‘The Worst of Us’: a Book Review of J. J. Shurte’s The Land of Long Shadows

A final World War. A Manhattan Project 2.0. A last-gasp experiment which literally unravels the fabric of reality….

But all of this is just prologue.

The tales that unfold in The Land of Long Shadows could be called many things: cryptic, disgusting, enervating, gratuitous—yet also intriguing and refreshingly unorthodox. Set in the remnants of an Asiatic island nation untold years after the war’s cosmic crescendo, we meet a steady cortège of damned souls inexplicably going about everyday lives in a hellscape teaming with Lovecraftian horrors, frenzied apparitions, once-human wretches and deranged cultists.

Initially such mundane behavior comes off as odd for denizens of this nightmarish setting; even unrealistic. (We’re still fretting over adolescent slights and cheating spouses when mammoth tentacled monstrosities are prowling?) But as tale after macabre tale plays out to its gruesome conclusion, it becomes increasingly clear: this is not so much a functioning world as a mystic tableau haunted by humanity’s peurilities and atrocities. And only the very worst of us thrive in this apocalypse—the perverse, the homicidal, the sociopathic, and the openly psychotic. 

This is not a gentle read. Its omniscient narrator seems not only largely unsympathetic toward the characters, but almost gratified by their downfall—like some livid Old Testament deity gleefully smiting his faulty creations. However, there are sparks of illumination. Even a compelling take on the metaphysical roots of wickedness which lends context and function to all the human misery.

I’ve a few issues worth mentioning—

Not every story lands with quite the same oomph. The stronger are wonderfully twisted little tales of self-delusion, broken dreams and comeuppance; the lesser beat around the bush too much, wallowing in the omnipresent muck. I found the more prolonged passages of extreme violence (and violation) to, at times, undermine otherwise sharp prose, muddying the clarity of a scene’s action and intent. And there is a tendency of some characters to lapse into unwieldy exposition and heavy-handed soapboxing. But it is a credit to the work’s creativity that this did not deter me from exploring the rich, morbidly absorbing world imagined here.

It’s one part elegy, one part pulpy ‘Tales From the Crypt’ retribution, a dash of the The Leftovers’ ruminative post-Rapture ennui, and one massive helping of fascinating, dizzying cosmological mythos. Quibbles aside, it’s a gutsy (in every sense), unconventional collection and makes me wish more independent fiction would swing for the fences. An indie scene is there to do what the mainstream simply cannot—take risks.

Recommended (to those with a strong stomach).