Michael A. Stackpole



"I should have known the minute Mike Stackpole was invited into the Star Wars universe that there was going to be trouble."

- Timothy Zahn

Michael A. Stackpole (born 1957) is a science-fiction and fantasy author. He has written I, Jedi, the Dark Tide Duology and the majority of the X-Wing book series. He also wrote the short stories Missed Chance and Elusion Illusion. Stackpole co-wrote the short story Side Trip and comic Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand with another fan-favorite author, Timothy Zahn.

Stackpole invented the popular characters of Baron Soontir Fel and Corran Horn. He agreed to pose as the latter for the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, despite the fact that he looks nothing like the character.

Biography
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.

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 However, the manuscript would not be published until 1997 by Bantam Books. At the time, the 175,000 word book was seen as too long for an unknown author by his editors. The story remained unpublished for the next 11 years and then only minor changes were effected by Stackpole's editor, Anne Lesley Groell.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.

In addition, he has written several highly praised novels and short stories based in settings of his own creation. His most recent novels form a series called 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.

At March 21, 2008 an asteroid 165612 in the asteroid belt on the Mars side of the solar system has been named Stackpole.

Star Wars Novels

 * 1996 Rogue Squadron (Bantam Books)
 * 1996 Wedge's Gamble (Bantam Books)
 * 1996 The Krytos Trap (Bantam Books)
 * 1997 The Bacta War (Bantam Books)
 * 1998 I, Jedi (Bantam Books)
 * 1999 Isard's Revenge (Bantam Books)
 * 2000 Dark Tide I: Onslaught (Del Rey Books)
 * 2000 Dark Tide II: Ruin (Del Rey Books)

Short Stories

 * Missed Chance
 * Elusion Illusion
 * Side Trip (Co-Written by Timothy Zahn)
 * Interlude at Darkknell (Co-written by Timothy Zahn)

Comics

 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * Union
 * Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand (Co-written by Timothy Zahn)

Cancelled

 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: The Mandalorian Candidate Michael A. Stackpole never had any part of this project, never discussed it with anyone, and was unaware of its existence until he read about it here.
 * Specter of Thrawn
 * Dark Tide: Siege

Notes and references
Michael A. Stackpole Michael A. Stackpole Michael A. Stackpole Майкл А. Стэкпол