Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 144 Pages It was back at the start of the year that I found myself taken by cover art showing a birds-eye view of a brown bear making her way through the woods, carrying a shovel and dragging a bloody sack behind her. Sometimes, your reading choices can be a little more interesting if you act on impulse and that’s how I came to read ‘Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees’; a strangely sweet tale of a bear just trying to juggle work, at the local hardware store, with her ‘other work’ as a serial killer. As you do ;o) You can read my full review over Here but here’s a couple of sentences that sum it up… I’ll swear at the TV pretty frequently but you won’t normally catch me swearing at a book, until I read ‘Beneath The Trees’ and said ‘fuck’ out loud, twice in the first chapter. Part murder-mystery, part ‘slasher’ and a thoughtful piece about the law of the jungle as seen through the eyes of a serial killer, all at the same time. I reckon I’ll be hard pressed to find anot...

It’s a slightly shamefaced Graeme who greets you today… After all my moaning and worry about having my teeth pulled, it turns out that yesterday’s appointment was just a prelude to the main event. A scan of my jaw (and the few teeth left in it), a little cleaning up and enough ‘laughing gas’ that there were actually a few moments that made me chuckle ;o) I wasn’t good for much, yesterday afternoon (honestly, I’m a little surprised I made it to the train station…), so I took it easy and read a couple of short stories that I’d been meaning to get to. Let me tell you about them… ‘The Distance In Their Eyes’ – Stephen Graham Jones (From ‘Predator: Eyes of the Demon’, Titan Books) Page Count: 12 Pages The ‘Predator: Eyes of the Demon’ anthology has been sat on a shelf for a while now and every time I go to pick it up… You know what happens next ;o) Anyway, my youngest daughter finally watched ‘Predator: Badlands’ the other day, really enjoyed it too, so I took that as a sign and chose ‘The...

  Page Count: 141 Pages It was only a few weeks ago that I read ‘Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time’ but it feels like a lot longer. Time slows down when you’re unemployed, sometimes that’s a good thing but sometimes, not so much :o( Anyway… It felt like a long time since I’d picked up a ‘Doctor Who’ book and a walk through Greenwich Market, the other day, turned up a copy of ‘The Claws of Axos’; a book that I hadn’t read since… Erm… sometime in the ‘eighties? I can’t remember exactly, lets just say that it has been a while. Either way, it felt like everything had come together and it was about time I had a re-read. So… That’s what I did. When I’m hunting books, I never ignore tracks and signs and… I’m always hunting books ;o) ‘Axos calling Earth, Axos calling Earth…’ The creatures stood before them, beautiful golden humanoids, offering friendship and their priceless Axonite, in return for… what? Only the Doctor remains suspicious. What is the real reason for the Axons’ sudden ar...

  Page Count: 412 Pages I actually have a copy of the ‘Ravenor Omnibus’ but the size of it makes it a little impractical for ‘commuter reading’, or any kind of reading that doesn’t involve a comfy chair and a free afternoon. I’m working on that by the way (the comfy chair, not the free afternoon, I have too many of those…) Where was I…? Oh, yes :o) The omnibus isn’t a book to be lugged around, in my bag, so when I happened upon a copy of ‘Ravenor, it very swiftly became my ‘commute reading’ and… Here we are ;o) I’ve needed to give my reading a little ‘jump-start’, just recently, and some ‘Warhammer 40K’ is always a good place to start. I’ll be honest, for large chunks of this read, I wondered if I should have picked another book but ultimately, it was worth the read. The storming tale of Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor and his band of lethal operatives conveys the grim far future from the ground level up as they investigate the trafficking of a dangerous substance within the Imperium. Wi...

Over the last eight years I've been lucky enough to be paid a yearly bonus; some of which went on books because of course it did ;o) Did I say 'some'? I meant to say... Erm... 'Some'...? Hush you, no judgment here ;o) Anyway... A few days ago, I got my last bonus from the old job. I didn't go crazy with it (you know, 'last bonus' and all that) but I did take myself for a little look round the Warhammer Store, on Tottenham Court Road, and managed to not only stay away from the cool looking models (for now) but come back with some cool looking books. Here they are... Apologies for the photo... Turns out that I'm not just missing the all round 'comfiness' of the comfy chair, I'm also missing the backdrop it provides for 'book pictures'. (Note to Self: Sort out a new comfy chair this week...) Part of the reason that I went in the Warhammer Store was that I wanted to give my reading a little 'shot in the arm' after a difficult ...

Just looking at the blog title here and there’s something quite pleasing (to me, anyway) about having two ‘Volume 4’s in the same title. Makes me feel like I’m actually making a little progress with the various series that I’m into and by extension, the TBR Pile. No! Don’t say anything, just leave me in blissful ignorance for a little longer… ;o) Anyway… Yesterday was a good day for getting called up about contract jobs (yes I know how that sounds, no I'm not changing it) and it was also a good day to put a little shine on my rusty old social skills. It wasn’t a good day for reading though… That’s becoming a little bit of a pattern and once again, I’m hoping to do something about that over the weekend. In the meantime, I did manage to find a little time for ‘Something is Killing the Children Volume 4’ and ‘Saga: Volume 4’ was already sitting patiently, waiting to be posted about, so… Lets get to it :o) ‘Saga: Volume 4’ – Vaughan, Staples (Image) Page Count: 144 Pages In this volume...

Well, not exactly forgotten, it's right at the corner of my eye whenever I'm working at my desk :o) But... It's also a shelf that's in a corner of my living room, just behind my TV, and is a little trickier to get to. If a book ends up on this shelf then, I'm a lot less likely to get to it than others. So, a kind of 'Forgotten Shelf' then but, my blog title sounds better ;o) A bookshelf is still a bookshelf though, forgotten or not, and just as deserving as a post here as the more accessible bookshelves that I've featured over the years. And that's where this post comes in. Lets take a look at 'The Forgotten Shelf' and see what's what... Not the best photo I've ever taken but hopefully you can make out the titles :o) Most of these books were unpacked straight onto this shelf and haven't been touched since, which is a shame really as they were all bought to be read. There are a couple here though that enjoyed a brief moment on this...

  Page Count: 248 Pages Everyone knows that there’s a new TV adaptation, of Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’, showing on Prime Video at the moment. Hardly anyone knows that there’s also a copy of ‘Carrie’ on one of my bookshelves that I haven’t got round to picking up. Which version did I get to first…? The page count gave it away ;o) I’d heard that the TV adaptation takes things in a slightly different direction and while I will get to it, yesterday seemed like the right time to go back to the source for a re-read (the first time in a long time) And I’ll be honest, I was at the point where I was thinking, ‘if I don’t read a novel now, I never will…’ ‘Carrie’ was a quick win ;o) It’s a lot more than that though… Carrie White has a gift – she can move things with her mind. To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie – the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues. But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endle...

Yep, it’s another ‘Bits & Pieces’ style post but that’s just what happens when what should have been a couple of hours job-hunting becomes a lot longer; thanks to my laptop deciding to play by its own rules and ‘take breaks’… You may see me actually finish a book this week, maybe… Oh well, fingers crossed for a better experience today ;o) Yesterday didn’t leave me with a lot of time for reading then but I did manage to read me some more ‘Conan’ and finally watch ‘Backrooms’ as well. And you know what? I’ll take that :o) ‘Backrooms’ (2026) When investigating powercuts in his store, struggling furniture salesman Clark finds an entrance into the Backrooms, a seemingly endless series of rooms and passages. Most of these are empty, others are less so… Now therapist Mary must find her way into the Backrooms and locate Clark, he doesn’t want to leave… My eldest daughter loves the lore around the ‘Backrooms’ and the plan was to go and see the movie at the cinema. We all know what happens t...

Another ‘I blinked and missed it’ kind of weekend… I’m not sure if it was something I ate, or my medication getting the better of me, but I felt pretty rough for most of Saturday (when I was awake, that is). Sunday… Sunday was mostly about my spending time with my kids but I did find some time, here and there, to have a little moan about the continued lack of a comfy chair in my living room. I really need to do something about that. Anyway… I did manage to get a little reading under my belt as well; not much but enough to feel like I hadn’t slacked off too much ;o) Let me tell you about some of that. Just a couple of comics for today but they’re both worth a look and definitely added to the ‘scary vibe’ that I’m aiming for this month… ‘Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees: Halloween Special’ – Various (ID Dark) Before I go any further… If you haven’t read the ‘Rites of Spring’ mini-series (collected or otherwise), you should definitely do that before reading this ‘One-Shot’ Halloween Sp...

What with one thing and another, and then another, this week hasn’t been the best week for reading. Not every week is, it happens :o) I just need to get through today and then I’ve got all my fingers crossed for either Saturday or Sunday (I’m not fussy) being a good day to read something. Lets see… In the meantime, I did manage to read a few short stories yesterday. Well, my laptop froze ‘mid job hunt’ and I thought that if ‘I don’t read something now… So that’s what I did :o) A little ‘Age of Sigmar’ and a couple of ghost stories… ‘Past Returns’ – Hal Wilson (Black Library) Page Count: 28 Pages I was looking at the Warhammer Community pages and saw mention of a new ‘Age of Sigmar’ novel, by Hal Wilson , about the Freeguilds. I have a bit of a soft spot for Freeguild soldiers but had never read anything by Hal Wilson so… I went looking for a copy of ‘The Wanderer’ (a prequel to this new novel) but couldn’t find it so went for ‘Past Returns’ instead. I really should have paid closer att...

It’s that time of year again. You know the time… You don’t? Well… It’s the time when I realise that we’re a week into October and this prompts me to make loads of bold statements about making it an October where I really make a dent in all the horror that I need to watch and read. Then it gets to the beginning of November, I look back and… you guessed it. Well, we’re a week into October. Lets see how much of a dent I can make in all the horror, lurking about the place, that I still need to watch or read ;o) We’ll start off with an easy post. Reading hasn’t come easy, this week, but I’ve had a little more luck watching movies so… lets talk about those. ‘Pet Sematary 2’ (1992) Some movies don’t need a whole blurb included here… :o) If you’ve seen, or read, ‘Pet Sematary’ then you’ll know what ‘Pet Sematary 2’ is all about. And that was kind of the problem here; the names (and pets) may have been changed but it felt like an awful lot of trouble was taken to basically tell the same story ...

  Just a quick post today because, well… I’m not sure what happened to be honest. I started off in good form, getting stuff done left, right and centre. The next thing I knew, it was almost the end of the day and there was still loads to do. I won’t embarrass myself by dwelling on the backlog; lets just say that there wasn’t a lot of time left to read anything. You know me though, I’ve got reading matter, to hand, for the shortest intervals and so of course I had a copy of the latest ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ to hand. It’s like ‘Past Me’ is keeping an eye open for ‘Present Me’, I’m very grateful ;o) Since Robert E. Howard’s work found its way to Titan & Heroic Signatures, we’ve had a couple of cross-over events; namely the ‘Battle of the Black Stone’ and ‘The Scourge of the Serpent’. Well, I’m not sure how these events are timed but apparently, it’s time to start getting ready for the return of an old enemy in ‘Tides of the Tyrant King’. And it looks like it’s all kicking off in ...

  Page Count: 120 Pages (taken from the ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ Collection, where the print size is tiny, my poor eyes…) I wasn’t a big reader of ‘Black Library’ books back in 2015 (when ‘I Am Slaughter’ was first published) so I pretty much missed all of the ‘Beast Arises’ series, both as individual volumes and again when it was reprinted in omnibus editions (a couple of years later). To be fair, those years weren’t good for reading anything at all, that’s another story though. As far as things stand then (and given the price these books go for second-hand), it looks like I’ll be getting my history of ‘The War of the Beast’ via the likes of Lexicanum. That’s part of the reason I picked up ‘Legends of the Waaagh!’ The inclusion of ‘I Am Slaughter’ means that even if I don’t get to read the rest of the series, at least I got to see how it all kicked off. And… It is the thirty-second millennium and the Imperium is at peace. The Traitor Legions of Chaos are but a distant memory and t...

Well, they should have done but they didn’t; I just really (really) wanted to use that as the title for todays post :o) Sorry, it’s been one of those weeks, not the worst week ever but far from a favourite. Oh well, it’s over and done with now. Anyway… A week like that normally involves me heading to Forbidden Planet at some point, just to try and dull the pain a little. That’s what I did yesterday, here are some quick thoughts on a couple of comics that I picked up (and one that I should have posted about earlier but… didn’t) ‘Hillbilly: The Treason of Twelve-Toe Maggie #1’ – Eric Powell (Dark Horse Comics/Albatross Funnybooks) It has been an absolute age since I’ve read any ‘Hillbilly’ (or anything by Eric Powell for that matter) so it was kind of nice to see ‘Hillbilly’ on the shelf and remember that Powell is still out there, doing his thing. And ‘The Treason of Twelve-Toe Maggie’ is only three issues long so of course I had to take it home for a read. I’ll be honest, I’m going to ...

  Page Count: 220 Pages This blog has been running long enough now that I should probably stop mentioning how movie novelizations were essential reading, for me, back in the eighties. It’s not like you haven’t heard me say it already. They were though ;o) Anyway… I still have a soft spot for these books, and I never got round to watching ‘The Descent’ back in the day, so when I saw the novelization in Waterstones… Well, it pretty much bought itself. I’m already a fan of Francis’ novelization of ‘Session 9’ so that made things even easier ;o) After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive not only the monsters, but also each other. I’ll be honest, I struggled to finish ‘The Descent’ but not for the reasons you might think. Takin...