The Jedi are reeling from Qui-Gon Jinn’s sudden death at the hands of a Sith. Jedi Master Mace Windu’s feelings about Qui-Gon have always been complicated—and have not been made any simpler by death. While they often disagreed, Mace valued Qui-Gon’s unique perspective, and their shared dedication to the Force made them allies. Without Qui-Gon and his unorthodox views, Mace feels out of balance.
While considering his fallen friend’s legacy, Mace is surprised to receive a final message from Qui-Gon, marked to be delivered to Mace in the event of Qui-Gon’s death. The message contains a last request: a plea to help the Outer Rim planet Metagos.
Many years ago, a violent solar flare transformed the surface of the desert planet into a landscape of irradiated glass—as beautiful as it is dangerous. Now most of the surviving inhabitants live underground, where rival clans fight to control the planet’s limited resources. As a young Jedi, Qui-Gon protected the Sa’ad farming clan from the planet’s less-scrupulous factions. The Sa’ad practice the art of dream-weaving, retaining their waking minds upon sleep in order to communicate and coexist with the wild creatures around them. Qui-Gon vowed to return if they ever required his aid, but now it falls to Mace to fulfill that promise. The Sa’ad’s leader, KinShan Nightbird, has begged for the Jedi’s help in freeing Metagos from the crime lords who threaten to eradicate her people’s way of life.
Intent on carrying out Qui-Gon’s final wishes, Mace travels to Metagos and infiltrates the enemies of the Sa’ad. But as the Jedi Master investigates the intricate web of adversaries and allies, Mace finds himself pushed to the boundaries of the Jedi code, with his beliefs and his relationship to the Force itself challenged.
Ok, I’m getting close(ish) to being caught back up on Star Wars books! I’ve just got the new High Republic audiobook TEMPEST BREAKER to go, and then I’ll be all caught up for when Alexander Freed’s REIGN OF THE EMPIRE: THE MASK OF FEAR (one of my most anticipated Star Wars books, like…ever!) comes out next month!
So I’m happy about that, I like keeping up!
I just kept putting off MACE WINDU: THE GLASS ABYSS by Steven Barnes, but I’m really glad I finally made the time for this! I don’t tend to look too closely at reviews for books before I read them, but I certainly couldn’t help but notice the reactions to THE GLASS ABYSS were…a bit mixed?
And I get it, this is definitely an unusual Star Wars book. But I think that’s what ultimately appealed to me most about this. This one gets fucking weird! In the best way possible, THE GLASS ABYSS feels kind of like a bonkers paperback sci-fi novel from the 70’s. It’s also a great/rare example in the new canon of a true standalone Star Wars novel, so it’s easy to recommend. This isn’t a new favorite of mine, but I enjoyed it!
I can’t say that I was ever wild about Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of Mace Windu, but over the years, I’ve really grown to love the character a lot. Watching The Clone Wars had a lot to do with that, but then there’s SHATTERPOINT (a seriously wild Legends novel by Matthew Stover), and more recently a comic mini-series that was a lot of fun.
This story picks up very shortly after the events of The Phantom Menace, and it does something I’m not sure any other piece of Star Wars media has done: it shows Mace Windu deeply mourning the loss of Qui-Gon Jinn. Through flashbacks & remembrances, we see that Mace Windu and Qui-Gon shared a powerful friendship and had a ton of respect for each other. Their relationship was complicated & far from perfect, but Mace cared for Qui-Gon a lot.
Oof.
So Mace gets a posthumous message from Qui-Gon: he wants Mace to travel to the Outer Rim, to an obscure planet called Metagos. The mission is to broker some sort of peace between warring criminal factions & a clan of farmers called the Sa’ad. Mace blends in, and goes undercover in a way. But he soon finds himself at the very center of a deadly conflict.
Metagos itself is one of the more fascinating locales in Star Wars. The planet has been ravaged by solar storms & taken on a glass-like appearance. The vast majority of its inhabitants have ventured underground, and there’s a dizzying & labyrinthine city beneath the surface.
This book really goes to some surprising places, and becomes a really intense character study of Mace Windu. He begins to question everything about his life as a Jedi & also realizes he has a lot of healing to do. Learning about Mace Windu’s childhood was profoundly upsetting, real talk.
And so then a large part of this book becomes about…Mace Windu healing his inner child? Like who could have expected something like this in a Mace Windu adventure novel? Not me. For sure, we still see plenty of Mace as the stoic badass (Barnes definitely leans into the nerdy Legends-era minutiae of Mace’s deadly dark-side-adjacent fighting style, Vaapad), but THE GLASS ABYSS shows us just how multi-faceted and complex a character he truly is.
I really dug this! I think the originality of the location & the overall weird feel to things just set this book apart from other Star Wars books. There’s a lot of cool aliens & a really compelling villain, and certain parts of the book feel vaguely Weird Western-ish. Stranger in a strange land vibes, for sure.
Based on some of the reviews I’ve seen, this isn’t for everyone, but it was definitely for me! I also listened to a decent chunk of this one on audiobook & William DeMeritt is a great narrator. He did the narration for SHADOW OF THE SITH, one of my favorite recent Star Wars novels, so I’m definitely thinking of a reread via audio. THE GLASS ABYSS had near-constant music and sound effects which is always fun, and even had a few nasty electric guitar riffs which felt oddly appropriate, even though I can’t say I’ve ever heard that in any Star Wars music before!
All in all, I really had a good time with this one! May the Force be with you!!
Grimdark Dad 