Lord Samper's Library

I've developed a really annoying habit, just recently, of picking up a book, reading about fifty pages and then putting it down for fifty pages of something else. This last week then has been really satisfying as I've gone about polishing off some of these unfinished books. I still need to make more of a dent in the August TBR pile but I'm feeling good about my reading, so far, this month which is a hell of a lot better than I felt last month... Lets see how the rest of the month goes, onto 'The Oak & the Ram'. I actually read 'The Bull and the Spear' back in January, of this year , but a small dose of Covid put paid to any attempt to read 'The Oak & The Ram', just couldn't do it. By the time I was feeling more myself again, life had moved on and I was reading other books instead; poor old 'The Oak & The Ram' got left on a shelf and forgotten about. Until now that is, I found my copy again and finally finished it over the las...

Being completely honest, I had totally forgotten that there was a ‘What If…?’ series headed our way. I mean, I knew on some level, I just wasn’t expecting it to debut yesterday. Which is weird because I’ve really been looking forward to this series in particular; I know, I say that about all the MCU series but this one is going to have zombies in it (at some point) so it was always right up there in the anticipation stakes. It was with more than a little surprise then that I saw hashtags start to appear all over my Twitter feed, yesterday, and I realised that I’d been caught out again, another series has started without me 😊 That’s easily remedied though… Once I’d sorted out all my work for the day, I sat down and had a watch. Being that the whole point of the series is pivotal moments that send history in a different direction, the big spoiler is in the title but I’m not going to promise that there won’t be more spoilers to come. There, that’s your warning… Let’s go. It too...

Reading the Horus Heresy series ‘on a budget’ has meant that I’ve pretty much given up all attempts at reading this thing in order. These days, I’m more about grabbing the books where I can and then putting the jigsaw together, in my head (you know what I mean). It’s not like I don’t already know how the series, as a whole, pans out so I can afford to be a little haphazard in my reading ;o) With that in mind then, I had a few words to say about ‘Wolfsbane’ back in April ; lets find out what happened before that book… Once the brightest star in the Imperium and always first among his primarch brothers, Horus has dragged the Space Marine Legions into the bloodiest conflict that the galaxy has ever seen. While their allies wage war on a thousand different fronts, the XVIth Legion descend upon the Knight world of Molech - home to the ruling House Devine, and a principal stronghold of the Imperial Army. The forces loyal to the Emperor stand ready to defy the Warmaster, but just what cou...

I did have plans to post something bookish today but after my first day back at work, yesterday, I just went straight to sleep last night. God, I’m so middle aged now… But anyway. No book post today then but how about a whole load of quick thoughts on various films that I’ve watched recently? I’ve watched a few over the last week, mostly to recover from being run ragged by my kids. Nothing too strenuous then, just films to unwind to, or have on in the background while I was doing something else. But yeah, I did watch ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ and ‘Green Inferno’ as well and they weren’t relaxing at all. Here goes then, quick thoughts on the way!   ‘Dead Shadows’ (2012) Chris’ parents were murdered on the same day that Halley’s Comet was visible from Earth. Eleven years later, a new comet lights up the Parisian sky but as the night goes on, people begin to slowly transform into… A fun film to watch but, hang on… Wasn’t the heroine killed off early in the film and then found to be...

I still have a few unread Guy N. Smith books hiding around the flat... ;o) I'm trying to ration them out a bit (if you read more than a couple at a time, it does get very difficult to say something new about them...) but it's been a while so I thought it was time for another one. To tell you the truth, last week was so busy (what with one thing and another) that short books like this were all I had time for so you might see a few more, of a similar length, featured here over the next week or so. But that's for later... The last few Guy N.Smith books have seen a move away from 'creature features' to straight up 'gore fests' and the odd haunting. 'Entombed' is one of the latter, and not a bad one either... Simon Rankin is a failed priest, a failed husband and a failed exorcist. After a terrifying experience in a haunted house, he takes his girlfriend off to North Wales in a desperate search for peace of mind. But the horror left behind is nothing comp...

I don't know where the last week has gone but today is officially the last day of my holiday before heading back to work tomorrow. I say 'heading back to work' like that's still a thing, what I really mean is that my flat will turn into an office again (at least for now), you know what I mean though ;o) I used to spend the last day of holiday stressing about what would be waiting for me back at work but not today :o) I'm working on the assumption that if anything really bad had happened, I'd have found out by now so here's hoping for an easy(ish) day tomorrow. I'll tell you what bugs me though... The last week has just flown by but tomorrow is going to drag ... But anyway. You're not really here to look polite while I bang on about going back to work though (or maybe you are in which case, I appreciate it but you really don't have too...) You're here, of course, to check out the books that made it back to mine over the course of the last week...

I'm not too keen on those old Doctor Who stories that are only three episodes long, mostly because I love 'classic' Doctor Who and just want the stories to keep going really. There's nothing worse (okay, there clearly is but you know what I mean...) than really getting into a story, only to find that you get onto episode three and suddenly everything's done and dusted. Sometimes, it's good to have a 'three episode story' on standby though. Like when you really want to do a 'Doctor Who' post but you've spent the whole day watching trash and there's hardly any day left to watch what you should have been watching the whole time. That was me yesterday and yes, one of the films I watched was 'Cabin Fever 2'... What? It was one of those days... But anyway... 'Ghost Light' had been sat on my shelf for ages, almost like it was waiting for this moment, so I watched it :o) London, 1983: an old house mysteriously burns to the groun...