I have just finished reading one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. It was pristinely crystalline. Perfect. I'm still in shock that it was able to make me not stop reading it all the way through. That hasn't happened to me in years.

A Density of Souls, by Christopher Rice

It was just... amazing. I saw a lot of things coming, as usual, but it was so detailed, so complex, so absolutely and indescribably perfect!

Stephen is perfectly written. All of the characters are, really. It has all the elements of the romantic period; the storm, the foreshadowing, the symbolism, the dark duplicity... AH! ~twitches~ My friend Paul let me borrow it yesterday, and sometime around nine I started reading it. Seven hours later I was finished it, and that's including the time I spent making a trip to Quizno's for food.

I don't even know if I can give a decent synopsis. The main theme is how people become desparately terrified of the things other people make them realize, sometimes to the point that they just snap. It's truth, in its most monstrous, frightening, but beautiful form. I've thought about this very theme before, but I was so surprised at how the story articulated it better than I ever have.

I'm telling you, for a book to snap me out of the literary distaste I've been in for so long now, it's amazing. f**K "one of", it IS the best book I've ever read. It was perfect, end of story. Read it.

I gotta share the beautiful parts... you have to read it to truly appreciate them, but they're gems in and of themselves. You might've seen the poem before... it's been one of my favorites for a long, long time; I knew it came from this book, but a friend sent it to me and I loved it all by itself. Now that I've read the book... god it was just amazing.

"Fear cannot touch me, it can only taunt me. It cannot take me; just tell me where to go. I can either follow, or stay in my bed. I can hold on to the things that I know. The dead stay dead, they cannot walk. The shadows are darkness. And darkness can't talk."

To a Child Not Yet Born

What fires burn the heart,

From which God did these agonies start?

Our cobwebs strung from death to death

Are too thin. Our lies the greatest sin.

I will hold you, child not yet born,

And tell you not to forget,

But not to know.

You will soon be dense with memory

And your memory dense with souls.

What fires burn the heart?

From which God did these agonies start?

I hold you, child not yet born.

Yet I am not your god.

Ask me not to stop the pain.

The lies I'll offer

You need not gain.

I cannot tell you how or why.

I can only teach you

That this world calls for you to cry.