If you remember how the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" ended it had introduced a whole new universe to the world of Star Trek: The mirror universe, where everyone was more or less the evil counterpart of the universe Star Trek fans were used to. When 30 years later the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover) continued the plot, it just gave small hints of what happened in between and between the Enterprise double-episode In a Mirror, Darkly and "Mirror, Mirror". And this is exactly where the two "Mirror Universe" books, Glass Empires [OL] and Obsidian Alliances come in.