No Great Magic: Special Edition

by Fritz Leiber

The troupers of the Big Time lack no art to sway a crowd--or to change all history! (A Change War story.) We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Fantasy, Short Stories, Audiobook

26 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1963

About the author

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was one of the more interesting of the young writers who came into HP Lovecraft's orbit, and some of his best early short fiction is horror rather than sf or fantasy. He found his mature voice early in the first of the sword-and-sorcery adventures featuring the large sensitive barbarian Fafhrd and the small street-smart-ish Gray Mouser; he returned to this series at various points in his career, using it sometimes for farce and sometimes for gloomy mood pieces--The Swords of Lankhmar is perhaps the best single volume of their adventures. Leiber's science fiction includes the planet-smashing The Wanderer in which a large cast mostly survive flood, fire, and the sexual attentions of feline aliens, and the satirical A Spectre is Haunting Texas in which a gangling, exo-skeleton-clad actor from the Moon leads a revolution and finds his true love. Leiber's late short fiction, and the fine horror novel Our Lady of Darkness, combine autobiographical issues like his struggle with depression and alcoholism with meditations on the emotional content of the fantastic genres. Leiber's capacity for endless self-reinvention and productive self-examination kept him, until his death, one of the most modern of his sf generation.

Used These Alternate Names: Maurice Breçon, Fric Lajber, Fritz Leiber, Jr., Fritz R. Leiber, Fritz Leiber Jun., Фриц Лейбер, F. Lieber, フリッツ・ライバー

Reviews

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Go Back in Time

And make sure you have read Fritz Leiber’s novel The Big Time before, for otherwise his short story No Great Magic will probably not work very well for you. I didn’t read the novel and therefore, I didn’t really enjoy the story so much, and the question really is whether I would have liked it better with The Big Time under my belt. After all, the plot takes way too long to unfold, which is quite a point of criticism for a short story, and those actors who couldn’t stop being actors even offstage but kept on talking in Shakespearean English were a severe strain on my patience and turned my kindness towards humanity into withering ashes. The only thing I liked about this story was how Leiber managed to make me care about the protagonist.

The title No Great Magic certainly fits to a T.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining play listening 🎶🔰

A night 🌙 in the MaCbeth in a play date where you appear to go back in time then forward. I had all the free Fritz Leiber but this one. I would recommend all his stories to 👍 readers of British 🏰 novels 👍🔰. 2023 😀👒☺😮

[Steve Goble · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short sequel to his novel of time-traveling warriors, “The Big Time.” This is an intriguing story set in a Shakespearean theatre and Leiber absolutely dives into the bard’s rich language. Definitely worth a read.

[Ixris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sequel (though it may not seem like it at first) to Leiber's The Big Time.

Returning are our intrepid players, narrated again by the quirky Greta, who has lost her memory.

In The Big Time, Greta is in-the-know, very up-front with the reader about the Change War, the comings and goings of the soldiers that she and the others entertain, doctor, service, etc. to keep up morale.

In No Great Magic, she's lost, confused, and certainly reads like the rest of the world has gone mad around her (or maybe just she's gone mad...). It's a story revolving around a single acting of the Scottish Play in as-accurate-as-possible Elizabethan England (yes, Greta, it is an anachronism), and her suddenly putting the pieces of her memory back together.

The building of the action is slow at times, dodgy at times, especially comparing this to The Big Time, but it reads like so much classic Leiber. His is the voice that gives us the strikingly bizarre Fafhrd and Mouser stories, and it's a voice that I adore. So much, upon Greta's return of memory, is said in such a brief time, I find my whole head humming with it.

Leiber is not for everyone. And Change War is a story that's turning out to be patently bizarre, but I trust Leiber to continuously deliver, and will gladly seek out the next of this series, so I can partake in a little more of his magic.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is not actually of any of the listed versions of "No Great Magic" but rather of the story as it appears in Changewar, a collection of stories by Fritz Leiber. My review of this story is excerpted from my review of the book, with some minor emendations.

The Change War is being fought between groups identified as "Snakes" and "Spiders." They are the opposing forces in a fight that ranges through all of time and space. It is a war that is not only fought, it is refought, again and again, with each side trying to make history advantageous for themselves

"No Great Magic" is one story in the "Change War" series. "No Great Magic" is a direct sequel to the Hugo Award-winning short novel that begins the series, The Big Time. I have not read The Big Time for some years, but I recall liking it a lot. ISFDb considers "No Great Magic" a novella; it was long-listed for a Hugo Award in both novel and short fiction categories.

Greta, the narrator of both this tale and The Big Time, is an entertainer working for the Spiders. In "No Great Magic," she has become what she calls "A and A": "Agoraphobe and Amnesiac." She knows that she is part of a theatrical group, but has no recollection of her former life. The troupe is putting on a rather strange production of Macbeth; and speaking of "rather strange," isn't that woman watching the play Queen Elizabeth I? This is imaginative, with some fine pseudo-Sixteenth Century lanuage. However, I doubt that it would make any sense to anyone who had not read The Big Time.

I would recommend "No Great Magic" for readers familiar with The Big Time. I would also suggest that readers seek out The Big Time, which is quite good.

[Kyle Dougherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started this one having no idea that it was a sequel to Leiber's "The Big Time", which I had coincidentally just finished. Another hard-to-follow, rather philosophical, exploration of "The Change Wars." I spent the whole story trying to figure out how this story connected with the previous one. I can't say that I really liked it, but it was nice to see a little further explanation of the world Leiber had created in "The Big Time".

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently this is the sequel to The Big Time. I enjoyed it, but I can imagine I would have appreciated it even more if I had read the first book. I’ll have to track down a copy.
No Great Magic had engaging characters, an intriguing storyline and terrific world building for a short story. And, from what I can guess, some closure for readers of the first volume.

[Al Lock · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if a Shakespeare troop could change history? Fun read.

[Mikey J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one bonkers approach to a sequel (to The Big Time) - I gotta give it credit. Though it is absolutely a science fiction story, it hardly satisfies like one. Odd stuff.

[Harvey Dias · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story in the Change War series. The story is somewhat confusing and bizarre in the same way as "Big Time".

[Mark Rabideau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely average... I wish I had read something else.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

🖍️ Greta, a stagehand and gofer, has been around stage people for so long, she knows their thoughts, whims, acting abilities, et cetera. This story revolves around a travelling troupe of stage actors that brings the dénouement to a strangely odd twist. This is an okay story.

📙Published in Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1963 .

*˚˚*•̩̩͙How I happened upon this book: I enjoy short books.

🟢The illustrated e-book version can be found at Project Gutenberg.
🟣 Kindle.
🚀˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚💫🪐💫˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚🚀

[Skuli Saeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smásagan No Great Magic eftir Leiber lýsir minnislausri stúlku sem starfar í leikhópi, býr reyndar í leikhúsinu og á sér engar minningar um að hafa verið utan þess.
Verið er að setja upp leikrit frá tímum Shakespears þegar hún áttar sig á því að undirbúningurinn er með öðrum hætti en hún á að venjast. Ekki bara það heldur hefur umhverfi leikhússins breyst.
Þótt sagan standi þokkalega undir sér þá er þetta önnur sagan í seríu sem Leiber reit um tímastríð þar sem hópar börðust um með því að flakka um tímann og breyta gangi sögunnar. Sennilega er betra að lesa fyrri söguna fyrst. Ætli ég reyni ekki að finna hana og lesa til að skilja tímastríðin betur.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

VERY weird story. I was not sure what to expect, and it went so quickly. Is a short book, which I have not seen for a while (having spent a long time with longer, classical, literature). By the time I figured out the players and the setting, The climax was already setting in.

Somehow this book made my 'must-read' list. I'm glad it was short, but am wishing I could add a half-star, to give it more credit than some stinkers I've read.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mind bending read, which is a good thing . I will have to read the previous book as well. Reading this story out of the blue really puts you into the confused jumble of Greta's mind.

I can't really say any more, as to say what I liked about this brief work would give away the interesting twists.

[Ardeth Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the world's a stage

And we are all only actors. This is a clever play within a play on time travel that features Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, and a New York subway token in a very brief space.

[Kelli Santistevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this on the LibriVox app on my phone. I didn’t realize this was a sequel to the first book called The Big Time. This was interesting but kind of hard to follow.