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#HAIKUPRAJNA - The Big Time [Book Review Analysis and Summary]
https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2023/01/20230118-big-time-book-review-analysis.html
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Hello readers,
(This book is part of my 2022 Goodreads Year in Review)
The Big Time by Fritz Leiber was a book I struggled to get around to reviewing.
This is a science fiction story with hints of metaphysical ideas and time travel history-manipulation.
The best part of this book was how conflicts were broken down through the Change War, a different kind of conflict that encapsulates the cast and influences the plot.
The philosophy, though, is hiding behind thick character voices and dialogue. This is both a blessing and a curse, as the idealistic wisdom is sound despite the work needed to find it. Historic and geographic nuance accent the characters and their speech, directing the more impressive story, its ideas and the exploration of language. I can get behind first person narratives in most stories I have read, but this time it was a little thick. Characters can come off as lame and dramatic at times.
The story explored the Spiders' supposed conflict with the Snakes, factions that have never seen each other outside of their battles, who are worried about espionage and the interchangeability of the two sides.
The plot revolved around an atomic bomb in a confined Place and figuring out how to diffuse it and who was behind their predicament. They all philosophize different theories that shed light on the physics of the Place.
Most of the cool science fiction and metaphysics revolve around how each individual is coping with the nature of their roles in the Change War. Ideas, locations and events are said to be hard to change; the anxiety of being Introverted, or Inverted, is at its core.
Characters are pawns in a ‘war’ between an individual and itself under two different names, in order to enact change across the multi/omni-verse through the individuals in the moments of time these characters are said to interact with and originate from.
“Great men” decline the Resurrection into a Spider or a Snake, thus these characters are self-described wretches who love their abusive occupation.
The narrative, however, is riddled with exposition dumps and monologues. How everything is conveyed through the characters, instead of a separate and disjointed third-person narrator, is really a highlight of the story. But, again, the philosophy was hiding in the rough.
The Big Time conveys metaphysics and wisdom through alternate history and sci-fi, with notions of Daemons, “fourth-order beings” that exist all throughout the cosmos in and out of every mind, and Conflict as a necessity for Change, a continuous process that defines evolution.
Thank you for reading.
Please share your thoughts in a comment.
Allen W. McLean
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