The Big Time - Leiber

Time travel is a pretty complicated concept and many sci-fi authors have tackled it. I haven't read anything quite like 'The Big Time' before though. The idea is that two different warring groups, the Snakes and the Spiders, are fighting each other through various time periods. They each try to sway events throughout time to change civilization. Each side takes people from various time periods and rescues them from death...if they'll fight for them.
'The Big Time' takes place in a rest place where the soldiers take a kind of time out from active battle. The narrator lives/works there. It's a place that is cut off from time and space and none of them really understand the machinery that keeps them there. Not to spoil anything but a crisis develops and the place and everyone in it must solve a mystery that has put them all in great danger.
I liked this book. It is written with a very particular jargon that takes some time to get used to. In fact, I wish that Leiber had taken more time to ease the reader into the slang. Maybe it's better on a second pass through, once you've gotten used to it. It's a very clever book and I couldn't help but think that it could be the basis for a pretty good TV show.
A good book.