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From SCIFIPEDIA
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David Mack is an American science-fiction author and scriptwriter. The majority of his work to date has been for the Star Trek franchise, both on television and in print. In addition, he has written scripts for comic books and video games, and he has authored articles for such periodicals as Star Trek magazine and SCI FI magazine.
Education and Early Career
Mack attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts as an undergraduate, from 1987 to 1991. There he majored in film and television production and screenwriting.1
After receiving several rejections on early spec-script submissions to Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Mack teamed up with John J. Ordover, then an editor in Pocket Books' Star Trek Department. Working together, the pair combined Ordover's ability to arrange pitch meetings with the shows' producers with Mack's training in screenwriting.2
In 1995, the pair made their first story sale, to Star Trek: Voyager, though the project was never produced. A few weeks later they made another sale, this time to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, for the fourth-season episode "Starship Down". Another story pitched by the pair during that same meeting was bought three years later, as the basis for the seventh-season episode "It's Only a Paper Moon".3
During the 1990s, Mack performed freelance editorial work for Pocket Books. His duties ranged from reading slush manuscripts and writing rejection letters to drafting reference materials for established authors and series, such as Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier books. That work led to Mack being invited to draft a 5,000-word supplement for John Vornholt's novel The Genesis Wave, Book One, which, in turn, earned Mack an invitation in 2000 to write his own first full-length book for Star Trek.4
Professional Career
The first book that Mack was contracted to write was The Starfleet Survival Guide, a pseudo-reference work based on the fictional technology and phenomena of Star Trek. However, his first officially published work of Star Trek prose was the two-part Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers (aka Star Trek: S.C.E.) eBook novella "Invincible", written with Keith R. A. DeCandido.
Mack's first solo work of prose fiction was the two-part S.C.E. eBook novel Wildfire, published in January and February of 2003. Each part of the story was a Palm Digital Media best-seller during its month of release, and both installments placed on Palm Digital Media's 2003 Top 100 best-seller list. Wildfire also received accolades from fans and critics.5
Next, Mack was invited by John Ordover in summer of 2003 to write a back-to-back pair of Star Trek: The Next Generation novels, A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal, which were the penultimate volumes in a nine-book miniseries. A Time to Heal became a USA Today bestseller in September of 2004 and a Locus magazine #1 best-seller in December of 2004.6
The next milestone in Mack's prose-writing career came in 2005, with the publication of Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger, the debut volume of a new Star Trek book series that Mack developed with Pocket Books editor Marco Palmieri. Mack also penned the third book in the series, Reap the Whirlwind.
Among his other full-length Star Trek novels are Warpath, part of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "post-finale" books, which are set after the end of that TV series; and The Sorrows of Empire, the tale of Spock's rise to control of the Terran Empire, in the trade paperback collection Star Trek: Mirror Universe — Glass Empires.
His first non-Star Trek novel was the Wolverine spy-thriller Road of Bones, published in October of 2006 by Pocket Books.
Upcoming projects by Mack include the Star Trek Destiny trilogy, to be published in October, November and December of 2008. In October of 2007, Mack announced the sale of his first original novel, The Calling, which he described as "a modern-day fantasy-thriller." 7
Bibliography
Writing Credits, Print
The Calling (2009)
(trade paperback)
Star Trek Destiny, Book Three: — Lost Souls (2008)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek Destiny, Book Two: — Mere Mortals (2008)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek Destiny, Book One: — Gods of Night (2008)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: Corps of Engineers — Creative Couplings (2007)
(trade paperback collection)
— contains novella "Small World"
(originally published as an eBook, 2005)
Star Trek Vanguard — Reap the Whirlwind (2007)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: Corps of Engineers — Grand Designs (2007)
(trade paperback collection)
— contains the novella "Failsafe"
(originally published as an eBook, 2004)
Star Trek: Mirror Universe — Glass Empires (2007)
(trade paperback anthology)
— contains the short novel The Sorrows of Empire
Wolverine — Road of Bones (2006)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Warpath (2006)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek Vanguard — Harbinger (2005)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: SCE, Book Six — Wildfire (2004)
(mass-market paperback collection)
— contains the short novel Wildfire
(originally published as an eBook, 2003)
Star Trek: The Next Generation — A Time to Heal (2004)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: The Next Generation — A Time to Kill (2004)
(mass-market paperback)
Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War (2004)
(trade paperback anthology)
— contains the short story "Twilight's Wrath"
Star Trek: New Frontier — No Limits (2003)
(trade paperback anthology)
— contains the short story "Waiting for G'Doh, or,
How I Learned to Stop Moving and Hate People"
Star Trek: SCE, Book Two — Miracle Workers (2002)
(mass-market paperback collection)
— contains the novella "Invincible,"
written with Keith R.A. DeCandido
(originally published as an eBook, 2001)
Star Trek — The Starfleet Survival Guide (2002)
(trade paperback)
Star Trek — Divided We Fall (2001)
(four-issue comic-book miniseries,
written with John Ordover)
Writing Credits, TV
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — "It's Only a Paper Moon" (1999)
(with John Ordover and Ronald D. Moore)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — "Starship Down" (1995)
(with John Ordover)
Star Trek: Voyager — "Sickbay" (1995)
(aka "Untitled Kes," with John Ordover) [unproduced]
Writing Credits, Interactive Media
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Dominion Wars (2001)
CD-ROM game (voiceover scripts)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Fallen (2000)
CD-ROM game (interactive dialogue scripts, dialogue polishing)
Star Trek — Starship Creator (1998)
CD-ROM Simulator (character development)
External Links
References
1. David Mack official Web site, Photo Gallery
2. TrekNation interview with David Mack (July 12, 2004)
3. ibid.
4. ibid.
5. David Mack official Web site, Covers Gallery
6. ibid.
7. TrekBBS - Trek Literature Forum (October 11, 2007)
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