Michael Austin Stackpole (born November 27, 1957) is an American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

author best known for his ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' and '' BattleTech'' books. He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. He has a BA in history from the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...

. From 1977 on, he worked as a designer of

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

s for various gaming companies, and wrote dozens of magazine articles with limited distribution within the industry. He lives in

Scottsdale, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Winfield Scott , image_skyline = , image_seal = Seal of Scottsdale (Arizona).svg , image_blank_emblem = City of Scottsdale Script Logo.svg , nick ...

Game design career

Michael Stackpole was hired full-time at

Flying Buffalo Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with ''Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started the pr ...

after they accepted his submission for a solo '' Tunnels & Trolls'' adventure which was published in 1978 as ''

City of Terrors ''City of Terrors'' is a 1978 role-playing game adventure for ''Tunnels & Trolls'' published by Flying Buffalo. Plot summary ''City of Terrors'' is an adventure where the player characters travel to the island of Phoron where the City of Terrors ...

''. He wrote columns on industry news and reviews for Flying Buffalo's magazine ''Sorcerer's Apprentice''. Stackpole worked for

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game console ...

from 1980-1981 after

Rick Loomis Rick Loomis (August 24, 1946 – August 23, 2019) was an American game designer, most notable as the founder of game publisher Flying Buffalo, which he managed until his death. Career Early years Richard F. Loomis was born and raised in Scotts ...

, Stackpole, and the president of Coleco met at a gaming and pinball convention. Stackpole designed the roleplaying game '' Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes'', which Flying Buffalo published in 1983. Stackpole left Flying Buffalo after the company's 1985 move to

. Stackpole,

Ken St. Andre Kenneth Eugene St. Andre (born April 28, 1947) is an American fantasy author and game designer, best known for his work with ''Tunnels & Trolls'' and ''Wasteland (video game), Wasteland''. He was born in Ogden, Utah, and has been an active member ...

, and

Liz Danforth Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer for role-playing games and video games. She has worked in the game industry continuously since the mid 1970s. Early life and education She received her BA in Anthropo ...

designed the computer roleplaying game '' Wasteland'', published by Interplay in 1988. He later returned to work with his fellow creators of Wasteland as a writer on its sequel '' Wasteland 2'', released in 2014 by inXile Entertainment. In response to the accusations of

Patricia Pulling Patricia A. Pulling (June 30, 1948 – September 18, 1997) was an anti-occult campaigner from Richmond, Virginia. She founded Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD), an advocacy group that was dedicated to the regulation of role-playing games s ...

(among others) who felt that the "

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

" elements of '' Dungeons & Dragons'' were driving people to suicide, Stackpole began to defend the game and the roleplaying game community. Stackpole published one of his first articles about the role-playing games misinformation from the media in ''Sorcerer's Apprentice'' #14 (Spring 1982) as an article titled "Devil Games? Nonsense!", and even debated the Western Regional Director of Pulling's BADD organization on a radio program broadcast on July 14, 1987. He compared BADD's statistics of suicides among role-playing gamers to the rate of general teen suicide and found the percentage of roleplayers committing suicide was actually lower than those who were not gamers, and published his argument in an article called "The Truth about Role-Playing Games" in the 1989 book ''Satanism in America''; he also published the document "The Pulling Report" in 1990, which further discredited Pulling's stand against roleplaying games. In the 1980s, Stackpole began designing computer games for

and then

Interplay Productions Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca ...

. His work at Interplay included '' Bard's Tale III'', '' Wasteland'', '' Neuromancer'', '' Star Trek: 25th Anniversary'' and '' Star Trek: Judgment Rites''. He also created the role-playing game '' Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes'', which provided the game mechanics for ''Wasteland'', and wrote several solo adventures for the Tunnels & Trolls role-playing system, including " Dargon's Dungeon", "

Overkill Overkill may refer to: * Overkill (term), the use of excessive force or action to achieve a goal * Surplus killing, when a predator kills more prey than it can eat * Overexploitation, depletion of a natural resource through overharvesting ** Ove ...

", "

" and " Sewers of Oblivion". Stackpole loaned his image to Decipher for the image of Corran Horn used in their ''

Star Wars Customizable Card Game ''Star Wars: Customizable Card Game'' (''SW:CCG'') is an out-of-print customizable card game based on the '' Star Wars'' fictional universe. It was created by Decipher, Inc., which also produced the ''Star Trek Customizable Card Game'' and ''T ...

'' expansion "Reflections 2".

Timothy Zahn Timothy Zahn (born September 1, 1951) is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy. He is known best for his prolific collection of ''Star Wars'' List of Star Wars books, books, chiefly the Thrawn trilogy, ''Thrawn'' series, and has publis ...

did likewise for the character

Talon Karrde This is an incomplete list of characters from the ''Star Wars'' expanded universe, now rebranded ''Star Wars Legends''. The accompanying works were declared non-canon to the ''Star Wars'' franchise by Lucasfilm in 2014. This list applies ''o ...

. 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 January, 2019 Stackpole resigned from the Board of Directors of GAMA (Game Manufacturer's Association), citing its inactivity and the poor handling of an incident involving GAMA President Stephen Brissaud. He was one of the few remaining Emeritus Directors (alongside

and Will Niebling).

Writing career

In 1986 Stackpole wrote his first novel, the fantasy story ''Talion: Revenant''. 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.'' The manuscript was published in 1997 by Bantam Books. Stackpole's first published novels were the Warrior trilogy for the '' BattleTech'' universe, published by FASA in 1988-1989. His "Blood of Kerensky" trilogy (1989-1991) were the last novels that FASA directly published; '' BattleTech: The Animated Series'' (1994) was set during the events of this trilogy. Stackpole also wrote a trilogy of novels published in 1992, which were based on the ''

Dark Conspiracy ''Dark Conspiracy'' is a near-future horror role-playing game (RPG) originally written by Lester W. Smith and published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1991. Several newer editions have been published. Setting ''Dark Conspiracy'' is set i ...

'' roleplaying game by GDW. Stackpole has found his greatest success in serial 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 Fasa ( fa, فسا, Fasā, also Romanized as Fassa) is a city and capital of Fasa County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 110,825, in 33,379 families. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province. The city date ...

, some of which were used as the source for a television animated series. He was then selected to write several novels in the Star Wars universe for

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

. He also wrote several comics based in the Star Wars universe for

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops known ...

. Initially these covered the period just before his ''X-Wing'' novels. Later, he also covered the marriage of Luke Skywalker and

Mara Jade Mara Jade Skywalker is a fictional character in the '' Star Wars'' franchise. She appears in the now non-canon ''Legends'' series as the wife of Luke Skywalker and mother of Ben Skywalker. She has been voiced by Heidi Shannon, Edie Mirman and K ...

in the graphic novel ''

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

'' and collaborated with

on Mara Jade's early career. In the foreword to his book ''

Outbound Flight Grand Admiral Thrawn (full name: Mitth'raw'nuruodo) is a fictional character in the '' Star Wars'' franchise. He is notable for appearing as the eponymous character in the ''Thrawn'' trilogy of novels (1991–1993) by Timothy Zahn. Thrawn is an ...

'', Timothy Zahn thanks Stackpole and issues a challenge at ''Star Wars

Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question t ...

''. In addition, he has written several novels and short stories with original settings. One series is the ''DragonCrown War Cycle''. These books attempted to break fantasy conventions in order to stir reader interest, including the introduction of firearms in a fantasy setting. Reception of these books was fairly positive based on Amazon reviews, but reviews elsewhere were not as good. Stackpole contributed one of the four stories in Roger Zelazny's

shared world A shared universe or shared world is a fictional universe from a set of creative works where more than one writer (or other artist) independently contributes a work that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, chara ...

anthology ''Forever After'', published by Baen Books in 1995. He was 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. ''The Crown Colonies'' is a trilogy that re-imagines the events of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. The first book, ''At The Queen's Command'', was released in November 2010. At New York Comic Con 2012, it was revealed that Blizzard Entertainment had approached Stackpole to write the next novel in their series based on the popular MMORPG, ''World of Warcraft''. The novel, titled ''Vol’jin: Shadows of the Horde'', centres around the chieftain of the Darkspear Trolls as his loyalty to the Horde is put to the ultimate test after an assassination attempt on his life. The novel was released in July 2013.

''The Secrets''

Stackpole also writes and publishes an

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of int ...

titled ''The Secrets'', which offers tips, tricks, and tidbits about 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 Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...

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 A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

. 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

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 B. Healy was named 165612 Stackpole.

Novels

'' DragonCrown War''

Published by

. *2000 ''The Dark Glory War'' *2001 ''Fortress Draconis'' *2002 ''When Dragons Rage'' *2003 ''The Grand Crusade''

''Age of Discovery''

Published by Bantam Books. *2005 '' A Secret Atlas'' *2006 ''Cartomancy'' *2007 ''The New World''

''The Crown Colonies''

Published by

Night Shade Books Night Shade Books is an American, San Francisco–based imprint, formerly an independent publishing company, that specializes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Among its publications have been the U.S. edition of Iain M. Banks' novel ''T ...

. *2010 ''At The Queen's Command.'' *2011 ''Of Limited Loyalty.''

Homeland Security Services

*2011 ''Perfectly Invisible'' (Stormwolf.com)

World of Warcraft

*2013 ''Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde''

BattleTech

The BattleTech novels were originally published by

up until 1991. In that year,

Penguin Group Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

/ Roc Books took over the line and also reprinted the earlier novels. The last print novel of the classic BattleTech setting was published in 2002; in the same year, the first novel for the Dark Age setting (set some 100 years after the classic setting) was published, written by Stackpole. His novels were typically "spine novels" that moved the setting ahead, narrating large-scale or otherwise important events with far-reaching consequences in the fictional timeline. ;Warrior Trilogy *1988 '' Warrior: En Garde'' (FASA, ROC reprint) *1988 '' Warrior: Riposte'' (FASA, ROC reprint) *1989 '' Warrior: Coupé'' (FASA, ROC reprint) ;Blood of Kerensky Trilogy *1989 '' Lethal Heritage'' (FASA, ROC reprint) *1990 ''

Blood Legacy ''Blood Legacy'' (also called ''Legacy of Blood'' and ''Will to Die'') is a 1971 horror film directed by Carl Monson and starring Rodolfo Acosta, Merry Anders, Norman Bartold, John Carradine, and Faith Domergue. Synopsis In this 1971 effort, C ...

'' (FASA, ROC reprint) *1991 '' Lost Destiny'' (FASA, ROC reprint) ;Other BattleTech Spine Novels *1992 '' Natural Selection (novel)'' (ROC) *1993 '' Assumption of Risk'' (ROC) *1994 '' Bred For War'' (ROC) *1996 '' Malicious Intent'' (ROC) *1997 '' Grave Covenant'' (ROC) - Twilight of the Clans series #2 *1998 '' Prince of Havoc'' (ROC) - Twilight of the Clans series #7 ;Mechwarrior - Dark Age setting *2002 '' Ghost War'' (ROC/ WizKids) *2007 '' Masters of War'' (ROC/WizKids)

Star Wars

*1996 '' X-Wing: Rogue Squadron'' (Bantam Books) *1996 '' X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble'' (Bantam Books) *1996 '' X-Wing: The Krytos Trap'' (Bantam Books) *1997 '' X-Wing: The Bacta War'' (Bantam Books) *1998 ''

I, Jedi ''I, Jedi'' is a novel, written by Michael A. Stackpole that is set in the ''Star Wars'' galaxy. It was the first ''Star Wars'' novel written in the first-person perspective of a character never seen in the movies. The novel takes place aroun ...

'' (Bantam Books) *1999 '' X-Wing: Isard's Revenge'' (Bantam Books) *2000 '' The New Jedi Order - Dark Tide I: Onslaught'' ( Del Rey Books) *2000 '' The New Jedi Order - Dark Tide II: Ruin'' (Del Rey Books)

''Dark Conspiracy''

Published by GDW. *1991 ''A Gathering Evil'' *1991 ''Evil Ascending'' *1992 ''Evil Triumphant''

Others

*1994 ''Once a Hero'' (Bantam Books) *1994 ''Dementia'' (Roc/Target) *1997 ''Talion: Revenant'' (Bantam Books) *1997 ''A Hero Born'' ( HarperPrism) *1998 ''An Enemy Reborn'' (HarperPrism) *1998 ''Wolf and Raven'' (Roc/FASA) *1998 ''Eyes of Silver'' (Bantam Books) *2010 ''In Hero Years I'm Dead'' (Stormwolf.com) *2011 ''

Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...

'' (

Berkley Books Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group. History Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berk ...

) *2014 ''The Crusader Road'' (

Paizo Publishing Paizo Inc. (originally Paizo Publishing.) is an American role-playing game publishing company based in Redmond, Washington, best known for the tabletop role-playing game ''Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder''. The company's name is derived ...

)

Other publications

*198
''Game Hysteria and the Truth''
*199

*1991 (with co author Loren K. Wiseman

Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) *1994 GAMA News, ''Model Retailer'', March, 98-99 *1995 ACE Books, Superheroes (Editted by Lynne Varley) ''Peer Review'' *2010 Steampunk'd (Edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg), ''Chance Corrigan and the Tick Tock King of the Nile'' *2013 ''A Hero by Any Other Name'' (Short story anthology edited by Jean Rabe)

References

External links

Personal Website
the result of Stackpole's research (see above)

a
SFFWorld.comWars CCG Short Story collection onlinePen & Paper listing for Mike Stackpole
on Slice of SciFi

on I Should Be Writing (audio) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stackpole, Michael 1957 births 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American fantasy writers American male novelists American science fiction writers American skeptics American video game designers Conan the Barbarian novelists Interplay Entertainment people Living people People from Wausau, Wisconsin Role-playing game designers Video game writers University of Vermont alumni Writers from Vermont Writers from Wisconsin 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers