The Big Time Totally Explained

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The Big Time (1957) is a short science fiction novel (or, arguably, novellette) by Fritz Leiber. It won the Hugo Award in 1958. Although Fritz Leiber is better known for fantasy writing, he did also occasionally write science fiction. The Big Time is a vast, cosmic back story, hidden behind a claustrophobic front story with only a few characters. It could easily be done as a stage play, since most of the big special effects described in the story are anecdotal.
   The storyline involves two factions which both have time travel 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, Ghengis Khan, and Alexander the Great may find themselves fighting side-by-side or on opposite sides. Likewise medical staff, entertainers and whores are drawn into the temporal war to provide rest and relaxation for battle weary combatants. Some soldiers need not to be human at all, although to change history in the millennia of humankind's dominance of Earth a human-prevalent element is strongly advised. However for battles and assignments set in mythical ages or primitive societies, even aliens or beings from the deep reaches of future or past can be employed. The novel has two such characters: A 'satyr' from millennia into the future (who is, however, a terran, either an unlikely evolution of man or the result of genetic experimentation and tampering) and a gentle, sad tentacled being who is part of the 'lunar race' that 'millions of years ago laid waste to their beautiful satellite in an orgy of atomic warfare', leaving the devastated lifeless landscape humans are used to. The Change War and the soldiers fighting in it don't know how it began or if it has an end. They also don't know the true form or identity of the Spiders or the Snakes. No one knows how those nicknames were chosen, or whether they're 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. The Big Time was originally published in two parts in Galaxy Magazine's March and April issues of 1958.
   See also: Temporal Cold War for a similar type of plot, most likely influenced by The Big Time.

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