Where do I begin with this one?
For one, most of the material here has nothing to do with GURPS, but more to do with developing a science fiction universe. It goes through every possible sci-fi genre and theoretical concept and tears it apart. If you love sci-fi and many different genres, you will enjoy this book.
There are referee tools for generating systems and planets here, so this book is helpful. Most of the book is one huge generation system that goes into a lot of detail, and you could use this system to create an entire universe - with six-sided dice, so be forewarned. If you want a lighter-weight system more focused on Frontier Space, stick with the system in the Frontier Space Referee's Guide. If you want to know how many moons and asteroids are around a gas giant and if one of those asteroids is ice or rock and has a liquid methane atmosphere, use GURPS Space for system generation.
That is GURPS Space; for campaign details, it is helpful but can distract you with being too broad of a resource guide - since it covers every known sci-fi genre, you can easily get lost. The experience of being lost in this book is enjoyable, but as a resource for the specific Frontier Space-Star Frontiers universe, it covers a lot more than what we need. Still, if you want ideas for all sorts of sci-in genres and campaign advice, this book is second to none.
Where the discussions of sci-fi are so broad, they can be distracting; the universe generation systems get so detailed they can also get distracting. If you are playing a scout campaign and your goal is to categorize every planet, moon, and asteroid in a new system along with every detail about them - go to town; this is your book. If you only care about broad strokes and care to fill out the details yourself, then use a lighter-weight system.
Don't get me wrong, this is the best sci-fi roleplaying book for discussing genres and concepts, along with one of the most complex generation systems for sci-fi gaming. The downside is the information here is a bit wide on the genre we established in our source material and a bit too detailed for the exploration side (unless that level of detail is desired). I don't feel you need this book to get started at all, and I would say this is an excellent later-on purchase.
There are great campaign discussions and advice on how to run them, with some invaluable referee guidance on handling various sci-fi games.
For almost any sci-fi campaign, I would say get this; it is a great resource just on how a sci-fi game works and how to run one. For our FS-SF game, we have much of what we need established, and GURPS Space would be a lot more information. It feels like overkill and a possible overload, but there are enough parts here that talk about how to run sci-fi that I would recommend for referees who can filter out a ton of information and find the best parts for their specific game.
Even I get overwhelmed by all the information in this book. I love it, but since sci-fi is such a "sticky" genre, I like to keep my inspirations, and sources focused and supporting the specific campaign. If your campaign gets large and branches out past the original modules and information sources, then this book would be good to get since you will likely be hitting those "big picture" campaign questions, and you will be able to farm a lot of ideas from the amount of inspiration here.
One of the most legendary sci-fi roleplaying books of all time.
Excellent advice for running sci-fi campaigns of all types.
Also, complete overkill for our purposes.
If you love depth and tons of detail, then get this book.
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