Tag: When the Reckoning Comes

WWW Wednesday – March 4, 2026

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing! Once again, I am between books.

Recently Finished

Last week, I read the first volume of Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta. Overall, I liked it quite well, but with all the hype around it, I wish I liked it more than I did. Ain’t it always the way with hype. I think their more grounded approach to the character this time around is fun, presenting him with a lot more physicality and less hi-tech at his disposal. They do work in gadgets fairly well in their own way, however, as the story emphasizes Bruce’s genius and ingenuity as an engineer, able to do a lot with limited resources. His reworked backstory was interesting, I especially like the way a number of his typical rogues got retooled into childhood friends, but what I had trouble getting into was the scale of the villainy at play right from issue one, basically involving a shadowy, global organization destabilizing Gotham with extreme violence. I would have preferred it starting off more scaled down.

This week I finished reading When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen, and goodness I really wanted to like this book. I believe I said so last week, but I’ll say it again, I by no means think the book is poorly written, but it is perhaps weakly put together. It felt like it was a lot more interested in social commentary than it was building a compelling story. The social commentary does do a good job of appropriately setting the atmosphere and laying the foundation for some of the themes it tries to touch upon, but the characters and plot just felt bland and basic to me, respectively. Even when the ghosts finally show up, it felt more like a tour through ghastly scenes rather than anything that added narrative tension. So much unfolds and resolves off page as well, leaving so much feeling anticlimactic by the end.

Reading Next

Next, I’m going to get back to some library books I’ve let languish for the last month or so. Specifically, I’m going to starting reading through the next three volumes of One-Punch Man that I need to get to, starting with volume six.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – February 25, 2026

Ryan2 Comments
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m currently a little over halfway through When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen, and I’m sorry to say that I’m not enjoying this book all that much. The writing is by no means bad, but so far it has spent much of its time ruminating on class and racial tensions with only hints to the encroaching horror, which I can only assume is imminent at this point in the story. I was really hoping it would be a going concern well before now. The book’s themes related to class and race are not problems in and of themselves, but it doesn’t feel like they’re in service of a point beyond, perhaps, the ghosts of the past eventually coming to the fore and wreaking havoc on the living who so crassly forget their history, which I think would be a woefully obvious and straightforward direction to take things. The characters also feel a little flat, their motivations understandable but too simple. I’m really hoping a development unfolds that turns this whole book around for me; otherwise, it’s pretty middling overall.

Recently Finished

Last week I read through Set to Sea by Drew Weing, a short graphic novel about a big lug who is an aspiring poet living a down-and-out life, until one night he is clubbed over the head and shanghaied onto a vessel bound for Hong Kong. On this voyage, despite a miserable start, he learns how to be a sailor, forges bonds of friendship, and develops a passion for life and the sea that he never had before, all the while refining his poetic craft. I really liked this book’s art style, which feels reminiscent of old cartoon strips, with only a single panel corresponding to every page. It was a delightful little story and I’m grateful to the library for carrying it, as it’s likely I otherwise wouldn’t have ever come across it.

Reading Next

Continuing to read through the massive list of comics I’ve inexplicably borrowed from the library all at the same time, I’m going to read the first volume of Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta. It’s due back soon and is a highly reserved book, so I really don’t want to delay giving it back any further. I’m looking forward to starting this book, as I’ve heard and seen great things about it. Batman seems to be scaled down from his usual depth of resources, and I like that a lot of the villains are being given more of a horror bent. As much as I enjoy that the main continuities of comic book universes keep going, I do love a good “elseworld” story where I can just start at volume one without having to think too much about previous titles.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – February 18, 2026

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing! I’m between books again.

Recently Finished

Last week I finished reading Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung. I enjoyed it right up to the end, especially its coverage of how this nameless Institute goes about helping its various ghosts pass on. It was an interesting blend of the paranormal and mundanity. On the one hand, the stories within recount very troubling series of events that the characters must grapple with while haunted by a variety of unusual spectres. On the other hand, it feels like containing and studying these haunted objects is really just another job, with its own hazards, sure, but subsumed and accounted for by modernity nonetheless. I also really like that the title of the book is based on the author’s experience with a sign printed in English in Korea; it was indeed just the midnight timetable at a bus terminal, but she found something about the wording ominous and wanted an excuse to use it somewhere.

I also read through Moby Dick by Christophe Chabouté, a graphic novel adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic novel. Reading this comic was an interesting exercise after having read the original novel around this time just last year. It does an excellent job of distilling the actual events that unfold in the novel, especially as they pertain to Ahab’s mad obsession and the Pequod‘s eventual confrontation with the whale. However, Ishmael’s story almost entirely evaporates in the wake of Ahab’s, such that I sometimes forgot he was supposed to be there. It’s understandable that the long diversions into the nuances of whaling are left out of an adaptation like this, but it’s interesting to see just how much that diminishes our perspective character. It preserves the essential essence of the work with great merit, but cannot truly replace the literature.

Reading Next

There are a few things I’m planning to read next, some of which I have from the library and otherwise from books I own. I won’t go over all the library books I have to get through right now, but what I’m planning to read next is Set to Sea by Drew Weing, a comic about a big lug and aspiring poet who ends up shanghaied aboard a vessel bound for Hong Kong. I grabbed it off the shelf at the library thanks to my ever-present desire to borrow random graphic novels I would never buy. It’s got a very cartoon-strip style that looks fun too. Also, I’m going to start reading When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen, a book that I only just bought over the weekend. A monthly book mixer I attend has a “celebrating Black authors” theme this month and I was regretful to realize there doesn’t appear to be anything amongst what I’ve read recently that qualifies. This book had caught my eye in the past thanks to this edition’s fantastic cover, so when I came across it at a store during a trip out of town I decided to pick it up. I probably won’t finish it before Saturday, but I can at least get started reading it.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.