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Michael A. Stackpole

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Michael A. Stackpole:Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole (born 1957) is a science fiction author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books. He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in Vermont. He has a BA in history from the University of Vermont.


Contents

Game design career

From 1977 on, he worked as a designer of role-playing games for various gaming companies, and wrote dozens of magazine articles for the industry. During this time, in response to the accusations of Patricia Pulling and a few others who felt that the "occult" elements of Dungeons & Dragons were driving people to Satanism, murder and suicide, perhaps even as part of a vast Satanic ritual abuse conspiracy, Stackpole did a research study on all American legal cases where injury or death had been attributed to gaming, and found that not only were the links to gaming very weak, but that even if all of the reports had been valid, they showed that gamers were violent or suicidal far less often than the general public (see External links below).

In the 1980s, Stackpole began designing computer games for Coleco and then Interplay Productions. The best known was Bard's Tale III. He also designed and wrote for role-playing games such as Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes and Wasteland (computer game). In the case of Wasteland, he is featured not only in the credits, but also in a photo on the inside cover of the box art, where 6 of the game's scenario designers and 1 tester donned costumes to represent ingame characters. [1]

Writing career

In 1986 Stackpole wrote his first novel, the fantasy story of Talion: Revenant. However, the manuscript would not be published until 1997 by Bantam Books. His editors believed that a 175,000 word book was too long for an unknown author. The story remained unpublished for the next 11 years and then only minor changes were effected by Stackpole's editor, Anne Lesley Groell. Stackpole clarifies these issues himself in the afterword of the published version of Talion.

In 1987 he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe for FASA, and became one of the most popular authors in that genre. Some of his Battletech books were used as the source for a televised animated series.

Based on that popularity, he was selected to write several novels in the Star Wars universe for Bantam Books. He has also wrote several comics based in the Star Wars universe for Dark Horse Comics. Initially these covered the period just before his Rogue Squadron novels. Later he also covered the marriage of Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade in Union and collaborated with Timothy Zahn on Mara Jade's early career.

In addition, he has written several highly praised novels and short stories with original settings. His most recent complete series is the DragonCrown War Cycle. Like many of his works, these books break many fantasy conventions: among other things, the stories feature the advent of firearms in a fantasy setting.

Stackpole contributed one of the four stories in Roger Zelazny's shared world anthology called Forever After. Baen Books published Forever After in 1995. He was also a contributor in the 1998 anthology Lord of the Fantastic commemorating Zelazny.

The first of his next series (The Age of Discovery trilogy) came out in March of 2005, and is set in yet another all-new fantasy world, with an unconventional approach to magic and mastery in any given field. The second in this new trilogy was released February 28, 2006.

In the foreword to his book Outbound Flight, Timothy Zahn thanks Stackpole and issues a challenge at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.

The Secrets

Newsletter

Michael Stackpole also writes and publishes an online newsletter entitled The Secrets. The Secrets newsletter offers tips, tricks, and tidbits about writing (focusing on, but not limited it, science fiction and fantasy). It is aimed towards the serious writer, and includes information about getting books published, but casual writers can certainly benefit as well. Topics discussed in the newsletter range from how to beat writer's block to how to build a world, and even how to manage writing as a career.

The Secrets newsletter requires a subscription. Issues are released every two weeks. Several sample issues are available on Stackpole's website.

Podcast

The Secrets Newsletter has an "audio companion" in The Secrets Podcast. The first ten podcasts were based on material from the first ten issues of The Secrets newsletter. After the first series ended, the content of the podcast diverged from the newsletter. The podcasts average twenty-five minutes long and are voiced and produced by Stackpole.

The podcasts are free and require no subscription, but older episodes have been retired and are no longer available on the main archive.

Novels

Age of Discovery

Published by Bantam Books.

DragonCrown War

Published by Bantam Books.

BattleTech

Published by Fasa Corporation.

Warrior
Blood of Kerensky
Other BattleTech

Star Wars

Dark Conspiracy

Published by GDW.

Others

Other publications

Persondata
NAME Stackpole, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION science fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Wausau, Wisconsin
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

Categories


Wikipedia introduction cleanup | American science fiction writers | American fantasy writers | Role-playing game designers | 1957 births | Living people

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