While science fiction is often set in the future or some other version of our world, these stories are often really about issues from our time, from our reality. Sure, the original Star Trek was set in space…the final frontier, but it still explored contemporary problems from our world, including racism and the cost of war. It’s a tradition being continued by writer Joe M McDermott with his new military sci-fi novel, The Fortress At The End Of Time (paperback, digital), a book, he explains below, came from something he saw his family going through.