Lord Samper's Library

One trap that I think every blogger falls into, at least once during their time, is that we never seem to find the time to go back and re-read our old favourites. Think about it, we’re all on a reading journey and that means moving forwards all the time; whether that’s reading the latest ARC or reading an older book that you’ve never tried. There doesn’t seem to be the time to look back or maybe there is, tell me that I’m wrong, I’m feeling a little sad about it all   But anyway… I’ve always thought that life is too short to be reading books that I don’t enjoy and if it feels like hard work then I’m clearly doing something wrong   And those old favourites aren’t going to read themselves so… Here I am. I loved ‘Broken Honour’, back in the day, and now that  I’d finally found another copy , it was time to re-visit it and see if it was the book that I remembered.   The armies of Hochland are at breaking point. Beset on all sides by the feral beastmen, the safe...

Yes, it's the book with the better title and the better cover than its 'Leisure Fiction' edition... Okay, I didn't mind the title 'The Conqueror Worms' ('Earthworm Gods' is the clear winner though) but the cover art was just dreadful, nowhere near as good as what we have here). Being almost a little too much into reading series in order, there was no way that I was going to be able to read that copy of 'Earthworm Gods II', I found on eBay, without reading 'Earthworm Gods' first so... here I am kicking off another week of blogging here with one of my favourite Brian Keene books. And yes, I've kind of given the game away a little but let me tell you a little more about 'Earthworm Gods' and hopefully you'll see why I enjoy it so much. Quick thoughts though, I'm afraid. Work is going to be interesting in the morning so should get some sleep at some point... ;o) One day, it starts raining-and never stops. Global super-sto...

That's what today will be :o) After the last week at work, I'm pretty sure I deserve it. I've got some books that I'd like to catch up on, maybe a little telly to watch and... that's it ;o) What books are you dipping into this weekend? Books continue to turn up at my place far faster than I am able to read them. I really need to stop buying books every time I have a rough day at work, it would certainly free up some room in my flat! But anyway... While we're here, we may as well take a look at the latest batch to arrive; a few from eBay and a few from a favourite bookshop of mine... I've been looking for more 'Gotrek & Felix' books so when I came across these two on eBay, I had to have a little bid and ended up winning the lot. 'Shamanslayer' leads straight into 'Zombieslayer' (which I also have, somewhere...) so will probably give that a go first.  And 'Spear of Shadows'... I didn't have a lot of luck with this book t...

Page Count: 310 Pages. Well, yesterday did its level best to deny me any reading time but I sure showed it who was boss. Me that's who, I was the boss ;o) After having enjoyed Matthew Edge's adventures through the web strewn landscape of 'Breeding Ground' (review Here), I wasn't go to leave it too long before reading the sequel so as soon as I'd finished with work, I ordered myself some takeaway and settled down for an evening's reading. While you're here, let me tell you all about it. London streets that were once filled with pedestrians, tourists and shoppers are now clogged with thick webs and dead bodies. Spidery creatures straight out of a nightmare have infested the city, skittering after their human prey, spinning sticky traps to catch their food... A few desperate survivors have banded together, realizing that their only hope for survival is to flee the dying city. Their route will take them through wrecked streets, into an underground trai...

It's been out a couple of days but I missed it then so it still feels like it's new... ;o) I'm still very excited about this movie (despite the very strong 'Guardians of the Galaxy' vibes), fantasy needs to be fun sometimes and not just grim and dark. 'Honor Among Thieves' looks like it could be just that, Not long to wait either, just a few weeks now...

Yesterday suddenly got very busy, very very quickly, so any plans I had of finishing 'Feeding Ground' had to be put to one side while other stuff got done first. It's looking good but I need to finish it first before I'll know for sure. I reckon you'll see that review on Friday, but anyway... ;o) Where did that leave me in terms of a post for today...? Well luckily, my HBR pile is still in a little bit of credit from Christmas so I had a few books to choose from. In the end, I went with 'Krieg' and it's promise to shed a little more light on the mystery of its faceless armies. Nothing too in-depth today I'm afraid, work is looking rather hideous today so I need to make sure that I'm in a decent state for that. For now though, lets talk 'Krieg'... Krieg is a dead world. Fifteen hundred years ago, it declared its independence from the Imperium of Man, and paid the price. One loyal soul defied its treacherous rulers, and laid the world to ...

Page Count: 339 pages. It's not just zombie books that I will drop everything for, now it's giant spiders too. What's not to like about giant spiders trashing the scenery or doing that thing where you think everything's ok until you see a giant spider leg uncurl behind some poor unsuspecting soul... Nope, giant spiders are great; it's the little spiders living in my bathroom that creep me out. But anyway... I actually read 'Breeding Ground's' sequel, 'Feeding Ground', a long old time ago and it's taken me all the time since to find a copy of 'Breeding Ground' for a price that didn't make me wince. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places but... I got there in the end :o) I was so pleased, when the book came through the door, that I didn't even hang around for the 'Books for the TBR Pile' post, I just got straight into the business of reading. Let me tell you all about it... Life was going well for Matt an...

Next to my bed is this massive pile of comic books that I've been meaning to read for a long time but, as will be no surprise to you, I somehow haven't managed to get round to. You know how it is etc etc... ;o) This year then, I decided to make a conscious effort to finally pick up some of those books and get stuck in. This makes it even funnier then (to me, anyway) that I'm starting off proceedings with a book that never even got to sit on that pile, not once. I enjoyed reading 'Weirdworld' back in November and hearing that there was a sequel, grabbed a copy off Amazon. And that's when the postal strike kicked in... By the time it arrived, the other day, I'd pretty much forgotten that I'd ordered it but didn't hang around too long before (finally) cracking it open and getting stuck in... Becca has found herself on Weirdworld and has only one mission, get home alive. But will her new gig as apprentice to Goleta the Wizardslayer aid that quest, or ...

Page Count: 304 Pages I’m not sure where the weekend went but it’s somehow Monday afternoon already, damn… It wasn’t a bad weekend but definitely a busy one; one that very much had a big bearing on what I read. I’m really enjoying going through all my old Brian Keene books so that narrowed the field down considerably; the only other thing was that given the amount of free time I had over the weekend (not a lot at all), it had to be a quick read that didn’t fuck about (not that Keene’s books fuck about, I needed something that did it’s job and didn’t hang around). Well, that narrowed the field down even further, all the way down to just the one book… Larry Gibson longed for something different from his days as a dock worker and his lonely nights spent drinking with his friends. When Larry meets Sondra Belov, a beautiful exotic dancer, he finally gets some excitement in his life, too much excitement. Now, Larry's friends are dying and he's on the run from the cops, the Ru...

The hunt for books never ends, even though it probably should, given the size of my flat and the fact that I don't read as quickly as I used to... Something to think about then but in the meantime, another week has gone by and here I am, more books ;o) I've said it before but as much as I love regular bookshops, I really enjoy heading into charity shops and seeing what's on the shelves. There are no surprises with what's on the shelves of Waterstones but you never know what you'll find if you head into the Red Cross or British Heart Foundation shops and that's what I love. There might be nothing worth picking up or... you might find something very cool. Which is what I found this week, lets take a look... I already have a copy of 'Characters from Tolkien' (which is the same book, different title) but I've always been after a copy of 'A Tolkien Bestiary'. Now I've found one and it only set me back £2, so not really a set back at all ;o) I ...

Yep, I know, I did say that I’d probably be stopping the Black Library short story posts; the price of the eBooks was verging on the prohibitive and it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of other short story collections that I could dip in and out of. That was until yesterday though when I woke up late for work, dashed out of the house and was halfway to New Cross before I realised that I hadn’t packed a book… I do have the Kindle App though so a short browse through Amazon later, I managed to find a couple of short reads to get me to work. Let me tell you about them. Quick thoughts though because they’re (very) quick reads   ‘The Dead Hours’ – David Guymer In Shyish, the dread realm of Death, all must pay the Bone Tithe… but no one has told Gotrek Gurnisson that. When his aelven companion Maleneth is taken to pay Nagash his due, Gotrek swears to seek her captors and rescue her. Woe betide any – living, dead, or in-between – who dare stand in the path of his wrath. You can’t ...

For someone who says he doesn't do 'reading resolutions'... Here comes another one. Yep, I know... I've got a really bad habit of buying armfuls of books, with all the best intentions of reading them, and then shoving them up a corner when something new and shinier appears. Not this year though! My target is that for each armful of books that I bring home, I'll try and read at least one book as soon as possible after the inevitable 'Books for the TBR Pile' post. We'll see how that pans out but for now, it's a resolution that has taken me to the 'Finally Arrived' books and 'War of the Daleks' in particular. My purchase of 'War of the Daleks' really was born out of wondering whether it was a book that I'd actually read or if my head was making the whole thing up (it's not like it hasn't happened before). When I realised that it was an actual book, I immediately bought it and the last few days felt like just the ri...

I didn't get a lot of reading done over Christmas but I did manage to read a few books so, while I'm reading 'War of the Daleks', it's time to dip into the HBR (Has Been Read) Pile and see what's what. Christmas was all about re-reading old favourites so it'll be no surprise to see another Brian Keene book feature here. This time we're all about a small American town dying a particularly grisly death in 'A Gathering Of Crows'... Brinkley Springs is a quiet little town. Some say the town is dying. They don't know how right they are. Five mysterious figures are about to pay a visit to Brinkley Springs. They have existed for centuries, emerging from the shadows only to destroy. To kill. To feed. They bring terror and carnage, and leave blood and death in their wake. The only person that can prevent their rampage is ex-Amish magus Levi Stoltzfus. As the night wears on, Brinkley Springs will be quiet no longer. Screams will break the silence. Bu...

Page Count: 333 pages (and I read 202 of those pages so I'd say that I gave it a fair go) I'm not one for 'New Year's Reading Resolutions', mostly because I'm awful at keeping New Year's Resolutions anyway but also, reading is meant to be fun and setting targets around my reading isn't something that I enjoy. If that's your thing then fair play to you but I'm just not a 'read x number of books by the end of each month' kind of guy. So not a resolution then but I have decided to go a little easier on myself and make this year the year where I don't force a read if it's just not working. I don't have a lot of time for reading so why waste that time on a book that I'm not enjoying? And where better a place to start than with a book nestling deep in one of my favourite sub-genres...? Let's talk 'Age of the Undead' and why even zombie books sometimes don't work out for this reader. When Knight Alaric von Mert...

Two weeks back and it already feels like Christmas was a lot longer ago than that, how are you guys handling that? Are you missing Christmas or are you secretly quite glad that's it all over? I volunteered to get rid of my ex's Christmas tree, and I'll be doing that later on today. so Christmas isn't quite over yet :o) The park, near her house, has this thing where you can leave your Christmas tree there and the council will take it away and... I don't know actually, whatever they do with Christmas trees, once the season is over, I guess. I'm pretty sure it involves a wood chipper :o) Anyway... While I'm dragging our Christmas tree up a hill, to the park, you get the easier job, checking out the books that have found their way here over the last week. There were a few ;o) 'Track of Words' has swiftly become my place to go for all things Warhammer so when I saw the review for 'Witchbringer' , I knew it would be worth me picking up a copy for ...

 I love this cover. That is it, that is the post :o) Just look at it... I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Justice of Kings' (review Here ) which makes 'The Tyranny of Faith' an absolute must-read when it hits the shelves in February, just before payday dammit... Oh well, here's some blurb in the meantime, A Justice's work is never done. The Battle of Galen's Vale is over, but the war for the Empire's future has just begun. Concerned by rumours that the Magistratum's authority is waning, Sir Konrad Vonvalt returns to Sova to find the capital city gripped by intrigue and whispers of rebellion. In the Senate, patricians speak openly against the Emperor, while fanatics preach holy vengeance on the streets. Yet facing down these threats to the throne will have to wait, for the Emperor's grandson has been kidnapped - and Vonvalt is charged with rescuing the missing prince. His quest will lead Vonvalt - and his allies Helena, Bressinger and Sir Radomir - to the...

It was a day in the office today so I treated myself to a couple of Black Library short reads that I could zip through, on the bus, and still have time for a quick nap before my stop. I’ll be honest though, you might not see too many more of these posts from me… The quality is still there (kind of, more about that down the page) but the stories feel like they’re getting shorter, or Black Library are padding things out with more unnecessary extras, and I’ve realised that I’m getting to a point where I’m asking myself if financially, it’s worth continuing to pick these books up. It’s not like I don’t have other stuff to read in the meantime 😉 I’ll probably change my mind by this time next week but it’s worth thinking about. Anyway… I grabbed myself copies of ‘Rotten to the Core’ and ‘The Trial of Lucille Von Shard’, let me tell you about them. ‘Rotten to the Core’ – Sandy Mitchell (Black Library) Commissar Ciaphas Cain and his faithful Jurgen undercover a malign psyker seeking t...

Page Count: 181 Pages Just recently, pretty much all my reading has been 'low page count' stuff. Nothing against those chunky books you understand; time constraints have been a big factor recently so when I saw that there was a new edition of 'The Mist', I jumped on that one pretty much straight away. And then being me, I promptly went and lost it in the middle of a 'flat wide' book rearranging exercise... Yep, I know... Well, I was rooting around in the loft last night, trying to tidy things up a little, and there was 'The Mist', all sat on top of a pile of books without a care in the world. I had some time on my hands so grabbed the book, before it could hide again, and settled down for a read... A man staggered into the market . . . 'Something in the fog!' he screamed Following a freak summer storm, David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbour Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies....