Matthew Woodring Stover (born 1962) is a fantasy novelist. He is perhaps best known for his three Star Wars novels, including the novelization of the third film in the series, Revenge of the Sith. He has also written several fantasy novels, including Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon. He has written two science-fiction/fantasy hybrid stories featuring a hero named Caine: Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle.

Stover graduated in 1983 from Drake University and settled in Chicago. He is an avid martial artist and a student of the Degerberg Blend, a jeet kune do concept that mixes approximately twenty-five different fighting arts from around the world. This combat style influences the way Stover writes his fight scenes, for which he has won considerable acclaim. Stover lives with artist and writer Robyn Fielder Drake.

Stover is one of the most controversial authors in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. His three Star Wars novels are much more violent and morally grey than most other Star Wars works, a fact that has earned him both avid fans and relentless detractors. His non-Star Wars novels have garnered a smaller but loyal audience, though only his two most recent novels, retroactively dubbed as part of the Acts of Caine cycle, are still in print. Stover lists some of his prime fantastic influences as Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Fritz Leiber. His dedication in Blade of Tyshalle cites other late "friends" including Leo Tolstoy and Frederich Nietzsche.