"Your Own Cover Band"

I'm still hard at work finishing up the first draft of the second edition of Thousand Suns, so I'm not yet ready to return to regular blogging here. However, I recently read something that helped me organize some thoughts I'd been having for a while and I thought they might be worth sharing, especially in light of my advocacy for long RPG campaigns. As you know, I'm a big fan of science fiction. Truth be told, I much prefer sci-fi to fantasy, despite the fact that I've probably played more fantasy roleplaying games than science fiction ones over the course of the last 45 years of gaming. That said, I'm very particular about my science fiction. I don't like everything with a spaceship or robot on its cover and, as I get older, I find my tastes are getting ever more picky. Consequently, I tend to be skeptical when someone recommends that I pick up a new SF novel, because I've been burned one too many times in the past. I'd much rather reread an old classic than take a chance on new…