Fritz Leiber
1957
Awards: Hugo
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ –
This book is really abstract and way out there. I think much of it was beyond me. But what I did get I really enjoyed.
The Big Time’s main premise is that the time in which we live is
actually an enclosed environment, and that there is a zone surrounding
us, a gray misty space outside of and separate from our time, where
other beings live. These other beings can come and go into and out of
our time at will, plopping onto our world at any time in our past or
future that they choose.
Two groups of these beings, which we never actually see but which are
called “Spiders” and “Snakes” by the main characters, are fighting a
massive war against each other, using our time as their battlefield.
This war involves them: (a) recruiting recently-dead people to be
soldiers and support staff for their side, (b) resurrecting the ones who
agree to sign up, and (c) sending the resurrected soldiers into
different eras of our time to fight the forces of the other side.
Through this process, the Spider and Snake soldiers have managed to
screw up history in all kinds of ways, like by changing the outcomes of
important battles in ancient Rome and assassinating key people during
World War II who had never been assassinated before.
The entire book takes place in the misty realm outside of our time, in a
sort of behind-the-lines R&R spot for Spider soldiers. The spot is
populated by resurrected formerly-dead people who serve as entertainers,
prostitutes, counselors, and doctors for the troops. These “ghosts” are
pretty satisfied with how things are going until one visiting soldier
decides to mutiny against the Spiders, breaks the connection to real
time so they’re floating lost in the timeless zone, and then starts the
countdown on a portable atomic bomb.
The main character who narrates the story is one of the
prostitute/counselor/entertainers. She is very appealing; she has a
laid-back attitude and uses a lot of slang, and, although she is our guide to this weird world, she doesn’t feel the need to explain a heck of a lot. I also really
liked the variety of the other characters. Since the Spiders can recruit
from any place and time they want to, their support staff and soldiers
are necessarily from all different countries and all different eras,
including the future.
An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Cheeze Blog.
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