num_pages: 184
description: Cover Artist: Vincent Di FateFritz Leiber (1910-1992) is best known as a fantasy writer, but his achievements and influence are also considerable in the horror and science fiction fields. One of his major SF works is the Change War series, about rival time-traveling armies locked in a bitter, age-old war for control of existence; the battles frequently alter the course of human history. The most important work of Leiber's Change War series is the Hugo Award-winning novel The Big Time, in which doctors, entertainers, and wounded soldiers find themselves treacherously trapped with an activated atomic bomb inside the Place, a room existing outside of space-time. It's not one of Leiber's strongest novels: the cutesy-girlish narrative voice is unconvincing, while the demands of describing time travel and time paradoxes inevitably strain the prose. But The Big Time is a tense, claustrophobic SF mystery, and possibly the ultimate locked-room whodunit. In addition to the Hugo, Nebula, Derleth, Lovecraft, and World Fantasy Awards, Fritz Leiber received the Grand Master of Fantasy (Gandalf) Award, the Life Achievement Lovecraft Award, and the Grand Master Nebula Award. --Cynthia Ward
language: English
title: The Big Time
titlecomplete: The Big Time
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Time Travel, Classics, Novels, Hugo Awards, Fantasy
ratings_count: 3931
series: Change War
awards: awardedAt: -378662400000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: British Science Fiction Association Award
category: 50th Anniversary Award Best Novel of 1958
publisher: Ace