Lord Samper's Library

  Page Count: 130 Pages I’m a little bit annoyed with myself for caving in and buying the ‘Flames of Betrayal’ collection but, I really wanted to read ‘Knight of Grey’ so… :o) You see, ‘Flames of Betrayal’ is actually ‘Garro: Knight of Grey’ and then all the stories collected in ‘Era of Ruin’ which funnily enough, I went and reviewed over Here , back in March this year. So… Half annoyed at Black Library for packaging a novella alongside a collection that I already own (I mean, why didn’t they do that when they published ‘Era of Ruin’ in hardback?), half annoyed that I’m just the kind of sucker who will buy the same book twice. Oh well, if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this week… (it won’t be, my job ends on Friday) Anyway :o) One of the things that I love about the ‘Horus Heresy’, and ‘Siege of Terra’, books is that you can pretty much pick a character and then follow them through any number of novels, short stories and so on. I’ve got a few favourites and one that I’ve...

  Page Count: 101 Pages ‘Exit 8’ has been making itself known all over my Prime Video, and so the plan was to give it a watch at some point i.e. in about a weeks time when my job ends and I have a little more time on my hands. And then I was in Forbidden Planet yesterday and discovered that ‘Exit 8’ isn’t just a film based on a video game… It’s also a book and that book was staring at me from a shelf. It was just over a hundred pages long and there was a ‘money off’ sticker on the front… That was all the excuse I needed ;o) Quick thoughts (very quick thoughts…) are the order of the day as, well… That page count speaks for itself. ‘Exit 8’ is worth the read though, let me tell you about it. A young man is riding the Tokyo subway when he receives a life-changing text message from his ex-girlfriend. He exits the train, but extraordinary things begin to happen, and he finds that he cannot escape. The subway will loop endlessly unless he follows very precise rules: Do not overlook any a...

  Page Count: 93 Pages While it hasn’t been a great week, it has been a pretty good week for reading and you know what…? I’ll take that, especially when I’ve got no plans for the weekend other than to keep on reading ;o) In the meantime, I thought I’d round off the working week with a Jack Ketchum novella that I found lurking in the back of ‘Red’ . And… When Janet’s car breaks down on a quiet road, her only real concern is how long it will take before she can flag down a passing car, any passing car. One lift, from a very angry motorist, later and it couldn’t possibly get any worse, could it?  Oh, it could. And it does… Before we get going, I feel like a little advance warning would be useful here. I’m not really going to go into the rape scene, in this post, but it does happen and that’s something that some readers may want to consider before reading ‘The Passenger’. It’s up to you. Ketchum doesn’t make it the focus of this tale but similarly to ‘Red’, it does happen. Anyway…...

  Page Count: 126 Pages If you were to look up the word ‘prolific’ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Adrian Tchaikovsky next to it, presumably of him writing a book. Now, that may not be quite true (although it has been a while since I looked up the word ‘prolific’ in the dictionary…) but there’s no doubt that Tchaikovsky is one of the harder working genre authors at the moment. His output is not to be sniffed at :o) It was a bit of a treat then to see Tchaikovsky carve out his own little spot in the Warhammer 40K universe but, as a fantasy fan first and foremost, it was even more of a treat to see him finally set foot in the Mortal Realms. Especially as I’ve always seen him as an author who is more than willing to deep dive into a Race/Species and really look at what makes them tick. And there isn’t that much to work with when it comes to Ogors, is there…? It took me a little while to get round to it (no surprises there…) but I finally read ‘On the Shoulders of Gian...

  Page Count: 220 Pages I spent a large chunk of yesterday afternoon at the hospital (nothing urgent, just a regular appointment for blood tests and so on) so of course I made sure that I had a book in my bag; for the queue in the pharmacy if nothing else ;o) And when I’m stuck in a long, and seemingly never ending queue, the best book to have in your bag (in my bag anyway…) is a ‘Warhammer 40K’ book. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary but a large slice of ‘all out warfare’ will always make the wait in a line a little easier; especially when the pharmacy forget to put your number up on the screen and it turns out your medication was waiting on the side the whole time… Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I’ve been enjoying William Crowe’s ‘Veterans of the Fall’ collection (check out my reviews of ‘Tattershield’ and ‘Tatters of Hope’), and I figured I wouldn’t be in the hospital that long, so I thought I’d take the chance to read the final novella and finish off the book. Given how ...

  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 ...

  Page Count: 120 Pages I’ve been picking up the last few issues of ‘White Dwarf’ magazine to read the continuing adventures of Sergeant Elias Bain and his Cadian Shock Troopers. It was a great tale but if ‘Veterans of the Fall’ is anything to go by, I could have saved myself a few quid and waited for those adventures to be collected in book form. Oh well, like I said, it was a good read and there’s still something cool about having to wait a month to find out ‘what happens next’ ;o) At the same time, there’s also something cool about having the whole story in one place and that’s what I had with ‘Tatters of Hope’. All five episodes collected in 'Veterans of the Fall', lined up and ready to go. The ‘Tattershield’ Kasrkin troopers have taken down the Maligner but there are still plenty of Traitor Guard and Heretics who are ready to take his place and carry on the fight for the planet 04-Gavaine. The Tattershields, and supporting Anvil Battalion, are outnumbered and low on suppli...

  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: 52 Pages It’s not just zombie movies that I’ll watch, regardless of quality… If a film, or book, starts with the words ‘Earth vs.’? I’ll be there for it. And now I’ve said that, I’m just going to have to read ‘Earth vs. the Nudist Camp Freaks’ and ‘Earth vs. the Star Mummy’ (the two other novellas in this series) as well. I wouldn’t want to make a liar out of myself (dammit). Anyway… One of my ‘daily blog visits’ is ‘Paperback Warrior’ and that’s where I first saw that 1950s Earth had a problem on its hands with a big ol’ horde of Lava Spiders . Well, I had to head to Pine Grove and check out the situation… Tonight’s special features takes place on a quiet Friday night in the small coastal town of Pine Grove. Strange lights appear over Shasta Island and an explosion rocks the beachfront. Fireballs rain down from the sky as lava bubbles from the hidden volcano, unleashing a nightmare of hellfire and blood on the town. Watch in horror as the Lava Spiders surge across ...

  Page Count: 125 Pages ‘The Salt Grows Heavy’ has only sat on the TBR Pile since February this year; that’s actually not bad going, given how long certain other books (naming no names…) have gone unread. What’s the longest you’ve had a book sit unread in your TBR Pile? No judgment here ;o) And, look at me…De-railing my own post before it has even got going. Sorry, yesterday was one of those kind of days (you know the ones). Lets try again. I’ve been trying to get on top of the piles of books in my living room (not literally, although that could be fun) and while sorting through one pile, I found my copy of ‘The Salt Grows Heavy’, nestled between two old Abaddon Books collections. I needed a little break from my current read and the slender page count (and blurb) suggested a short, but intriguing, diversion. So I settled down for a read, yesterday evening, and… Myths are full of lies. This is not one of them. Fleeing the downfall of an empire, a mermaid and her plague doctor comp...

  Page Count: 58 Pages Regular visitors to the blog will know that every now and then, I decide that I really need to read something of Arthur Machen's, buy a book and then promptly pop it on a bookshelf to be forgotten about/possibly given away. Well… I can confirm that I have finally read an Arthur Machen story and it’s the one that everyone knows about. I had to start somewhere and the cover for ‘Tales of Horror and the Supernatural’ pretty much demanded that I start there. As a child of the eighties (mostly), I’ve got a soft spot for cover art like this; take a look and tell me that you disagree. Some things really were better in the ‘old days’ ;o) Anyway… ‘The Great God Pan’ was originally published, as a novella, in 1894 and my copy can be found in the 1975 Panther edition of ‘Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (Volume 1)’. Honestly though, if you’re looking to read ‘The Great God Pan’ yourself, you’ll have absolutely no trouble finding it in print or as an eBook. It’s not ...

  Page Count: 55 Pages H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Dunwich Horror’ was originally published in the April 1929 edition of ‘Wierd Tales’ (thanks Wikipedia!) I read it as part of the Vintage Books edition of ‘The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Tales’; you can more than likely pick up any collection of Lovecraft tales and find this story inside. You can also have a quick Google and find ‘The Dunwich Horror’ free to read online, like Here for example. Having watched the movie the other day, and realising that I’d never read the original tale, I thought it was way past time that I gave ‘The Dunwich Horror’ a read. So that’s exactly what I did last night, let me tell you about it… In the half-forgotten Massachusetts village of Dunwich, Wilbur Whateley is shunned by the other villagers and marked for an earth shattering destiny… If he can get his hands on an original edition of the Necronomicon. Wilbur’s untimely death abruptly ends that destiny but his unfinished work leaves Dunwich in grea...

  Page Count: 124 Pages I’ve got enough of a ‘book buying problem’ as it is so as a rule, I try not to act on other people’s recommendations. Nothing to do with other bloggers recommendations, it’s more about trying to keep the number of books, in the house, under control. You know how it is ;o) Every now and then though, a recommendation will catch me unawares and before I know it, there’s another book on a TBR pile, making me feel all guilty… ‘Rest Stop’ wasn’t on the TBR pile for too long though. I’m a regular subscriber to Brian Keene’s newsletter and when he had nothing but good things to say about ‘Rest Stop’, that was all I needed to hear. And yesterday, I had some time on my hands so I thought I’d give ‘Rest Stop’ a go... A young musician finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside. ‘Rest Stop’ is one of ...

  Page Count: 70 Pages I’m trying to draw a line between work and a little time where I can recharge in the evening; there’s no better way for me to draw that line than by picking up a book and having a read ;o) I’ve been reading Scott Oden’s blog for a while now and love his passion for Robert E. Howard and how this comes out in his discussion of Howard’s work as well as ‘Sword & Sorcery’ and what Oden calls ‘Heroic Historical’ fiction. I was after something heroic, while I try and sort a mini-TBR pile for ‘Cimmerian September’ so I figured it was way past time I gave Oden’s work a go. I have a copy of ‘Old Gods and Other Tales’ lined up, ready to go, but last night I thought I’d kick things off with ‘The White Lion’... Acre, at the close of the 13th century. The last remaining Crusader stronghold, where the ideals of a Kingdom of Heaven - forged by saints and zealots nearly two hundred years ago - now hang by the slenderest of threads. It is a city menaced by Saracen warlor...

Page Count: 176 Pages No matter what it might look like in various ‘Books for the TBR Pile’ posts, I really am trying to concentrate on reading books that are already on my shelves. ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is a very slender 176 pages long so I’m not going to beat myself up too much for missing it until now. With that page count, this is a book that can’t help but hide amongst the other books once it’s on your shelf. What I’d say is that if ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is on your shelf, don’t let it hide away, grab it for a read, I think you’ll be glad that you did. Quick thoughts on a quick read today. I’m not sure quite how it happened but yesterday was a bit of a write-off and I’ve got a lot to catch up on today (and take my youngest daughter out for lunch, I’m looking forward to that)… Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and ...

  Page Count: 114 Pages I enjoy reading other bloggers’ bookish thoughts but it’s not often that I’ll act on a recommendation. Nothing against you or what you’re reading; I’ve just got far too many books to get through and I’ll be honest, I’m pretty set in my ways with my reading these days. Not enough time to stick with a book I’m not enjoying, and all that ;o) There are bloggers whose recommendations I will act on though and Alex, of ‘Spells and Spaceships’ , is one of those. I’ve read a couple of very good books thanks to Alex’s blog, so when I saw that he’d read and enjoyed ‘Death Cult’ , well… I knew what my next read would be. Having just graduated from college, Jason and Eddie are ready to let loose and embark on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 1984. After some killer partying at a rock music festival in Nevada, they head out into the desert with girls and adventure on their minds. Their situation takes a dark turn, however, when they lose direction and find them...

Page Count: 88 Pages I hate saying this, because it’s only Tuesday dammit, but this week is already looking like it’s going to be another tough one so I’ve got a funny feeling you’ll be seeing mostly short stories here over the next few days. Maybe a couple of comic books as well. I’ll try and pick some good ones ;o) Today then, lets go to the darkest corners of a grimdark universe that’s already dark enough as it is; what with the constant warfare and all. I used to wonder whether, given the nature of the setting, a ‘Warhammer Horror’ line was over-egging the pudding but I’ve been proved wrong on a number of occasions now. That’ll teach me… I’m used to the line turning out some decent stories so it was no surprise then that ‘The Colonel’s Monograph’ was another one ;o) When invited to catalogue the antiquarian book collection of the late Colonel Grayloc – a celebrated hero of the Imperium – former archivist Teresina Sullo is swift to accept. Grieving for her dead husband, she sees an ...

Page Count: 128 Pages I never leave it too long between watching ‘Hellraiser’ movies (I actually re-watched the 2022 remake the other day, it’s still a good one) but I always seem to leave it far too long between re-reads of ‘The Hellbound Heart’. It’s a particularly slim book, my edition is anyway, so I guess it is too easy to lose it on the shelf. I came across it again, the other day, and thought to myself that if I don’t read it now, it could literally be years before I come across it again. Plus I was due a bus ride into work, yesterday, and ‘The Hellbound Heart’ is just the right length for a commute so… It came along with me :o) The Doorway to ultimate pleasure. At last, he had solved the puzzle of LeMarchand’s box. He was standing on the threshold of a new world of heightened sensations. In moments, the Cenobites – who had dedicated an eternity to the pursuit of sensuality – would be here. They would reveal dark secrets that would transform him for ever. But with the exquisite ...

I’ll be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure what the page count is here as I was reading ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ as part of of the collection ‘Unholy: Tales of Horror and Woe from the Imperium’. I’m going for a hundred and eighteen pages, in this edition, but I don’t trust my math and that’s all I’ll say about that ;o) I’ve managed to get a few Black Library tales under my belt over the last few months and ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ was a read back in December, one that I’d been looking forward to finally picking up. I couldn’t spring for the hardback, when it first came out, so the ‘Unholy’ collection was a welcome purchase and having already read ‘The Bookkeepers Skull’ , I went straight for ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ and… I’m glad that I finally got to spend some time with it. The planet of Theotokos is dying of thirst. For years, Arch-Deacon Ambrose has done everything in his power to help the people. Charismatic, virtuous, pious, he is as beloved as the corrupt Cardinal Lorenz, who hoar...