Title: The Great and Terrible Volume 4: Fury & Light
Author: Chris Stewart
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Thriller
Year Published: 2007
Number of Pages: 313
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-59038-629-3
Price: $19.95

Reviewed by: Courtney Miller Santo

The apocalypse enjoys nearly universal reader appeal — Evangelicals are still crazy about the ongoing “Left Behind” series, secularists drove the non-fiction “The World Without Us” up Amazon’s bestseller list and even Oprah jumped on the bandwagon to rave about “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy’s uber literary take on the end of the world. Several years ago, Chris Stewart staked out the Mormon corner of apocalyptic fiction with his “Great and Terrible” series. In Fury & Light, the fourth installment of the series, Stewart continues his particular brand of Mormon myth, theology, politics and military insight to track the mortal journey of his premortal heroes and heroines.

“Fury & Light” begins just after the detonation of a nuclear weapon in Washington D.C. While still mourning the lost of her husband, Sara and her boys, Ammon and Luke, are prompted to head west. Sam and Bono learn they are returning to the United States to help the military rein in the chaos and Azadeh Pahlavi moves to Chicago to start a new life with a foster mother and her sickly child.

Stewart writes in a simple and straightforward manner, which makes for quick reading. There is enough technical detail to give credibility to the narrator, but it doesn’t have the meticulously researched flavor of a Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton novel. For those who haven’t read the other three books in the series, there is a brief, but effective recap. However, I was disappointed that Stewart felt it necessary to include an author’s note which explained the “very real” threat of EMPs. (Anyone who reads these types of books or, heck, even watched Jericho last year, knows exactly what an EMP is and understand it’s a threat. For the rest of us, EMP, or electromagnetic pulse weapon, renders anything with unprotected electrical wiring useless.) Stewart should let the writing and the book instill the idea of a credible threat, not an author’s note. It demeans his readers.

This slight tinge of author superiority leaks through in Stewart’s prose in a few places. Some of his characters are not fully developed (which is understandable because there are so many and it is hard to tell who is going to become important or just fade away). I was particularly troubled by an exchange near the end of the book. After a simplistic explanation by a teenage boy about an EMP, one of the older female characters has the following reaction: “Mary’s face hadn’t changed. She simply didn’t understand. EMPs? Electrical Circuits? It made no sense at all to her.”

This superficial treatment of some characters is difficult to reconcile with the care that has gone into crafting his core heroes and heroines. Sam Brighton and Azadeh Pahlavi are carefully nuanced and Stewart has obviously taken great care to build these characters over the past three books.

Like many books in this genre, the dialogue is awkward and at times bad. It lacks natural cadence or rhythms and serves primarily to advance the action. More attention to dialogue would also help to flesh out some of the more superficial characters.

This serial thriller wouldn’t be much different than your average trade paperback, if it weren’t for the way Stewart has taken every Mormon myth, superstition and supernatural cultural belief about Satan and the end of the world and included it in the series. In this particular book, the moon is red, Satan walks among men and his minions whisper despair in the ears of the valiant.

Reading this book, I felt a deeply personal connection to these artifacts. While there is much recognizable Mormon doctrine (blessings, priesthood, prayer) in the book, it was the way that Stewart utilized the supernatural Mormon elements that helped elevate this book. It made me feel at home. I recognized the subtle scripture references, knew that evil spirits linger in the dark, and that this understanding of the continuation of the War in Heaven on Earth is one I grew up believing.

Stewart has done an admirable job of creating a Mormon version of the “Left Behind” series. It is light reading (unless you start to worry that the end of the world really is about to hit and you don’t have any gold coins or near enough ammunition). The book is well-paced and does an effective job of foreshadowing future books, while still telling a complete story.