As you can see I'm still on a thread of discussing Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. It's not often I get sucked into an anime as completely as this one drew me in. I got so caught up in it that I finished all 24 episodes in just three days. It does such a beautiful job of laying down all the groundwork for all hell to break lose later on.

It has a wonderful sinister air to it that builds and tears free when you hit episode 18. And when it does, even I was not immune to crying over what happened. I knew what was going to happen, I guessed how it was going to turn out and yet my heart raced the entire episode and I cried anyway, it was that powerful.

From beautiful visuals, a story that just flows and with the music expertly done to draw you in as well... it's become one of my all time favorite anime shows. I even had to go and get myself a scan from AnimePaper so I could make a new wallpaper for my computer. I uploaded it so take a look. :p I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. Though if you want to see the whole thing you have to down load the 1440 x 900. The visual for it is the smaller one with the left side cut off.

Now the other thing I'm enjoying is Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind. When I posted a few days ago I wasn't even 20 pages into the book. Now over 300 pages later... oh my hell. o_O It's almost mind boggling the way this author just keeps packing on the details and weaving a story that sucks you in.

There were a few things in the previous book that though I enjoyed it were a tiny bit too pat. I should have known better. They weren't too pat, the consequences from certain events had not been escaped at all. I'm going to have to snag Allamorph when I see him on AIM to talk about it... holy hell!

So, in other words, I'm really enjoying that the second book is every bit as good as the first and I'll known damn better than to think the author missed a few minor details. He just waits until the right moment to weave them into the story when they will have the best impact.