>How would I get the value myself?

Have a separate query with
SELECT GEN_ID(GEN_NEW_AUTHOR_ID, 1) AS MYGENERATOR FROM RDB$DATABASE;

and then add something like

DataSet.FieldByName('AUTHOR_ID').Value :=
DataSet2.FieldByName('MYGENERATOR').Value;

>For the first option, if I just removed the AUTHOR_ID from the InsertSQL,
>will the server put it in for me?

Yes, that ought to do (though I've never used IBX).

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