Today on the blog I am honoured to be joined by author David Mack for an interview about his upcoming novel Firewall.

Welcome to At Boundary’s Edge. For those who don’t know you, please introduce yourself.

Hi, I’m David Mack, the New York Times bestselling author of nearly 40 novels of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure — a great many of them for Star Trek. Before I started writing novels, I wrote for the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, back in the ’90s.

This month sees the release of your latest Star Trek novel, Firewall. What can you tell us about it?

Although Firewall is listed as a Star Trek: Picard novel, it is very much a prequel to the Picard series. It’s set in 2380–81, a short time after the Starship Voyager returns to Earth from the Delta Quadrant. It focuses on Seven of Nine’s difficult adjustment to life in the Federation as an outsider, and the circumstances that lead her to join the Fenris Rangers.

With any luck, by the time this interview is released Firewall should be out in bookstores everywhere. It’s making its debut simultaneously in hardcover, ebook, and unabridged digital audiobook formats. I’m very excited about this, because this is my first novel officially published in hardcover for its debut.

Science fiction is a broad genre. What is it about science fiction that appeals to you?

I’ve always been drawn to stories that ask me to imagine something bigger than the world in which I live, whether through science fiction or fantasy. My early exposure to Star Trek primed me to appreciate the way that science fiction gives one a sense of emotional distance that makes it possible to tackle currently sensitive social and political subjects through the lens of allegory.

Firewall might be your first Picard novel, but you’re a veteran of the Star Trek universe. Does your approach change when you write about different eras or characters?

Always. Each novel presents its own challenges, and demands its own identity. The various eras of Star Trek are marked by very different attitudes.

The era of Star Trek: Enterprise is a time of anxious first steps, as humanity emerges from its war-scarred past to dare exploring the galaxy.

Strange New Worlds is a time of high adventure. Star Trek: The Original Series is a time of cold war-style paranoia paired with noble struggles to overcome our more primitive instincts.

The cinematic era between TOS and The Next Generation is one of mystery, wonder, exploration, and political upheaval, as the Romulans retreat into isolation and the Klingon Empire reinvents itself after the Praxis disaster.

TNG is a time of great idealism and optimism, followed by disillusionment and cynicism in Deep Space Nine and Picard. Star Trek: Voyager is its own unique pocket of Trek, about lost souls forging a new community and not just holding on to their values but working to actively share them while braving what at first seems like it will be a decades-long journey home.

When I sit down to write a new Star Trek novel, I have to ground my imagination in the continuity and mood of the era in question.

There’s no denying that Seven of Nine is a fan-favorite character. How did you approach the task of chronicling this period of her life?

Firewall is, in many ways, a queernormative take on the classic Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. The version of Seven that we saw at the conclusion of Voyager’s seventh season was just beginning to embrace the more complicated, nuanced facets of her humanity.

Up to that point, all her romantic relationships had been heterosexual, but when we met her again in Star Trek: Picard, some twenty years later, she clearly is either bisexual or lesbian. That orientation, we’re told, is no big deal in the fin-de-siècle Federation, but seeing it represented in a positive way on-screen matters a lot to many people here and now, so I wanted to tell a story that addressed that, using the particular details of the Star Trek setting as tools for allegory.

So, instead of Seven facing bigotry and discrimination and harassment for her sexual preference, she finds herself persecuted because she still has lingering Borg implants, and because she actively chooses a Borg-given designation instead of reverting to her childhood identity of Annika Hansen. The Federation, still stinging from recent altercations with the Borg, interprets Seven’s choice as a declaration of fidelity to the Borg, and consequently they deny her application to reclaim her Federation citizenship and bar her from entering Starfleet.

The idea of Seven being discriminated against because of implants she cannot remove serves as an allegory for how people in our present-day world are persecuted for the color of their skin, or for their innate sexual preference — elements of their physical self that they literally cannot excise, nor should have to. By the same token, the prejudice Seven faces because of her decision to keep her Borg designation, and the anger and frustration she feels when people deadname her as Annika Hansen, is meant to act as an allegory for the abuse the trans community endures, especially in certain regions of the United States.

At its core, Firewall is a story about a woman on a journey to break away from the ersatz family that until now has kept her safe, so that she can venture alone into a dangerous galaxy to define her own identity, discover who she truly is and what she wants, and choose her own path in life. My specific approach to telling that story was to seek out the aspects of her experience that are nigh-universal — the anxiety of dating as one who doesn’t “know the code,” the emotional vulnerability of really falling in love for the first time, and, unique to Seven, the overwhelming quality of her first experience of genuine, unfiltered empathy in the face of a brutal atrocity.

Firewall will give us a look at the Fenris Rangers, who were much mentioned in Picard’s first season. How do the Rangers fit into the wider Star Trek universe?

They’re an interesting counterpart and foil to an organization like Starfleet. When we meet the Rangers in Picard, in the early 25^th century, they’re like a starfaring Robin Hood’s gang. By that time, they really have no central command, no uniforms to speak of, no standard ships, no official home base. They’re not unlike the free-roaming regulators of the American Old West, who traveled alone or in pairs or small teams, enforcing “frontier justice” as best they could. That version of the Fenris Rangers has no Prime Directive and no civilian government to which it must answer — hence their reputation as vigilantes.

In Firewall, I posit that, when Seven first joined them, nearly 20 years before the events of Star Trek: Picard’s first season, the Rangers were somewhat different. They had once been an official interstellar patrol force, charged with upholding the law, protecting shipping lanes, tracking down interstellar fugitives from justice, that kind of thing. But when things started falling apart in the Qiris Sector, the governments that gave the Rangers their legitimacy collapsed, and those Rangers who have chosen to stay on the job after that happened are just doing the best they can, like a national or international police organization suddenly left to govern itself.

One of the big changes to which Seven must adapt after joining the Rangers is, as they tell her, she needs to stop thinking like a member of a military ship’s crew and start thinking like a law enforcement agent, one who must survive without Starfleet’s amazing resources.

Are there any additional Star Trek episodes or books you think would help readers get the most out of Firewall?

Not really. Although I did my best to reference canonical details from various episodes of Star Trek: Voyager or Star Trek: Picard, I wrote Firewall so that someone who has even just a passing knowledge of who Seven of Nine is as a character can pick up the book and follow the action without needing to stop on every page to look something up. As I always like to say about my media tie-in books, if you’re familiar with the deep history of the character you might be better able to appreciate some of the subtler touches, but I do my best to make sure everything a reader needs in order to understand the story is right there on the page.

Next up is a section I like to call “D20 Questions.” I have a list of twenty questions, and I choose three at random by rolling a twenty-sided die.

Sounds like good, random fun. Let’s give it a go.

Q6/20: What was the last science-fiction book you read?

I just finished reading NecroTek by Jonathan Maberry, who asked me to blurb it for his publisher. That is one intense novel, let me tell you. Incredible pacing, vivid imagery, and some genuinely creepy ideas. It’ll be coming out one of these days from Blackstone Publishing, so keep your eyes open for that one.

Q8/20: What science-fiction food do you wish was real?

Raktajino. I never met a caffeine jolt I didn’t want to try, and Klingon coffee sounds like it would be pretty darned awesome.

Q9/20: Who is an author you wish more people had heard of?

Other than myself? I’d have to say Richard Brautigan. His work has always resonated with me in a profound way. There’s a strange beauty and humanity to his stories and his authorial voice. He was one of the last of the Beat authors of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some folks love his short stories best; other fans of his prefer his longer works, or his poetry. I love it all. I have copies of all of his novels and collections, some in first editions, and I’ve found a fair number of his works of poetry. If someone reading this feels curious enough to check out his work, I’d say try reading his lyrical novel In Watermelon Sugar, or his delightful collection of short stories titled The Revenge of the Lawn.

Final question: Where is the best place for readers to get updates on your work?

I can be relied upon to self-promote my new and upcoming work on Facebook (facebook.com/TheDavidMack) and BlueSky (@davidmack.bsky.social). Also, my complete bibliography and other information is frequently updated on my official website, davidmack.pro.

David Mack’s latest novel Star Trek: Picard: Firewall releases today in the US, and on the 29th here in the UK.