Lord Samper's Library

  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 ...

  This will be a much shorter post than normal… While you’re reading this, I’ll be doing ‘fun stuff’ like clearing my work locker out, shredding notes and making sure that I hand my work laptop in before I leave work for the final time. On the other hand, I will be making time for a bacon roll from my favourite cafe so, it’s not all bad ;o) Anyway… It has been a difficult couple of days for reading (there are currently two books, on the comfy chair, that are exactly my kind of thing, I just can’t get into them) but I knew this was likely to happen so I already had a little ‘Conan’ set to one side, just in case… Thirty three issues in and I’ve stopped looking for continuity between the stories; to be honest, I shouldn’t have started looking in the first place. I mean, there is an overall timeline for Conan (it’s his life…) but the comic seems to hop around that timeline and for me, that is the best way to experience Conan’s adventures, just jump in and see what he’s up right now. #3...

The end of my job is only two and a bit weeks away but somehow seems to be dragging out at the same time… I’ve handed all of my projects over, to the new folk, now and I’m left with all the ‘leavers admin’ stuff and all the fiddly little bits that it wouldn’t be fair to leave to someone else. If only I could remember where I left my motivation in the meantime… ;o) Add a couple of pissed off cats into the mix (it’s far too hot at the moment…) and yesterday was pretty miserable to be honest. As luck would have it though, ‘past me’ saw a situation like this occurring and very thoughtfully ordered some comic books that turned up yesterday morning. So, once all the ‘work stuff’ was done for the day, I settled down for some reading… ‘Event Horizon: Inferno’ #4 – Ward, Carey, Honchar (ID Dark) After all the excitement, and a little heartbreak, of #3, this fourth instalment slows things right down again; some of the players didn’t get their ‘time in the sun’ and presumably need to get caught ...

  Page Count: 144 Pages It wasn’t just ‘Doctor Who’ books that I bought, in Greenwich, the other day. I don’t normally go into ‘Casbah Records’ but I saw a little sign, saying ‘books for sale’, and figured… Just this once :o) ‘Turf’ is one of those titles where I see #1 in ‘Forbidden Planet’ and think to myself, ‘I’ll pick up a copy next time’. The next thing I know, it’s years later and I’ve just found a really nice looking collected edition (still wrapped up in the plastic) in a Greenwich Record Shop. I thought to myself, ‘if I don’t read it now, I’ll have retired by the time I next remember to read it…’ So, that’s what I did. New York, 1929: The height of prohibition. Gangs fall like bloody dominos as the mysterious Dragonmir family fights to rule the city and begin to wake the Old One – a gigantic sleeping vampire buried in the roots of their mansion. But an unlikely alliance between tough guy Eddie Falco and an alien gun-runner leads to an uneasy stalemate. Meanwhile, a strong...

  As I’ve mentioned previously, the plan was to have a post here for each of the novellas from Ronald Malfi’s ‘Ghostwritten’ collection. I started off well with ‘The Skin of Her Teeth’ and was pretty pleased when I kept things going with ‘The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride’ (last week was tough, the blog was lucky to get any posts at all…) And while things continued in that manner, over the weekend, when I read ‘This Book Belongs to Olo’; my reading plans ended up hitting a bump. I should have seen it coming really… I finished ‘This Book Belongs to Olo’ and just kept going, I didn’t want to wait for another week ;o) That should tell you all you need to know about my experience with ‘Ghostwritten’ but that would make for a very short post here so I’ll tell you about those final two novellas in a minute. As far as the collection, as a whole, goes, I would highly recommend you give ‘Ghostwritten’ a go if you haven’t already. And if you have, well… read it again. I will be doing just that ...

  Well, it took a few days but the Covid jab has (finally) stopped making me feel rough as [insert expletive here] and is, presumably, getting on with its actual job, blunting the effects of real Covid. I hope so, I’ve got a fair bit to get through at work today… Anyway, I was actually in a good place, yesterday, to sit down and get some more reading under my belt; so that’s exactly what I did ;o) I’ve got a couple of collections that I’m working my way through, amongst others, so made those my focus and… A very nice afternoon’s reading was had by this reader, here’s to more afternoons like that ;o) And one of those collections was Ronald Malfi’s ‘Ghostwritten’. ‘The Skin Of Her Teeth’ had already proved to be a fine opener, yesterday was time to see if ‘The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride’ was more of the same and… It was, of course it was, let me tell you a bit about it. Page Count: 110 Pages Is there a job that’s easier than putting a book in your car at Point A and then deliveri...

  The Bank Holiday Weekend may be well and truly over (at least until the next one comes along) but it left a final present in that the rest of the working week is that little bit shorter. Today feels like a Tuesday but it isn’t, is it? No, it isn’t :o) Anyway, we’re all about short reads here at the moment (a natural fit for a shorter week); mostly because of work, partly because it’s still far too hot for anything more substantial, but also because yesterdays Covid vaccination is starting to make its presence felt. In the spirit of ‘trying to focus on my shelves instead of the shelves in Waterstones’, I thought I’d (finally) check out Ronald Malfi’s ‘Ghostwritten’ collection. I had a lot of fun with ‘They Lurk’ , and four novellas means four posts here, so it all made kind of sense. And in the spirit of ‘keeping things nice and simple’, I’m starting off with the first novella in the collection. That made sense too ;o) Page Count: 86 Pages A lot of money is riding on whether the s...

  Page Count: 208 Pages My ongoing journey to read more of the books that I buy is going… Well… You all saw yesterday’s post :o) It’s not going brilliantly but not only do I really enjoy reading fantasy and horror, I’m also dogged and relentless with my TBR pile. Erm… Well, more the former than the latter ;o) I’ll get there, eventually… Anyway. The other day, said journey saw me take a little trek through the Hyborian Age with some quick detours along the way to take in 16th Century France and Hungary, as well as 1930s Egypt. Yep, I finally read that copy of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’, that has been been giving me reproachful looks for far too long. Lets talk a little about it :o) The second volume of ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’ collects issues #4-6 of the ongoing series and kicks things off with one of my pet hates about comic books… The humble ‘crossover’ event. That’s not the book’s fault, lets be clear, but here we are. I’m the kind of guy who settles on a title and sticks with it...

  Page Count: 128 Pages I’ve been rubbish at getting out of the house, these last few days, so yesterday lunchtime, I took myself for a little walk over to Blackheath and got some sunshine for my efforts. Actually, I need to do that more often, I think it did me some good :o) And after yesterday’s talk of not buying so many books… I ended up buying a couple of books during my wander through Blackheath. That’s the problem with second hand bookshops… If a book catches your eye, you don’t know if it will be there next time so you have no choice in the matter, you have to get it :o) And that’s what I did when I saw ‘The Heralds of Destruction’. I ended up working a little later than expected, last night, so figured it would be a good book to read over what remained of the evening. And… Maybe I should have chosen something else to read. Oh well, it happens… The Third Doctor finds himself up against a ‘hive mind’ robotic intelligence that is capable of recreating itself out of litera...

It’s a quick post today… Yesterday, I went out for a spot of Christmas Shopping, in Bromley, and not only did I find nothing (nine days to go...) but the book I took with me (to read on the bus) really didn’t work out, not for a ‘bus read’ anyway. Not sure if it’s a ‘DNF’ or not, I might pick it up again, but it left me looking at a trip home with nothing to read so… Just before I caught the bus home, I popped into ‘Piranha Comics’, just on the off-chance that the latest instalment of ‘Event Horizon: Dark Descent’ was out. It wasn’t but I did find a couple of comics to read on the way home. And here is where I tell you about them… :o) ‘The Terminator: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’ – Ganucheau, Goode (Dynamite) Because look at that cover, I just had to buy it. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same ;o) I love that there was a meeting, presumably, where Paulina Ganucheau pitched the idea ‘What if it’s Christmas Eve and a Terminator materializes outside a fancy-dress store where o...

I’ve got a few bits and pieces to sort out, over the next couple of days, so content here may be a little lighter than normal. And yep, I made a pretty big assumption, about the state of my regular content, in that opening sentence ;o) Anyway… I did a spot of Christmas shopping, the other day, and made a quick detour to pick the shelves (at Forbidden Planet) clean of some comics that I’d been waiting on. Look at me being all efficient, getting two things done in one trip ;o) Here’s some quick thoughts on the first couple of comics from that little haul… ‘Event Horizon: Dark Descent #2’ – Ward, Jones, Martin (ID Dark) The ‘Event Horizon’ continues its journey through chaos and most of the crew are now dead. The survivors must deal with Paimon having arrived on board as well as his twisted creations and the secrets of the crew, suddenly brought to awful life… Well, damn… Every time I think that things cannot get worse for the crew of the ‘Event Horizon’, they promptly go and get worse ...

  Please excuse the ‘slightly shorter than normal’ post. Not only is it my first day back in the office, after a week off (spoiler alert, I’m not enjoying it…), I’m also coming off the back of a weekend that involved a lot of watching ‘The Walking Dead’, with my eldest daughter, and not a lot of reading at all. Despite all my best ‘reading intentions’, that’s the way it went and I’ve got no regrets :o) I did manage to get a little reading done though, just a little… We were in Forbidden Planet the other day and while the girls were off looking for Manga, I pored over the shelves and found a lonely looking copy of ‘Conan the Barbarian #22’. I wasn’t expecting to find a copy quite so soon, after enjoying ‘Conan #21’ , but there it was so I made sure that it came home with me. Lets talk about it a bit… The cage may be beautifully gilded but Conan is still a slave and his barbarian soul chafes under this imprisonment. Conan is patient though and knows that if he bides his time, a cha...

Page Count: 112 Pages I am the worlds worst gamer, seriously. Anything longer than a game of Fifa (where my youngest daughter still beats me regularly) and I completely lose my focus, going off in directions that I’m positive the game developers never considered. I love to watch other people play though, especially when there’s an interesting plot. My eldest daughter loves playing ‘Little Nightmares’ (1 & 2) and I’m loving the gloomy aesthetic as well as the world building that has gone into the game. I could sit there for hours and just watch Mono and Six feel their way through this broken landscape. And I do :o) I’m pet-sitting this week and came across my daughters copy of ‘Little Nightmares Vol.1’; so I thought I’d give it a go and see what else I could find out about this world… Enter the world of Little Nightmares, where a young girl in a bright raincoat must face her deepest fears… A nine-year old girl named Six is kidnapped from her home and taken to work in The Maw, a sur...

After leaving Cimmeria filled with wanderlust, a young Conan heads north in search of glory. What he finds in that cold climate will change his outlook forever, setting him on the path that will make him a legend. It’s taken me a little longer than planned to pick this book up (blame ‘Into the Narrowdark’ but in a good way, that book absolutely grabbed my attention) but I’m thoroughly enjoying Zub’s ‘Conan’ so reading ‘Frozen Faith’ was always going to be a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. And at the risk of repeating myself. It was well worth the read. I’m definitely repeating myself but at this point, I don’t care :o) ‘Conan’ really is in the best of hands with Jim Zub who instinctively gets the character, both in terms of adapting Howard’s stories and in letting Conan search out further new adventures. And Doug Braithwaite’s artwork continues to be just superb, really capturing the essence of Conan himself as well as the wider world that he strides through. I’ll be honest… I’ve go...

I’m on call today so am making the most of it (I can’t be too far away from my work laptop and wi-fi connection) by staying indoors, even though it’s lovely outside, and trying to catch up on some reading. Okay, catching up on some telly as well :o) Who knows, today may even be the day when I finish ‘Into the Narrowdark’ but for now, lets talk a little bit about ‘Conan the Barbarian #18’ which I picked up during a brief stop in Forbidden Planet the other day. I’m still very much about collecting the trades (try as I might, I always forget to pick up single issues) but I needed some reading for the train home so, here we are :o) On the road of Kings… While resupplying in the Shemite coastal city of Kyros, Conan of Cimmeria and Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast, sought refuge and respite at an inn known as the Hidden Haven. There, the duo indulged in drink and nostalgia, recalling their charged first meeting before retiring to the privacy of their room. But their presence was noted by a ...

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago but it was actually back in July last year that I took a look at the Fighting Fantasy background book, ‘Titan, the Fighting Fantasy World’. I love that book, by the way, but I’m not going into all that again. Have a look at my post, over Here , if you haven’t seen it already (or even if you have, I don’t mind). ‘Out of the Pit’ was the companion book, that went with Titan, and at the prices I’d seen previously, on Amazon and the like, I’d pretty much given up on ever owning a copy of my own. That was until I went into the British Heart Foundation shop, just before Christmas and saw a copy, sat on the shelf, and at a price I could afford 😊 And it went to charity so everyone won 😉 My copy is the smaller paperback edition but I'm using the larger cover art here as you can see more of it and it's worth it. I’ve been dipping in and out of this book, over the last few days, and have fallen in love with it all over again. From the darkest...

I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment but couldn't stay away from this one for too long... ;o) I'll warn anyone reading, this isn't so much a review, more a case of me going on for a bit and getting a little nostalgic for one of the few things that was good about school, reading Fighting Fantasy books. If you're still here, lets go. I had my head in a book for most of my childhood and when my head wasn't in a book, it was thinking about books I'd read and books that I still needed to read. Kind of like these days really ;o) I was just the right age to catch the Fighting Fantasy books first time round and just fell in love with them. It was like returning to all the 'fantasy book worlds' that I'd already fallen in love with (I'm looking at you in particular 'The Hobbit' and anything by Alan Garner, those were happy reading days), the difference being that I actually got to decide how each story unfolded. It's true, I ...