Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole (born November 27, 1957) is a science-fiction and fantasy author. He has written I, Jedi, the Dark Tide Duology and half 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 created the popular characters of Soontir Fel and Corran Horn. He agreed to pose as the latter for the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, despite all other depictions of the character bearing no resemblance to him.

BiographyEdit

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 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 However, the manuscript would not be published until 1997 by Bantam Books.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 The story remained unpublished for the next 11 years until reworked by Stackpole's editor, Anne Lesley Groell.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.

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 his popularity in fan fiction, he was selected to write several novels in the Star Wars universe for Bantam Books.

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.

On March 21, 2008, the main-belt asteroid 165612 was named Stackpole in his honor.^[1]

Star Wars WorksEdit

Star Wars NovelsEdit

• 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 (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)

Short StoriesEdit

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

ComicsEdit

• X-Wing: Rogue Squadron
• Star Wars: Union
• Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand (Co-written by Timothy Zahn)
• Battle for Theed

CancelledEdit

• Boba Fett and X-Wing: 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^[source?])
• Specter of Thrawn
• The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide: Siege

Fan Film AppearanceEdit

Stackpole made a special appearance in the Star Wars fan film Reflections of Evil.

External linksEdit

• Michael Stackpole's Homepage
•  A Galaxy in Ruin - An Interview with Michael A. Stackpole on StarWars.com (content now obsolete; backup link)
• Michael A. Stackpole on Wikipedia

Notes and referencesEdit