Michael A. Stackpole

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Michael A. Stackpole
Born 27 November 1957
Occupation Author
Homepage http://www.stormwolf.com/


Michael A. Stackpole (b. 1957) is a game designer and science fiction author best known for his Star Wars and BattleTech books.

Personal history

Stackpole 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 for the industry.

In the 1980s, Stackpole began designing computer games, working (among others) on Bard's Tale III and Wasteland, both published in 1988. On the latter game, he is credited as a designer alongside Ken St. Andre and Liz Danforth, both of whom also worked on BattleTech.

In 1986, Stackpole wrote his first novel, Talion: Revenant. However, the manuscript would not be published until 1997. In 1987, he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe for FASA, and became one of the most popular authors in that genre.

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.

BattleTech

Michael Stackpole made his entrance to BattleTech with the Warrior trilogy, published in 1988/1989. While the Fourth Succession War had already been foreshadowed in the game's earliest background information from the rulebook, Stackpole's novelisation of the events leading up to the war and how it played out profoundly shaped the nascent BattleTech universe. Working closely with Jordan Weisman and other BattleTech writers at FASA, Stackpole would go on to bring the entire setting from the Succession Wars era into a new, unexpected era with the Blood of Kerensky trilogy (1989-1991) that started the Clan Invasion era. He would continue to write "spine" novels, in the sense that the events and stories in his books typically imparted momentous changes to the BattleTech universe as the timeline evolved.

Ever since, Stackpole remained closely associated with BattleTech and with pushing its timeline forward. When FASA closed its doors and Roc Books voiced no interest in continuing the classic BattleTech novel series, the license went to WizKids and it would be Stackpole who wrote both the very first short story in the MechWarrior: Dark Age setting (The Inheritance of Duty, published by WizKids via their homepage in ca. 2002 to promote the upcoming MWDA game), and the first novel in that setting (Ghost War, 2002).

He also contributed a short story (Well Met In The Future) to the BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction tome and was contracted by HBS to write a serialized novel to go with their successful BattleTech video game.

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.

See also

Category:Works by Michael A. Stackpole (BattleTech-related)

External links


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