The Big Time (1958) is a short science fiction novel by American writer Fritz Leiber. Awarded the Hugo Award during 1958. The storyline features members of one of two factions, both capable of time travel, engaged in a long-term conflict called "The Change War". Their method of battle involves changing the outcomes of events throughout history (temporal war). The two opposing groups are nicknamed the Spiders and the Snakes after their respective sponsors....

This volume collects 19 stories of robots in their many guises. Some obey Asimov's 3 Rules of Robotics. Some are of alien design. Some serve mankind. And some...don't. All are great reading. Included are: HELEN O'LOY, by Lester del Rey SIDNEY, THE SCREWLOOSE ROBOT, by William P. McGivern JAMES P. CROW, by Philip K. Dick HAVE IT YOUR OWN WAY, by Richard Wilson A BAD DAY FOR SALES, by Fritz Leiber THE SPECTACLES, by Frank Belknap Long ALL JACKSON'S...

The fog-finger touched the taut arm. Gnarlag's sneering look turned to one of pure hate, and the muscles of his forearm seemed to double in thickness as he rotated it more than a half turn. There was a muffled snap and a gasp of anguish.

Three things warned the wizard's apprentice that something was wrong: first the deep-trodden prints of iron-shod hooves along the forest path-he sensed them through his boots before stooping to feel them out in the dark; next, the eerie drone of a bee unnaturally abroad by night; and finally, a faint aromatic odor of burning.

Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Fritz Leiber is a science fiction grand master with an unparalleled ability to discern the stranger side of the universe. The Green Millennium is set in a futuristic human society based on our own. The regimented, regulated, and bureaucratized lifestyle led by the misanthropic Phil Gish leaves him feeling vaguely dissatisfied and emotionally cut off from other people. He is surprised when a pure green cat appears...

"Finally, something you all know about-this epidemic of what we've called convulsive accidents. Cases of mild poisoning and electric shock, with the victim suffering muscular spasms and going into a hazy and unrealistic mental state that sometimes lasts for days. There have been altogether too many of those 'accidents.' It's as if there were a silent wolf pack around us-dozens of the red-eyed beasts-"

This is the story of a beautiful woman. And of a monster. It is also the story off our silly, selfish, culture-bound inhabitants of the planet Earth. Es, who was something of an artist. Gene, who studied atoms-and fought the world and himself. Louis, who philosophized. And Larry-that's my name-who tried to write books.

"Now and then Mrs. Groener used to scream," the big man explained, "when she'd been drinking heavily I'd leave the bedroom. It may have been a rebuke or summons to me, or a fighting challenge to the whiskey bottle, or simply an expression of her rather dark evaluation of life. But it had never meant anything more real than that-until tonight."