After the death of a friend, Mace Windu travels on his own with a seemingly impossible task: take the weight of a troubled world solely upon his shoulders. On Metagos, Mace Windu reacts to threats beyond his own imagination – including his own doubts and fears. Read Chris’s review of Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss now!
For a lot of fans, I truly think that Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss is going to check a lot of boxes – and it was designed especially to do so. It is a book tailor made for people interested in exploring the character of Mace Windu more deeply, as this book puts him front and center (and doesn’t introduce terribly many more points of views that would distract from a direct look into Mace’s mind). Few stories exist about such a controversial character, which is almost shocking. It’s a book designed to scratch that Prequel-era itch, even though it explores a new corner of the world. It adds to an extremely oddly empty era, the space between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. It’s also a book, I believe, designed to appeal to the hardcore Legends fans who were around during the original Clone Wars multi-media project, as this novel is written by Steven Barnes, author of The Cestus Deception. I think this book’s design should speak to many readers; I’m just curious to see how loudly it will speak to them.
The novel’s main plot is centered on a mission Qui-Gon Jinn leaves for Mace Windu after his death. The mission centers on the planet Metagos, a planet with its own unique society, culture, and economy. Qui-Gon, before he died, was introduced to the plight of the people on the planet and set up a way for them to seek help: send Mace Windu. This review will focus on the different parts of the thesis for the book: (1) Mace Windu’s (2) mission to (3) Metagos.
Before anything else, this novel is about Mace Windu. Yes, there is a plot, but this book seeks to examine the character of Mace in a pivotal time in the history of the Republic. Mace is a sort of controversial character: he can be taken as one who stands for all that is wrong with the Jedi Order at the time of the Clone Wars. Canon has recently moved to start exploring the character more with two Marvel comics: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu and Mace Windu: The Crystal Run. I have to say, while the comics had less space to explore Mace, I felt like I enjoyed their perspectives on his character even more than I had here, as this portrayal of Mace didn’t click with me.
The portrayal of Mace in this book is, on the surface, a fine one: Mace is a strong warrior, a Jedi who will fight for justice and peace, and has a bit of a cutting edge to him. This is, mostly, the Mace we’ve already known. As he spends more time on Metagos, he learns to connect with a new group of people, learning their ways and even opening his mind to their understanding of the Web – I mean, the Force. But in the end of the novel, he doesn’t think differently about violence, the role of the Jedi in the galaxy, or too much about the galaxy at large, unfortunately. I did feel like both of the aforementioned comic mini-series brought in some interesting lines on Mace: what does he do when he meets another of his people? How does he employ violence? How does Mace react to someone who ostensibly shares his ideals but turns on them? Both of these comic series, I think, started with more compelling questions, creating, in my mind, more compelling theses. There are parts of Glass Abyss that see Mace exploring his role as a Jedi, and whether or not it was a life he would’ve chosen for himself, but the scenes are short and I felt like they should’ve been given so much more time. In this case, I felt like the most engrossing parts of the story were put down in favor of more action scenes.
Speaking of action scenes, I felt like this was the part of the novel I may have struggled with the most. Mace is a warrior – we all know that. He created Vapaad with the help of Jedi Sora Bulq, a fighting style that puts the user on the razor’s edge of the dark side. I’ve never been a fan of this explanation of Vapaad, feeling like it sits in far too weird of a tension with Yoda’s lessons on the dark side on Dagobah. But this book, at least how I read it, only really celebrates Mace’s warrior path, never challenging it too strongly. The man who claims Jedi are peacekeepers shows little hesitation in killing, and I wish that part was pushed more, especially after the way The High Republic has been challenging and expanding our view of the Jedi.
The second main character in the novel is the planet and culture of Metagos. The planet is described in amazing detail, from a radiation soaked surface to a crystalline and multi-layered sub-strata that includes ten different levels of society. There are even multiple classes and people groups involved, all of which contribute to a complex and multi-faceted picture of Metagos. This was probably my favorite part of Glass Abyss. In my mind, it has been a long while since we’ve really seen a well-designed and well-rounded world. Eiram and E’ronoh come close, but I felt like we only scratched the surface of those planets. Here, we really take time to get to know the people of Metagos and their beliefs and how they live. Definitely need more of this in canon. This introduces a struggle between those who create material goods and those who distribute them, which forms the central conflict of the struggle. This economy felt Dune-esque, with people warring over the natural fauna of the planet and how best to interact with them. But unlike Dune, the creatures who create the silk the people war over have their own agency in the novel, creating an additional fun layer to the story which really bolsters my enjoyment of the book.
Now on to maybe the weakest part, to me: the mission/plot. The mission, left by Qui-Gon before he died, was to essentially save an entire planet by Mace’s power alone. This felt like a fun way to make the legacy of Qui-Gon last a bit longer, but I wonder why this mission couldn’t have been written before Qui-Gon died, either including him on the mission or making his call to action for Mace to be a bit stronger and more personal. I wonder if another Jedi character, especially one with such a different viewpoint from Mace, may have shed more light on his own character. We spend some time exploring Mace and Qui-Gon’s relationship, but my thoughts are both for one as tense and powerful as their would be, I would’ve imagined it should’ve been a more central focus and it’s a bit of a disappointment it all has to be set in the past. This mission puts Mace against a powerful enemy named Chulok, who is an amalgamated man (yeah, it’s weird – let the book explain this to you). I felt like Chulok has some of the most unique motivations in canon for a villain, and I appreciated he wasn’t as one-note as some contemporary (in real life) villains have been lately. Unfortunately, I never fully clicked with the story, so this book felt slow to me at times.
All of this being said, I found Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss to be simply: good. I do think it will feel far too different from other contemporary novels without a strong romantic subplot, and it feels like a Legends book more than a canon book. (I know – this is an extremely nebulous way to put it, but I feel like this feeling is more universal than I think it is.) I think people are going to enjoy it, appreciate it as a book from the Prequel era, and then put it on their shelf, where it will sit, remembered well, but not often.
Chris is Mynock Manor’s Sous Chef. You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.
ALSO BY STEVEN BARNES:
The Cestus Deception (Legends Novel)