The Future And You -- July 27, 2011

Michael A. Stackpole (New York Times best selling author) is today's featured guest. Topics: How an asteroid came to be named after him; why he is an advocate for skeptical thinking and a spokesperson for the skeptical community; how skeptical thinkers can more effectively relate to and debate faith-based thinkers; what happened the day he became an active skeptic; his work in the Advanced Research Department at Coleco; his defence of role playing games during the years they were under attack by educators and the media.  Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 27, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 41 minutes]. This is part three of a two hour interview recorded using Skype on May 17, 2011. Michael A. Stackpole is a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books. Beginning in 1977, he worked as a designer of role-playing games for various gaming companies. In the 1980s he began designing computer games for Coleco and Interplay Productions, such as Bard's Tale III, Wasteland, 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. In 1987 he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe, and became one of the most popular authors in that genre. He was then selected to write a number of novels in the Star Wars universe. He is also a popular podcaster, essayist, speaker and has an asteroid named after him. News item: A few weeks ago a young man named Julle created an article in Wikipedia about this show written in Swedish. Blog posts have long discussed the show in half a dozen languages (such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Chinese) but this is the show's first Wikipedia article in a language other than English. News Item: Your host's novel Skinbrain is selling nicely on two continents and has received another review at Amazon. "Excellent book! Hard Science fiction at its finest," wrote someone who goes by the code-name Monkey. "I enjoyed this book completely. Details of the alien's throughout the story is impressive. I recommend this to anyone interested in hard science fiction. I also listened to Bones Burnt Black, Stephen's audio-book, twice. Keep up the good work!"