The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
105 pages
Published serially 1958; as novel 1961
Read from July 13 to July 15
Rating: ★★★ out of 5
In an introduction penned for a 1982 edition, Leiber states his inspiration for Greta, narrator of The Big Time, was "the intensified first person [narration] of Joyce Cary." Knowing nothing myself of Joyce Cary, I heard in Greta's voice intimations of later Heinlein, slangy and cynical and a dirty old man's dream of a good ol' gal. The idea of a sex worker employed to relieve the stress of and "entertain" soldiers in a time war feels like a game of telephone with Heinlein's "--All You Zombies--". Greta's resignation to domestic violence at the hands of her time-traveling Nazi officer paramour is a step beyond even Heinlein -- or at least beyond the Heinlein I read and haven't repressed in my memories. The willy-nilly mixing of soldiers and slang from various time periods is always fun, and the Cretan warrior woman declaiming in measured lines and anachronistic lingo the botch-up of an operation was a personal highlight, but Leiber dispenses with the neat paradoxes and puzzles of the typical mid-century time travel yarn as well as the rollicking action promised by the conceit of a vast time-war. The bulk of the novel proceeds as a locked room mystery and a series of big monologues -- again reminiscent of later Heinlein. The result is a mix of neat moments and concepts muddled by the gender norms of its time, and the limited stage scenery provided by the author.
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