Lord Samper's Library

I think I've done pretty well to get through this week, mixing work and blogging, but work has finally got the better of me... Oh well, it's a good job that I'm on leave next week isn't it? ;o) To cut myself a little slack then (something I'm trying to do a little more of here), I've enlisted the aid of my past self who very kindly agreed to let me use a review from an older blog today, just while I catch up with myself here. A little bit of 'Arabian Nights Sword & Sorcery' then ;o) The full review can be found over Here , all the important follow below... THE CHRONICLE OF SWORD & SAND: Baghdad, AD 790. Caliph Harun al-Rashid presides over the greatest metropolis on Earth, ruler of an empire that stretches from China to Byzantium. His exploits will be recorded in Alf Layla or, as we know it, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. But The Thousand and One Nights are silent on the deeds and adventures that befell two of the Caliph's subjects:...

I have managed to get some reading done, just not a lot of it... That TBR pile I showed you the other day?  It's still where I left it, looking all reproachful in my direction :o) Work has been relentless these last few days although I'm hoping that will calm down a bit now that I've got my year end review done and dusted. It went alright actually, thanks for asking ;o) This last week, or so, has been all about catching up on some movies once the work laptop goes off. I've watched a few now so figured it was about time that I bundled them all up together and served them to you, the reader, in this post. Here goes... 'Abigail' (2024) A gang of kidnappers sit tight and wait for confirmation that the ransom has been paid for the girl that they are holding captive. When vampires suddenly get involved, the morning has never seemed so far away... The 'twist' is in any number of trailers, on YouTube, but I'm going to try and stay away from spoilers here, ju...

It’s time to pay one final call on the ‘Predator’ Omnibus before I lend it to my daughter for a spot of ‘Summer Holiday Reading’. I think it’s the perfect book for reading in the sun, by the way, but I’ve got a feeling that you reached that conclusion long before I did. I’m always the last one to the party ;o) But anyway… I went into ‘Big Game’ with the scores level across the collection as a whole. ‘Concrete Jungle’ knew its job and did it well, ‘Cold War’ wasn’t bad but it didn’t really hit the heights that it was aiming for. ‘Big Game’ was going to tip the scales one way or the other then, which way would they fall…? Deep in the rugged New Mexico desert, a strange craft has landed and a Predator hunts for human prey. For Corporal Enoch Nakai, a Navajo soldier, it is a legend come back to life: the return of the horned monster who was destroyed by the hero Nayenezgani, the mythical monster slayer. Using the wisdom of his ancestors, Nakai will confront the Predator in a final battle...

Page Count: 206 Pages ‘The Sun Dog’ can be found in the collection ‘Four Past Midnight’; it can also be found as an individual novella, part of the ‘Iconic Stories’ collection. I first read ‘The Sun Dog’ as part of ‘Four Past Midnight’ years ago, hiding in the school library so I didn’t have to go outside (a familiar tale). I came across it again… I can’t remember if I’m being honest. I’m sure there must have been a time when the ‘Iconic Story’ edition wasn’t on my shelf. All I know is that I came across it some time last month and figured it was way past time that I read it again. So, that’s exactly what I did ;o) It's mine - that was what he had thought when his finger had pushed the shutter-button for the first time. Now he found himself wondering if maybe he hadn't gotten that backward. Kevin Delevan wants only one thing for his fifteenth birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660. There's something wrong with his gift, though. No matter where Kevin aims the camera, it produces a...

Page Count: 294 Pages This is going to be a quick(ish) post today; I’m on leave next week and that means I’m looking at somehow looking at fitting an extra week’s work into this week (before I down tools on Friday). It would almost be more relaxing to just not go on leave… Oh well :o) Just recently, I’ve been all about the comfort reading but I’m always on the lookout for something new and a chance conversation on ‘X’ pointed me at Chaz Lebel’s ‘Litany of the Destroyer’. A quick look at the blurb, along with ‘Litany’ featuring heavily on ‘Spells & Spaceships’ ( Review and Interview ) was enough to get me interested and clicking on the ‘Buy’ button. Alex knows what he is talking about and that was all I needed. A week later (give or take) and here I am, fresh from travelling with Galien and really keen to find out what happens next (luckily, I don’t think I have too long to wait until Book 2 comes along)… After a close encounter with a summoned demon, Sir Galien Banforth is left i...

To cut a long story short... There was an old profile attached to this blog that was a leftover from a time when I almost created another blog (but didn't). It's been irritating me for a long time and I finally found a way to get rid of it so... despite all sorts of warnings, I went and did just that. Now I can't reply to anyone's comments or even leave a comment that isn't a reply. I should have left well alone, shouldn't I...? Work is looking to be pretty intense over the next week so I'm not going to be able to get to this right away. If I don't reply to a comment then, please don't be offended. I'm more than likely swearing at the screen while I try and figure out what to do next. You can always find me on 'X' or 'Blue Sky'. Or drop me an email, I like emails :o)

Even now (after countless viewings of the original trilogy), I’ll still get the urge to watch the original ‘Robo-Cop’ and once I’ve done that, it’s far too easy to watch the other two as well. Having said that, the re-boot wasn’t bad but I’ve never felt the urge to re-watch it, not once. Funny that… Anyway. The original three films are currently on Prime so watching them all, one after the other, was pretty much inevitable. I’ve been showing my oldest daughter all my favourite movies and that’s pretty much what led me to pop ‘Robo-Cop’ on yesterday, I thought I’d give it the ol’ once over, just to see if it would be suitable for her. And the answer…? Call me a chicken but I’m going to leave it for a little while longer; eighties ‘corporate America’ might just be a little too seedy for her, at least for now. For me though…? I love them, I’m even coming round to the idea of ‘Robo-Cop 3’ not being all that bad after all. I’ll be honest, everything has more or less been said about the ‘Rob...

So back in May, I bought myself a copy of ‘The Complete Predator Omnibus’ ; mostly because me and my oldest daughter had been getting into the movies and partly because I’d had a rough day and that was only going to end one way if I was silly enough to go into Waterstones ;o) There was another reason though… I’m a completist, especially when it comes to reading books in a series. I’d enjoyed ‘Concrete Jungle’ and that was enough for me to grab a copy of the omnibus when I saw it. Last month saw me take a little break from the blog but I didn’t stop reading ;o) It was just comfort read stuff that I knew I’d enjoy and there were two stories in the ‘Predator Omnibus’ that I hadn’t started yet so… Off I went. First up was ‘Cold War’ and… I’ve got to say that it wasn’t all that. Something has fallen from the sky over the Siberian wilderness and soon, decapitated human bodies are littering the surrounding area. The Russian authorities are baffled, but deep within the Pentagon, someone knows...

So I'm coming off the back of a 'heavy work day' and looking straight down the barrel of another one... Erm... Yay? It won't surprise you then that I haven't had a lot of time for reading and no time at all for coming up with an original blog post. Story of my life these days... ;o) It's not all bad though. While I'm using today's commute to catch up with my reading ('Litany of the Destroyer' is really something special), my past self has a little something to keep the blog ticking over. It's a little 'Elric' for your reading pleasure ;o) You can find the original post Here but all the important bits can be found below... It's a fact long established, on blogs other than this one, that I will read pretty much anything 'Eternal Champion' related that Michael Moorcock has written. Which means pretty much everything he has written doesn't it? I mean, from what I've seen it all ties together at one level or another. I...

I really enjoyed my ‘Goon’ re-read so figured it would be revisiting another favourite series of mine and having all the reviews in one place; just like I did with ‘The Goon’. Also, while it’s good to keep stretching yourself with new reads, as I get older, I’m starting to realise more and more that’s it’s just as important to revisit and re-read the stuff that got me into all this in the first place. So then, back to ‘The Walking Dead’ we go. Except… Me being me, I shifted my collection (of the trades) just before I moved to the new place so this re-read is going to be heavily dependent on paydays. One book a month, you’ll barely notice the posts ;o) Anyway… With all that said, lets kick things off with ‘Days Gone Bye’… A warning first though, ‘The Walking Dead’ has been a thing for so long now that I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you’ve either read the comics or seen the show. How many hours are in a day when you don’t spend half of them watching television? When is ...

The last couple of weeks haven't been great at all and in times like these, you can rely on me to go straight out and buy books to cheer myself (payday permitting of course). And with the week that I've been having, I wasn't even necessarily going to read them... We've all be there, haven't we? Well, that's where I was the other day when I got off the bus, and popped into a couple of charity shops on the way home. And... It was like everyone in Lewisham had gone into the charity shops before me and stripped them of anything that I might be interested in reading. That's the way it goes sometimes and it just made me all the more determined to find a book to buy. I told you, I really wanted to buy a book ;o) It took some searching but in the end. the Lewisham Red Cross shop turned out these two books... I used to have all the 'First Law' books but they ended up being the victims of an unfortunate book purge. It's been a long time since I read anythi...

I know, the blog is dancing on a fine line here... One wrong step and it's going to turn into a 'Trailer Blog' (urgh)… Two things that will hopefully mitigate a little, 1) I was up until 4am trying to get work done ahead of my boss coming back from holiday. Book stuff will happen, just not today. Today is giving me a bit of a kicking... 2) I love Deadpool and I got a little excited ;o) Anyway, here you go... 'Deadpool & Wolverine' is out in a week and a bit. My 14 year old daughter wants to see it and after the 'pegging' reference in one of the trailers, I'm not sure whether to take her or not...

If you're coming here off the back of the Euros Final... Congratulations Spain and sorry if you're an England fan... I think we did well to get as far as we did, it's a shame that we didn't quite have it in us to go that one step further :o(  Anyway... If you're not into the football then you probably skipped the last paragraph which brings us to the Comic Con trailer for 'Alien: Romulus'. It's looking good from where I'm sat, have a watch while you're here ;o) 'Alien: Romulus' is in cinemas next month, not long now... :o)

Every so often, I like to wander round the flat and make myself a little TBR pile out of whatever takes my fancy. This may go some way to explaining why there are so many little piles of books, around the flat, and hardly anything on the shelves... But anyway ;o) Work wasn't brilliant yesterday so I thought I'd treat myself to another little TBR pile. This one's a little more ambitious than most, all the books are slightly chunkier than normal, and I will say that I'm still just as likely to read something that isn't on the pile but has caught my eye. Until that happens though, check these out... 'Conan' and 'Killer' are the short reads, as is 'Ghostwritten' (four novellas that I'll be dipping into as and when) and 'The Essential Terrance Dicks' which is full of those classic Doctor Who stories thar I still love to read, let alone when I was a kid. 'Swords & Dark Magic' has a couple of stories that I want to revisi...

I'm trying to get a number of things sorted out today and my head is not quite up to the task... I've also found myself back in the habit of posting once a day so while I try and get my head in order, I'm giving today's post over to 'past me' who came up with the following post, ten years ago ... I've chopped a couple of lines but all the good stuff is here. While I try and sort everything else out, have a read :o) You can find 'A Year and a Day in Old Theradane' in the 'Rogues' anthology (from George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois) I miss being able to sit down with a big, fat epic fantasy novel and get lost in it for hours at a time. Actually, no I don’t, not really. Reading a big fat epic fantasy novel usually means that I’m doing something horribly tedious, like a long commute, that I want to escape from and my life seems to be refreshingly free of things like that at the moment; that’s always a good thing and never to be sniffed at. Ha...

  Page Count: 295 Pages It’s not really the plan to be doing a post a day at the moment (although I’ve said that before…) but I wanted to finish this book before my daughters come over, later today, so I can lend it to my eldest. We watched the movie, the over day, and she really enjoyed it so I thought, why not grab a copy of the book as well? To be honest, I hope she enjoys it a lot more than I did. It wasn’t a bad read but… I think I’ll stick with the movie. ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ has been out in the wild (film and book) for a few years now so I’m going to skip the bit where I copy and paste a little blurb. I’m guessing you’ve probably either seen the film or read the book by now; if you haven’t, I’ll use this sentence to thoroughly recommend that you give the movie a go if and when you get the chance. That’s all I’ll say though, I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. And with that said, lets talk a little about the book… I love movie tie-in novels, they were one of the ...

  Page Count: 453 Pages. It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote a book post so I’m a little rusty right now, bear with me and I’ll try and get back up to speed ;o) I really need to stop buying hardbacks unless I’m absolutely certain that I’m going to read them. I’ve had a hardback copy of ‘Blood of the Serpent’ sat on a shelf for far too long so I thought I’d see what happened if I had a paperback copy in front of me (more money than sense, I know…) What happened? ‘Blood of the Serpent’ wasn’t a ‘one sitting read’ but I polished it off in fairly short order. For all the fun that I had though, I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced. Let me try and explain a little better… As sword for hire for a mercenary troop, Conan finds himself in Sukhmet, a filthy backwater town south of the River Styx considered “the arse-end of Stygia.” Serving in the company known as Zarallo’s Free Companions, he fights alongside soldiers of fortune from Zingara, Koth, Shem, and other lands―a hard-handed ...

Well... That ended up being a little longer than I'd planned but I'm back and feeling a little fresher than I was a month ago. Everything else may be trying its best to walk all over me but I'm still going to use this blog to talk about the books that I enjoy. Lets see where that takes us ;o) I don't think I'm up to dishing out a post a day, at the moment, but I've got some cool stuff  planned that I'll think you'll like. Lets kick off with a look at the books that have turned up on my doorstep over the last few weeks... 'The Payday Bundle' Eleven days until I get paid and I still haven't opened any of these books, no change there then... ;o) I finished the 'Predator Omnibus' so thought I'd balance it out with the first volume of the 'Aliens Omnibus ' series. I'll probably take this collection a book at a time so keep an eye open for that. I wouldn't have picked up 'The Predator' but I've been watching...