Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey: A Magic The Gathering Retelling Series
So you want to know what happens in Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey? Good. Because this book is one of those stories that sticks with you long after you close the cover.
Planeswalker is the second book in the Artifact Cycle of Magic: The Gathering novels. Lynn Abbey wrote it, and it picks up right where the first book left off. The ISBN is 0-7869-1182-0, if you’re the type who tracks that sort of thing.
Here’s the setup. Urza survived the Brothers’ War. He literally blew up Argoth with the sylex blast, and somehow came out the other side alive. The Mightstone and Weakstone fused into his skull and became his eyes. He’s immortal now. A planeswalker. And he is absolutely not okay.
What This Book Is About
The core of this story is about guilt, obsession, and the slow work of getting an immortal genius to actually do something useful. Urza spends thousands of years wallowing in his failure to save his brother Mishra. He builds tiny automatons on his worktable, recreating historical battles, trying to figure out exactly when the Phyrexians corrupted Mishra. He talks to the little figurines. It’s not great.
Meanwhile, his companion Xantcha is trying to hold it all together. Xantcha is a Phyrexian “newt” who escaped that nightmare plane and has been traveling with Urza for over three thousand years. She’s practical, stubborn, and probably the only reason Urza hasn’t completely lost himself to his obsession.
The Phyrexians are back on Dominaria. They’re seeding agents into human conflicts. Wars are starting up that look suspiciously like the Brothers’ War all over again. And Urza won’t do a thing about it because he’s too busy replaying the past.
So Xantcha comes up with a plan. Find a young man who looks like Mishra. Teach him to play the part. Use this fake Mishra to shock Urza out of his spiral. It’s desperate and kind of insane, but that’s where they are.
What This Series Is
I’m going to walk you through this book chapter by chapter. Each post covers what happens, what I think about it, and why it matters in the bigger picture. If you’ve never read the Magic: The Gathering novels, this will catch you up. If you have read them, maybe you’ll see something new.
Lynn Abbey’s writing is dense. She packs a lot of backstory into every chapter. The book moves between present-day events and long flashbacks to Xantcha’s origins in Phyrexia. It’s a slower burn than the first Artifact Cycle book, but what you get in return is depth. Real character work. You actually understand why these people do what they do.
The Key Players
Urza is a genius and a mess. He has the power to fight Phyrexia single-handedly, but he won’t, because he can’t let go of his brother. His eyes are literally Thran powerstones. He doesn’t need food, sleep (though he sleeps anyway for the dreams), or rest. He can reshape his appearance at will. And he uses all that power to build tiny figurines on a table.
Xantcha is the real protagonist of this book, at least for the early chapters. Born in the vats of Phyrexia’s Fourth Sphere, she was never supposed to be anything more than disposable labor. But she developed a sense of self that no Phyrexian newt was supposed to have. She fought her way out. She found Urza. And now she’s trying to save Dominaria by finding a fake brother for a broken god.
Ratepe (Rat) is the young man Xantcha finds in Efuan Pincar. He’s educated, sharp-tongued, and a former slave. He knows The Antiquity Wars by heart. And he looks like Mishra.
Why You Should Care
This book asks a question that hits different: can you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? Urza has the power to stop the Phyrexian invasion. He knows they’re out there. He just won’t act. And the people around him have to figure out how to work around a god’s depression.
That’s the story. Let’s get into it.