Shatterpoint

"When I look at you through the Force, I can see where you break."

- Samuel L. Jackson Mace Windu

A Star Wars Expanded Universe novel by Matt Stover. Mace Windu's student goes rogue. Mace Windu returns to his birth planet to find her. 300 pages of action scenes, musings on the nature of the force, and Windu being badass. War Is Hell.

Tropes used include:
"Nick: What's the matter, Windu? Depa says you got a great sense of humour. Mace: She must have been joking."
 * Action Film Quiet Drama Scene: Several scenes where Mace, Nick, and are just talking, including excerpts from Mace's audio journal. And those aren't the only ones.
 * Action Girl: Chalk.
 * Badass: Windu.
 * Batman Gambit: Since Kar draws on the Force of the jungle, Mace can't pick him out from the background through the Force. Unless, of course, Mace
 * Blood Knight: Amazingly, Mace Windu. He actually loves to fight, and maintaining a Jedi's serenity instead of simply kicking the asses of everyone involved in the problem he has to solve is a great deal of effort for him.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Mace, emphasis on "deadpan"; Nick, emphasis on "snarker". They are an excellent comedy duo.


 * Does This Remind You of Anything?/Call Forward: When Mace arrives at the Haruun Kal spaceport, he's wearing a white shirt, dark leather vest and boots, the latter with dark pants tucked into them, and he's carrying a Power 6 pistol.

"Mace Windu: I use my sword as a shield. They use their shields as swords."
 * Evil Counterpart: Mace describes Kar Vaastor not as "evil", just having given himself to "the jungle" to survive. Which is basically The Dark Side. They have a lot of similarities, and turn out to be from the same clan. See Foil, below.
 * Fatal Flaw: Windu's looking at everything through the prism of Jedi philosophy and civilization itself. His initial impression, which everyone else on the planet shares, is that you can't fight the Hungry Jungle. Over the course of the novel he learns the truth: the "jungle" is everywhere - it's desperation, despair, and the things it drives people to do. Civilization is what you get when you do fight those things - and you don't need to win, just fight.
 * A Father to His Men: Windu to Depa, Depa to the Korunnai resistance.
 * Foil: Not quite Evil Counterparts, comparisons are made between Windu and Depa, Kar Vastor and Mace, and the Akk Guards and the Jedi. Kar and his Guards in particular, are dark reflections of the Jedi and Mace.
 * Foil: Not quite Evil Counterparts, comparisons are made between Windu and Depa, Kar Vastor and Mace, and the Akk Guards and the Jedi. Kar and his Guards in particular, are dark reflections of the Jedi and Mace.

"Mace: I keep forgetting he's smarter than I am."
 * The Fettered: Throughout the book, it's very clear that Mace is just barely restrained from mauling several people due to his adherence to the Jedi code and his personal restraint.
 * Full-Frontal Assault: Mace is a Jedi and an incredibly experienced warrior, so he doesn't have hangups about being nekkid in public. He specifically notes that from a tactical standpoint, species acclimated to wearing clothes feel vulnerable when caught naked - particularly humans.
 * Hungry Jungle: Both literal and figurative. The planet Haruun Kal is home to an omnipresent fungus that eats technology, as well as much larger and more dangerous creatures in the jungle.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Col. Geptun.

"Mace Windu: Our enemy is power mistaken for justice. Our enemy is the desperation that justifies atrocity. The Jedi's true enemy is the jungle. Our enemy is the darkness itself: the strangling cloud of fear and despair and anguish that this war brings with it."
 * Or Was It a Dream?: Overlaps with Fever Dream Episode. Windu has several visions of meetings with Depa, days before they actually meet, but she appears 99% accurately to how she looks and acts later. Dreams because Mace knew her so well? Or something more real through The Force?
 * Plucky Comic Relief: Nick Rostu, crossed with Sad Clown; his rapier-quick wit is his coping mechanism, and he really needs it.
 * Recycled in Space: Compare Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. Shatterpoint is based on both. According to Matt Stover, that was the whole idea.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Slides all the way to cynicism, then past it to become pure idealism again. Everyone Mace meets insists that the only way to survive on Haruun Kal is to focus on nothing except survival. Except that's not the way to survive as a human being, or as a Jedi - they have to fight the jungle, and they don't have to win, just fight.


 * Stop or I Shoot Myself:
 * War Is Hell: The main point of the book is how profound an effect war has, partly on the galaxy's population as a whole, but more so on the force-sensitive Jedi. They sense pain, suffering, fear and threat, and what is war?
 * Worthy Opponent: Kar considers Mace one; Mace really really doesn't reciprocate. Also, Mace and Geptun;.