Michael A. Stackpole (born November 27, 1957) is a science fiction and fantasy 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.
From 1977 on, he worked as a designer of role-playing games for various gaming companies, and wrote dozens of magazine articles with limited distribution within the industry. During this time, in response to the accusations of Patricia Pulling (among 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. He 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. His work at Interplay included Bard's Tale III, Wasteland, 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites. He also created the role-playing game Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, which provided the game mechanics for Wasteland.
Stackpole loaned his image to Decipher for the image of Corran Horn used in their Star Wars Customizable Card Game expansion "Reflections 2". Timothy Zahn did likewise for the character Talon Karrde.
Stackpole teamed up with Decipher again, helping them write the background story to their WARS TCG, including e-books and other writing tie-ins for the expanded universe.
In 1986 Stackpole wrote his first novel, the fantasy story 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 However, the manuscript would not be published until 1997 by Bantam Books.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 and that the story wasn't particularly engaging. The story remained unpublished for the next 11 years until reworked by Stackpole's editor, Anne Lesley Groell. Stackpole clarifies these issues himself in the afterword of the published version of Talion.
Stackpole has found his greatest success in serialed works that continue the characters and plot lines developed by other authors. In 1987 he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe for FASA Corporation, 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. He was then selected to write several novels in the Star Wars universe for Bantam Books. He also wrote several comics based in the Star Wars universe for Dark Horse Comics. Initially these covered the period just before his X-Wing 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 novels and short stories with original settings. One of his recent series is the DragonCrown War Cycle. These books attempt to break fantasy conventions, including the introduction of firearms in a fantasy setting which is not universally considered a positive advancement.
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 Age of Discovery trilogy is his latest complete series, with A New World released mid-2007. The trilogy is set in a fantasy world, with an attempt at an unconventional approach to magic and mastery.
In the foreword to his book Outbound Flight, Timothy Zahn thanks Stackpole and issues a challenge at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.
Michael Stackpole also writes and publishes an online newsletter titled The Secrets, which offers tips, tricks, and tidbits about fan fiction writing (focusing on, but not limited to, science fiction and fantasy). It is aimed towards the serious fan fiction writer and some casual writers, and includes information about getting books published..
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, and issues are released every two weeks.
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.
Stackpole is also one of the main hosts on The Dragon Page Cover to Cover, a book review and interview show dealing mainly with fantasy and sci fi publications, together with Michael R. Mennenga.
Skepticism
Stackpole has been the executive director of the Phoenix Skeptics since 1988 and is listed as the contact for the group in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer.
Asteroid
An outer main-belt asteroid discovered March 23, 2001 by David H. Healy was named 165612 Stackpole.
Originally Published by FASA Corporation. Later published by Penguin Group/ROC 2007. Catalyst Game Labs in June 2008 announced Mr. Stackpole would be publishing new Core Line - Battletech novel in 2009.
