(listen to episode on Spotify)
(music: dramatic stabs)
"No Great Magic" (1963)
Gretchen:
Hello everyone, welcome to Chrononauts, a science fiction literature history podcast. This month, we are focusing on Fritz Leiber's "Change War" series of stories starting with the novel "The Big Time". For information about Fritz Leiber and for the review of "The Big Time", please look at the previous segment of this episode. For now, we are focusing on the later stories in this series.
We are looking at the stories in the arrangement that they are in "The Change War" collection. So the next one we will be talking about is "No Great Magic". And "No Great Magic" was originally published in Galaxy Magazine in the December 1963 issue. And I will say straight out, this is my favorite of all the stories. I really like this one. I'm a sucker for Shakespeare, I'm a sucker for Macbeth, so this one was a really fun read for me.
Nate:
Yeah, likewise.
JM:
I like this one a lot too, and I didn't, like I said, I didn't know about these until long afterwards. And it was really funny. My apologies to Seth Heasley, but I don't know if he remembers, but those years ago when we did "The Big Time," I had just read "No Great Magic" because I just found out about it not long before. And so I read "No Great Magic" within a day or two of doing the episode, and I kept wanting to refer to it. And it's like, yeah, but nobody's read this. Yeah, because I was just really excited to have found it and read it and be like, oh, it's just like such a surprise. Because again, it doesn't seem like, I mean, I guess if you look around enough, you probably can find it documented, but it just doesn't seem like, you know, there's no notes telling you, hey, if you want to read more about Greta and the people at the place, read this, right?
But the thing is, it's not exactly that either. I mean, it is, but it's not. And again, it kind of goes back to what Nate was talking about, where you don't quite know what's really happened. And this seems like a very different interpretation of the situation of the place. But in the end, it kind of is the same, right? It comes in the last scene and you're like, you realize, oh, this really is the Big Time.
Nate:
Yeah. It makes me wonder, I mean, just like, where does this fit in in the chronology with "The Big Time"? Does this happen after "The Big Time" or before? I couldn't really tell when reading this because to me, it could be either the way that history gets rewritten and rewritten over and over again. I mean, this could just be starting up in the middle.
Gretchen:
I mean, even just looking at how much can alter a person, like this could just be somehow the events of the change war have culminated in the changing of the place and having a completely different setting for all of these characters where it doesn't even line up with the events that happen in "The Big Time".
Nate:
Right, exactly. Yeah.
JM:
I mean, I want to say after because, well, something happens to him and he's not really in the story, but he has certainly...
Gretchen:
His presence is felt. His presence is important.
JM:
Right. And I mean, I won't spoil it so we get to it, but it just seems like, yeah, this could be, again, time has very strange, almost non meaning in this context. But it does seem like some time has passed between the events in "The Big Time", both literally in "The Big Time" book and in the Big Time of the place. And Erich is, well, he's not present anymore, but his absence and something that happened has had a big effect on Greta. And so she's not, I mean, she is obviously the same person she was in "The Big Time", but she's also lost a lot of her memory. And it's also, I guess, the way it starts. And for the majority of the story, you have no idea that it's connected to anything else. And I kind of wonder what people would have thought of this if they hadn't read "The Big Time" first.
Gretchen:
I still think I can see this working as a standalone, working as a story without having the experience of "The Big Time", just because I think it's just a really well made story.
Nate:
Yeah, likewise, and I think most people probably at the time would have been familiar with "The Big Time" before coming into this since they were both published in Galaxy a couple years apart. This wasn't one of the ones he initially submitted to the three magazines at the same time. I mean, so there's a good five years after or so "The Big Time" was published. So presumably Galaxy fans would know the stuff in Galaxy in that certain amount of time. So I would assuming that he would have written this and submitted this with the intention that a decent chunk of people would be familiar with it going into. But yeah, it definitely works as a standalone. And I don't think you need "The Big Time".
JM:
And "The Big Time" book was published in 61. So I mean, I was going to say, well, yeah, they couldn't go back and read the magazine if they didn't have it, right? But there was a book published by then. So by the time this was public, the book did exist. So I imagine Leiber fans would know it, but it's just kind of interesting because again, mentioning Erich is a whole different feeling knowing he's gone from this. Then it would be if you hadn't read "The Big Time", because in "The Big Time" you see what kind of a person he is. And let's put it this way, I'm not that unhappy that he's not here.
Gretchen:
Yeah, when I was reading, I did kind of note like, good riddance, of it when I noticed he was gone. I was like, well, no great loss really.
Nate:
He is a Nazi after all.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
He serves a purpose in "The Big Time", though, for sure. And like, even though he's a nasty character, he is kind of a fun character in a way because he's so nasty, right? But it's also a problem in the way that you know he and Greta have this not very healthy relationship.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
That's alluded to here as well.
Gretchen:
Just thinking back on what part of the timeline this is, I do think this also makes a lot of sense even before you know what happened to Erich. It makes a lot of sense to see Greta where she is just because of how lonely and isolating that last, that ending of "The Big Time" is and just how terrible this war is and the tolls it takes. You kind of can see this being a logical conclusion to what had happened previously.
JM:
I guess we're all in agreement that I don't know if that I, I don't know that I necessarily like this more than "The Big Time". I can't help but view it as a supplement to it, like not as in an inferior supplement, but like an addition to it, I guess I should say. I do feel they're connected and maybe like it's just because they both have Greta's voice too and they're the only two that share a voice. So I really feel like in my head, I have a hard time separating them, honestly. So, yeah, in that sense, it is probably the best, but like the two of them connected are the best. I think this one is more satisfying too if you know the events of "The Big Time", in my opinion anyway. Even though you're right, I think it could be a standalone and it does work very well as such, especially the opening chapters.
Nate:
It's certainly the most two connected stories out of any of the ones in the saga we've read, though there are other connections here and there. These two definitely feel more like they're part of the same saga than perhaps the others, but yeah, really good either way.
JM:
I enjoyed all the stories, but I think these two are the most satisfying and then like maybe two of the others are quite satisfying. And then the rest feel a little bit minor in comparison, I think in general is how my feelings on these are. We'll see if you guys agree as we go, but yeah.
Gretchen:
So this story, like "The Big Time", has Greta once again as the narrator. And it starts with Sidney in a dressing room preparing to star in Macbeth as it seems we've exchanged the previous work setting for a theater. Greta, though, points out a problem. The actress, Miss Nefer, is preparing to play Elizabeth I, and even though Sidney explains that it's due to a prologue he added to the play, such a prologue is anachronistic. Macbeth was written after Elizabeth's death against King James. Sidney dismisses her concerns and she decides not to question whether Nefer will be playing Lady Macbeth as well. Greta, it is revealed, helps out with costuming and she lives among them, never leaving the backstage of the theater. It is also revealed that Greta believes they are merely performing in a theater in New York City, having forgotten much about who she is due to some sort of trauma. It is only backstage in the dressing rooms that she feels safe.
Greta goes to check on and help costume Miss Nefer, who is intensely focused on her role as Elizabeth, really getting into the persona, which leads Greta to wonder how she'll be able to shift into the mindset for Lady Macbeth if she plans to play her this night. She also sees another actor in the company, Martin, bare-chested and sporting a wig that makes Greta think Sidney must be mistaken about Macbeth being the play everyone's preparing for. Confronting Sidney yet again with her concerns, he tells her that they are performing Macbeth and in the style it would be put on in James's court. Then she sees that Martin is actually playing Lady Macbeth just as men would play female roles in Shakespeare's time. Greta, due to this incident, feels as though she is missing a lot of what is going on among the company, as though the others were hiding things from her.
Greta, despite her fears of doing so, steps out onto the stage, which can face either an indoor auditorium or an open-air sitting area, and is set for the latter, where she finds Doc and Beau dressed and watching for the audience. Greta notices that it isn't an evening performance as she had thought but a matinee and that she can't see the benches for the audience. When she hears a horn and the thumping of horse hooves, she starts to feel a fit, her nerves shot, and retreats backstage once more.
Greta heads back to her sleeping closet where she keeps memorabilia of New York City the others have given her as she doesn't leave the theatre herself. She wonders who she was before she got amnesia and became a shut-in, whether she was a member of the company, one of their relatives, or a fan of theirs, but either way she's thankful they have supported her. Even in her room she hears the Macbeth performance and does approach the stage once more to see Martin playing Lady Macbeth, though at first she thinks Miss Neffer had been able to take the role after all. Miss Neffer, though, Greta can hear making commentary from the audience and the former wonders whether the woman is reciting more line Sidney wrote for her or ad-libbing.
She then, though, spies Neffer backstage after hearing yet another comment Greta thought was from her among the spectators. Retreating again to her closet, Greta is interrupted from her anxiety by Martin. She lets Martin in on her idea that the theatre is shifting in space and time, musing on the transitory nature of theatre.
Instead of responding to these suspicions, he asks Greta whether she would like to be an actor in the troupe. He then has to leave for a coming scene and Greta contemplates a portrait of Shakespeare Sidney has in the dressing room. She's reminded of a photo Sidney also had of Erich, who she believes had been an actor, which he took down after it upset her.
JM:
Nate, you compared Greta to Greta Garbo. Here she directly compares Erich to Erich von Stroheim.
Nate:
Yeah, right. I mean, there's just little touches like that which kind of do make me wonder about the Greta Garbo angle, especially with this whole story set in an actor's troupe and all that. I think you said that Greta canonically in the story is supposed to be Swedish or Scandinavian descent or something like that, which again is another tie-in to that. But yeah, it's interesting stuff. I mean, you know, Leiber is obviously making the reference here, but just the idea of playing with a timeline I think is a really interesting one.
Gretchen:
Yeah, between their scenes, Martin and Sidney are practicing Julius Caesar in Latin when the latter calls Greta over and repeats the offer Martin had told her in her room. She agrees to being in the company but grows anxious when she realizes Sidney wants her to perform a bit role at this moment for Macbeth, playing the gentle woman during Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene. Eventually she is convinced and goes out on stage despite her reservations.
In the audience she sees Elizabeth and an Elizabeth double behind her in the trees around the stage. Disturbed by the events of the sleepwalking scene which mirrors her thoughts on Mary Stewart, Elizabeth heads towards the trees. The double, Miss Nefer in her Elizabeth costume, enters in her place. Greta, after her performance, sees the other players carrying the body of who she thinks is the real Elizabeth, the one they've replaced with Nefer, but the group tells her it's not the real queen but a double from the snake side. What happened to the true Elizabeth is uncertain.
Greta then remembers the death of Erich in the grips of a spider, the event that caused her break from reality and Sidney tells her that she should agree for Miss Nefer as well, condemned to be Elizabeth just to ensure that Mary Stewart is executed. Sitting alone again, a man enters the dressing room, a man Greta recognizes as Shakespeare himself. He is angry at Sidney who has managed to steal the play he had been subconsciously working on. After a confrontation between the two, Shakespeare storms out of the dressing room, leaving a guilty Sidney.
The play over and Greta's memory restored, the group start to use the major maintainer to head to the time of Caesar's assassination, ready to put on the production Sidney and Martin were practicing earlier.
Nate:
Yeah, this is a great story and it covers a lot of the themes that "The Big Time" does, but in a way that I just like more. I love the Shakespeare angle like a lot. And I love how it plays with the the timeline of Shakespeare, you know how we're plays conducted in the 1600s versus how would we perceive them now. And that's just a perfect opportunity to bring in characters who were actually, you know, from that time period. Of course they know that Shakespeare would have been performed in the 1600s if they were actually there. Just a little subtle touches like that that make this a really, really fun read.
Gretchen:
Yeah, there's this one reference, I believe that it's Elizabeth who mentions Thomas Kidd and the Spanish tragedy, which is something that I read for a Shakespearean course I had like two semesters ago. And it's like all these really fun references to Elizabethan and the Renaissance theater that's really cool.
JM:
Yeah, and it felt very genuine. As with this entire saga, there's so much temporal, I guess, nebulousness where you know, it feels like yeah, there's a relation to how these Elizabethan plays were performed. But also, it's this big theater at Central Park, and people are bringing Greta burgers, right? It feels very modern top, like, at the same time, it feels like a commentary on modern theater and that like he's talking about the modern productions of Shakespeare plays and "The Tempest" as a space story, basically, which I guess would be "Forbidden Planet", more or less, kind of. And again, Heinlein gets a name drop.
Nate:
Yeah, so does Čapek.
Gretchen:
Yes, he does.
Nate:
Yeah, it's also an interesting take on the whole Cold War espionage stuff as an act of literal theater, you know, we all have our roles to play in this big drama or whatever.
Gretchen:
Yeah, like espionage becoming literal performance.
Nate:
Right, right.
Gretchen:
Yeah, that's really, it is really cool that melding.
JM:
Yeah, Greta even observes how great the theater would be as a time travel vehicle.
Gretchen:
Yeah. It reminds me of Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" the way the players can move from place to place in this like kind of just empty void. I just think it's really just a lot of interesting observations on theater and on performance. It does feel very like, well, I mean, Nate, you would reference like "No Exit" and kind of like the sort of existentialists and like absurdist plays that would be sort of popular around this time.
Nate:
And even with, I guess, the beginnings of theater, you know, this stuff from Greek antiquity, there's a lot of stuff there about timeline and fate and what it means to be locked to a certain destiny and how characters struggle with this crisis of trying to break away from that in some cases, referring to Cassandra and prophecy and the whole saga of how Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and all that drama play out and things like that. Fate had kind of a major role in the themes that come up in those plays. And Leiber is really playing with that issue here in a way that I think plays out in just a really good story. So that's always fun to see too.
JM:
I think I can sort of picture Leiber sort of maybe as a young person in his early twenties traveling with the new touring theater company and being like, yeah, this is really great traveling all over, I guess, mostly like the East Coast and maybe California and stuff. But what if we could do it in the fourth dimension? It's so cool because it's such an expression of freedom, but in the end, yeah, there's this like existential thing where it's like destiny and fate. And it's kind of unpleasant. Oh, yeah, we're actually in a war, right? And it's almost like too bad. It's the ending of "The Big Time". It's similar and then it feels like something has been lost, kind of, and like it's a sadness.
But there's also a wonder to it, especially in No Great Magic when suddenly, oh, there's the major maintainer and there's Sid flicking his dials. It's like almost like going off in the TARDIS kind of feeling, right?
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
Even though it's kind of terrible because, yeah, you know, they're going to Egypt to probably blow something up, right?
Gretchen:
Yeah. You mentioned the freedom that would come from this, but also that sense of like, it is so unfixed in time that there is no certainty. I mean, the fact that, you know, none of them know what happened to the original Elizabeth I. She's just gone. God knows. Even if he knows, that's what they say is they don't even know if God knows what happened to Elizabeth I. All they know is the snakes replaced her. So now they have to replace the snakes version.
JM:
And that's crazy too, it reminds me of kidnapping Einstein and all that. But now, like, yeah, this is, I don't know, yeah, it's so cool. It's like, it's an inversion of "The Big Time". And "The Big Time" itself talks a lot about inversion. So it's really, really cool that he decided to revisit this in this particular way, five years from writing "The Big Time". Like, I mean, yeah, the other stories offer cool perspectives into this cosmos. But none of them are quite this, how this is such an interesting reflection of the first story. And yeah, all the theater experience and background is like really coming to the fore and it's so real.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
That you know he lived in, right?
Gretchen:
I love how every scene, well not every scene, but most of the scenes of Macbeth are mentioned. The chicken scene, all my little chickens. I always remember that one specifically with Macduff and to have all of them like very explicitly known throughout this story and to be referenced throughout the story is really, is just really fun to see.
Nate:
A Shakespeare fan will get a lot out of this.
Gretchen:
You can really see Leiber as Shakespeare fan coming out in this absolutely.
JM:
Oh yeah. Yeah. And he has that in a lot of his stories for sure. He has a story called "Four Ghosts in Hamlet", which is also about a theater group this time in England. And it's also a really, really good one. And it is similar to this too in describing the people who are in this troupe are damaged kind of in their way, right? That there's definitely. There is a kind of a sense that, yeah, they're actors because of this and they can act because of this because they're they're damaged and maybe their identities are pretty fluid. So they're pretty good at this acting thing, right?
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
The same thing we got here, like swapping of roles and the gender bending and like all kinds of different stuff going on.
Gretchen:
The doubling that is mentioned and of course then is foreshadowing the real doubling that is going on offstage.
JM:
Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember listening to audio dramas for the first time and realizing that some of the actors were doubling up. I was kind of surprised. I guess it didn't really occur to me right away when I was the young person that yeah, sometimes they do things like that. It's like have a minor character when the other role is not required in the scene. They can play a different part, right? Oh, the fast costume changes though, man. I can't imagine.
Gretchen:
Yeah, quick changes.
JM:
Like an audio drama you don't have to worry about that. But on the stage. Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah. Yeah. No, this is definitely a excellent story. And I think the reading order that "The Change War" book presents of having this directly follow "The Big Time".
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
It's a really smart choice rather than publication order.
JM:
Right. The publication order would put "Try and Change the Past" first.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
I like the order they're presented here as well.
Nate:
Yeah.
JM:
Again, like I didn't know about this till I decided, hey, maybe I should check out that "Change War" book because I never really looked into that. And it sounds like it might be connected with "The Big Time". And sure enough, it's quite connected, especially this one, right?
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
Now, we do get to see Erich on an adventure in another story.
Gretchen:
Yes. Yes, we haven't seen the last of him for better or worse.
JM:
That's right. Yeah. It is funny. I will talk about that when we get to that one. But here's his invisible presence. And I think if I hadn't read "The Big Time", I would probably feel more like, oh no, this poor guy, right? Like he's insubordinate and he got killed. And now I'm just kind of like, yeah, serves him right.
Gretchen:
Yeah. Reading it made the note of like, oh, Erich messing things up again.
JM:
And so, yeah, Greta herself was the one to turn him in apparently in the end. And that's part of the thing, right? Like, again, I connect this to "The Big Time". I don't know whether I should be proud of her for doing that. I also feel like I should, but at the same time, she doesn't really seem that happy about it. The feelings about it are certainly conflicted. And it's kind of cool, I guess, the way it's done because I kind of feel like emotionally mixed about the whole thing, you know? It's like, maybe that was her demonstration of courage that she desperately needed to turn Erich in for something. Like, maybe the insubordination didn't matter so much, but it's like, oh, this Commandant of Toronto shit. Oh, he eats babies. Like, I don't know.
I definitely was really excited about this one and I read it the first time and it was really exciting. And then reading it again also made me want to listen to and read Macbeth, which I still have to do again.
Gretchen:
Yeah, definitely makes me want to reread that play.
JM:
Yeah, I've actually been revisiting some of the Shakespeare plays recently through the Arkangel Shakespeare Company's audio releases. I recently listened to and read along with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Othello" and like, I don't know, "Macbeth" should definitely be the next one. I think after this.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
And I haven't revisited most of these plays since high school, so for a little bit after. I think.
Nate:
Certainly no shortage of good adaptations and, you know, Macbeth, there's a ton and ton and ton out there. You know, obviously one of his best plays. So, yeah.
JM:
Yeah, Nate, I guess you probably, I mean, you said already how much you were a fan of all the Shakespeare referencing you were. So I get the plays are a part of your literary upbringing as well.
Nate:
Yeah, I read a good chunk of them. It's been a really long time, but I haven't read all of them. I should probably fill in the gaps, but I don't know, a good dozen or so.
Gretchen:
Yeah. I've read about half of Shakespeare's plays still have quite a few. I've read obviously his most known of like his repertoire, but I went through a huge Shakespeare phase, although I still obviously enjoy his plays, but I was really interested in Shakespeare during high school.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
I mean, he's really second to none when it comes to the English language. I don't know, like it's really hard to overstate his influence and brilliance in his dialogue.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, it's just, yeah, there's nobody like him.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
Nate:
I'm just so glad that so much of his stuff exists compared to the ancient Greek tragedies that I was talking about earlier were almost nothing exists except for these handful of ones here and there, but yeah.
Gretchen:
Fragments compared to what was actually created.
Nate:
Right.
Gretchen:
I do like also the Leiber, in this story is like, yeah, Shakespeare can't be just replaced by anybody. This is the real Shakespeare because no one can replace him.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
Yeah. You really do feel the influence of a lot of the Shakespeare stuff through so many of his things. Like, it's definitely a lot different than like some of the American contemporaneous SF stuff we've been reading up till now, I think, in that sense. Not to say that, I mean, a lot of that stuff is my favorite too and is really good. But here is like, we have a guy who, I mean, he didn't exactly grow up with like Weird Tales and stuff like that. And he even said when he first read it, he didn't like it very much. And Fritz seems like the kind of person over time who's like a little cautious about things at first. And then when he kind of sees what's up, he kind of starts to get into it. He's like, that a bunch of years passed by and he's like, yeah, I'm all in now, man. Like, it's good.
So, yeah, it's like, you know, it's not this kind of a story of a guy who's like, yeah, I found my first pulp magazine on a newsstand and I read through it in one day and it was the best thing ever. You know, it's just kind of a different background a little bit. So, you know, more, yeah, brought up with the dramas and the classics and stuff like that. And his dad's crazy set based book collection of like devoting a summer, each summer and to a different author and having lots of comments on them and stuff like that. But yeah.
Gretchen:
Reading this knowing about his theater background definitely gives it a lot more dimension, especially the part when Greta is also wondering whether maybe she just was raised in the theater. You know, she was born there and that's where she's always been. You can kind of feel that maybe Leiber also felt like that.
JM:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. He really inhabits that character. I think that's part of why I enjoy her narration so much because you can tell it's the same person from "The Big Time". Right. It's all there, the theater appreciation and stuff and obviously people like them, they're entertainers, they're actors, and they can also be players in the game, apparently. Sid's worst fears come true, it's no longer a recuperation station. It's now a theater and a battle post, apparently.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
So, yeah. Yeah, loved it.
(music: minor synth chords and melody)
"The Oldest Soldier" (1960)
"The Oldest Soldier" is the next story after "No Great Magic" to appear in the Change War collection. And this one was published in May 1960 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It is the first of the stories we'll be covering that does not feature Greta as the narrator or Greta really in any capacity. We have some new characters here.
I thought this one was pretty interesting to see someone now as an outsider reacting to people who are involved in the Change War.
Nate:
Yeah, in a sense this one plays up most on the militaristic themes of the Change War where we get these kind of stories of an aged soldier reflecting on his past and all that and a lot of military fiction.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
But really the rest of the saga doesn't focus on that. So it is kind of neat that we get this one very small flash of that life.
Gretchen:
Yeah, it is interesting that even then it's not from that character, it's from someone who is like an observer of this character.
Nate:
Yeah.
JM:
Yeah. And it has one of my favorite setups in fiction where it's just like a bunch of guys hanging out at a drinking establishment. And they're like, oh, there's one guy with all his stories is really crazy, isn't he? And he's like, yeah, yeah, he's really nuts. And wonder what's up with him and the whole point of the story is to find out what's up with him. It is that at first. And then yeah, it takes an interesting kind of horror direction as it goes. And it's very, very tight. It's a short story. But unlike the next one, I don't really feel like more is needed. Like I don't really feel like it's missing anything.
Gretchen:
Yeah. I think it's very well self-contained and accomplishes what it sets out to do very well. Yeah, I definitely agree that. Yeah. It's kind of funny, like the order of the way things go. Like all these first three are, for me, really satisfying. This one is maybe, again, now that we've covered "The Big Time" and "No Great Magic", I think we've covered like the major works. And besides "Deskfull", which is kind of its own thing. These are definitely like more supplementary kind of stories. But they're good, especially this one, I think.
Gretchen:
Yeah. All right. So the narrator here is a man named Fred, a man who despite having anti-war sentiments and having grown up as a pacifist has a fascination with it and with being a soldier. He spends his time with a group of ex-soldiers who relate their experiences while drinking at a liquor store.
Among these soldiers is Max, a man who claims to have fought in battles throughout history, hundreds of years in both the past and the present. Fred and the others believe it to be some sort of ongoing gag, even after Max carries on with it when he and Frank are alone. However, while Max is telling the others of more battles he fought, the others laughing at his stories, Fred believes he sees a dark form outside of the store, one with glowing red eyes. He brushes it off and he and Max head towards the latter's apartment after departing from the others.
However, just as they turn the corner towards Max's place, he stops and asks if they'd rather go to Fred's, even though he had declined such an offer in the past. Fred agrees, but not before catching a glimpse of the dark form from before, what he thinks is reminiscent of a black dog on Max's fire escape. Walking away from Max's building, the man asks Fred whether he believes in the stories he's told their group and advises him not to look behind them at the figure following them and pretend to be unaware of it.
He needs an hour at Fred's place to call headquarters and escape the figure. An hour Fred can buy by acting as if everything is normal. When they arrive at Fred's apartment, Max gives the man a green sheet of paper with only his addressing of Fred at the top and a sign off at the bottom. A paper he asks Fred to keep with him over the next few days before going into the bedroom to contact his people.
Max first tries to read, but gets distracted by the sound of the dark form rattling his window. He sneaks a peek at it, but then tries to focus by using his typewriter, typing random snippets of various poems, historical documents, and other letters and words. Unfortunately though, he eventually has thoughts of letting the figure in so that he will be spared, thoughts that are coming from outside himself.
He tries to ignore them, but finally loses control of his actions and opens the door, allowing the creature in just as Max's hour is up, and he very likely might have escaped. Fred isn't sure whether he succeeded until a few days later when the paper he was given by Max, which he had been keeping in his pocket, contains a message from the man.
"Thought you'd like to know, I got through okay, just in time. Back with my outfit, it's not too bad. Thanks for the rearguard action."
The note then bursts into flames.
Although Fred has no physical evidence remaining of the night, he has no doubts about his position as rearguard. His own battle story he keeps to himself as the other soldiers continue to discuss their own.
Yeah, so this isn't a very long one, but I think the parts when he's performing his rearguard action are pretty tense.
Nate:
Yeah, it's definitely short, but effective. And it's not one that I have a lot to say on other than I really enjoyed it. I like the way it unfolds, the horror imagery when it does come in is pretty cool. And of course, the self immolating note that burns up once you read it is one of the silliest devices in fiction that somehow is like a trope, but I don't know, he makes it work here that in a way that I really like.
Gretchen:
Reminds me of Mission Impossible with the records itself destruct after you listen to them.
JM:
So I guess Lovecraft is mentioned a lot in the autobiography. And I guess people generally feel like Lovecraft is an influence on Leiber and I can kind of see that. But to me, it's pretty subtle. I don't really get a Lovecraft feeling from too much Fritz Leiber stuff every now and then. Like, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's just because since then and now, like we see so many authors who very obviously pay tribute to Lovecraft to the extent where it's like, it's not very original. It feels like they're just aping Lovecraft, right? And I even feel like Brian Aldiss, although he seems to have him again referring to "Trillion Year Spree." He doesn't really talk about Leiber very much, but he does mention him. And he says he calls him the Lord of Lankhmar, which sounds like a compliment. But then he backhands him by saying, well, but I think maybe he was allowing himself to be too influenced by HP Lovecraft or something like that. And I don't really feel that I think that it's subtle. And I think if anything, it almost seems like the influence of Lovecraft is not so much Lovecraft's fiction. But those damn letters, again, of the last three months of Lovecraft's life when he was apparently they wrote a lot of letters over that short period of time. And Lovecraft was like, again, trying to sort of explain to this younger person about the weird and the supernatural fiction stuff that was around in the previous generation and in Lovecraft's generation. So it's kind of passing the torch almost and Leibers like reading Arthur Macken and Algernon Blackwood and guys like that and M.R. James. And he's like, oh, this is pretty good, actually.
Different writers like Ramsey Campbell, who also does an introduction to one of Leiber's more horror oriented collections. He basically says Leiber is a lot like an urban M.R. James. I can kind of see that because James is a lot of like these antiquarian British ghost stories, right? But there's often like, you know, his most famous story, "Casting the Runes" is about manuscript that passes between person to person that, you know, is basically like a curse in the form of a script, like a paper, basically. And that's basically the plot of the film, "The Night of the Demon". And that feels very Leiber-esque to me, except for James, it's like, you know, the country and the academic Oxford and stuff like that. And Leiber is just kind of transmuting it to New York or San Francisco or Chicago, basically.
Nate, you've read the story Smoke Ghost, right?
Nate:
Yeah. Yeah. I like that one a lot. Yeah.
JM:
Yeah. So that's, again, a very similar theme of urban nightmares, basically.
Nate:
Yeah. I don't get Lovecraft from that one at all.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
Maybe they both have the same appreciation for classic literature. I'm sure, you know, they were communicating with one another, but no, for tone and, I guess, themes and just use of language. I don't really see much similarities between Leiber's stuff here and the Dark Descent stories versus the Lovecraft I've read, which is certainly far more than the Leiber I've read.
JM:
Right. And we do like Lovecraft.
Nate:
Oh, yeah. I like Lovecraft a lot.
JM:
You know, we were pretty positive about him a couple of times already. And I am considering, for my first short story, random selections, adding a Lovecraft story, which is one of his more science fiction stories. I haven't decided yet because, you know, we can only choose so many and there's so many awesome short stories like we've been discussing. This is the basis for the genre that we're doing almost.
Yeah. This is an example of a really good, tightly told economical story that's both science fiction and horror. I did bring up Lovecraft here because that whole section in the apartment does bring Lovecraft to mind a little bit. I mean, it is, it does feel more modern, you know, it feels like, yeah, we're not dealing with some stuffy, scholarly antiquarian. This is like just some average dude who hangs out at a liquor store. And yet he does have this military history interest, right? So he's, in a way, he is actually a version of one of Lovecraft's scholarly gentlemen. It's just more in the library style, a little bit raggedy, not quite the polished scholarly type. It's more the down and heel alcoholic type, basically.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
Nate, you said the setup that I described that sets up the events of the story. It is silly, but I still really like it. I always got time for it, just like the way "The Time Machine" starts out with the dude sitting around the dinner table discussing the fourth dimension. That's just fun, right? Yeah.
Gretchen:
Kind of like the Carnaki stories, just like a bunch of guys just sitting down to listen to his story.
Nate:
Yeah. Yeah.
JM:
So I actually do think this was probably my, besides those two, this probably was my favorite. I'm going to stand up a little bit for the last story, but again, I feel like it's kind of its own thing, almost. This one I really recommend. I think it's fun. And this one could definitely stand well on its own.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
Again, the change war is a backdrop, but it's like you put yourself in the position of the innocent who's there to help the soldier in need. And this is kind of what he's always dreamed of almost, right? Because he's never been able to do the thing. So this is like his chance. And you feel really good for him because he gets the chance, you know what I mean?
The note at the end is really satisfying too. It's like you get the feeling that he's done something good. Yeah, maybe he hasn't. I mean, it's just another cog in the war machine, right? I mean, that's kind of what we saw in "The Big Time". But at the same time, it's that whole fascination with the military history and the machine and stuff like that. And this guy has, and that you feel like he's almost living the dream here by being able to help Max.
Gretchen:
Yeah. I think that idea of like the conflict that he feels between, he is someone who does appreciate pacifism and like the anti-war sentiment, but also still having this fascination with war. This is probably something that, you know, he isn't actively involved, but he does at this point sort of assist, it's sort of like this is probably the amount of involvement he had preferred to be in.
JM:
Oh, probably. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he certainly didn't want any combat.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
But yeah. And again, he's thinking about this in terms of the little guys on the ground, the soldiers and not the generals. Although he says he was very interested in military history, so I'm sure he picked up a lot of that stuff too, you know, his reading and stuff. But the guys who are not necessarily pulling the strings, he wants to help. He wants to help the Venerable Soldier who he respects, who drinks with his buddies. That's sweet.
(music: low pulsing, sweeps)
"Knight to Move" (1965)
Our next story that we will be talking about tonight is "Knight to Move", which was published in 1965 in a magazine known as Broadside, which Leiber claimed to be similar to Playboy.
JM:
It sounds like it was not as well known as that. He says it was a girly magazine, which kind of 50s slang for magazine with some slightly racy content and pictures, but by nowadays standards, probably not very racy. Probably assuming that most of the people reading it were horny men, but like that might not have necessarily been always true, but yeah.
Nate:
There's definitely more fowardly sexual moments in this than the previous three stories that we talked about.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I was about to say that does put some things in the story in the context that it makes me understand some parts a bit a bit more.
Nate:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I guess there was no science fiction magazine called "Spicy Sci-fi Stories" in the way that we get "Spicy Detective Stories" and all that, but I guess if such a magazine did exist, you might put this one in there.
JM:
Well, you know, I mean, it seems like an American sci-fi until the 60s was a little bit opposed to that kind of content.
Nate:
Certainly in the magazines, it would seem that way.
JM:
It's, yeah, I mean, like certainly something like Astounding. I don't think Campbell really published too much stuff like that. You know, maybe like Galaxy, a little more liberal about that kind of stuff, but definitely, yeah, it took a while for that to catch on. Like it seems almost like a lot of the fans were maybe vocally opposed to any kind of erotic content.
Gretchen:
Sci-fi erotica was not a tapped market at that time.
Nate:
Yeah, wait till Star Trek comes in.
JM:
Yeah, right.
Gretchen:
Yeah, just wait for Kirk and Spock and then we'll see where that goes.
JM:
Yeah, I mean, you know, definitely in the 1960s, a lot of stuff was changing. So yeah, there's a lot more of that. You get writers like Samuel Delaney who pretty much wrote like straight erotic novels. So yeah.
Gretchen:
I know we are considering reading "Dhalgren" at some point and there are several sex scenes in there. Yeah, but I'm thinking of like "Equinox" and "Hogg" especially. Like I don't know, I guess "Hogg" is like the opposite of erotic in a way, but like "Equinox" is this weird pirate adventure kind of over the top pornography but written with a lot of poetry and stuff like that. It's cool, but different. Certainly not something we were seeing in the American SF magazines of the 1950s. So yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, and in the film industry when the Hayes code gets abolished around this time, you see a real explosion of that kind of content.
Gretchen:
Yeah, yeah.
Nate:
And a lot of underground films and all that, but yeah, Broadside.
JM:
Broadside, right. Like it's so bad. The story is, it's cool. I really like the setup. I like, I actually really love the description of the games and I love Leibers, like just kind of random but cool sort of inserted observations about games, that I don't know if they really come from Erica or if they come from, they seem to come from Leiber himself I think because this is something he was interested in too. I mean like, yeah, Chess is in a lot of his stories but also other games and "Gonna Roll the Bones" is a story about a guy living on some kind of, I don't know, it's never specified, but it's like a mining planet or something like that maybe, going to play craps with the devil or with death or something like that. And like, that says, Leiber really loves this stuff. He loves games and gambling and he also says he got really into backgammon. This story is that plus espionage and this story is like, half really awesome because it's like, got a cool atmosphere and setup but there's just not enough of it in my opinion. But yeah like if anyone could have been longer it could have been this one and he could have even justified the gratuitous, like the gratuitous shower scene, if he just had a little chance to add more meat to the story and stuff but yeah.
Gretchen:
It's just the setup, the fact that we get to see, previously we saw the theater enthusiast in Leiber and we get to see the chess and the game enthusiast here and that's really fun, and it has a great atmosphere and it is kind of disappointing that about a third of it is just a shower scene and just basically the setup for an erotica.
JM:
It's so gratuitous, it's hilarious, it's like it's such a blatant insert and what I was going to say about the Playboy stories is a lot of them are really good. There's a lot of really awesome writers from all over the spectrum who wrote for Playboy in like the 60s and 70s, and 50s maybe even. And it's really awesome to see, but in so many of them, yeah, they include sex where it's like, it's not like it doesn't belong, but it's almost like we're not really able to say everything that we really, really want to say. So we're going to be like, sort of coy and weird about it and include it. Right. And I think in the Playboy stories, they tend to maybe because it's a quite prestigious magazine and quite mainstream. And there's probably quite a lot of editorial oversight and stuff. Like, it's fairly well done, at least in the anthologized stories that I've read. So there's "The Playboy book of Horror and the Supernatural" and "The Playboy Book of Science Fiction". And they're both really, really good anthologies, like better than you might ever imagine, just by seeing the name Playboy on them. But yeah, there is that, that and you kind of feel like they have to be at least a little bit of a nod to sexual content. And it can be like the smallest thing. But it has to be there, right. And it's like the writers are consciously going, okay, I know my market, I have to add this, right. And I feel like he was kind of doing this here.
But at the same time, all right, I'm going to say this about Leiber, I'm charmed by him and I like him. But he's a voyeur, 100%. And if you read some of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, you'll definitely see it. And he kind of alludes to it a little bit in his essay as well, where it's like, yeah, there's something that he likes, he's the voyeur. And yeah, it comes out in some of the stories sometimes. So you kind of also get the feeling that yeah, maybe he would have inserted something like this.
I don't know, the story needed to be a little longer, because like the setup is just so cool. And the ideas are cool. And they like attempted assassination is awesome. It's just such a like, cool, futuristic espionage spy-fi a scene. I wanted to see more of the setting and more of the environment. And like, this one was like, one of those rare cases, again, where I'm like, painfully observing that yeah, some short stories need to be novellas, or something like that, you know, this is like, there needed to be more, maybe not for Broadside, like maybe if there had been more, it could have gone to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction or something like that.
But it is what it is. And it's pretty cool for what it is. So why don't we get into it?
Gretchen:
So we start a night to move with a woman with a spiral in Sidney on her uniform, overlooking a gallery where various species are playing chess. She, Erica Weaver, is a snake agent, watching two humans, a man and a woman in the tournament. As she ponders the thought about chess, regarding the figure, the knight, she feels the presence of an agent of the spiders who turns out to be Erich. He speaks to her first and invites her to drink with him, as they are on a neutral planet. But she is dismissive of him.
JM:
So I just want to pause for a second to observe how this is obviously a nod for the true Leiber fans, because probably anybody who read Broadside wouldn't have known who Erich was, unlike the situation with "No Great Magic". But we know, we know, we know this guy and his conniving, posturing ways, right?
Gretchen:
So now that I know where the story was originally published, it is interesting to think of someone reading this without the context of everything else we've talked about.
JM:
And I will say it is nice seeing him operate in the field like this. Like again, I would have liked to see more of these two, like they totally remind me of like a "Man From UNCLE" type pairing, right? But that these, yeah, Erich and Erica, enemy agents, right?
Gretchen:
Like very Napoleon and Angelique for "The Man from UNCLE" fans out there.
JM:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Gretchen:
He continues to make advances on her, which she rejects, trying to retrieve her previous thoughts from before his approach. While Erich is discussing the various games which are all enjoyed on 61 Cygni 5, mentioning the difference between track games such as backgammon and board games like chess, a bullet sized missile flies towards Erica, which she avoids.
Erich had reached out to grab her, which takes to be an action of holding her still for the projectile to hit her. She then makes it to a room where she starts showering before she is interrupted by a call, which turns out to be Erich. He attempts to constrain her while unclothed, disrobed, just out of the shower with the technology in the room under his control, but she manages to switch the power off.
She then reveals the thought she had before the characteristics of chess related to the spiders. The chess board is like a spider web and the knight piece has eight moves. She concludes that chess playing planets are spider infiltrated planets and that all the players in the gallery are spider agents preparing to overtake 61 Cygni 5. She reveals her realization to Erich, she claims, because she also tells him that the track games are ones that snakes play the weaving of the board. So the players of those games in the other gallery on the planet are snake agents planning their own takeover. The two are left then at a stalemate and possibly something less combative is about to occur between the two of them.
Nate:
Or more.
Gretchen:
Or more.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, I don't know. This one was okay. There's obviously a lot of extra silly stuff added onto it, but I think there's some good stuff in here, in particular like the general setting where we're at in this 61 Cygni chess emporium or whatever. It very much reminds me of like the famous Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars.
JM:
Oh yeah.
Nate:
Of all these like weird aliens just kind of hanging out, playing games, doing their thing. Like, I mean, that's such a revolutionary scene in film, but we have something very, very similar in this story here. I mean, it doesn't focus on that for the majority of the story. Unfortunately, I really wish they did. I mean, getting into some of these seedy characters who are hanging out, playing chess, I think it would be a lot of fun.
JM:
Exactly. Like, I love this is such great setting. Why is it have to be in this little story? But I mean, I also enjoyed these characters. Like, I wouldn't mind having them square off for an entire thing, right? Erica's perspective maybe could be kept. And, you know, we get to see her try to outsmart Erich through the story and stuff like that. We almost get that. But again, it's like truncated, right?
Although I do think certain aspects of the final part of the story are cool. Like, I don't think I've ever seen a videophone described quite the way that he does it here or the thing is not only a phone, but it has arms. Like, it kind of makes it sound like people probably regularly use it for a sex toy, maybe. And that's, I don't know, maybe I just have a dirty mind. But like, why did he add that?
Gretchen:
Well, I mean, considering where this was published, you know.
JM:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that's why it's there, right? It's kind of, it's like gratuitous, but it's not terrible.
Gretchen:
I mean, also, I think they said the arms were like something about like, performing like handshakes and writing like....
JM:
Oh, yeah...
Gretchen:
Writing like checks.
JM:
For business calls.
Gretchen:
Yeah, sure. What else? What else in the Broadside magazine, Fritz?
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I mean, again, it's fiction mirroring the real world in that in the 1960s around this time, Bell Labs introduced their public videophone in 1964. And it was generally a commercial failure for pretty much all the reasons we're talking about in this story of people didn't want to appear on camera in perhaps a compromised state without any clothing to random people and all that.
JM:
And look at where we're at now, man.
Nate:
Yeah.
JM:
Coronavirus took us so far too.
Nate:
But I just think it's an interesting piece, like video telephony was technologically feasible in the 1960s. It was published in 1965, I think we said, right?
Gretchen:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, Bell Labs videophone was 1964. So I mean, it was definitely like a real thing and had debuted, but there was just no commercial demand for it at the time. People didn't want it. But things changed in the next 40 years, which I don't know, kind of interesting development.
JM:
Yeah, really interesting how that often happens where like somebody will invent something ahead of their time. And it's like totally not wanted. But then 50 years from then, it's like, all of a sudden, everybody wants that thing. And that person has forgotten more or less.
Nate:
Yeah.
JM:
It's like, yeah. But yeah, I kind of enjoyed wanting more. But yeah, I wish this had been expanded. And I hope that one day somebody does actually create an expanded version of this story. That would be cool.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
And just too bad that it won't be Fritz Leiber. But that's it.
Gretchen:
Yeah. I mean, it just has a lot of potential to go somewhere. And I like the potential of it. I like what it could have been.
Nate:
Well, maybe our change war overlords will blow the change winds to make this some like Italian comedy starring Edwige Fenech or something like that, where the story can play itself out a little more naturally in the form that it is written, I think.
JM:
Yeah, I guess something we're learning over time is that yeah, people do write to their markets. And he probably only had a little minute amount of space here. It's just kind of interesting that he decided to use the Erich character here. But again, I like it. I like the callback to "The Big Time" is something that probably not many readers would have gotten at the time. And yeah, this doesn't seem to be one of his more well known stories.
Gretchen:
I suppose Erich feels appropriately lecherous for this story.
JM:
Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And again, like, it's kind of interesting too that Erich is the representative of the West. Basically, I mean, yeah, this is like a future space thing. But it's like, we kind of established that the spiders are the Western peoples and the snakes are the Eastern peoples, at least in "The Big Time". And so it comes with the philosophy as well as like the West is capitalism and Nazism and like colonialism and the East is, although it's perhaps hyper dramatized because yes, it is the 1950s and people maybe have different ideas about stuff like that. The East is wisdom and all that stuff, right? It's just like, I don't know about that. Like as a metaphor now, like, it doesn't quite seem appropriate. But at the same time, the hunger for the other kind of thing, like maybe Leiber might have been a little bit on the side of the snakes. And Erica is the point of view of the story. She seems like the more sensible one.
Gretchen:
Although she also, I think I forgot to mention this, this is the one story that doesn't have a first person point of view. Even though Erica is the main focus, she is not telling the telling the story.
JM:
Yeah, true. Yeah. Really interesting setup that I think suggests a lot more than is actually there. I love the assassination missiles, though. That was like that, it kind of reminded me of Dune and like the hunter seekers.
Nate:
Yeah.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate:
Wwas the first version of Dune published around this time? I know that was somewhere around here, right?
JM:
Dune was right. 1965.
Nate:
Okay. Yeah.
JM:
So yeah, all right. Yeah. So yeah, if you find this in an anthology, you're probably mostly, it's not really been printed too often, I don't think. But it isn't in "The Change War". So if you get this, you'll like it. It's fun. It's very short too. Like, it packs a lot into a short space. Again, we're lamenting that it should have been longer because that would have justified a lot of things, including the sex, you know, that could have been worked in there. And it would have been like, not gratuitous, maybe, but I don't know. It's not the only time the Leiber was kind of a victim of that. He has a novel called "You're All Alone". It was actually published in the 1950s by, I can't, I don't know what publisher it was, but it was published under the title "The Sinful Ones" with extra sex scenes added that were not by him. So I can only imagine what he thought when he got a copy of the book.
Nate:
Like "Caligula" or something.
JM:
Yeah. And they were probably like really not that explicit 1950s sex scenes either. I haven't read it. I do want to read the original, the one that Leiber wrote that wasn't modified. But yeah, it's not one I've read yet. It sounds kind of interesting.
Some of the Fafhrd and Mouser stories, like I was saying, they do get pretty raunchy at times, especially the later ones. So yeah, like it's some of his definite tendencies coming out there, I think. But for me, it's a lot less awkward than like Robert Heinlein, for example, since weird, weird things.
Gretchen:
"Stranger in a Strange Land." Some of that was interesting.
JM:
Yeah.
Nate:
Certainly his later stuff gets a lot worse in that regard too. So yeah, not a guy who aged well, I think.
JM:
All right, well, should we talk about the next story then?
Nate:
Sure.
