If there's one thing I discovered since I came back from hiatus, it's that you can't go backwards.
Whenever you deal with science fiction you are setting up a world of rules. I think you work hard to establish the rules. And you also have to work even harder to maintain those rules, and within that find excitement and unpredictability and all that stuff.
Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.

