Lord Samper's Library

  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...

  Page Count: 295 Pages I will always have an unashamed soft spot for movie novelizations, mostly because of my old copy of ‘Return of the Jedi’ and how it helped me bridge the gap between seeing the movie, at the cinema, and finally watching it on the telly one Christmas. That and my (slightly older, I think) copy of ‘Ladyhawke’. As a kid, movie novelizations were the best way for me to experience movies that I was far too young to see, and it really felt like they were all written by Alan Dean Foster ;o) Anyway… These days, I’m still reading movie novelizations before I see the actual movie; something that happened last night with ‘Devour’. The trailer looks absolutely awesome but my googling has completely let me down, I can’t find a single mention of when the movie is definitely coming out or where I can watch it. Oh well… I saw the novelization, on Amazon, and figured it would keep me going in the meantime. And… The Virginia Bitches: an all-female, all-vampire metal band, shro...

I saw this not so long ago, on sale (four pounds) in the British Heart Foundation shop, and thought to myself, ‘you can’t go too far wrong for four quid, especially when you’ve just been paid and you’ve definitely got four quid spare.’ And that was that settled. ‘Mr. Higgins Comes Home’ came home with me but it took me a little while longer to finally get round to reading it. ‘Mr Higgins Comes Home’ is a very slender graphic novel, there are no page numbers but you can tell just by looking at it; that and the fact that it all it took was a bus ride to the pharmacy, and back, to finish it off. There’s still stuff to be said about it though and we are here, so… Lets do that, shall we…? Preparations begin at Castle Golga for the annual festival of the undead, as a pair of fearless vampire killers question a man hidden away in a monastery on the Baltic Sea. The mysterious Mr. Higgins wants nothing more than to avoid the scene of his wife's death, and the truth about what happened to hi...

While I spend the day trying to finish just one of any number of books that I've picked up over the last few days (yep, I can't get into anything right now), take a look at the trailer for the remake of 'Salem's Lot' which will be showing on Max at the beginning of October... I don't know about you but to me, it feels like we're in an age of film where every remake of a Stephen King film, or TV show, is an immediate improvement on the original. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the original versions of 'It', 'The Stand' and so on but... you know what I mean? Either way, I've got high hopes for this version of 'Salem's Lot' ;o) Will it encourage me to dig out my old copy for a re-read...? Maybe, it's not like I'm getting into any of the other books that I have on the go right now...

Well, Christmas is finely poised to give me a kicking and I’ve still got five days of work to get through before I’m on leave. Can your favourite blogger (well, somewhere in your top ten… ok, top fifteen) make it through to Friday evening without snapping and unloading inappropriately placed wrath on an innocent bystander. We shall see… In the meantime, I’m starting off this week with a little Warhammer ‘short story action’, mostly because I didn’t put a book in my bag and needed something for the bus home last night. Not a bad choice as it turned out… Can anger and mistrust be overcome in search of common ground? 60 years after being exiled to the Broken Plains, Nyssa Volari and her family aim to conquer the settlement of Gowyn. However, before they do so they must gain the allegiance of a dangerous band of nomads. I’ll be honest, I’m not massively keen on vampires in my fantasy reading; they’re a little bit too full of themselves and don’t make for a particularly interesting ...

Amongst the pet watching (and pet calming after having to remove the rabbit from behind the drinks cabinet...) and other bits and pieces, I managed to catch up on a few bits on Prime over the weekend. While I try and get my head round Joe Lansdale's 'The Drive-In' (which was awesome but I can't just say that for a whole post, can I?), have some quick thoughts on what I managed to watch. Really quick thoughts, I'm waiting for my pizza to show up... 'My Best Friend's Exorcism' (2022) It's 1988 and teen best friends Abby and Gretchen are having to confront the fact that Gretchen will be moving away. Before they can deal with that though, there's the small matter of Gretchen's demonic possession to take care of first... I enjoyed this film so much that I went straight out and bought the book after I'd finished watching :o) That should pretty much tell you everything you need to know... What, you want more? You know what? It was nice to s...

A short post today... My kids are back from their holidays so I'm going to be with them for most of today (just the way it should be ). My eldest has a pile of new books that she wants to sit and read and my youngest loves a bit of 'Percy Jackson' so I think today could very well be a reading day (my favourite kind of day). In the meantime, I thought I'd try and make a little use of my 'Shudder' subscription yesterday (yep, it's that time of the month where I remember that I've subscribed) and seeing a title like 'The Shed' was always going to end up with me watching it. What could possibly be scary about a shed of all things? Well, it's not so much the shed but what's inside it that made for one of those films where I'd never planned on watching it but I'm really glad that I did... Two best friends, Stan and Dommer, have dealt with bullies their whole lives. When Stan discovers a murderous  vampire   taking shelter in his shed, ...

It hasn't been a bad week for reading, still haven't managed to finish 'The God Is Not Willing' (one day...) but I can't complain at what I've read instead. I need to read a few more books off the TBR piles, there's some good stuff in there waiting to be read... ;o) There were also a few days where work got the better of me and I couldn't really get into anything after I got home, that's where I gave my brain a bit of a break and some watched some movies instead. They're all horror this week, let me tell you about them... (I'm copying and pasting blurbs, by the way, so beware of spoilers...) 'For the Sake of Vicious' (2021) An overworked nurse returns home to find a maniac hiding out with a bruised and beaten hostage. When an unexpected wave of violent intruders descend upon her home, it becomes a fight for survival. I'd seen a couple of people on Facebook really praise 'For the Sake of Vicious' so when it finally appe...

I’m not going to bang on too much about reading ‘Scream’ as a kid, I did that over here so there’s no need to go into it again ;o) One of the stories, in the comic, that really freaked me out though was the ‘The Dracula File’ and it’s antagonist (the clue is in the name of the story…) who literally could not be killed and would drain you of blood while you were trying to figure out what to do next. When I realised that ‘The Dracula File’ had been collected into a single book, by Rebellion, I knew that I had to have some of that and although it took me a while, I grabbed a copy in the end. It took me a little longer to actually read it (there are too many piles of books, in my flat, and it got lost in one of them…) I’ve finally read it though and am here to tell you about it. This will be a shorter post than normal but you’ll get why as we go on… Fleeing vampire hunters from behind the Iron Curtain, Count Dracula returns to Great Britain with an unquenchable thirst for blood! Unable ...

When I saw 'Full Circle' for the first time (as a five year old) the marsh men freaked me right out and thinking about it, I suspect that this was why the next 'Doctor Who' story I saw was 'Warrior's Gate' and not 'State of Decay'. It's been a long time coming but now I have the 'E-Space' box set, I thought I'd see what I'd missed out all those years ago... Searching for a way out of E-Space, the Doctor and Romana (along with a hidden stowaway) land on an Earth-like planet. Here the people live in fear of 'the Three who Rule'; cruel lords who live in a high tower overlooking their village. Suppressing all learning to keep their subjects ignorant and helpless, what chilling secret are these ruthless monarchs concealing? An ancient evil is rising once again and only the Doctor and Romana can destroy it. After the gloriously atmospheric yet strangely fragmented 'Full Circle', I found that 'State of Decay' wa...

I'm trying to stick to to some kind of 'TBR Pile Order', these days, as I've found that adding a little structure to my reading helps me to stick with it and get more books read. There's only so much time in the day, you've got to use it wisely... There are some writers though where any new book of theirs will jump straight to the front of the queue and throw the rest of my reading order into total disarray. Don't look at me like that, you're exactly the same and you know it. One of the joys of having favourite authors is that excitement you get when a new book comes out and you absolutely have to read it that very second.  Brian Keene is a favourite author of mine (so do bear that in mind as you read on) and 'With Teeth' was the book that I had to read straight away. And so I did, it was brilliant. For a group of middle-aged friends, the trip into the forest was supposed to be simple.  All they had to do was find a place to set up their crimin...

The plan was get loads done today, read a book and post a review for another. What really happened though... Well, I slept in late (really late), replied to the wrong email from my home insurer (having a go at them after they'd apologised, well done Graeme...) and then just wasn't in the mood for reading or posting at all. My mental health isn't brilliant at the moment and there's nothing like coming across as a complete arsehole to make me just curl up in bed and do nothing much for the rest of the day. Well, I say 'nothing much' but I did watch a few movies over the afternoon and evening; part of my trawling the depths of Prime Video to see if I can find anything, free to watch, that's half decent. Or absolute garbage, I'll take either :o) I made it through three movies today, ranging from asolutely awful to 'I loved it' (that was a bit of a cheat as it's a favourite of mine, the other two weren't great though and I had to watch somet...