The Big Time

Rating:
Summary: Very dated but contains some thought-provoking ideas
Review: The term, "The Big Time," is slang (in the reality of the eponymous book) for beings that live in 4 dimensions - the three geometrical and time. They can move freely forward and backwards in time. Two factions are vying for control of this universe, and they recruit and send soldiers through time and space to try to change the past to affect the future. Because this is a big war, change is constant, and people living in 4-dimensional reality find memories and realities slipping away and reforming.

If this sounds confusing, the novel isn't really about the Change War, it's about an R&R station supposedly safely out of the front lines. Like all good science fiction, Lieber weaves his universe around the main story, trying not to get bogged down in exposition. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite succeed (probably because the book is so short - only 130 pages!), certainly not as well as Zelazny or Brin, for example. Similarly, many of the ideas seem a little dated - the book is over 50 years old, after all. The other most notable problem is the weakness and general unlikability of the main character - a female entertainer whose job is to show "the boys" a good time when they come in from the front.

However, the book isn't really supposed to be about the story so much as the idea of living in 4-dimensions and the possibilities it invokes, like having a Nazi and a Roman legionaire in the same unit (these are the two best characters in the book). Likewise, the ending is esoteric, but well-crafted and very satisfying. It's a very quick read - but at 130 pages, it's not really worth the price tag for the casual sci fi reader. It did win the Hugo, though, so it's certainly worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Snakes and Spiders
Review: Well, you've simply to read the book to believe it. Two clans play whit Earth history...the snakes and the spiders. The scene of the novel is set in a resting station of one of the two clans. The result is very uncanny...and unsettling. A masterpiece of Fritz Leiber, albeit it's not kaleioscpic as The Silver Eggheads