Tom Shepherd's Blog

Took the picture recently, but I purchased the rock, probably a basalt meteorite, a decade ago at a gem and rock festival in rural Missouri. Now the rock sits on the window ledge in my tiny study that looks out over Arizona desert and mountains. It is my anchor in the starry sea of an otherwise unknown universe.

My books take people to distant planets, many of them Hab-Worlds where intelligent life has evolved. Naturally, readers meet an array of aliens. Blue Quirt-Thymeans with short, floppy ears; red Tarkians, who are basically peaceful but could pass for the Devil on Halloween. The jolly, amorphous Carrooban Flock, who need to laugh every few minutes or their nervous systems crash and they die. And lots of humanoids who resemble us. I’ve got a sci-fi gobbledygook explanation for that. Check Dr. Wolfgang Ziegler in the glossary of most Tom Shepherd books.

There are cities with wide canals, crystalline towers, old fortresses by a sea under a night sky with multiple moons, and starships galore. But sometimes, I wonder if anything is really “out there” physically.

That’s where the chunk of basalt you’re looking at comes to my rescue. See the burnished edge? It’s one of the keys to identify meteorites. When the Earth’s gravity snags these space rocks, their descent through the atmosphere heats the leading edge to the melting point leaving soft rock that cools to a smoother surface. Meteors crash and break, flinging bits of meteorite for future rock hounds to discover.

Now, okay. The piece of basalt on my window shelf probably isn’t from another “world” and certainly not an inhabited one — I hope! Although if it’s basalt — I’m no geologist — it suggests formation in magma of a planet with active volcanoes. Also, the asteroid Vesta in our solar system seems to have spawned basalt meteors. So, maybe?

Wherever it originated, the smooth stone provides tangible evidence of other rocky places, like Earth, out there in the Cosmos. It isn’t all twinkle, twinkle in the sky. There are places where we can stand and look up and trace new constellations. It isn’t just a sci-fi dream, like dragons in the mist over make-believe earths. If there are dragons out there, they gotta land somewhere. I have a rock. It’s from out there, somewhere.

Maybe that doesn’t make sense to anybody but a lunatic who writes science fiction about attorneys who get humans out of trouble on distant worlds (my Star Lawyers series). But the rock says, “Why not? Something real is out there. I know. I’m from deep space.”

Read (or write) a little sci-fi. Maybe the Universe will speak its amazing possibilities through you.

The maddening question sci-fi writers hear all the time from readers (“Where do you get your ideas?” ) has no answer any sane person will understand. If you are cuckoo as a Swiss clock and demand an answer, (no offense to Swiss ancestors or your mental health), read on…

Some writers plan everything out in detail. Outlines. Character sketches. Backstories with dialogue and settings. Converging plot lines that meet in a denouement at the grand finale, followed by a little chit-chat before the hero strolls off into the night. This MO gives a writer ultimate control. They do what I tell them, for I am God in the world I have created with my words. Really good writers who work this way will allow the muse to distract them into side paths unanticipated, but the embellishment usually circles back to the outline and proceeds to The End.

I tried that formula early in my career as a novelist, but my characters were not impressed. They looked me in the eye and said, “Oh, hell no. I ain’t doing that, Mr. Writer Man.” They were unmoved by my authority as King of the Booky Universe.

Take Tyler Noah Matthews IV for example. He’s the main character in my Star Lawyers series. Tyler and I have had this conversation many times. Sometimes I want him to do something interesting, but he flatly refuses. He rejected the polygynous marriage that his wife Suzie and her two friends, Tienna and Sunny, offered him. Even though he had strong feelings for all three women and there was a plot-related reason he should have established the harem, he would not do it. (See whole story in Star Lawyers 9 — Murder by Magic.)

I was shocked! I expected a new scenario with opportunities for complex love relationships, family dynamics and drama. But Ty is a cultural Catholic, albeit non-observant, and cannot shake his monogamy program.

So, here’s one answer to the original, two part question about what to do when characters refuse to cooperate and where do writers get story ideas. I can’t speak for the craft at large, but I enter their world, find characters already in motion, and let them make decisions based on who they are. The identities and peculiarities of a person emerge during this process. Don’t ask me how.

If characters are authentic — whether he, she or it , since this is sci-fi — their behavioral traits, quirks, strengths and weaknesses will show themselves as they work through the challenges presented by the story line. And the plot develops naturally in a way I truly cannot explain. It’s kinda like Michelangelo, who claimed he did not “create” David but saw him trapped inside a block of marble and carved away everything needed to set him free. Except — and this is the cuckoo part — when I’m writing, David carves his way out of the stone.

The process succeeds if it generates a believable Cosmos filled with fascinating alien cultures and appealing characters from a multiple of sentient species. These are ordinary folks who struggle to achieve worthwhile goals and the opposing characters who attempt to stop them. Gripping conflict, occasional humor, with engaging minor characters, too. That’s the Star Lawyers package I unwrap with the help of Tyler Matthews and his friends.

That’s my game plan, and I’m sticking to it. Let me know if it works for you.

Dr. Tom

Tucson, Arizona / October 2025

Hey, Cosmic Ramblers, I’m Dr. Tom Shepherd (not medical), the sci-fi author who writes the Star Lawyers series. [“Arrested on an alien world — who you gonna call?”] I’ve been writing this Cosmic Ramblings blog for my newsletter, and I’d like to invite you aboard for the ride.

This week, let’s talk about world-building. We’ll tiptoe along the boundary of cosmology and fiction to consider a surprising fact of your existence, i.e., that you exist at all.

It’s not natural. you know… the Universe, with billions of galaxies, each filled with billions of stars and planets. Life in its grand diversity — including self-aware creatures like you and me — cannot be easily explained. The most “natural” state would be dark, primordial nothingness of an empty Cosmos.

But here we are. And since you’re reading these words, we can say with 100% probability that intelligent life exists in the Universe. Based on the sheer numbers of worlds out there, a lot of people find the likelihood of intelligent life beyond Earth as close to 100% as probability gets.

Now, here’s where it gets cool and metaphysical. Where did intelligent consciousness come from? Some say God, or an Olympian arrangement of eternals, or the force of Nature. Whatever you call that motivating source, it had to be intelligent consciousness, because the part can contain no property not present in the whole. (If you see a mouse, there are mice in the evolutionary options of the Cosmos.)

This is wandering too close to religion, which was not my intent but might be inevitable when considering world-building. People look at the landscape of life, find it a mystery, and create a backstory for daily reality. The story evolves as science fixes the details.

In my sci-fi novels, the struggle to survive, thrive and drive forward often causes characters to reflect on this mystery of life. They may be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheists — the great questions reappear in whatever culture or era where humanity looks to the stars with wonder about the meaning of it all.

As a sci-fi author, one of my ongoing challenges is world-building. For me, that involves creating the richness of a living society with its unique customs and traditions, foods and holidays, local and regional politics, and their major religions. Considering the diversity present on the only planet we know to harbor intelligent life, crafting a whole new biosphere is both a staggering problem and an extraordinary opportunity to build a world. Let there be light… and a little dark for conflict and adventure.

I look forward to exploring new worlds with my readers. Let the journey continue.

Tom Shepherd / Oct 2025

Where my thoughts find a home.

Here’s another excerpt from work-in-progress Star Lawyers Origins Book 3 – Secrets of Rahjen. To be released October 2019. (Exact date and pre-orders TBA.) See the first excerpt of Secrets of Rahjen if you missed it! In this passage, top-notch code writer Sally Ann Palmer and her married physicist friends Tanella and Perry Jennings are …

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Friends & Lovers of Sci-Fi: Here’s a Shepherd-Blog special peek at the cover of the upcoming Star Lawyers Origins Book 3 : Secrets of Rahjen (release date Sept. 2019), plus an excerpt from the opening sequence. Get a cool drink, sit back, and stand by for a steamy opener. (Who says nerds can’t have a …

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“Let justice prevail, and the divine plan forever endure.” Motto of the Ounta-Kadiis League, 18K light years from the galactic core The Ounta-Kadiis call themselves Firstborn Children of the Universe. Until 3099 T.C.E., five years before the Star Lawyers series begins, the O-Ks thought they were the only intelligent life in the Universe. For a …

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STRENGTH, RECIPROCITY, RETALIATION : Motto of the Parvian Republic The Parvian Republic – Origins The Parvian Republic was a predatory star nation until eight centuries ago. They entered a consolidation phase after conquering and annexing all their neighbors. The Republic commands over 1,800 light years of space in every direction. Their homeworld is in the …

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Sampler Weekly Feature #1 Progress Report on Book 5 – The Stellar Light Conspiracy: Book 5/TSLC is the most far-ranging, exciting Star Lawyers adventure yet. Four simultaneous jury trials in the midst of a Galaxy-wide conflict. I thought a good use of this Blog space would be to provide deep background on characters, races, deities, …

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When the lift reached Jaco’s floor, Rosalie and Inspector Platte drew their weapons. Flames licked the wall and the unmistakable spray of burned blood caked the flameless sections. Two Ounta-Kadiis men and a woman, badly burned and motionless, lay in red smears on the floor. They had the typical OK ruddy complexions with dark blue locks. The woman clutched a scorched handbag to her breast.

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