The Big Time
Encyclopedia
The Big Time is a short science fiction
novel by Fritz Leiber
. It won the Hugo Award
in 1958.
The Big Time is a vast, cosmic back story, hidden behind a claustrophobic front story with only a few characters.
who are at war with each other. Their method of battle involves changing the outcome of events throughout history.
The two sides are nicknamed the Spiders and the Snakes. Their foot soldiers are recruited from every place and time: Cretese Amazons, Hussars, Roman legionnaires, GIs, Wehrmacht Landsers, Space Commandos, and soldiers from the armies of Napoleon, Stalin, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great may find themselves fighting side-by-side or on opposite sides. Likewise medical staff and entertainers are drawn into the temporal war to provide rest and relaxation for battle weary combatants.
The Change War and the soldiers fighting in it do not know how it began or if it has an end. They also do not know the true form or identity of the Spiders or the Snakes. No one knows how those nicknames were chosen, or whether they are in any way accurate.
The action of the story takes place at a rest and relaxation base between the changing time lanes. The plot takes the form of a locked room mystery
.
. It has many subsequent reprints in book form.
praised The Big Time as evidence that Leiber was the only sf writer of his generation "who as a matter of course and conviction saw through the mores and circumstances which are now proving nonviable not only in commercial literature but in what we can call life as well."
In 1965, Poul Anderson
took up the same theme, a time war fought between two powerful factions who confront each other throughout time and use people of past periods as their pawns, in "The Corridors of Time".
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
. It won the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
in 1958.
The Big Time is a vast, cosmic back story, hidden behind a claustrophobic front story with only a few characters.
Plot
The storyline involves two factions which both have time travelTime travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
who are at war with each other. Their method of battle involves changing the outcome of events throughout history.
The two sides are nicknamed the Spiders and the Snakes. Their foot soldiers are recruited from every place and time: Cretese Amazons, Hussars, Roman legionnaires, GIs, Wehrmacht Landsers, Space Commandos, and soldiers from the armies of Napoleon, Stalin, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great may find themselves fighting side-by-side or on opposite sides. Likewise medical staff and entertainers are drawn into the temporal war to provide rest and relaxation for battle weary combatants.
The Change War and the soldiers fighting in it do not know how it began or if it has an end. They also do not know the true form or identity of the Spiders or the Snakes. No one knows how those nicknames were chosen, or whether they are in any way accurate.
The action of the story takes place at a rest and relaxation base between the changing time lanes. The plot takes the form of a locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
.
Publication
The Big Time was originally published in two parts in Galaxy Magazines March and April 1958 issues illustrated by Virgil FinlayVirgil Finlay
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques...
. It has many subsequent reprints in book form.
Reception
Algis BudrysAlgis Budrys
Algis Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names "Frank Mason", "Alger Rome", "John A. Sentry", "William Scarff", and "Paul Janvier."-Biography:...
praised The Big Time as evidence that Leiber was the only sf writer of his generation "who as a matter of course and conviction saw through the mores and circumstances which are now proving nonviable not only in commercial literature but in what we can call life as well."
Influences
Leiber's short story "Try and change the past", also from 1958, is laid in the same universe. It features a New York man just recruited by the Snakes going AWOL and trying to change his personal past in which he was murdered by his wife, finding out that the universe resists all his efforts and "conserving reality" in various improbable ways, and finally having no choice but going back to fight in the Time War.In 1965, Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
took up the same theme, a time war fought between two powerful factions who confront each other throughout time and use people of past periods as their pawns, in "The Corridors of Time".