddenly a 'must see' thing and that was pretty much the first thing I did when I got back after a day's book-shopping and museum visiting (which was lovely, by the way, but that's another post entirely). As always, the big spoiler is in the title but that's given me a little to throw spoilers around in the post itself. I mean, if you already know what the episode is going to be about... Just so you know though, you might want to go away and watch 'What If... T'Ch...

I watch enough of the stories, I figured it was past time I read a few as well... ;o) 'The Three Doctors' is another one of those books that made it into the 'August TBR Pile' as I've been picking at a few pages here and there... It was way past time that I finished it, especially as it's only a hundred and twenty seven pages long (this will be a short post then...) so on the pile it went and I polished it off last night (hunting mice at my ex's house, but that's another story). If you're a certain age, you'll know what I mean when I say that the Target novelisations were a life saver to me when I was a kid. I'd already missed a lot of 'Doctor Who' by the time I was old enough to realise that it was a thing on TV, and the BBC hadn't got round to releasing the stories on video, but the Target novelisations helped me fill in the gaps as well as going on to become one of those nostalgic, warm and fuzzy childhood memories that we al...

'A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...' I know I said that I hardly read science fiction (and I know I said it yesterday...) but 'Star Wars' is so much it's own thing now that it's hardly science fiction, is it? Yeah I know, I'm really pushing it here but I don't think of 'Star Wars' as science fiction, I think of it as, well... 'Star Wars', this amazing adventure story that just happens to be set in space. Well, that's what I'm sticking with anyway ;o) Being of a certain age, I'm all about the original movies. Nothing against the Prequels or the 'Skywalker' trilogy, they were fun but not made for me (and I think a lot of people would feel a lot happier if they just realised these movies were made for the kids that middle aged us once were). The original movies got there first, funnily enough, and that was that. It's weird to think that there was a time when all we had was those three films and a few boo...

It's that time of the month again where I'm just on the wrong side of payday and am feverishly 'clock watching' in the vain hope that time will somehow speed up and get me over the line quicker. You know what I mean don't you? Of course you do ;o) Oh well, it could be a lot worse... I just recently completed my third year in my current job and it is still really nice to have that stability after being long(ish) term unemployed. When you look at it like that, waiting a couple more days to get paid suddenly doesn't seem that bad. I still wish payday would hurry itself up and get here though (I've got a day off to look forward to as well...) Being that time of the month then, the book hunting has slowed right down to a crawl but it hasn't stopped entirely though, it never does ;o) Just a couple of books, this time round, but one of them is awesome so that's ok. I'm sure the other one is too but, I've never read it... I watch a lot of sci-fi but ...

Thank goodness that week is over, that's all I'm going to say other than that by about eight o'clock last night, I was ready to settle down and watch a little 'Doctor Who' (which may well be the most middle aged thing I've ever said, I'll have to check). I had a Twitter poll set up with a choice between 'Genesis of the Daleks' and 'The Leisure Hive' but that ended up in a dead heat with nothing between the two choices/ Okay, by 'dead heat', I actually meant that no-one voted at all... It's ok though :o) It had been years since I last saw 'Genesis of the Daleks' (ten years, this post is making me feel old) so I thought I'd give it another go and see how it had held up in the meantime... The Time Lords have foreseen a time in which the Daleks dominate all other lifeforms in the universe. So disturbing is this possibility , that they break their own Laws of Time in an attempt to change the future. And who better to send ...