After reading Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelisation – his second contribution to the written Star Wars universe –, before I picked up Shatterpoint, I really expected this to be just as good. It wasn’t; it lacked evident emotional depth, but it’s still an action-packed novel that sheds new light on the character of Mace Windu and even manages to do something many other Star Wars Clone Wars era novels don’t. The Clone Wars are afoot, and while the situation on Coruscant is still peaceful, the situation on Harrun Kal isn’t. Mace receives a troubling transmission from his former Padawan Depa Billaba, who has been sent there to train the local tribesmen as a guerrilla resistance force against the renegade Separatist movement. The holoscan that leads Mace to travel to Haruun Kal – his home planet – and search for Depa depicts a massacre. And it’s Depa’s voice that hints at madness and murder and darkness in the jungle. “I use the night and the night uses me.” I very much agree with Jim in saying that the action and fights depicted in this book are far from the clean, chrome-gleaning, durasteel, and laser fights that other SW novels usually present to their readers. When the Clone Wars are discussed, torture, massacres, and maiming are usually not even hinted at. Stover changes the Clone Wars' narrative as something that only involves Jedi, clones and droids, and instead plunges his readers into a world that is aflame with war, pain, and unspeakable deeds. Stover gets gritty here; some scenes are very graphic. The violence and horrors in this novel are palpable; there is no escaping them. This makes for a harrowing read and really lets the reader feel what Mace must be going through. Some reviewers say that they thought Mace’s character didn’t align at all with how they pictured him and that it wasn’t true to him. I couldn’t agree less. Mace is still a badass in this book, as shown, for example, by this quote: I am a Jedi Master, and a Senior Member of the Jedi Council,” Mace said patiently. “I am a general of the Grand Army of the Republic. I am not to be sent for.” Yeah, that’s still the same Mace who held a lightsaber to Dooku’s throat and said: But we also get to know Mace’s innermost thoughts and feelings and learn that he is not the perfect Jedi (duh, of course not, anything else would be boring). Being not only a witness to the people of Haruun Kal slaughtering each other but forced to actively participate in the brutal fights makes Mace question everything he learnt about peace and the moralities of war. The dual narrative (omniscient third-person narrator and first-person POV of Mace’s journal) really drives home just how thrown off balance Mace feels on his quest to find Depa. He truly cares about her and wants nothing more than to rescue her from the brink of destruction and the Dark Side of the Force, but he is introspective and self-aware enough to see why spending so much time on Haruun Kal turned Depa into what she is now. Mace also knows that he is not perfect, that, for a Jedi, he is much too keen on fighting and winning, and that his decision to go for Jango, and not Dooku, at the Geonosis Arena was the biggest mistake of his life that led to the death of millions of beings. “In my dreams, I always do it right. In my dreams, I'm on the arena balcony. Geonosis [...] . Within reach of my blade: Jango Fett. And [...] Dooku. [...] ango Fett bristles with weapons. An instinctive killer: the deadliest man in the galaxy. Jango can kill me in less than a second. I know it. But I do it right. My blade doesn't light the underside of Fett's square jaw. I don't waste time with words. [...] In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade sizzles the gray hairs of Dooku's beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to aim and fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death. And save the galaxy from civil war.” In short, I enjoyed how the author took the character of Mace Windu apart. This novel might not be canon, but I feel like I know and understand him much better now. And not only him, but the purpose of the Jedi as well as the Force itself. Mace has a lot of realisations about himself, the Jedi Order and the workings of the galaxy and comes away as a different person. Stover understands the concept of character development because the Mace who journeyed to his former home planet isn’t the same person who leaves Haruun Kal for good at the end of the novel. The only criticism I have to voice is that Stover gets too technical at times with his descriptions of weaponry and gear. Often, it was just too much; too many words and technical details crammed into one paragraph. “Standard combat equipment for the regular militia on Haruun Kal included the Merr-Sonn BC7 medium blaster carbine with the optional rocketgrenade attachment, six antipersonnel fragmentation grenades, and the renowned close-combat trench-style vibroknife, the Merr-Sonn Devastator, as well as Opankro Graylite ceramic-fiber personal combat armor. In addition, every sixth soldier carried a backpack flame projector, and each platoon of twenty was equipped with the experiemental MM(X) dualoperated grenade mortar, also from Merr-Sonn.” Yeah, alright, you go on talking about blaster carbines and Merr-Sonns, and I’ll just pretend that I know what I'm reading xD Maybe Stover was too excited to dive deep into the mechanics of Star Wars weaponry and vehicles and whatever sci-fi technology available, but I thought it became overwhelming at times. Last but not least, I wish we had seen more action from Depa Billaba. After all, she was the reason Mace travelled to Haruun Kal in the first place, and she is his only student to become a master of Vaapad. This lethal Jedi fighting style is only practised by Mace and Depa, and I wish we had seen more of Depa actually doing something, being super evil and sinister instead of her breaking out in tears all the time? I think Stover should have turned her into a more active and forward character because I found her too passive. Read this if you’re here for Star Wars novels that do more than just portray the Jedi as bland heroes without any inner struggles. This book has excellent fight scenes, makes some valuable statements about war and its effect on the morals of civilians and soldiers alike and portrays Mace as a brilliant tactician, a questioning man, and good Jedi.