Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 413 Pages (of which I made it through 153 Pages before saying to myself, ‘just because I’m unemployed now, doesn’t mean the time to stick with a book that isn’t working for me…) I hate to start September with a ‘Did Not Finish’ but I ended August on a ‘Did Not Finish’ so… Here we are :o) We all know how it goes here... Not every book is a winner and of these, there are books that I will finish out of a morbid fascination. Not so much these days though… Due to (resignedly gestures at everything…), my reading time is precious so I am much more inclined to drop a book, that isn’t working, and move on to something that I’ll enjoy. Which brings me round to ‘Scourge The Heretic’ and another lovely cover from the Black Library. It was a shame that the book itself didn’t work out… First up, lets have some blurb… While Space Marines and the Imperial Guard battle aliens among the stars, it is the job of the Inquisition to hunt down the heretics who corrupt society from within. ...

  So, we’ve already established that I’m a sucker for a title that has a pun in it. Not only that, I’ve also got a real soft spot for any horror book with a garish cover (takes me right back to the eighties, that does). That is all it took for me to take a chance on ‘Splasher’, the other day. I keep telling you, there is absolutely nothing scientific about how I choose what to read next ;o) It’s a little bit of a relief then to know that I’m not just drawn to a shiny cover etc; the words, in between the cover art and the blurb, still determine how much I get out of a book. Unfortunately for ‘Splasher’, I ended up putting the book down after a hundred and thirty pages. These days though, I’m a lot more forgiving about ‘DNFs’. The way I see it, as the reader, I’m as much a part of the experience as the book so I’ll happily shoulder some of the responsibility for a read that didn’t quite work out. Right book, wrong reader? Something like that ;o) Have some blurb… Autumn 2006. Low-rise...

  Page Count: 242 Pages A ‘Did Not Finish’ is something that you hope you will never meet but the law of averages makes it pretty much inevitable that you will. The thing is though, the tricky little beasts are brilliant at disguising themselves as regular books… You never see the ambush coming until it’s too late for you to do anything about it. Before you even really know what’s happened, the cool looking book, that you thought you’d try, turned out to be a ‘Did Not Finish’ and you’re left looking for another book to read instead. Oh well, not the worst problem to have but infuriating at the same time, especially when you’ve had a rough day and fancied a quiet read. All of which is a slightly long-winded way of saying that I never thought I’d see the day where a book by Stephen Graham Jones ended up being a ‘Did Not Finish’ in its most devilish disguise yet. But here we are :o) The good news though, is that I think that it was more about me than any fault in the book itself. Some...

  It doesn’t happen often but, it happens. As much as I want to finish everything I read, it doesn’t happen every time. Well, most of the time it does but every so often… And I’ll tell you what happens even less often. You can normally count on me finishing a book if it’s a ‘Black Library’ book. This time round though… Here we are. As the Empire’s mighty armies clash against the rampaging hordes of evil, they leave in their wake the detritus of war, including the dead and the dying. Resourceful Angelika Fleischer ekes a living by looting the bloody battlefields, searching for the trinkets and gold carried by soldiers of all sides. But an encounter with the mysterious Kopf brothers leaves Angelika desperate to discover the dark truth behind their quest to find their missing brother before the sweeping tide of battle overtakes them all. What I love about the Warhammer Fantasy books set in the Old World is that you really feel like you’re there. The best writers here, get that setting...

I’ve had a good run of books that entertained and made me want to keep turning those pages but, it had to end at some point :o) It happens and because I want this blog to be about all the books I read (not just the ones I enjoy), it’s time for another ‘DNF’ post. This time, it’s a book that I packed for a bus ride to Bromley but couldn’t continue with on the way back. They were caught in the ultimate trap. They faced the ultimate terror. Five men and one beautiful woman. Marooned on a floating island of arctic ice. Together they had the equipment and skills to fight the freezing cold, the violently savage storms. Then suddenly from the angry seas the jaws of horror opened wide as nature's deadliest creature rose from the depths — a huge killer whale of enormous intelligence, incredible power, indestructible endurance, ravenous for human prey.… Maybe I’m spending too much time in my own head right now (entirely possible) but just recently, I’ve been wondering if there is such a t...

I am absolutely shattered today so I thought I’d take another stab at that big ol’ pile of comic books (I showed you a couple of weeks ago ) and I see if I could cut it down to size a little. And I did, just not in the way I was hoping… As I get older, I’m finding it a hell of a lot easier to just not finish books that aren’t working for me. Too many other books to read, not enough time and all that. Comic books though, they’re a little easier on my eyes so I generally stick with them to the bitter end, no matter the quality. Not this one though… Pitiless war machines committed to universal conquest, the Daleks have terrified and enthralled Doctor Who fans for generations. Collected together for the first time, Panini Comics proudly presents the first volume of Dalek stories taken from Doctor Who Magazine’s 40 years of award-winning comic strip. Growing up, I was all about watching ‘Doctor Who’ on the TV and filling in any gaps by reading whatever I can lay my hands on in the library. ...

You don't often see a 'Did Not Finish' around these parts (there has only been one other this year ) because, well... I generally feature books that I've bought myself and given the way things are these days, I'm not going to buy a book unless I'm very certain that I'll finish it ;o) It does happen though, not often but sometimes, and this time round, it was a book that I really wasn't expecting to put down as early as I did. Go on, have some blurb... The mighty fleets of the Indomitus Crusade face terrors and dangers beyond imagining. As Guilliman's crusade marches forth, bringing the Emperor's light to thousands of worlds, Fleet Secundus is headed for the darkest dark – the Eye of Terror itself. Along with warriors of the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes, the Imperial Navy battle cruiser Judgement of the Void pushes deeper into contested space. But as their journey unfolds, the forces of Chaos close in, and a battle for survival is abo...

What...?? A book about zombies and I didn't finish it? Well, it can happen and yesterday it did. To be fair, I don't think it was entirely the book's fault, my brain is all fogged up, with Covid, and that's never conducive to a good reading experience. Even so... Well, we'll get to that in a minute. I saw 'Zombie Apocalypse' in the Catford British Heart Foundation shop and thought it might be a good one for my eldest daughter who enjoyed 'The Girl With All The Gifts' and wants to read more zombie books. She's in Plymouth right now though, and I was after something to read, so I thought I'd have a little re-read (I last read it fourteen years ago) before she got back. And that is where we begin... In the near future, a desperate and ever more controlling UK government attempts to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. But construction work on the site of an old church in South London releases a centuries old plague t...

Because sometimes, life is far too short to stick with a book that’s not working for you. Especially if work is giving you a bit of a kicking, you’ve got an exam that you really need to pass for work and… Hang on, that’s just me ;o) My first sentence still stands though, life really is too short to not be enjoying something that should be a bit of a treat after a long day. Sometimes though, it’s really not the book’s fault, you and it just happened to cross paths at entirely the wrong time. And that brings me round to Steven B. Fischer’s ‘Witchbringer’. Suffer not the witch to live, unless by their service they might earn redemption. This is the creed of the scholastica psykana, a brutal foundry in which those with psychic power might be taught to serve. On the eve of her sanctioning as a primaris psyker within these very halls, Glavia Aerand, former captain of the Cadian 900th Regiment, receives a startling premonition – one concerning her old unit and a dangerous psychic artefact...

  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 pla...

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...

Because sometimes, life is just far too much to be spending time on books that aren’t doing it for you. Unless they’re schoolbooks of course but sometimes, even then… 😉 School is a long way back in my past now (thank goodness for that…) so if I’m really not enjoying a book now, I get to put the damn thing down and never go back to it again. Books like Robert Asprin’s ‘Myth Conceptions’. Way, way back in the day, I was too busy working my way through (nearly) all the Terry Pratchett books to pay much attention to Robert Asprin’s ‘Myth’ series, time well spent to be fair 😉 And then, a few weeks ago now, I came across a copy of ‘Myth Conceptions’ in a charity shop and it was finally time to give Asprin a go. Well, at least I can say I gave him a go now. I don’t think I’ll bother with any more though… The Scenario… Skeeve, the apprentice masquerading as a court magician in Possiltum. Aahz, a clapped-out demon. Gleep, a dragon of very little brain. The Problem… One invadin...

If you've visited the blog this week, you've probably gathered that it hasn't been the best week for getting books read. Not a bad week for watching 'Doctor Who' but books? I've read a couple of bits but nowhere near what I wanted to. Work demands have gone and stepped up a gear, recently, while everything else isn't letting up either. It's all do-able but doesn't leave me a lot of time for reading so if a book doesn't hit the spot quickly then I'm not going to stick with it for long. More often than not it's not the book's fault, I just need something off it that perhaps it's not built for. Which leads me onto 'Video Night' and this post... Have some blurb... Who better to repel a body-snatching alien invasion than a group of teenage horror nerds? Billy and Tom are best friends, but each knows that at the end of the school year they'll be moving in different directions. But why not go out with a bang and throw on...

A lot of the time, you can see a ‘Did Not Finish’ coming at you from a distance. A book clearly isn’t working for you, whatever the reason, and you know, at the back of your mind, that eventually you will stop reading and that will be that. Sometimes though, a ‘Did Not Finish’ can creep up on you when you are least expecting it and you suddenly realise that the last time you picked a particular book up was the last time you’d ever pick it up. That’s what happened to me with ‘The Spread, Book 2’… Ryan and Aaron have escaped the cottage by the hill and finally made it to the village where they hope to find safety, but the threat of the quickly spreading fungus is only growing worse, and not everyone in the village welcomes strangers. It's time to meet the locals.. I’ve gone back and read my post on Book 1 of ‘The Spread’ and I’m a little bit embarrassed now as I was all full of ‘I’m definitely going to read the whole series etc etc’ and here I am, effectively dropping out of the...

I used to be a lot more patient with books back in the day. If I picked one up then I'd do my best to finish it, even if it was awful. What heady, carefree days they were... Did I really have nothing better to do with my time than not enjoy what I was reading? Apparently so. These days though... Life is really too short to spend on a book that I'm not enjoying, so I don't :o) I mean, why would you? And it's not like there aren't plenty of other books, in my flat, that I could be reading instead. So yep, today is a 'Did Not Finish' post. Step forward, Jeffrey N. Wallmann's 'Death Trek'. I found my copy of 'Death Trek' almost exactly a year ago in Deptford Market. I was in the mood for something a little 'old school' and it doesn't get much more 'old school' than that cover, does it? It took me a while to get round to it (I wasn't in the mood for 'old school' for very long and then I had to wait for it to c...

Well what have we here? It's a 'Did Not Finish', looking very sorry for itself but needing to be posted about and discussed. Lets get to it :o) Now more than ever, it's really important to be kind to yourself and just admit that you're not that into the book that is proving to be so difficult to get into. It happens and there are so many other things happening, at the moment, that are more important than a book that isn't working for you. Put the book down and read something that you're actually going to enjoy. You owe it to yourself to put a little fun in your life, seriously :o) With that all said and out of the way, lets talk about the latest book I didn't finish; a Black Library 'Space Marine' tale... Hang on, don't I usually polish these off without breaking a sweat. Well yes, normally I do. Not this time though... Have some blurb, On the prison world of Zartak, darkness has fallen on arbitrators and inmates alike. The Night Lord...

It's only been in the last few years that I've finally realised that I don't have to finish every book that I pick up. Maybe I'm just getting a bit older now and there's a creeping suspicion, at the back of my mind, that there's not as much time (as there used to be) to read all the good books, let alone the ones that don't agree with me. Maybe I've just lost a little bit of the tolerance that I used to have for reading books that weren't quite up to snuff. It's more than likely that the truth sits somewhere in the middle of the two and to be honest, it's not that big a deal. If a book isn't working for me then I'm gracefully bowing out and moving onto something else. It's still a shame though when a book doesn't work out. Especially when it's a book that you've always fancied picking up but never got round to. Especially when it's a book that felt like it was just the book for me... Yep, I'm talking ...

What's that? Another 'Did Not Finish' in less than a week? We'd better have a look at this... This time round, it was Katherine Kerr's 'Daggerspell' and an abortive attempt at joining in a readalong . This just goes to show that I am rubbish at joining in with others but does it show anything else...? Here's the blurb, A broken promise, a curse and a magic beyond imagining…   The powerful sorcerer Nevyn broke a promise long ago and a curse has trapped him ever since. He waits for the one who might break him free of his prison. A wait that may soon finally come to an end.   Jill is the daughter of a Silver Dagger, a band of wandering swordsmen who fight for money, not honour.  After her mother died when she was young, father and girl took to the road, living from town to town, never settling.   Jill’s only friends are the mysterious spirits known as Wildfolk: gnomes, sylphs, sprites and undines. Their magical presence in her life marks her out...

Ah ‘Did Not Finish’, we meet again… Life is way too short to stick with a book that either does nothing for you at all or you just find offensive for some reason or other. The challenge then is to say why … It’s been a rough week, for reasons, and Matthew Ward’s ‘Legacy of Ash’ is far too big to take on the bus every day so I was looking for an easy read to help me unwind. As luck would have it, I had a copy of Guy N. Smith’s ‘Cannibals’ sitting unread so thought that would do the trick. Here’s some blurb… Deep in the mountain caves of Blair Long lurks a band of monsters - half-human creatures hideously mutated after generations of inbreeding. This is the dark secret of a remote Highland village - a secret kept safe until a local fisherman builds some holiday chalets to attract tourists. Then the shameful conspiracy of silence is shattered at last - as the horrendous creatures shamble from their lair to mutilate and kill the unsuspecting visitors. Sounds like just m...

It's funny how despite what people think, life isn't actually too short to finish a book you don't like, so long as it's engaging you on one level or another. At least you'll come away, at the end, feeling like you've been challenged in some way or another. You've had to work for it, and you may still not agree with what the book is saying, but you made it through. Books that don't engage with you at all though, that's another story. Live is definitely too short to be spending on those books, at least as far as I'm concerned. If you're struggling to maintain any kind of interest, put the book down and pick another one up. That feeling you get when you connect with a book is magical; you deserve better than to trudge through a book that isn't giving you that feeling. All of which is a long winded way of saying that I didn't finish the books below. It happens, I'm not going to feel bad about it. Hopefully the blurbs will...