Lord Samper's Library

I was going to say that original posting will resume tomorrow but the way things are right now, probably safer not to promise anything ;o) In the meantime... I found this old review last night (originally posted Here ) and it feels like it fits in with what this blog is all about right now so, I thought I'd give it another shot here. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be the case today but when I was a child at primary school, the shelves were covered with books that I’m sure a teacher today wouldn’t let an eight or nine year old anywhere near. Maybe it was just my school, I don’t know, but I’m not complaining though; I had a lot of fun trawling my way through some great reads. This time round, I’m talking specifically about the ‘Pan’ and ‘Fontana’ horror series; books with the most lurid covers and stories to match inside. I only had myself to blame but at least three quarters of the nightmares that I had as a child came from reading these books and staring at covers festooned with rot...

Well, this is awkward... My plan for today was to talk about my favourite stories from Stephen King's 'Night Shift' collection and I had a great time reading them yesterday. And then, well... I thought I'd double check the blog and it turns out that all my favourite stories from 'Night Shift' have already featured on the blog. Seriously... 'Graveyard Shift' and 'The Mangler'. 'Grey Matter' 'The Lawnmower Man'. Honestly, I don't know what's going on with me at the moment... Anyway. This wouldn't normally be a huge issue (flat full of books and all that) but I'm house/pet-sitting, at the moment, and I've got nothing with me that I've actually finished. So... Unless I magically come up with something else today (possible but unlikely...). 'Past Me' is stepping in again to help me out. A quick post to kick Halloween off then. Have some thoughts on H.P. Lovecraft's (very) short story 'Nyarlathote...

Page Count: 413 Pages. Thanks are due to Alex, of the excellent ‘Spells & Spaceships’ blog, if it hadn’t been for his glowing review of ‘The Daughters War’ , I probably wouldn’t have taken a chance on ‘The Blacktongue Thief’ (it doesn’t matter which way round you read them and ‘The Blacktongue Thief’ was right in front of me so...) As it turns out, I did and I’m so much the better for it. I probably shouldn’t give away too much so early but… It’s a sneaky contender for my ‘Favourite Read of the Year’. There, I said it. Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path. But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark. Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars...

I did it, I finally did it... I made it through a hellish 'one more day of work' and now I've got four days of leave to do pretty much whatever I want with. Which will be mostly reading but also a little 'making sure the cat doesn't loose it and kill the rabbit'. Yep, I'm pet sitting and I'll be counting it as a win if I can get through the week without calling out the emergency vet again. I'm really looking forward to just lying on the sofa and reading though; the plan is to finish off a couple of books (that I really should have finished off by now...) and fill in the gaps with some short stories and comic books. In the meantime, work had a couple of surprises for me yesterday so all I was good for last night was re-watching a couple of movies. One that's still worth a watch, the other... Maybe not as much. 'Deathgasm' (2015) Two teenage heavy metal fans seek to escape mundanity through music but get a lot more than they bargained for w...

Sorry to chuck another 'recycled post' at you but yesterday ended up being a work day, It shouldn't have been but it was and that meant no reading for me (and I really needed it as well) If that wasn't bad enough, today looks like it could be fairly brutal so I'm parking the blog, for today, and giving myself back a little energy to tackle everything else. Normal(ish) service should resume tomorrow as I have the rest of the week off and I will be doing nothing but reading ;o) In the meantime, the last few Mondays have ended up being 'Doctor Who' days so I thought I'd continue that a little longer with 'Illegal Alien'; a book where the enthusiasm of 'past me' was so great that my present self is half tempted to seek out another copy for a re-read. Maybe, we'll see. The review was first posted on an older blog of mine ( Here ) but it's worth dusting down and giving it another airing so... Here goes :o)  The Blitz is at its height. A...

  This is officially my all time favourite cover art for a Lovecraft collection and it just so happens to be the collection where I first came across 'The Colour Out Of Space'. I'm 95% sure that I still have this book lying around somewhere, I'm going to have to go on a hunt now. But this post has only just begun and I'm already digressing... ;o) I'm trying not to recycle too many posts, from older blogs, at the moment but I've got a lot of work to catch up with today and I didn't want another 'post-less day' so, here we are. I find myself preferring Clark Ashton Smith's tales these days but 'The Colour Out Of Space' is still a favourite Lovecraft tale of mine so I thought I'd recycle a post of mine (from March 2012, if you want to read the original post) and let it have its time here. Regular posting should resume tomorrow (fingers crossed); for now though, lets revisit 'The Colour Out Of Space'... The narrator has been s...

Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes. All the purchasable horror movies on Prime Video seem to be on special offer, no idea why... ;o) Yesterday was another long old day so when I finally made it home, I thought I'd take advantage of the sale prices and have myself a little horror with my dinner. I'd seen the 'Carnage Counts' video for 'In A Violent Nature' and was intrigued enough to make that my choice for the evening. Sometimes the decision making process is as simple as that ;o) There's not a lot to tell, for reasons that will soon become obvious, but here's what I've got. When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods. the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. Johnny has lost his locket and woe betide anybody that gets in the way of his search. 'In A Violent Nature' is your standard 'slasher in the woods offing teenagers...