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Stories in the Change War series feature agents who struggle to make enough major changes in history to gain ultimate victory. Unlike the Bradbury story, "A Sound of Thunder," one tiny change will not be sufficient, because it would be damped out or negated by the other time soldiers. Major wars have to be altered in their outcomes and important people have to be rerouted in their careers or lives. (. . .) |
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The Change War sometimes results in losses that cannot be remedied, eras of Greek or Roman history wiped out, leaders kidnapped as infants, and schools of thought disappearing because their originators were never born. Nuclear war seems like a lesser tragedy compared to the possibility that the very existence of a group of people could be obliterated from the past, present, and future. Not even a memory or a single record of their existence would remain, making their deaths all the more terrible. |
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Tom Staicar, Fritz Leiber (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 4951 |
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I wrote "Coming Attraction" in 1951 when the McCarthy Era was getting into full swing and when atomic war was a chief matter for speculation and warning. My story was one more such. |
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Four influences were pushing me in the direction of science fiction writing in those days and some of them also helping equip me for writing it. First there was my job at Science Digest, where I read all the popularized science that came along in search of articles and book sections we could purchase for our magazine. It kept me thinking in the direction of new inventions and technical advances. It scanted pure science and the philosophy of science, to be sure, but made it a bit easier for me to delve into those things on my own. |
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Second there were the new magazines that were being launched, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which did much to raise literary standards in the field, and Galaxy, which was strong on the sociological side and breathed the "in the know" spirit of New York City. |
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Third there was (John W.) Campbell, who was once more encouraging me, even providing ideas, as for "The Lion and the Lamb." He was, by all odds, the best editor I've ever known at getting a writer going, if he chose to do so. |
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