Lord Samper's Library

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 ...

Well, that's another 'Loki Wednesday' that I've missed... I got to re-watch an old favourite of mine, last night, though so I'm not too fussed. You can have my thoughts on 'Loki' tomorrow instead ;o) In the meantime... Thanks to various Twitter folk who voted on what I'd be watching yesterday evening. I had a suspicion, proved correct, that I wouldn't get much reading done last night so declared it a 'Movie Night' instead. For a while, it looked like Twitter was pointing me in the direction of 'Doctor Who: The Movie' but some last minute voting saw a hard fought and narrow victory for the 1988 version of 'The Blob' instead, for which I'm very grateful (nothing against 'Doctor Who: The Movie', it's just been a while since I last watched 'The Blob' and I love this movie). I first came across 'The Blob' in the college library (far too long ago now...) where I should have been working but was wo...

What makes a 'Library Classic' on this blog? Genre classics are one thing but here, a 'Library Classic' is something a little different. We're talking books and movies that are important to their sub-genre (in one way or another) but are also important to me personally. Those books and films that came along, at a particular time, and resonated with me. Books like 'Dead City'... It was back in 2006 that I really started to get into zombie fiction, discovering through Brian Keene's work that there was more to it than just the 'Walking Dead' comic. I wanted more though and didn't have to look far my next read. Seriously, I didn't have to look far at all; the books in Forbidden Planet are arranged alphabetically (because of course they are) and 'M' isn't all that far away from 'K'... I'm a sucker for a good blurb so 'Dead City' came home with me and I was hooked from the first page. We'll go into it more, ...

I'm at that point of the week where I'm about halfway through my latest read ('The Living Dead' by George Romero and Daniel Kraus) and there's nothing on Prime, or my DVD shelf, that I want to watch right now. So, how does a chap keep to a half-hearted promise to post something every day? Well, I was shifting bits of furniture around my flat the other day (easier than it sounds, my flat is tiny so all you have to do is give said furniture a little nudge and it's pretty much where you want it to be...) and I found 'The Characters of Tolkien' in a pile of books that were waiting to go back on a shelf. And that's what happens when you run out of things to post about, you come across an old favourite and post about that instead ;o) I loved 'The Hobbit', as a kid, but it was 'The Lord of the Rings' that really blew my mind and I spent a large chunk of my childhood just hanging out in Middle Earth and experiencing it in the way that only a...

I first came across Celtic barbarian hero Slaine at a newsagents in the nicer end of Ipswich. And that would have been amazing if it had happened the way I (deliberately) wrote it but he was in a comic of course, one of those American editions that repackage old British stories. Ukko the Dwarf lost himself in a bet and Slaine had to win him back, which he did. It was a little hint, even then, that comics could do a lot more than retell old war stories (I'm looking at you 'Victor' comic) which is fine in its place but I was after something different and 'Slaine' gave me that. That first meeting was back in the mid to late eighties and it wasn't until 1992 that I met up with Slaine again. This time round, a good mate of mine lent me 'The Horned God' to read while I waited for my GCSE results to turn up. It was a good summer, both for the GCSE results and because I got to read 'The Horned God' for the first time. We pick up little influences on our...

'Eric' was the first Terry Pratchett book that I ever read (when I was young enough to have absolutely no idea why the word 'Faust' had been crossed out on the cover) and therefore my favourite. Yep, it even beats 'Guards, Guards!', although that's a very close run race, so you probably need to know that this isn't so much a review as it is a post about a book that I love. I first read 'Eric' in its massive hardback form where the gorgeous Josh Kirby artwork found it's way off the covers and into the book itself, a wonderful mix of Pratchett's words and Kirby's art. That is the Discworld as far as I'm concerned :o) That book ended up going back to the library but I had my own copy not long after and that led to me reading (and laughing) my way through a large chunk of the Discworld books. So, what better book to read when I've got an ongoing 'readers block' thing happening? I know I've likened reading the 'Disc...

The Christmas holidays are a lot of things to a lot of people and one of the things it is for me is the ideal excuse to dig out some favourite movies, on DVD, and watch them while stuffing my greedy face with chocolate, Jelly Tots (a personal favourite) or anything else that happens to be at hand. I'm not fussy ;o) I've loved 'Ray Harryhausen movies' since I was tiny (well, maybe not that tiny...) and used to watch 'Sinbad' movies on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first time that I had ever seen monsters that weren't cheaply djasonressed 'Doctor Who' extras and actually moved and interacted with the characters. I was enthralled and have been enthralled by Harryhausen movies ever since, even in these days of CGI. Damn, I feel old saying that but it's true. There' something about a 'stop motion' monster, and the way it's set against the human cast, that gets me every time so of course I was going to use Christmas as an excuse to g...

After watching 'Conan the Destroyer' the other day, I realised that there was no way I could go on without watching (and posting about) 'Conan the Barbarian' as well. It would be like starting with 'The Empire Strikes' back and then carrying on without bothering with 'A New Hope'; do-able but strangely unfulfilling at the same time. It was this realisation that led to the next realisation, I didn't have a copy of 'Conan the Barbarian'. Luckily, a random browse through the Deptford CEX sorted me out and I settled down to watch it last night... Okay, and part of this morning as well, I'm all middle aged now so can't quite manage the late nights these days ;o) 'Conan the Barbarian' tells the story of Conan (surprise!) and his lifelong quest to have revenge on the men who slaughtered his village and, for some inexplicable reason, sent Conan to do loads of exercise, learn how to fight and then gain his freedom. What was that all a...

It's funny how that I'm always after a book that will make me think, while I'm reading it, but when it comes to films, I'm totally the opposite... How about you? I think there's something about moving pictures where I'm just happy to let them wash over me and take me wherever the story goes. I was particularly in the mood for this today so it was perhaps inevitable that I would sit down and watch 'Conan the Destroyer'. Well, it was going to be 'Conan the Barbarian' (the 'Arnie' one) but I couldn't find the DVD so had to make do with what I had. It wasn't exactly a chore to be honest, 'Conan the Destroyer' was as fun to watch as it always is. Queen Taramis tasks Conan, and his accomplice Malak, with a mission to escort the Princess Jehenna while she fulfils her destiny to retrieve the horn of the dreaming god Dagoth. If the Princess does get the horn though, she won't live long enough to enjoy her triumph as she must ...

I know, it's another 'short story post' today but bear with me a little bit. Not only has my reading taken a bit of a hit this week (what with one thing and several others) but 'Under the Bedclothes' is a story that's a little bit special to me. Let me explain... I first came across the short story 'Under the Bedclothes' when, I reckon, I was about nine years old and at primary school. The bookshelves, at my primary school, were nothing like what you'd expect to see these days, in particular I'm thinking about what seemed like loads of horror and supernatural anthologies. Pan Book of Horror? My primary school had that, amongst many others. So I'm reading my way through the '14 th Armada Ghost Book' and I come across this story called 'Under the Bedclothes'. I'll tell you about it in a minute but for now, lets just say that I read it and it scared the life out of poor little nine year old me. It scared me to the point w...

I've got a few books on the go right now but none of them are anywhere near finished. Apparently, that's what happens when you ignore a work deadline right, until the very last minute, but anyway... In an attempt to buy myself a little time (and also to come up with decent content, of course), I thought I'd occasionally pick a book/comic book off my shelves and have a little chat about why I love it. It may not be a classic in everyone's eyes but it is in mine and I like to share :o) Lets see how we go with that, shall we...? I didn't get into Marvel comics until the mid-nineties (with 'Age of Apocalypse', a post for another time) but I was an avid comic reader for a long time before that with 'Victor' (a mix of WW2 stories, some sci-fi and a really weird story about a giant owl, but anyway) and the odd copy of 2000AD if I was lucky. I didn't mind a bit of Judge Dredd back then but I was more into the Celtic stylings of 'Slaine...