To coincide with the launch of a new Star Trek series, Star Trek Discovery, the good people at Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster who oversee the literary adventures of Kirk, Picard, and the rest have commissioned longtime Star Trek novelist David Mack to pen the non-canonical prequel novel Star Trek Discovery Desperate Hours (paperback, digital). But while Mack has written a number of Star Trek novels over the years — including 2004’s Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Time To Kill, 2012’s Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven, and the upcoming Star Trek: Titan: Fortune Of War — as he admitted in the following email interview, writing a book based on a show that’s still on the air made this experience rather unique.