Lord Samper's Library

Apologies for the brief radio silence yesterday. I'm not going to lie, I was asleep for a large chunk of it and then I was at my daughter's birthday party for another large chunk. That's all just scene setting though ;o) The chunk that we're here for is the bit where I sat in my chair and watched a couple of movies; one a re-watch (albeit for the first time a number of years) and the other one a random find on Prime. Let me tell you about them... 'Assault on Precinct 13' (1976) A Highway Patrol Officer, two criminals and a station secretary defend a defunct Los Angeles Precinct office against a siege by a bloodthirsty street gang bent on revenge... I first watched 'Assault on Precinct 13' years ago, at college, and seem to remember sitting through it but not really getting into it as much as I'd hoped. It's funny how things can change a few years (okay, a number of years, damn I'm old) down the line... 'Assault on Precinct 13' is curr...

Page Count: 156 Pages The original plan was for this post to be all about Richard Strachan’s ‘Blightslayer’ and that held true right up until I got home last night and thought I’d read a few pages of ‘Hell Hound’ before I went out and cast my vote. Very soon, a ‘few pages’ became the ‘whole book and I won’t lie, I was lucky that I still had time to make it to the polling station afterwards but anyway… As good as it is, ‘Blightslayer’ is going to have to wait a little bit. I am all about ‘Hell Hound’ right now. Let me tell you about it, quick thoughts for a very slim read... ‘What are the possibilities of my strength? That is a thought I have never had before. What if some morning as the old woman stood at the head of the staircase she were suddenly to feel a weight thrusting against the back of her legs? What if she were to lunge forward, grasping at the air, striking her thin skull against the edge of a stair? What would become of me if she were found unmoving at the bottom of the sta...

Page Count: 245 pages (well, more like 244 and a half) I have to go looking for them now but there are still a few books, lurking here and there, that I read while I was taking a take from the blog last year. And while I’ve got a few books on the go and haven’t finished any of them, finding a book like ‘The Ambassador’ really gives me a little breathing space ;o) It’s a short read so lets not hang around this paragraph too long. Lets get to it… In the Icy Northern Wastes, a mighty army of darkness prepares to sweep southward and lay waste to the civilized lands of the Empire. In this dangerous time, retired Imperial general Kaspar von Velten is sent to Kislev as ambassador to the court of Tsarina Katarin. Unused ot the power struggles and politics at court, Kaspar is forced to use all the skills and resources at his command to in order to survive in this cold and hostile land. As winter draws in, can Kaspar re-forge the fragile alliance between the Empire and Kislev and prepare its tro...

Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...

You already know that I love ‘The Goon’; the only surprise left is that I managed to hold off binging on the whole series for as long as I did. All good things come to an end though. Posts for Volumes 14 and 15 have been on the blog for a good couple of years ( Here and Here , in case you were wondering) so ‘For Want of Whiskey and Blood’ is the final piece of the puzzle, so to speak ;o) I didn’t get a lot of reading done over the weekend (okay, hardly any reading in fact) but I did make a little time to polish this last volume off. Let me tell you about it… The return of the Zombie Priest, a latin-tongued Godzilla, drunk sailors and a Halloween visit from Billy the Kid are just a few of the special tricks and treats for the Goon and Franky. Nothing too arduous then but, why has the Zombie Priest returned? And why are all his messages trying to kill the Goon…? Lets get the slightly awkward bit out of the way first… 99% of ‘The Return of the Lizard Man’ is in Spanish and while I was ju...

I don't often do these posts anymore, mostly because it's well proven that I'm rubbish at sticking to reading my way through a TBR pile that I've made for myself. There's always something else to read first and if there isn't, well... I'm getting more and more picky with my reading as I get more and more middle-aged. What can I do? ;o) I'm doing one of these posts today though, mostly because my reading slowed right down last week and I need a little breathing space while I catch up (and look on the shelves for the remaining books that I read while on hiatus last year). Lets see how well I do with it... Not shown in the picture is my Kindle which I'm using to read Victoria Hayward's 'Deathworlder' (which is great fun by the way, if that's the correct way to describe an entire planet being consumed by Tyranids... the hell with it, I stand by what I said). So, what else are we looking at...? I'm just over halfway through 'Blight...

When I'm trying to puzzle my way through something particularly tricky at work, I like to have a movie playing in the background. You would have thought it would distract me but somehow, it helps me concentrate on what I'm trying to accomplish. The last few months of this have seen me work through the early Romero 'Dead' films as well as the 1990 'Night of the Living Dead' and the 2004 'Dawn of the Dead', both favourites of mine :o) Just recently though, I've moved onto the 1988 version of 'The Blob' and it's been great fun. I won't go into all the reasons here (not when I've already posted about it over Here ) but it did get me wondering... Which is your favourite version of 'The Blob'? You can guess my favourite but I want to know if you have a preference for the 1958 or 1988 versions. And if you haven't seen either, don't worry, I've got you covered ;o) Any thoughts? Leave a comment and let me know...