Lord Samper's Library

Normally, I'd try and keep things going over Christmas but a couple of things have happened which means that I'm going to take a little break over Christmas and probably up to the New Year. First up, you know that I like to have a little moan about the amount of work that comes my way on an almost daily basis ;o) It's not actually the worst problem, in the world, to have but I'm exhausted to the point where little things are really freaking me out. I can't have that so I'm putting the blog down for a bit so I can recharge. Not only that though... With the help of my ex-wife and kids, all the books in my flat are now in the loft space, a little library if you like :o) My flat looks so different now and it's awesome, with all the books out of the way, things are feeling pretty palatial over here. The only thing is... I can't find the books that I've read (and put to one side to post about later) or even the books that I was reading. None of that is u...

I’m in the office today so my ‘Brian Keene Reading’ took me into the depths of the Kindle App rather than grabbing a book from the shelf. This worked out just fine today as I fancied reading something that I hadn’t read in a long time which, given my preference for reading actual books instead of off a screen, made the Kindle App to hunt through. I settled on ‘Take the Long Way Home’ in the end, mostly for that very reason. It has been so long since I read this book that I could remember the concept but very little else, apart from the fact that a lot of walking is involved… So, just like reading a brand new book for the first time then 😉 Let me tell you about it… All across the world, people suddenly vanish in the blink of an eye. From their cars during the rush hour commute. From the shopping malls. Their homes. Their beds. Even from the arms of their loved ones. Airline pilots. World leaders. Teachers. Parents. Children. Gone. Steve, Charlie and Frank were just trying to get home...

Today has been all about work, Christmas Shopping and trying to find out what Amazon did with one of my daughter’s Christmas presents (they certainly didn’t deliver it like they said they did, but anyway…) Some of these things were more successful than the others, I won’t say which… What there wasn’t a lot of time for was reading and that was the one thing I probably could have done with the most (just two more days until I’m on leave…) Luckily for me, I enjoyed ‘Ash and Anger’ so much (link to my review) that I went out, yesterday, and grabbed another two of Kloster’s ‘Age of Sigmar’ short reads as a little insurance against a day like today. And seeing as today really has been one of those days, I took every opportunity I could to have a quick read. Quick thoughts follow… ‘ Memories of Blood and Sand’   A warrior struggles to battle a rogue mage and his own history. When the Black Talons are tasked to assassinate a rogue mage in control of a powerful magical artefact, Rostus O...

It's looking a lot better than it did but my flat is still full of teetering piles of books and yep, I really need to do something about that; my half-arsed ideas about turning the attic into a tiny library might have to finally become a reality... In the meantime, it's still quite cool to know that wherever I am in my flat, I don't have to go too far to find a book to read ;o) All I have to do is reach a hand out and grab whatever's there. The other day, it was 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', just the read for a Graeme who was after something familiar but also something that he hadn't picked up in a while. And that's the last time, for this post at least, where I'll talk about myself in the third person ;o) Lets talk about ';Darkness on the Edge of Town'... One morning the residents of Walden, Virginia, woke up to find the rest of the world gone. Just . . . gone. Surrounding their town was a wall of inky darkness, plummeting Walden into pe...

Well, Christmas is finely poised to give me a kicking and I’ve still got five days of work to get through before I’m on leave. Can your favourite blogger (well, somewhere in your top ten… ok, top fifteen) make it through to Friday evening without snapping and unloading inappropriately placed wrath on an innocent bystander. We shall see… In the meantime, I’m starting off this week with a little Warhammer ‘short story action’, mostly because I didn’t put a book in my bag and needed something for the bus home last night. Not a bad choice as it turned out… Can anger and mistrust be overcome in search of common ground? 60 years after being exiled to the Broken Plains, Nyssa Volari and her family aim to conquer the settlement of Gowyn. However, before they do so they must gain the allegiance of a dangerous band of nomads. I’ll be honest, I’m not massively keen on vampires in my fantasy reading; they’re a little bit too full of themselves and don’t make for a particularly interesting ...

After a couple of years just doing my Christmas Shopping online, I thought I'd head into Bromley for the afternoon and do it 'old school'. Lets just say that next year, I'll be doing it all online again ;o) The toyshop in particular was just hell on earth *shudders* It wasn't all bad though as I got to visit a few charity shops and see what they had to offer as far as books went. Quite a few as it happened :o) Sometimes the pickings are slim but this time round, I was in luck and managed to find a few cool bits to take home with me. Fancy a look? Of course you do... Okay, it all started before I even left the house with a couple of 'payday treats' turning up in the morning. I'd heard word of a new 'Conan' book, on Twitter, so made sure I had me a copy, to be read possibly over Christmas (lets see what else is happening first). You're more likely to see 'Lord of Misrule' feature here first. I've had a hankering for some 'Slaine...

Yep, it's that time again where I almost convince myself that I'm not that old because I can post video clips on Blogger...  ;o) Technology and I get on because we have to but it has never been the smoothest of relationships. But anyway... Have a trailer for 'Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse'. I left it far too long before watching the first one, I won't make that mistake again... Look out for 'Across the Spiderverse' at the beginning of June next year.

I really enjoyed reading along with Brian Keene’s ‘Reader Recession Relief Programme’, a couple of months ago, and instead of hold off and wait for the next one (I hear there may be another one, I hope so), I thought I’d just carry on reading, albeit with some of the older books rather than my ‘go to’ favourites. They’ll get their turn, don’t worry 😉 This time round then, I thought I’d get stuck into another set of short stories and see what things are like… in ‘The Cage’… For the employees of Big Bill's Home Electronics, it's just the end of another long workday-until a gunman bursts into the store and begins shooting. Now, with some of their co-workers dead, the hostages are disappearing one-by-one, and if they want to survive the night, they'll have to escape... THE CAGE. We start off with the novella-sized ‘The Cage’ and damn… Without giving the end away, ‘The Cage’ is a pretty bleak old read but at the same time, one that is very easy to get into, given the ope...

In what is becoming a familiar refrain, today was a bit of a nightmare… Work was well… the least said the better and then this afternoon was a mixture of more of that and looking after my poorly youngest daughter. I am literally counting down the hours until my Christmas leave kicks in; the sooner this year is done the better. I still managed to make time for a little reading though because… you’ve got to, don’t you? For me, it’s the mental equivalent of taking a deep breath when things get a bit much. Take a step back from whatever is bugging you, get your head straight and go back to it in a better state. That and the fact that I just love reading 😉 A few years ago now, a number of things made me loose track of several fantasy series, that I was following, and I figured that now would be a good time to start revisiting these series again. One of these was the ‘Powder Mage’ trilogy and a look back at an older blog of mine shows that I was keen to see how it ended… I just can’t ...

There hasn’t been a lot of (well, any …) Guy N. Smith featured here, over the last few months, mostly because I went through a period of not being able to settle on anything to read and his books were amongst many that fell by the wayside. I’ve still been on the lookout for books of his though and while I’m still waiting for my copy of ‘The Island’ to arrive, ‘The Slime Beast’ made it through the blockade and given that it’s only a hundred and ten pages long… I thought it would be a good read for the bus to work (and back again). I had no idea how much fun this one would be though, definitely worth the time I spent keeping an eye open for a copy. A monster from Earth or beyond the stars? Members of an innocent expedition, in search of King John’s missing treasure, discover not the promised riches, but something far more insidious. For, in the wilds of the East Coast marshes, they encounter an alien creature of hideous strength – the slime beast; and it’s enemy is man. In the conf...

I’ve been all over the place today, heading into work when I really didn’t need to (long story) and then heading back across town to catch my youngest’s school play (which I absolutely had to do). Fun was had, chilli was eaten afterwards and work is slowly being caught up on. It hasn’t left a lot time for reading though, I’ve got a couple of books on the go and am planning on finishing one of them for a post tomorrow, but I did watch the latest episode of ‘Willow’ over the weekend (finally) so figured why not post about that instead? 😉 I’ll be honest, while I enjoyed the first two episodes, I’d completely forgotten that it was on and a new episode had dropped; which probably says a lot about this show and I. I watched ‘The Battle of the Slaughtered Lamb’ and… I don’t know, all of a sudden I’m not that sure… No sooner has Elora Danan got a little magic under her belt then she is kidnapped by Commander Ballantine under the orders of the Crone. The others must find her and enact a resc...

If this was a real advent calendar, well... I'd be opening it in completely the wrong order and there'd be loads of gaps where I just didn't bother opening the little windows at all. This is the Black Library 'Advent Calendar' Series though so it doesn't matter so much that I'm reading these out of order. Which I am, unashamedly so ;o) I last read something by Peter Fehervari way back in August 2020 and it stuck because it was really very good. So good that when I saw 'Aria Arcana' mentioned on Twitter, I took one look, thought 'I'll have some of that' and it was on my Kindle a couple of minutes later. And here we are, with that a tale that... I'm not sure... It's quick thoughts again as it's only a short story and well, let me tell you about it. This is the part of the review/post where I'll copy and paste a little blurb or if I'm feeling a little adventurous, sum it up myself. This time though, I can't because...

Well, there's a week that I'm glad to see the back of :o) As always, not a bad week, just an awful lot of it and only one of me to get stuff done. Oh well, only two more weeks like that and then I'm off for a week, I can't wait :o) In the meantime, I'm continuing to wait for books (that I've ordered) to come through the post while Royal Mail continue to prioritise shareholders over the actual people delivering the mail. I think you can tell whose side I'm on here ;o) A few bits and pieces have made it through though, along with some books that I saw in the British Heart Foundation shop and just had to have. Lets take a look, shall we...? It's been a while since I've picked up anything by Guy N. Smith and 'The Slime Beast' was cheap(ish) on eBay so... Here it is :o) And as it happens, I'm reading it right now so look out for a post sometime next week. I've been meaning to read 'A Crown for Cold Silver', for a long time, so fina...

I was in the office yesterday so needed a little light reading, on my phone, for the journey home (I managed to sleep the whole way into work which was a nice bonus). I’d usually go for a Black Library short story but realised that it had been an absolute age since I’d read anything by Robert E. Howard, ‘Conan’ in particular, so… A few minutes browsing Amazon later and I decided on ‘The Tower of the Elephant’, a story that I’ll admit, I wasn’t too keen on last time I read it but I knew the story and after the day I’d had… I wasn’t in the mood for anything new, I wanted something that I could read but not necessarily have to concentrate on too much. So that was my read on the way home, and for a few minutes after I got back to mine, and you know what? It was a lot better than I remembered 😊 I’m sure you all know the story but if you don’t… Conan is drinking in a particularly disreputable tavern when he overhears a conversation about the treasures to be found in the Tower of the Ele...

Sorry about the ‘blog silence’ yesterday… It was my youngest daughter’s birthday and when you add a full working day to that, there really wasn’t much room for anything else. Anyway… I’m here now so… Did I really just watch eight episodes of ‘Resident Evil’ just so I could see the giant crocodile in the season finale? And more importantly… Why didn’t I just skip the other episodes and go straight to the season finale…? These were two of the questions I found myself asking last night as the end credits rolled and I had to face up to the fact that I’d just wasted a lot of time working my way through Season 1 of ‘Resident Evil’. I guess that will teach me for trying to get my money’s worth out of the subscription and there’s also the fact that if there are zombies in it… you guessed it 😉 I also didn’t mind the movies that much (mindless, head exploding fun for the most part) so a rebooted TV show sounded like it could be worth a watch. Well, shows what I know…  Season 1 of ‘Resid...

I told you… This week is pretty much all about the short stories, mostly because DAMN work is kicking off pretty much constantly and I’ve got a million things that I need to get done before I go on leave at Christmas… I am really looking forward to Christmas 😊 Taking time out to read is pretty much essential, for my mental health, but there’s only so much time in the day and that’s where short stories come in. The Black Library short reads have got me through any number of morning commutes and lunch breaks where I’ve realised that I’ve left my book at home (which still happens far more than it should). Last night, it was the turn of ‘Transplants’ to get me through the awkward gap between turning off the work laptop and my pizza showing up… 😉 A trio of Cadian snipers from different backgrounds infiltrate a Chaos-corrupted city to assassinate their target. But what if their target already knows that they’re coming…? On the whole, I enjoyed ‘Transplants’, a fast moving tale of urba...

Well, as of tomorrow, I'll be trying to catch up with work from last week as well as all the stuff that is already building up for the week ahead. That'll teach me to take a half day of sick... dammit :o( I think it's fair to say then that we'll be looking at shorter books and a couple of films over the next week then. Lets see how we do. Short reads don't come a lot shorter than Brian Keene's 'Jack's Magic Beans' collection which weighs in at just below the hundred page mark. Don't let that fool you though. This is a book that packs a hell of a punch and ended up being just what I needed (and not just because it felt like the natural 'next book' to read after having a lot of fun with 'The Complex', a great example of an apocalypse not needing a concept to make it work, sometimes shit just happens). There is a lot to be said for short stories that come in, do their job and leave you feeling like you need to check over your shoul...

Well, not that long but it feels like it's been ages since I've done one of these posts so that's what I'm going with ;o) If only that meant I hadn't been buying books but... I have, I really have. My inability to pass up a Guy N. Smith book on eBay, or any one of a number of old school fantasy reads is as much of a problem as ever but the postal strikes have meant that hardly any of them have made it to my doorstep... Not yet anyway. You can expect a massive book post this time next week but in the meantime... A few have shown up though, three to be precise, and one of them because I found it in a charity shop. Lets take a look, A speculative look in the Red Cross shop ended up with my coming home with a copy of 'Stormrider' and now my 'Rigante' collection is complete, I can't really put off the re-read any longer. So yep, there will definitely be a 'Stormrider' post, you just might have to wait for it a bit. And 'Goblin'... I...

I still love zombie movies (the good and the bad, all equally) but up until the other day, I'd more or less burnt out on zombie TV. I fell out of love with 'The Walking Dead' at Season 7 (and it doesn't feel like I've missed out on much?) and ducked out of 'Fear The Walking Dead' when it felt like that was headed in the same direction. The less said about 'The World Beyond', the better... 'Z Nation' started off looking good but was a little too jokey for me. I was looking for that sweet spot in the middle but secretly thinking it would never happen... Until the other day when I started watching 'Black Summer'. I won't go over it again, you can find my thoughts down the page or by clicking Here , but I loved the first Season of Black Summer' so watching Season 2 was pretty much a formality. I didn't expect to get round to it quite so quickly but I had time on my hands last night and for most of today so... Four months hav...

I wouldn’t count this week amongst my favourites but we got through it and it’s almost done. I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to a lie-in tomorrow and catching up with some unfinished books 😊 It hasn’t been the best week for reading, very much one of those weeks where you peck away at your books as and when you can. Thanks be to Black Library then for their range of ‘Short Reads’, a teeny bit overpriced but very much what I turn to when I have half an hour spare and want to read something that I know I’ll finish. If you’ve been around these parts recently, you’ll know that I’ve got a real thirst to read anything in the original Warhammer Fantasy ‘Old World’ setting. Well, I’m dipping in and out of a few at the moment (just to see which one I will stick with) but those ‘Short Reads’ came to the rescue once again and I’ve actually been able to finish a couple, this time about an ogre mercenary captain, a premise that had me intrigued because, well… I thought ...

Nope, not that one. I still need to watch 'Stranger Things' (even my eldest daughter has seen more of it than I have) but that's one for another time. Welcome to another one of those occasional posts where I end up coming across like I do nothing but watch TV. If only that was the case, but anyway... I still haven't got over the novelty of Netflix but still managed to find a little time to hop over to Disney+ and try and justify my subscription. The end result was my watching two very different shows, let me tell you about them... 'Black Summer' – Season 1 I never made it all the way through 'Z Nation' but enjoyed it enough that when I remembered that 'Black Summer' was a thing, and on Netflix, I was definitely up for giving it a go. That and there were only eight fairly short episodes to contend with in the first season. So that's what I've been watching this week and... I really enjoyed it. 'Black Summer' is a very different...