Lord Samper's Library

This week is still being 'one of those weeks', almost done though, and my reading choices continue to sit very much at the 'Comfort Reading' end of the scale. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that at all ;o) Sometimes, there's far too much going on and I don't want to tax my brain with a big read, I'm after something that's there purely to entertain and keep my 'reading muscles' (you know what I mean...) gently exercised. Books like 'Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth' for instance. I had a little read last night but while I'm trying to get my head round ITIL V4 (the exam is tomorrow), I'm going to let 'past me' tell you all about the book; he was after a comfort read too ;o) The full review is Here , if you fancy a read, but all I'm cutting out here is the introductory paragraph really (and adding some blurb instead). Everything else is more or less the same as it was back in early 2014... Oka

  Page Count: 186 Pages November 21st 2059, and Bowie Base One - the first human colony on Mars - is destined for destruction in a nuclear explosion. This tragedy is a fixed point in history. The Laws of Time dictate that it cannot - must never - be changed. The Doctor arrives just as a viral life-form escapes from the Martian ice into the base's water supply. A single drop can transform a human into a terrifying monster with the power to infect others. History records that the threat is destroyed along with the base and every human in it. But as his darkest hour comes calling, the Doctor resolves to break the rules as he never has before... I’m always on the hunt for cheap ‘Doctor Who’ DVDs and was lucky enough to find a copy of ‘The Waters of Mars’ in my local ‘Cancer Research’ shop the other day. It’s an episode that I don’t watch nearly enough, given how much I enjoy it when I do. Water zombies (not literally but, you know what I mean), the Doctor having an existential cr

Every now and then, I get the urge to do something that I absolutely loved as a kid, have a regular subscription to a favourite comic book. You’re wondering which one, it was ‘The Victor’; crammed full of ‘True Stories of Men at War’, Westerns, a little sci-fi and memorably, a story about a giant owl trained to hunt down and eat the enemies of its owner. Now there’s a story I’d love to track down again, but anyway… The sense of nostalgia is still there but other demands on my time mean that I start off with all the best intentions, fold around issue 6 and then, somewhat shamefacedly, end up buying the trades instead. Titan Comics’ ‘Conan The Barbarian’ is the latest comic to catch my eye, lets see how I go with it. Issue 0 has it’s own post over Here , let’s talk about Issue 1… Issue O introduced us to Conan (like we didn’t already know who he is but I guess it’s only polite), Issue 1 introduces Conan to the enemy he will be fighting over however many issues it takes to deal with a

I told you I wanted to have all my Clark Ashton Smith posts in one place ;o) Thanks for bearing with me by the way, last week was a bit of a nightmare and this week looks like promising more of the same so there may well be a few more posts like this. I'll make sure that they're all good ones though, it's the least that I can do ;o) That's enough of that. While I go and have a think about original posts for this week (time permitting, there are a couple of things I'd love to post about), have some thoughts on 'The Holiness of Azedarac' from way back in 2014. The full review is Here  but there's only a quick introductory paragraph that I haven't included here. All the good stuff is below... 'By the Ram with a Thousand Ewes! By the Tail of Dagon and the Horns of Derceto!' said Azédarac, as he fingered the tiny, pot-bellied vial of vermilion liquid on the table before him. 'Something will have to be done with this pestilential Brother Ambros

My exam revision isn't going well at all but I still have to not only do the exam but pass it as well so... You're going to see a few more posts like this over the next few days; recycled but still hopefully worth the read ;o)  I was looking through another, older and defunct, blog of mine and came across a little cache of Clark Ashton Smith posts; it's been a while since I've read these particular short stories but I wanted all of these posts in one place so I'm taking the opportunity for a bit more 'lazy posting' that gives me time to get my head round ITIL all over again... If you want to read the bits where I just waffle on about trying to find a copy of 'Emperor of Dreams', you can read the full review over Here . If you want to read 'The Charnel God' (and you do, even if you don't realise it just yet), you can do that over Here . In the meantime, here's the post itself... "And all who die within the walls of the city are sa

Well, I was going to hold off (re)posting this old review, for a couple of days at least, but I've got a hell of a lot of revision to get through this weekend and I really wanted to post something today so... Here we are ;o) If you fancy reading the whole review, and wondering at how optimistic I sound (past me has some particularly shitty years on the horizon, I'll let him enjoy himself  for a bit longer), you can find it over Here . For the rest of you, here's the slightly abbreviated version ;o) Just watch out for the italicized opening paragraph, it's a little bit spoilery...  The province of Averland has fallen to the insidious taint of Chaos that Ludwig Schwarzhelm inadvertently helped to thrive in the fractious city of Averheim. When Chaos threatens, the Empire responds with brutal force and a vast army, led by the Grand Theogonist himself, marches on Averheim to purge the unclean and restore Imperial rule. Ludwig Schwarzhelm is also on his way back to Averheim w

After the blog went on hiatus, I really wanted to get my ‘reading mojo’ back so went to my shelves for books that I knew I’d enjoy. So if you’re looking for an objective review then, maybe come back tomorrow 😉 Also, yesterday was intense and today looks like more of the same so I’m recycling an old review from elsewhere ( Link ) that still manages to sum up how I felt about the book after this latest re-read. Either I wrote it with my future-self in mind or it takes an awful lot to change my mind about a book… Either way, the bottom line is that ‘Sword of Justice’ is worth picking up if you ever happen across a copy. Let my past-self tell you a little more about it. Ludwig Schwarzhelm is the Emperor’s strong right arm on the outskirts of the Empire; scourge of any other race that seeks to take the Empire for itself. When faced with the machinations of Empire itself though, Schwarzhelm’s reliance on the ‘Sword of Justice’ to settle any and all arguments could well be the sign of a na

  I did a lot of reading while the blog was on hiatus and on the whole, I loved it; it was great to feel like I was reading for pure pleasure again and you’ll hear all about it over the next few weeks. At the same time though, it really struck me how little mileage there is in sticking with a book that’s really not working for you. I mean yeah, there are times when you have to stick with it (says the man with an exam in a week) but the whole point about reading for fun is that you enjoy it, especially if life is throwing stuff at you at the same time. What does that mean for this blog? Well, you’ll see a lot more of me being enthusiastic about my reading and every now and then, you’ll see a post like this where I stopped reading a book and moved onto to something that I’d enjoy. This time round, I didn’t finish reading Steven Erikson’s ‘Wilful Child’. These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant t

It’s been a busy few days with not a lot of time for reading; my birthday was a highlight and work, well… you can guess ;o) I haven’t been up to much in the evenings then so took the opportunity to try and make a bit of a dent in my watch list on Prime. Let me tell you about what I’ve been watching. Well, some quick thoughts on what I’ve been watching, at least one movie ended up far too forgettable for its own good. ‘ Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves’ (2023) A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people in this hilarious and action-packed adventure. ‘ Honour Among Thieves’ and a hefty dose of pizza made for the best way to spend a birthday afternoon. Maybe a little dark in places, for the youngest member of the party, but there was so much else going on that it wasn’t a big issue. I loved it, especially that cameo, even if it wore its ‘

It feels like I’m way behind already but it would be more surprising if I was up to date ;o) Oh well, everyone has to start somewhere. This is the ‘Free Comic Book Day’ edition but you knew that already didn’t you ;o) I completely missed FCBD this time round (long story…) so I see this comic as more of a ‘four quid off eBay’ edition but it’s not a huge deal. I’m a big fan of ‘Conan’ comics and while the Marvel run wasn’t all that bad (he says, purposefully ignoring the ‘Conan/Avengers’ series…), I had a better feeling about Titan taking over and was keen to see how it went. And… In the style of, I suspect, most FCBD books, ‘Conan #0’ is a tightly told tale that sets up Conan for future adventures, having the famous sack of Venarium awaken a desire for adventures beyond familiar horizons. I won’t lie, I did wonder if this approach was really needed, given how well known Conan is by now. If you’re picking up a Conan comic at this point, you know his motivations and probably just want

My landlord has had enough of being a landlord (I'm not a bad tenant but I can't blame him to be honest) so my flat is on the market and I'm trying to make my book collection a little more portable for when I finally have to leave. Not the way I wanted to learn the 'Don't Have So Many Books' lesson but, here we are ;o) My habit of picking books up, wherever I find them, and then sticking them in the loft to 'read later' has led to a few surprises found in the stacks. Books like 'Jandrax' for instance... I don't think I'll be reading it any time soon but cast your eyes over that cover and you'll totally get why I picked it up and brought it home with me. Pardon the camera flash, turns out that I'm still awful at taking photos ;o) Isn't that just gorgeous? Kind of makes me wish that cover art was still like this, there's a real sense of 'I'm a sci-fi book and I don't care who knows' that you just don't se

I couldn't stay away... ;o) It turns out that despite everything else going on, there's still a little part of me that wants to keep writing about what I'm reading or watching so... I'm going to indulge that part of me and see where we end up. I'll be honest, don't expect to see a post every day; at least not yet. I've got a stack of 'read books' that I'll take you through over the next few weeks but life is still a little demanding over here and I don't want this blog to burn out before I really get going ;o) A post every few days, that seems do-able so that's what I'm going for. What can you expect to see? Hopefully, all the stuff that you liked reading last time round ;o) I'll be recycling old reviews (from old blogs) but as usual, only where I've recently read the books in question. And everyone else is covering new books far better than I ever could so I'll stick to the older stuff, there are gems to be found if you d