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Aaron Dale Allston (December 8, 1960 – February 27, 2014) was an American game designer and author of many science fiction books, notably Star Wars novels.[1] His works as a game designer include game supplements for role-playing games, several of which served to establish the basis for products and subsequent development of TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game setting Mystara. His later works as a novelist include those of the X-Wing series: Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, Solo Command, Starfighters of Adumar, and Mercy Kill. He wrote two entries in the New Jedi Order series: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream and Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand. Allston wrote three of the nine Legacy of the Force novels: Betrayal, Exile, and Fury, and three of the nine Fate of the Jedi novels: Outcast, Backlash, and Conviction.
Aaron Allston | |
|---|---|
 Aaron Allston in 2005. | |
| Born | December 8, 1960 Corsicana, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | February 27, 2014 (aged 53) Springfield, Missouri, U.S. |
| Resting place | Oakwood Cemetery (Corsicana, Texas) |
| Occupation | Writer, game designer |
| Genre | Tabletop role-playing games, fantasy, science fiction |
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Allston was born December 8, 1960, in Corsicana, Texas, to Tom Dale Allston and Rose Binford Boehm.[2][3] Allston moved all over Texas in his youth and graduated from high school in Denton.[4] An avid fan of science fiction from an early age, by high school he was the secretary and reporter for his high school science fiction club.[5] Allston moved to Austin in 1979 and attended the University of Texas.[4]
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Allston was a circulation manager, assistant editor, and editor of Space Gamer magazine,[6] and by 1983 was a full-time freelance game designer.[7] He served as editor of Space Gamer from issues 52 (June 1982) to 65 (September/October 1983),[citation needed] and as editor of Fantasy Gamer for the first issue (August/September 1983) and co-editor of the second issue (December/January 1984).[citation needed] During Allston's tenure as editor, Space Gamer won the H.G. Wells Award for Best Professional Role-Playing Magazine in 1982.[6] Allston authored the book Autoduel Champions in 1983, which crossed over Champions by Hero Games and Car Wars by Steve Jackson Games.[8] Allston helped launch the Fantasy Gamer spinoff magazine.[9] He co-wrote the computer game Savage Empire, which Game Player magazine named the Best PC Fantasy RPG in 1990.[6] He authored the Rules Cyclopedia (1991), a revision and compilation for the Dungeons & Dragons game.[10] He branched into fiction, and in the mid-1990s wrote five novels.[7]
He began writing for the Star Wars X-Wing series in 1997, when the primary sequence writer Michael Stackpole could not handle the entire workload.[4] Allston produced a new edition of Champions for Hero Games in 2002.[11] In 2006, he launched The Legacy of the Force series with a hardcover entitled Betrayal.[4]
In 2005, Allston made his directorial debut on the independent film Deadbacks, which he also wrote and produced.[4] The film went into post-production but was never released.[12]
Allston lived in Round Rock, Texas.[13] For a short time, he worked for the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.[7]
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In early April 2009 Allston had a heart attack and underwent an emergency quadruple bypass surgery,[14] while on the book signing tour for Outcast,[15] the first book in the Fate of the Jedi series.
On February 27, 2014, Allston collapsed during an appearance at VisionCon in Branson, Missouri, apparently from heart failure.[16] He died later that day in Springfield, Missouri, at the age of 53.[3][16]
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Stand-alone titles
- Web of Danger (1988)[7]
- Galatea in 2-D (1993)[7]
- Double Jeopardy (1994)[7]
- Thunder of the Captains (with H. Lisle) (1996)[7]
- Wrath of the Princes (with H. Lisle) (1997)[7]
Doc Sidhe
Star Wars
X-Wing
- Wraith Squadron (1998)[7]
- Iron Fist (1998)[7]
- Solo Command (1999)
- Starfighters of Adumar (1999)
- Mercy Kill (2012)[18]
The New Jedi Order
- Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream (2002)
- Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand (2002)
Legacy of the Force
Fate of the Jedi
- Outcast (2009)
- Backlash (2010)
- Conviction (2011)
Terminator
- Terminator 3 Terminator Dreams (2003)
- Terminator Hunt (2004)
Role-playing games
- The Circle and M.E.T.E. (1983)
- Autoduel Champions (1983)
- Lands of Mystery (1985)
- Treasure Hunt (1986)
- GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987)
- Mythic Greece (Rolemaster) (1988)
- Strike Force (1988)
- GURPS Supers School of Hard Knocks (1989)
- Dungeon Master's Design Kit (1988)
- The Complete Fighter's Handbook (1989)
- Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia (1989)
- Ninja Hero (1990)[19]
- Hollow World Campaign Set (1990)
- Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (1991)
- Poor Wizard's Almanac & Book of Facts (1992)[7]
- Wrath of the Immortals (1992)
- The Complete Ninja's Handbook (1995)[19]
- I, Tyrant (1996)
- Champions, Fifth Edition (2002)
Short story anthologies
- 2013 A Hero by Any Other Name (Short story anthology edited by Jean Rabe)
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- Appelcline, Shannon (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
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