Lord Samper's Library

Only a couple of films to talk about today, mostly because work took up a larger chunk of the day, than normal, but also because I'm doing a spot of pet sitting while my ex-wife is away with my daughters. What's that? Oh yes, one cat and one rabbit; both of whom normally get on but they're both in heat right now and have decided to stay away from each other until all that dies down. Very sensible of them, the cat in particular learned lessons that no cat should ever have to learn... Anyway. Sorry, had to get that off my chest ;o) This post is meant to be about films so lets talk films! One 'first time viewing' and one 're-watch' coming up... 'Lord of Misrule' (2023) A priest begins a desperate search when her daughter goes missing during the village harvest festival. Secrets surface and lead to more questions about this seemingly perfect village, the answers lie within the black barn... Jim Reddy (definitely check out his blog if you haven't alr...

Page Count: Four Pages I found this story in L. Sprague De Camp’s ‘Swords & Sorcery’ collection, which I was lucky enough to pick up for a couple of quid in Halcyon Books. Given what copies of this book go for at the moment (I had a quick look and, damn…), your best chance of reading ‘Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller’ is to either find it in a Lord Dunsany collection or to click Here . Either way, it’s a ten minute read (if that). I’d never really thought of Lord Dunsany as a writer of ‘Sword & Sorcery’ so seeing this tale nestled cosily in a ‘Sword & Sorcery’ collection piqued my interest right away. And at only four pages long, I couldn’t really say no, not with a couple of longer books on the go as well. So… was ‘Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller’ a ‘Sword & Sorcery’ tale? And just how distressing was it? Let me tell you… When Thangobrind the jeweller heard the ominous cough, he turned at once upon that narrow way. A thief was he, of very high ...

Page Count: 298 Pages. If you’re after reading ‘The Lord of the End Times’ then you’ll need to find yourself a copy of ‘The End Times: Doom of the Old World’ collection. I missed the ‘End Times’ series, last time round, and those books are now very expensive to get hold of (although I was lucky enough to find a copy of ‘The Lords of the Dead’ collection at a decent price and promptly reviewed ‘The Fall of Altdorf’ ) so when Black Library (re)released ‘The End Times: Doom of the Old World’, I was all over it. Nothing against the other factions of the Old World but I’ve always been most interested in how the men of the Empire and Bretonnia fared against, well… everything else. So it was then that I skipped every other story and went straight to ‘The Lord of the End Times’ for a pivotal battle and what came next… As the dread armies of the Everchosen march unabated across the desolation of the Empire, the mighty lords of distant lands look to take advantage of the growing crisis. In Nagga...

I'm fully aware of how old this is going to make me sound but damn my arthritis was giving me some grief yesterday, today as well :o( I'm mostly quite lucky with it, it only pops in once or twice a year to say hello, but when it does turn up, damn it hurts... I did have vague plans for yesterday but they were all cancelled and replaced with painkillers and a comfort read instead. 'What comfort read was that?' I hear you ask ;o)  Well... 'Ladyhawke' of course.  I've already reviewed the film over Here  and because this was a comfort read (and my mind was never going to change on it), I'm enlisting the help of 'Past Me' who wrote a post, on the book, about ten(ish) years ago. Don't judge me, my arthritic knee hurts... ;o) If you want the original post, it's Here . I've made a couple of small changes, nothing that you'd notice though (I'm just being fussy). Here goes... Captain Etienne Navarre is a man on whose shoulders lie a cr...

Page Count: 162 Pages Life really isn’t about finishing as many books as you can but after the week I’ve had at work… It’s really nice to be able to finish something that I’ve started. I’m celebrating this one ;o) ‘The Great White Space’ has been sat on various TBR piles for far too long and after a couple of ‘Paperbacks from Hell’ that really hit the spot, I figured that it was time to finally sit down and see what ‘The Great White Space’ was all about. What I wasn’t expecting was to finish it as quickly as I did. Seriously… I was so into the plot that I even skipped my regular ‘nap on the bus home’ to get a few more pages read. That should tell you all you need to know but stick around for a little longer, I’m going to keep going ;o) Frederick Plowright, a well-known scientific photographer, is recruited by Professor Clark Ashton Scarsdale to accompany his research team in search of "The Great White Space," described in ancient and arcane texts as a portal leading to the ex...

  Page Count: 29 Pages. A short post today because I’ve got a hell of a lot on at work and… Well, the page count for ‘The Abyssal Edge’ is a big hint… When an archivist uncovers an unthinkable truth, he comes to the attention of the First Captain of the Night Lords, the dreaded ""Prince of Crows"" himself. Terrified yet enrapt, Ulatal listens as Sevatar tells him a tale that cannot exist in any Imperial archive. It is a tale from the world of Zoah, of the moment when Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red almost went to war... The plan was to have ‘The Abyssal Edge’ on hand for the commute into work but I had a couple of beers last night and an Aaron Dembski-Bowden short story felt like it would complement the drinks nicely. And… So it did. For someone who you’re led to believe had it all worked out, the Emperor of Mankind really wasn’t much of a father to his sons. While they all had a purpose to fulfil, they were ultimately too human to really get that job done,...

Page Count: 284 (and a half) pages And the ‘Discworld Re-Read’ continues at its meandering pace ;o) This isn’t so much ‘working my way through the books’ as it is ‘picking up the books whenever I need a laugh’ and I really needed a laugh after the last few days (work mostly…) Some Discworld books are re-read more than others in this house. ‘Guards! Guards!’ and ‘Eric’ are old favourites while ‘Equal Rites’… I can’t remember the last time I read ‘Equal Rites’. So what was it like then, going to back to a book that I knew I’d read but couldn’t remember much of it past the blurb on the back? Let me tell you about it… 'They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.' Everybody knows there's no such thing as a female wizard. So when the wizard Drum Billet accidentally passes on his staff of power to an eighth daughter of an eighth son, a girl called Eskarina (Esk, for short), the misogynistic world of wizardry wan...

Well... By weekend, I mean just the Saturday; Sunday was all about work with a little bit of PS4 and book shopping on the side (I totally got the proportions wrong there) But anyway... I've gone into the last few weekends with plans to catch up on my reading, only to end up sat in my favourite chair, watching whatever any one of several watchlists can throw my way. And this Saturday just gone saw me end up watching... 'They Nest' (2000) A Maine Island becomes infested with lethal insects that nest inside their victims while a local doctor battles not only the bugs but also islanders who are out to serve their own brand of justice... on him. Having read 'The Nest' (Review Here ), I was after a little 'cockroach horror' and I came across this movie on Prime. I'll be honest, it had the look of a 'TV Movie' about it so I wasn't expecting an awful lot but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Surprisingly creepy and with eno...

Things were a bit quiet over the weekend, weren't they? Sorry about that... The plan was always to take Saturday off to try and catch up with some reading; that didn't happen but I did make another little dent in the list of films that I'm working my way through. I'll tell you about that, maybe tomorrow. And then Sunday... Sunday was going to be the day I told you about all those movies (well, all four of them) and then a major incident kicked off at work while I was trying to keep my kids occupied on an afternoon in London. We all got through it, somehow ;o) Which leaves me here, with a pile of books that I'd like to show off a little. It wasn't just yesterday that was stressful and I bought books accordingly... :o) Only a few books this time, but there is some good reading to be had here; I can feel it in my bones (although that could be my slightly arthritic knees, either way...) I'm still making my way through 'The Lord of the End Times' but I ca...

So yesterday was a productive one but left me with no energy to do anything but watch 'Superstore' (again) when I finally got home. I really need to find a new series to watch, but anyway... Where does that leave today's blog then? Not in as bad a place as you'd think ;o) I thought I'd take advantage of earlier blogging endeavours and present you with a Michael Moorcock post from way back in 2014 (thanks 'Past Me'!) I have no idea where my copy of 'The Golden Barge' is right now so this is the next best thing. Normal service should resume after this weekend, when I've had a chance to catch up with my reading, but for now... The last time I had anything to say about ‘The Golden Barge’, the year was 2011 (only just though…) and my thoughts went along the lines of… ‘With certain stories in ‘The Time Dweller’ the problem for me was that whatever Moorcock was trying to say was drowned out in a mass of admittedly beautiful but overall stifling imagery...

Page Count: 9 Pages If you’re looking to read ‘The Dead Remember’ (and if not, you really should), Project Gutenberg has a copy Here while Amazon can sort you out if you have a Kindle. If you’re looking for a physical copy, ‘The Dead Remember’ can be found in Del Rey’s ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard’ collection but I found in a collection called… You guessed it ;o) I was just coming out of finishing ‘The Nest’ and fancied a quick read while I caught my breath and decided what to read next. And it really was as simple as seeing the title, on the cover, and thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if that’s the title of one of the stories?’ It was, I read it and now I get to tell you all about it ;o) Jim Gordon killed a man and his wife, in a drunken rage, and now he is a man waiting to die. The woman’s dying words were to curse him; he would die within the week and she would be there when the time came. Jim has promised his brother that he will go out fighting, but will he be given that ...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Hellhound’, the other week , enough so that when it came round to last weekend, I knew that I wanted to read some more ‘when nature attacks’ horror. My ‘Guy N. Smith Shelf’ normally delivers on that front but I knew that I had a couple of other Valancourt books in that vein so went looking for whichever one I found first. I will read Peter Tonkin’s ‘Killer’ one day but it was ‘The Nest’ that I found first and that’s what saw me through the weekend and yesterday’s commute to and from work. Bloody hell… what a read it was. Let me tell you about it… It was just an ordinary garbage dump on peaceful Cape Cod. No one ever imagined that conditions were perfect for breeding, that it was a warm womb, fetid, moist, and with food so plentiful that everything creeping, crawling, and slithering could gorge to satiation. Then a change in poison control was made, resulting in an unforeseen mutation. Now the giant mutant cockroaches are ready to leave their nest—in search...

I wasn't a hundred percent sold on Season 1 but I didn't think it was that bad. It will probably be a while before I give it another go but I don't regret the go that I gave it, if you know what I mean ;o) Season 2 though... This is more like the real deal... So, it doesn't look like there'll be a huge wait to find out who Sauron is this time and if that's Annatar (which I think it is) then it may be that Season 2 sails closer to the established lore than Season 1 did. I can work with that :o) The only question I have is around what the time gap is between the two Seasons, that's not a huge deal though. Season 2 of 'The Rings of Power' will be hitting Prime on August 29th.

Page Count: 252 Pages Remember the other day when I said I’d tell you all about the sequel to Graham McNeill’s ‘The Ambassador’ ? Well, today is the day I’ll be doing just that 😉 Quick thoughts are the order of the day though… I’ve got a full day ahead of me so should try and get a little more sleep than normal. The other reason…? Well… There isn’t an awful lot to say about this one, let me try and explain… Retired general Kaspar von Velten returns to the frozen city if Kislev to continue his duties as the Emperor’s ambassador to the court of Tsarina Katarina. With the massed hordes of Chaos marching towards the strategic rock formation know as Ursun’s Teeth, the combined armies of the Empire and Kislev must ride out to meet them in battle. But with the outbreak of plague and a string of assassinations, it becomes clear that a Chaos agent is operating within the city and Kaspar must foil them before they bring the defences tumbling down… ‘Ursun’s Teeth’ is a bit of an odd one to try a...

Sorry about the silent blog over the last couple of days... Last week did for me, in the end, and so Saturday ended up being about sleeping in and then revisiting 'Captain America: Civil War' (still very cool). I had my kids over on Sunday so blogging was never on the agenda, playing 'Crash Team Racing' (with my youngest) was though ;o)  I'll tell you what else I did... In the middle of trying to tidy up the flat a little, I gathered all the books that I've been reading (and a few that I want to read soon) into one reasonably sized pile so that I don't have to keep looking for random books every time I fancy a read. Look at me being all organised ;o) This approach worked pretty well last time so I thought it would be worth giving it another go and seeing what happened. Lets take a look, shall we? First up are the books that I've been dipping in and out of over the last week. Two 'Conan' books didn't make it across from the last TBR pile, not...

I came across this tale in L. Sprague De Camp’s ‘Swords & Sorcery’ collection, you might have better luck clicking Here if you fancy reading it for yourself. Every so often (more like ‘far too often’…) I find myself in the position where I’ve somehow got four books on the go and I’m not making headway on any of them. Just the right time then to step away from those books, grab a short story collection from the shelves and see if anything takes my fancy. It usually does. I picked up ‘Swords and Sorcery’ with the notion of reading either Howard’s ‘Shadows in the Moonlight’ (maybe another time) or Lord Dunsany’s ‘Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweler’ but then I saw ‘The Testament of Athammaus’, lurking at the back of the book, and that was my mind made up for me ;o) Let me tell you about it. Commoriom ‘was aforetime the resplendent, high-built capital, and the marble and granite crown of all Hyperborea’... until one day when everyone suddenly left and the deserted city fell in...

Every so often, everything kind of catches up with me and one of those things has to be shoved to one side, for later, so that I can get anything else done at all. I can tell that today is going to be one of those days so I'm doing myself a favour and recycling an old review, just to give myself a little room to breathe. I hope you don't mind ;o) I'm all about Fantasy and Horror these days so I thought it would make a change if today focused on some Science Fiction of the 'Masterwork kind'. A little digging came up with 'Man Plus'; a title that I think is well worth a read, even if it's unlikely, right now, that I'll go back for a re-read. The full review can be found over Here but all the important bits follow below... According to computer predictions, colonisation of Mars is mankind’s only hope of avoiding extinction; the Man Plus Programme is an exercise in biological engineering that will pave the way to humankind being able to live on the Red ...

I’d never read anything by Ronald Malfi and payday had just happened so it was but the work of a minute, or two, to hop onto Amazon and have me a copy of ‘They Lurk’. Why ‘They Lurk’? Easy ;o) I thought a collection of novellas would give me a broader picture of what Malfi writes about, ‘After the Fade’ already looked like the kind of thing that I’d be into (and it was, but more on that in a moment…) and I was keen to see what the other novellas delivered. The original plan then was to dip into ‘They Lurk’ as and when I needed to something short to read, probably on the bus to and from work. As it turned out though, the commute took longer than expected and by the time I got to lunch, I was enjoying ‘They Lurk’ so much that it was very easy to just keep reading. I ended up polishing the whole thing off yesterday and it was time very much well spent. I’ll take a quick look at each novella, in a little more detail, but as a whole, ‘They Lurk’ was a very good read and I’ve already got ‘Gh...

It’s taken me a little while to get to this book; not the fault of the book at all, more my habit of stacking books in large piles and then completely forgetting what book is where… I’d like to say that I’ll beat this habit but, no, that’s not happening :o( Anyway… I got there in the end, last week was a little bit of a nightmare and weeks like that are always the best time to read more of the adventures of Gotrek Gurnisson so… let me tell you about the time when Gotrek went up against Nurgle’s most pestilent followers. Gotrek Gurnisson, the legendary Slayer, picks up a new accomplice – and faces a truly grotesque challenge in the disease-ridden spawn of the Plague God himself. Deep in the wilds of Ghyran, a former warrior priest preaches for humanity to reject the gods. The sole survivor of a massacred Dawnbringer Crusade, Amara Fidellus believes that Sigmar has betrayed her. But when she faces execution for such blasphemy, it’s only the intervention of a drunken, taciturn and incre...

A sequel to the last 'Movie Night' post that is, I didn't spend yesterday watching sequels... ;o) I've struggled to get into anything reading wise, after finishing 'Deathworlder', so I gave my brain the weekend off, settled down in my favourite chair and set about trying to make a dent in my Prime watchlist. And this is the post where I tell all about what I watched yesterday :o) Lets do it, 'The Last Hope' (2020) The world has been devastated by the virus that has reanimated the dead to consume the living. Australia has so far remained unscathed through a brutal border protection policy and internment facilities. Derek Jones and the High Risk Response Unit restore order to the internment facilities when law and order breaks down. When the arrival of a mysterious girl collides with the uprising at the Briar's Hill Detention Centre, will Australia, the last hope for many, finally fall? I'm not going to lie, a lot of this movie's budget clearly...