The SLN 2022 Reckoning of the Year Awards

Thanks to a generous grant^[1] from Reckonment.com, your number four and climbing source on the web for news, reviews, and other content concerning reckonings and those who reckon, I'm here to present my favorite reckoning from each of the major mediums. Let's get started, because I'm on a deadline and late for brunch at Denny's.^[2]

The Written Word

The Final Reckoning by Cooper Brachian

Getting started with the most boring medium, so we can build up to the best. That's how blogging works, don't you know. Anyway, the latest slog from New York Times bestselling literary fantasy western author Cooper Brachian is about elves (who are here uncomfortably positioned as analogues to real-world indigenous peoples) getting so angry at mankind that they do a ritual to bring about the apocalypse. It is left to a quintet of barely distinguishible cowboys with names like Deadeye Sullivan and Hard-Choices O'Leary to save the world.

I'm not really clear on the mechanics of how they saved the world by spending 300-odd pages riding a trackless train across various regions and periodically stopping to shoot ten dozen elves with their trusty six-shooters, but I was skimming by the end. And the end was them returning to the station they apparently left from at the beginning, and I realized I missed how/when the plot got resolved, and also that I didn't care.

Runners-Up: I'm gonna be real with you, I hated this book but only three eligible books came out last year with "reckoning" in the title, and one had a full title I don't want to retype because (spoilers!) the reckoning is of the "Anal" sort, and the other was a promotional reprint of Brachian's last book with the added subtitle "Reckoning Edition."

Music

Reckonings Vol. II by Mushroom Stump

Fans of "desert rock"^[3] can rejoice that Arizona-based four-piece Mushroom Stump have done it again. What did they do again? Release an hour and change of life-changing progressive post-metal, you fucking chump! If you don't have the limited edition "coke bottle clear" vinyl of Reckonings Vol. I with real cross-sections of deceased founding bassist Leonard Stroppel-Fonks' brain embedded in every record, you either hate art or hate beauty. Pick one. There is no third option.

Runners-Up: In a year without a new Mushroom Stump release, Fist-Fighting My Shadow Self In The Dance Club Washroom by The Reckoners and Without Hesitation Or Mercy IV: A Reckoning by Claudio vs. The World would have been strong contenders.

Film

Who Reckons the Reckoners: Origins: S. Ego

2017 award winner Who Reckons the Reckoners was a beautiful and flawless adaptation of a graphic novel once thought unfilmable, so it's a comforting non-surprise that the latest entry in the prequel trilogy is such a delight.

For those who were born yesterday, the stand-out fan favorite character of Who Reckons was Dark Freud, an edgy murder-vigilante who stood by his always-correct principles until the very end, when Professor Chernobyl exploded his eyes and then brain and then heart, in that order. Who Reckons the Reckoners: Afterkill revealed that he survived through the sympathetic love magic of his hot Canadian girlfriend Murderwitch the Killsorceress, but the resurrection gave him amnesia and split his psyche into three personalities. Ultimately, the Super-Ego defeated the Ego and the Id, and claimed full control of the body, and had super hot sex with Murderwitch the Killsorceress.

This incredible film reveals the shocking truth that Super-Ego was the original personality actually, and only became Dark Freud due to the overwhelming angst from first discovering his wife was a CIA assassin, and then witnessing her demise at the hands of the KGB's deadliest weapon, Inverse Ronald Reagan. This was a blast and I do not regret making this my first trip to the theater since 2019.

Runners-Up: Blade VII: Eternal Silence III: Reckoning of Blood adds much-needed complexity to the hollow caricature that Wesley Snipes' beloved character had become in recent installments, and I Can't Believe You'd Reckon With That is another solid addition to Richard Skillet's body of irreverent documentary work about Texas and Texas-adjacent topics.

Videogames

Chain of Reckoning

After a series of miserable flops, many gamers believed Fruit Medley Interactive would never again reach the heights of their 2011 breakout hit REAKTOR C0Re. Recently released in early access, Chain of Reckoning proves them wrong over and over infinitely with a compelling take on the roguelite character action genre. The story isn't complete yet, but the first two chapters suggest a winner already, adding a Lynchian flair to the tried and true narrative formula of "what if Groundhog Day, but in another genre."

Runners-Up: I'm not really sure there are any! This has been a very dire year for videogames with "reckoning" or similar in the title, and I'm sure as shit not giving even a runner-up award to the HD remaster of PS2-era children's edutainment survival horror game Caillou Reckons With Mortality.

That's it, that's all the important creative mediums, if you think there are others, send me an email here and I'll tell you why it's not important when I get back from Denny's. Hopefully also when I get back, that Steam gift card will have finished converting to the cryptocurrency I use to buy occult artifacts. Until next time, nerds!