Editing Michael A. Stackpole (section)

==Writing career==
[[File:Micheal A Stackpole at Dragon Con 2007.jpg|right|thumb|Michael A. Stackpole at [[Dragon Con]] 2007]]
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 The story remained unpublished for the next 11 years until reworked by Stackpole's editor, Anne Lesley Groell.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.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|122}} 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.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|124}} Stackpole also wrote a trilogy of novels published in 1992, which were based on the ''[[Dark Conspiracy]]'' roleplaying game by [[Game Designers' Workshop|GDW]].<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|60}}

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]], 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]]. 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 the graphic novel ''[[Union (Star Wars)|Union]]'' and collaborated with [[Timothy Zahn]] on Mara Jade's early career. In the foreword to his book ''[[Outbound Flight]]'', Timothy Zahn thanks Stackpole and issues a challenge at ''Star Wars [[Trivial Pursuit]]''.

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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Johnson|first1=Beth|title=The DragonCrown War Cycle: Fanboy fantasy at its very worst|url=http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-dragoncrown-war-cycle/|website=FantasyLiterature.com}}</ref>

Stackpole contributed one of the four stories in [[Roger Zelazny]]'s [[shared world]] 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 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.