In the early 1950's, Michael published a number of award-winning science-fiction short stories in the most popular pulp magazines of the day. He later began writing straight fiction, and published more than 70 short stories in such magazines as Playboy, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, and many others. Two of his stories were produced as television dramas in the late 1950's.
Moving his wife Helen and young son Jeff to Florida in the mid-1950's, he began to teach English, literature and creative writing at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Soon after, his daughter, Lila, was born.
Reflecting on an extraordinary experience with his family visiting the battlefield at Gettysburg, Michael became obsessed with telling the story of that momentous event through the eyes of the main characters themselves, something that had never been done.
After seven years, the manuscript for The Killer Angels was completed. Teaching during the day, writing late into the night, relying on a steady dose of cigarettes and coffee, Michael's lifestyle and his deep involvement with his story took a toll. In 1965 he suffered a major heart attack, at only 36 years of age.
The Killer Angels never enjoyed commercial success, and to Michael's dismay, it seemed that there was very little audience for a personalized story of our nation's most horrible chapter. His writing veered off in different directions. Suffering the effects of a devastating motorcycle accident, Michael struggled to maintain the quality of his writing, publishing one more novel, The Herald (later titled The Noah Conspiracy) in 1981, after completing a manuscript for a baseball story that no one in New York wanted to publish.
After a prolonged decline in his health, Michael suffered his second heart attack, this one fatal. On May 5, 1988, the long and often frustrating writing career of Michael Shaara ended. However, the legacy of his work did not die with the author. Five years later, the film "Gettysburg" was released, propelling The Killer Angels to number one on the New York Times Bestseller List (19 years after its publication!) And, rediscovering the manuscript of the baseball story in Michael's files, his son Jeff presented it again to the New York publishing community, and Carroll & Graf published it in 1991. Titled For Love of the Game, the wonderful story was optioned by Universal Studios, and was released in theaters September 1999 as a major motion picture starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston.
With the success of Jeff Shaara's two Civil War novels, which create bookends for the classic The Killer Angels, the author's legacy will continue for future generations. And the father and the son are linked for all time.