Deep State lied about the dangers of staring at the eclipse to prevent the people from gaining its secret cosmic knowledge.

Both the "City of" books by Bennett were really good. Excellent action set piece writing too. The big monster fights are pretty great.

God Emporer is the apex of the series.

"I can't think of any other work where some crazy thing happens and then the mechanism of that crazy thing is irrelevant to the plot and beyond any level of understanding of any of the characters."
There are plenty of examples of this. Off the first thing that springs to mind is The Metamorphosis by Kafka

They're a fantastic introduction to the DC universe. The DCAU is pretty note-perfect, from Batman through JLU.

I like Snyder's run quite a bit. It is nothing revelatory, but you don't need to re-invent the Batmobile to be a great Batman writer.
IMO, Snyder has absorbed and re-processed the best of the Bat-mythos from the last 20-30 years, spruced it up with a modern feel, and stayed true to the pulp-noir trappings. He has…

Genius. My favorite current comic, when it comes out, is Matt Fraction's Casanova, which obviously owes an enormous debt to Steranko's work on Fury.

There is a fair amount of rape in Miracle Man!

Red Son is entertaining enough, and by faaaaaaaaar the best thing Millar's ever done, but I'm with you. And in what world is that a better starting place than All Star Superman?

Marvel did immediately walk back some of Morrison's big story beats, but his run is easily one of the most influential since Claremont on the current X-Status. From Morrison we get The Stepford Cuckoos, Quentin Quire, Fantomex, the Scott-Emma relationship, Xavier Institute as an actual school…

Agreed. Morrison's run is the purest distillation of X-Men's themes. Note perfect, really, from a thematic perspective.

My comics origin story: Grew up reading and loving them (Marvel, DC and early Image superheroes), but gave up the hobby in high school/early college. Home one summer, randomly browsed an issue of Wizard magazine in the magazine aisle that featured a story on Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men. Decided to check it…

I think it's pretty fun, if mediocre. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Spielberg film was awesome.

This is indeed the biggest problem in the book. It's not only ultimately uncritical of the 80's nostalgia, but also of its basic premise of ppl only living for this fake VR world. I mean, it pays some basic lip service to that but nothing more.

Interestingly enough, later in his career Greene said he regretted labeling some of his works as entertainments, as he took them no less seriously than the rest of his work.

Agreed. Girl on the Train just felt so…bloodless…compared to Gone Girl.

Oddly, the Revelation Space stuff is probably my least favorite of Reynolds (though I still like it). The standalone House of Suns is my favorite…also really enjoyed Pushing Ice and the Poseidon trilogy.

I would recommend Our Man in Havana if you want his lighter/comic side. One of the earlier and better espionage satires I can think of. Also written before the Cuban revolution, and oddly prescient of it in some ways.

If you like character-driven novels in the New England setting, I would recommend John Irving (Cider House Rules, Prayer for Owen Meany, Hotel New Hampshire).

Pynchon's a very picaresque writer to me.