Science Fiction · TenseTwo factions fight the Change War by altering history, and the story is set in a station outside the universe
The Big Time
by Fritz Leiber
A war across time, told from a station outside the universe
Galaxy serialized the novel in two parts in March and April 1958, with illustrations by Virgil Finlay, and Ace Books published it as a book in 1961. It takes place in a Recuperation Station in an artificially created bubble of spacetime outside the Universe. Two factions, the Spiders and the Snakes, fight the Change War by altering historical events, and they recruit soldiers from many eras. Greta is the narrator. Leiber later followed it with seven short stories in the same universe, collected in Changewar (1983).
More about this book
Who
Greta, the narrator, with Sidney Lessingham, Lillian Foster, Doc Beauvis, Maud and others.
World
A Recuperation Station in a bubble of spacetime outside the Universe.
What makes it different
Wikipedia says the Library of America selected it in 2012 for its American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s. Its soldiers come from many historical eras.
Feel
Closed-in and tense.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- The Big TimeWikipedia