The Romulans and Cardassians feel like they have a similar species concept. How do you separate them?

I feel like the Romulans are Imperialistic and Machiavellian while the Cardassians are Colonialists and Fascists. I know those are small distinctions, but for example:

Romulans are happy with tribute. Cardassians want to occupy, exploit, and exterminate.

Romulan trials might be politically motivated, but probably follow a set procedure and if you pull the right strings, you might get a fair trial. Cardassian trials are Orwellian and EVERYONE ends up guilty, often for crimes they did not commit (if anyone ever actually tells them what they’re charged with).

Romulan government is a constant shifting oligarchy made up of numorous factions plotting against each other. Sudden coups are not uncommon. Cardassian government is a faceless, implacable bureaucracy which crushes all dissent. Coups are rare.

The history of the Romulan Empire would be written by Edward Gibbon with an assist by George R. R. Martin. The history of Cardassia would be penned by Kafka, Huxley, and Orwell.

You were asked this on the Sid City social club and gave a great answer but I also wanted to ask: if DS9 were made today what do you think would be different? IIRC the discussion there was about the Garak/Bashir relationship and the fact that Kira as a sympathetic ex-terrorist would be harder to do post 9/11 but I was curious if you had other things you thought would be different… or wanted to elaborate on those, your choice. (Hope this isn’t too heavy or weird of a question)

I don’t like to second-guess DS9. Like you said, I think if we made it now, Bashir/Garak would have an actual relationship or at least that possibility would be on the table. Kira’s terrorist background would be a tough sell, but I’d like to think we’d go for it anyway.

In hindsight, I’d have Ziyal there from the start and have her be besties with Jake and Nog, so the duo would become a trio that might turn into a messy triangle as they got older.

I’d make Dax even queerer. A fling with Kira maybe?

But DS9 stands the test of time in my opinion. It ain’t broke, so I feel no strong pull to fix it.

What was your path to becoming a writer like? Any tips for aspiring writers?

It happened by accident! I didn’t really write much fiction as a teenager (which I think is when most people start seriously writing). I was too busy with exams, etc. I did some small pieces of fanfiction, which turned up in zines. This was the 1980s, pre-internet, so there wasn’t that immediate gratification of publication available. Things started to kick off when I joined a Blake’s 7 mailing list and began to write fiction for challenges, etc.

Things really kicked off after I was what I can only call tremendously traumatised by the end of DS9 and [redacted] Cardassia Prime. I just started writing and writing. I had to work through those emotions. The pieces got more complex: I moved from first-person vignettes and mood pieces to plotted short stories to (eventually) a 30k novella. I wrote these on a Psion when I should have been working on my PhD (in sociology) and got horrible RSI! The plan at this point was still to become an academic sociologist.

Then: The Fellowship of the Ring. BOOM. I started CHURNING out fanfiction. I was taking regular train trips for my PhD work, and I handwrote my first novel (a post Ring War romance about Faramir and Éowyn’s marriage) while I was travelling. Typed it up and edited it in the evenings. Posted in real-time, across 10 weeks, on ff.net. SO MUCH FUN. Then (as often described elsewhere), I was asked to pitch by the editor of the Star Trek book range. I pitched, and eventually got offered a contract for a novel.

At this point, my PhD supervisor said, “You’re going to have to choose between novel and thesis.” I said, “No, I think I’ll have both, thanks.” I very nearly didn’t pull this off (I had to revise the PhD substantially after the viva), but this taught me two things: 1. how to multitask big high-pressure projects and 2. things are fixable in revision, but a first draft must exist.

However, it was quite clear by this point that I wasn’t going to make it as a sociologist, and that I much preferred working through my ideas in fiction anyway, so I kept looking out for and pitching for writing work as and when the chances came up. I also started teaching creative writing at a local university, as a sessional teacher. On the strength of my Trek work, I got to do some Doctor Who novels. And on the strength of my sessional teaching, I got a lectureship in creative writing.

After that: ten years of combining writing and teaching writing, including teaching an amazing MA course called “Patterns of Story”, where we would sit and take apart our novel of the week, to see how it worked and what we could get from it. I loved teaching creative writing, particularly at PhD level. One of my PhD creative writing students wrote a fanfiction novel based on the MCU for the PhD project. Aced the viva. I am so proud of this student. I got so much from teaching creative writing, and I am so lucky to have done this.

Round about 2018, however, I realised I was done with academia. Universities are pretty toxic places, and there’s only so long you can keep doing deeply vocational work when the organisation in which you’re doing it is profoundly cynical. I was getting burned out on classroom teaching, and I knew that if I couldn’t bring my full self to teaching, I shouldn’t be doing it anymore. I lined up a lot of writing work, and reached out to an agent, who signed me. Then I took the plunge and quit my job. Great decision. That’s more or less where I am now.

My chief advice:

1. Put the hours in. You do actually have to like spending time writing, and you need the apprenticeship. My first tentative forays into B7 fanfiction came in the late 90s. My first full novel was 2005. Also, creativity sparks creativity. Where do ideas come from? They come from having ideas.
2. Learn your method. I think it really helps to be reflective about your process. Do you have a visual or auditory imagination? Do you like to move between outline and narrative? Or build associatively? (This is a separate post. This is a separate creative writing course.)
3. Read. A lot. Of everything. Read against your preferences too, even if it’s just to work out what you don’t like about it, and why.
4. Diversify. Be able to turn to scripting, non-fiction, whatever.
5. Remember that writing, publishing, and bookselling are related but different things. Getting published and selling books involve different kinds of activities from writing. But writing is the thing you can always be doing. Right now, for example, I am writing a blog post about writing. And it’s waking my head up for the main business of the day - which will be writing.

I love how you interweave politics and personal motivations in the books. What kind of influences do you draw from and do you start with a character motivation or a political conflict or something else entirely?

That is such an interesting question, and such a difficult one to answer! Character is everything, really, in novels - but of course characters exist in entirely in context. Their social and cultural context, the context of their own personal history - and the context of the present moment, the immediate situation in which they find themselves. All of these will play a part in what comes out of their mouth or what actions they choose to take. Sometimes the characters themselves aren’t always aware of what is motivating them.

Of course, given my interests and inclinations, it JUST SO HAPPENS that most of the characters that I’m writing about are in the middle of, say, rebuilding a civilisation that has been destroyed after a terrible inter-quadrant war, or trying to build consensus about a relief mission to save a species whose sun has just gone supernova, etc. etc. While I do default to high stakes, even hyper-real, conditions in which the characters are operating, at the same time, I try to keep the motivations and the dialogue as naturalistic as possible. The kind of books that I like to read and to write are those that model a tapestry or a mosaic that represents the interconnectedness of life.

There’s an example that I use when I’m teaching creative writing. Arthur Dent, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mostly wants to have a really good cup of tea. You’d think that’s a fairly straightforward motivation for a character. Unfortunately for Arthur, the place where he could get a really good cup of tea is his home planet Earth, which is destroyed at the start of the book. So Arthur’s heart’s desire is out of reach, and becomes a symbol for his loss, his grief, his deep longing and nostalgia for home.

On influences: part of what interests me about writing science fiction is that it allows me, as a writer, to move from real life examples to something more abstract. I wrote The Never-Ending Sacrifice after spending a year living in the US in the mid-200s and observing and thinking about how great powers organise their cities and their education systems and so on. But Cardassia in TNES isn’t the US in the mid-2000s. It’s necessarily also 1930s Germany (that’s from the show), with a lot of reflection on British imperialism (mostly as it relates to Irishness, which is my background). The book is about empires, not about a particular empire. I choose to write sf (rather than historical fiction) because I want to think in the abstract and not in the particular. The Crimson Shadow is about the rise of populism and fascism, and what we might to do prevent that. That’s always timely, and sadly turned out to be more so after publication.

Britain at the moment feels very like the Cardassia I wrote in TNES under the civilian government before Dukat takes charge. The crumbling institutions. The fraying social contract. The awful gap between rich and poor. The feeling that an authoritarian is waiting to sweep in.

If there’s one place where I am specific, it’s that I try to put people who are from contemporary beleaguered and oppressed groups into my Star Trek books. Because it seems like the very smallest thing that I can do, to say: “Yes, you will be here in this future.”

I’m not sure if that answers the question, so do ask more if you think I haven’t covered something!

Hi Una! My question: is Enigma Tales ever going to get a sequel? Not sure if you're allowed to answer that. Also, Happy Halloween!

Hi there! The short answer is that the litverse which contained Enigma Tales wrapped up with the Coda trilogy, so it won’t get a sequel. The book range is now rebooted, which means that new books don’t take previous beta canon into account.

I did always have a third book in mind of what I thought of as a Cardassia trilogy (The Crimson Shadow, Enigma Tales, and this one), but that won’t happen now.

However!

My new book Star Trek: Picard - Second Self involves a certain, ahem, favourite character, and tells some of the story (albeit very recast) that I would have told in that final book.

Also: that final book (which is titled The End of This Day’s Business) is more or less completely plotted in my mind, and in fact I wrote 50k of it for my own amusement during winter lockdown 2020. It would have dealt with:

1. The nature of Garak’s activities under the occupation, and what would constitute justice.
2. A main plot involving Garak and Peter Alden on Ab-Tzenketh.
3. A subplot with Arati Mhevet and Akret carrying out an investigation on Bajor.
4. Natima Lang’s ascension to the castellanship.
5. Bashir’s attempts to grow roses.
6. And, finally and obviously, a resolution to the Garak-Parmak-Bashir story.

It’s all there in my head. I have no idea whether I’ll ever get a chance to finish it, or whether it could ever see the light of day, but in the meantime, everyone has the space and the freedom to tell their own version of events.