Star Trek: Picard #5 Firewall by David Mack
- 336 pages, Hardcover
- Published February, 2024 by Pocket Books
I interviewed author David Mack on my podcast about this book!
Watch my David Mack interview.
Listen to it here:
I watch Star Trek like many writers. I hear random bits of world-building and my mind goes instantly to new stories I would love to tell. David Mack had the same reaction when the popular Star Trek Voyager character Seven of Nine was introduced in an episode of Star Trek Picard. The secret of Jeri Ryan's return was well-guarded and it was a good twist when trailers started coming out. When her appearance came the years between Voyager and Picard was hinted at. The idea was that Seven was on the frontier operating as a Fenris Ranger, a rag-tag operation that sought to police areas to remote or wild for the Federation to police.
My first reaction was...oh wow that is a show. David Mack however paused the show to write to his editor and to say "put me in coach." The process took a few years and Mack had to wait for the show to produce two more seasons but here we are. I had a big smile on my face when I heard this novel was happening. I would be lying if I didn't say I was jealous of him, but also happy for him and stoked to read this book.
Seven of Nine is a unique character in the Star Trek canon who has been on an incredible journey both on the screen and behind the scenes. When introduced to the show, the catsuits and the borg to Grace Kelly lead to many accusations of the show selling out and sexist casting, an odd turn for the Trek show with the first woman as captain. The Voyager writers and Jeri Ryan did an excellent job of portraying Seven's coming of age in the last years of the show. In the novel Janeway thinks about this in a revealing scene.
"An adult. Chronologically, that was true. Biologically, Seven was thirty-two years old, though she appeared younger thanks to the regenerative properties of her Borg nanoprobes. But did her age accurately represent her degree of socialization? She had been robbed of so many years of her life as a Borg drone. So many aspects of social development that her new peers took for granted
likely remained alien to Seven."
I never thought her journey back to humanity was done when Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Mack understood this and the novel Firewall opens with Seven's lack of family once the Voyager crew returns home and she realizes she doesn't fit into the Federation. Looking at the where Seven's story ended and picked up again this novel has the task of bridging that gap.
Seven is not only a ranger living on the fringes, but queer and if you are paying attention slightly more evolved since we last saw her emotionally. Some of the fans who think Star Trek has gotten to woke will complain, but people Star Trek has always been progressive and it has to grow with the times. IF you can't handle Seven being queer, maybe this franchise is not for you. Mack embraced this and even when he was early in the writing process he told social media in very CLEAR language this was pro-LBGTIQ and if you didn't like that he didn't care.
In many ways does for modern Star Trek what Andor does for Star Wars. Firewall has different agendas but it has then, is unashamed about it and willing to shine a light on the dark gritty corners of the galaxy it takes place in. You would think after all Seven did to help Voyager return home she was a no-brainer for Starfleet. No matter how progressive the Federation thinks of itself the terror of the two Borg invasions has left scars.
"Seven hated feeling self-conscious about her implants. They made her feel unwelcome in so many settings now, as if she were a pariah or a criminal. It was a condition she hadn’t needed to confront in any significant way before arriving in the Federation. Her shipmates on Voyager had worked hard not to make her feel ashamed of who she was, or embarrassed by her lingering body modifications and nanoprobes. Part of the credit for that, she knew, belonged to then-Captain Janeway, who had welcomed Seven with unexpected openness and trust. While Janeway’s faith in Seven had been tested by a few crises during their early years together, her staunch support of Seven had set the tone for Voyager’s crew—and for Seven’s new life. "
Janeway's support and love for Seven is the through-line of the novel, and Mack is even sets the stage for Janeway's return in Star Trek Prodigy (a show he consulted on) in subtle but neat ways. Janeway is desperate to help Seven and wants to believe there is a place for her in Starfleet, and she is concerned when she is tricked into the Fenris Rangers. The thing is Seven thought she was working for Federation intelligence but the reality is being out on the frontier opens her up to accepting who she is, and in that sense firewall perfectly explains the changes we saw in Seven.
There are Romulans, Orion pirates, Starship battles, chases, phaser battles for days. Plenty of nerdy Star Trek details for those who can read maps set in the Trek universe. Don't worry I have not given away the action, and that stuff is fun but the growth of the character is really what makes the novel special.
Also on a funny side note, yeah it was cool that Discovery dropped the first Trek F-Bomb. Mack got the word mosh into the Star Trek universe.
"She was about to remove herself from the mosh pit when she felt the gentle, tentative contact of a soft hand on the back of her neck. It arrived like a feather touching down on snow, gentle enough to capture her attention without triggering her alarm.
Seven moved with the music, careful not to pull away from the unexpected touch. She turned to face a tall, young Andorian woman. The bone-white hair on the right side of the woman’s head had been shaved down to stubble, revealing her azure-blue skin, and on the other side it had been styled into a wild wave of ombréed teal, white, emerald, and orange. Her clothes were scant and
stylishly torn in all the right places, and like Seven she wore ankle-high boots that were as practical as they were flattering."
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