David Mack

Writer David Alan Mack (born 12 May 1969; age 55) served as co-writer for two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and is a story consultant on Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy. [1] Mack has also written many Star Trek novels and comics.

Mack and John J. Ordover co-wrote the 1995 Deep Space Nine episode "Starship Down" and the story treatment for the 1999 episode "It's Only a Paper Moon". They also collaborated on the comic book mini-series Star Trek: Divided We Fall from WildStorm Comics.

As of 2024, he has been nominated for eleven Scribe Awards. Ten nominations have been in the "Best Novel – Speculative" category: The Sorrows of Empire in 2011, The Persistence of Memory in 2013, Disavowed in 2015, Long Shot in 2016, Desperate Hours in 2018, Collateral Damage in 2020 (which ultimately won the award), More Beautiful Than Death in 2021, Oblivion's Gate in 2022, Harm's Way in 2023, and Firewall in 2024 (which ultimately won the award). Additionally, in 2024 he was nominated and won the "Best Short Story" Scribe Award for the story "Lost and Founder", published in Star Trek Explorer issue 8.

He received Dragon Award nominations in 2018 for his novel Desperate Hours and in 2022 for his novel Oblivion's Gate, both in the category of "Best Media Tie-In Novel".

In 2014, David Mack, David R. George III, and Kirsten Beyer approached Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci's K/O Paper Products film production company, who by then had the license for television Star Trek, soon to develop Star Trek: Discovery. Mack commented: "Back in December 2014, Kirsten Beyer, David R. George and I, we knew that K/O Paper Products had the license to produce Star Trek on television. We arranged to pitch to them our idea for a Trek TV series, not because we thought they'd buy our series, but because we wanted to prove to them that we were serious longform story thinkers and people who were very knowledgeable about Star Trek and could be of use to them. The meeting went extremely well, but, in the end, it turned out there was only one job to be had and three of us. Kirsten, because of her proximity being in L.A. and previous professional relationships she had with some folks who were involved in the show, was the most logical choice. She was the one they knew the best. They were most comfortable with her. She had the qualifications". [2]

Literature[]

Mack also wrote the dialogue for the Deep Space Nine video games The Fallen and Dominion Wars, and the character bios for Star Trek: Starship Creator.

His novels include Harbinger and Reap the Whirlwind, the first and third volumes of a new Star Trek novel series, Star Trek: Vanguard; the Star Trek: The Next Generation "Time to..." duology A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal; Warpath, part of the popular Deep Space Nine relaunch series, and the Star Trek: Mirror Universe novella "The Sorrows of Empire". Mack also contributed the additional novella "Saturn's Children" under the pseudonym Sarah Shaw.

Due to a mix-up in the Pocket Books editorial department, Mack had been contracted to provide two stories in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe anthology collections. Since the offers could not be rescinded, the editors requested that Mack write one of the stories under a pseudonym, which he himself derived – Shaw. Mack noted that working under the pseudonym "freed me up, in a sense, to approach Saturn's Children with a different style. I wrote it much more quickly than I normally do, and by imagining I was a different author I ended up working from a different mindset. It was an intriguing experience". [3]

He wrote the tongue-in-cheek reference work The Starfleet Survival Guide in 2002.

Mack has also worked with Keith R.A. DeCandido on the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers eBook series, contributing the two-part novels Invincible, Part One and Part Two and Wildfire, Book 1 and Book 2, as well as the single volumes Failsafe and Small World.

His Star Trek short stories include the Shinzon story "Twilight's Wrath" in the Tales of the Dominion War anthology, and the Zak Kebron story "Waiting for G'Doh, or, How I Learned to Stop Moving and Hate People", in the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Another short story – "For Want of a Nail" – appeared in the 2009 Mirror Universe anthology Shards and Shadows. He has also contributred short stories to Star Trek Explorer magazine, including "Lost and Founder" in its 8th issue and "Sundering" in the digital subscriber edition of its 9th issue.

Mack's most extensive project is the crossover trilogy Star Trek: Destiny, released in late 2008, which featured characters from a number of Star Trek series, and affected the story lines of most of the ongoing novel series.

2009 saw Mack pen the fifth novel in the Vanguard series, Precipice, and the Mirror Universe novel The Sorrows of Empire (an expansion of his earlier novella, doubling the length of the original), as well as a tie-in novel to The 4400.

Mack's later projects include the first novel in the Star Trek: Typhon Pact miniseries, Zero Sum Game, one of four novellas in the Vanguard collection Declassified, and the culmination of the Memory Omega story line in the Mirror Universe series, Rise Like Lions.

In early 2010, his contribution to the series of books set after Star Trek, More Beautiful Than Death, was placed "on hold" – along with the other planned releases in that series – following executive decisions at Pocket. [4]

On 9 March 2011, Mack revealed that he had signed contracts with Pocket Books for four more Trek novels to be released in 2012 – the eighth installment in the Vanguard series, Storming Heaven, and the Star Trek: The Next Generation - Cold Equations trilogy. [5]

Mack wrote the first Star Trek: Discovery tie-in novel, Desperate Hours. As part of the process of developing the novel, Mack wrote up profiles of the USS Shenzhou crew, which were shared with the actors playing those roles. The names of Keyla Detmer, Troy Januzzi, and Kamran Gant were also derived from those profiles. [6]

Bibliography[]

Writing credits[]

• DS9: "Starship Down" (writer, with John J. Ordover)
• DS9: "It's Only a Paper Moon" (story, with John J. Ordover)

Novels[]

Short stories/Novellas[]

• Tales of the Dominion War – "Twilight's Wrath"
• No Limits – "Waiting for G'Doh, or, How I Learned to Stop Moving and Hate People"
• Shards and Shadows – "For Want of a Nail"
• Declassified – "The Stars Look Down"
• Star Trek Explorer issue 8 – "Lost and Founder"
• Star Trek Explorer issue 9 (digital subscriber edition) – "Sundering"

Comics[]

• Star Trek: Divided We Fall (WildStorm Comics, with John J. Ordover)

Reference works[]

• The Starfleet Survival Guide

Video games[]

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen (dialog)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dominion Wars (dialog)
• Star Trek: Starship Creator (character biographies)

External links[]

• DavidMack.pro – official website
• David Mack at Facebook
• David Alan Mack at Wikipedia
• David Mack at SF-Encyclopedia.com
• David Mack at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works