This month will see the release of the new novel Star Wars: Mace Windu – The Glass Abyss from Lucasfilm Publishing and Random House Worlds. Laughing Place was provided with an advance digital copy of this book, and below are my (mostly spoiler-free) thoughts.
Mace Windu is having a bit of a year. This past spring, he starred in a four-issue Marvel comic book series, he’s had new toys released from Hasbro and Sideshow Collectibles, and actor Samuel L. Jackson has even come around to the idea that the combat-skilled, purple-lightsaber-wielding Jedi Master might very well have survived the tragic events of 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. But perhaps the most significant addition to the chronicles of this fan-favorite character is the new novel Mace Windu – The Glass Abyss, which is set just about a week or so after Qui-Gon-Jinn’s funeral in Episode I – The Phantom Menace. This book is written by author Steven Barnes, who (a whole 20 years ago) previously penned the now-Legends-timeline entry Star Wars: The Cestus Deception – A Clone Wars Novel and an accompanying short story entitled “The Hive.” Here, Barnes gets to focus on a Mace Windu who is still reeling from the death of a good friend and the revelation that the Sith have returned.
In the wake of the Battle of Naboo and Qui-Gon’s death at the hands of Darth Maul, Mace receives a hologram message from the deceased Jedi Master, telling him of a debt Jinn owes to the people of an Outer Rim planet called Metagos (newly introduced here), which had experienced a catastrophic solar flare some 50 years earlier, driving its entire populace to live underground inside the breathtakingly enormous geode that gives the novel its name. The message, which was to be delivered in the event of Qui-Gon’s passing, implores Windu to return to Metagos in Jinn’s stead and follow through on a promise he had made there during a visit years earlier when he was hunting an assassin. So Mace packs up and travels to the unusual planet, which is now ruled by two opposing crime syndicates, and his perilous mission is to make sure that tyranny comes to an end. Along the way he befriends some of the locals, learns about the mysterious Hillian spider-worm creature native to the planet, and poses as a “Rim-runner” under the pseudonym Solver in order to pit the two cartels against each other. I won’t spoil much more of the narrative past that point, beyond comparing it to a sort of cross between Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves, and a hard-boiled detective story from the film noir era. There’s some great world-building on Metagos, and I ended up being pleased with how much I cared about the supporting cast by the end.
In some ways The Glass Abyss reminded me a lot of another Mace Windu novel from Legends– Star Wars: Shatterpoint, which gets a not-so-indirect allusion here. Both books are character studies of someone who we didn’t get to spend a tremendous amount of time with in the prequels, and both see him dropped into a powder keg of a situation with only his finely honed Jedi skills and his innate sense of empathy to back him up. They also both take their time getting where they’re going, with a deliberate pace that might feel sluggish to some readers. I personally found the middle section of The Glass Abyss to drag a little as Mace sets up the dominoes that inevitably fall in the third act, leading to all-out war between the gangs led by the terrifying dual-person known as Chulok and the colossal Alien-queen-like creature called Sybil. But the parts here that longtime Windu fans may find themselves most interested in are the beats in which the Jedi Master uncovers more about his shadowy past, via the help of his new allies. All told I enjoyed this novel, though Barnes sometimes gets overly granular in revealing the stratagems of the various factions at play in this conflict. I also want to mention the audiobook version, read by the very talented William DeMeritt (narrator of Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith), which really helped me immerse myself in A Galaxy Far, Far Away via its excellent production values as I read along. It’s not a perfect Star Wars adventure (what is?), but ultimately I would recommend Mace Windu – The Glass Abyss to devotees of the character who have a committed interest in spending some time inside the Jedi Master’s head.
Star Wars: Mace Windu – The Glass Abyss will be released on Tuesday, October 15th wherever books are sold, but is available for pre-order (also available in audiobook form) right now.