Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara (June 23, 1928 – May 5, 1988) was an American author of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents (the family name was originally spelled Sciarra, which in Italian is pronounced in a similar way) in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated during 1951 from Rutgers University, where he joined Theta Chi, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division prior to the Korean War.

Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines during the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his cigarette smoking caused him, at the early age of 36, to have a heart failure, from which he recovered completely. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction during 1975. Shaara died of a heart failure in 1988.

Shaara's son, Jeffrey Shaara, is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. Jeffrey got Michael's last book, For Love of the Game, published three years after he died. Nowadays there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.

Shaara's daughter, Lila Shaara, is also a novelist.

Works

Novels

• The Broken Place (1968)
• The Killer Angels (1974), Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Later, used as the basis for the film Gettysburg.
• The Noah Conspiracy (1981), also known as The Herald.
• For Love of the Game (1991), made into a movie in 1999

Short story collections

• Soldier Boy (1982)

Short stories

• "Orphans of the Void" (1952)
• "All the Way Back" (1952)
• "Grenville's Planet" (1952)
• "Be Fruitful and Multiply" (1952)
• "Soldier Boy" (1953)
• "The Book" (1953)
• "The Sling and the Stone" (1954)
• "Wainer" (1954)
• "The Holes" (1954)
• "Time Payment" (1954)
• "Beast in the House" (1954)
• "The Vanisher" (1954)
• "Come to My Party" (1956)
• "Man of Distinction" (1956)
• "Conquest Over Time" (1956)
• "2066: Election Day" (1956)
• "Four-Billion Dollar Door" (1956)
• "Death of a Hunter" (1957)
• "The Peeping Tom Patrol" (1958)
• "The Lovely House" (1958)
• "Citizen Jell" (1959)
• "Opening Up Slowly" (1973)
• "Border Incident" (1976)
• "Starface" (1982)
• "The Dark Angel" (1982)

External links

• Michael Shaara at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Analysis of Soldier Boy
• Biography at jeffshaara.com
• Michael Shaara prize details
• Works by Michael Shaara at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Michael Shaara at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)