“The Great Game” is an anti-war story set in the Xili universe, and the series about Xili itself, due to its scale and the great war described in it, is often called a space opera. The title of the story, of course, alludes to the political maneuvering of European empires in the Middle East in the 19th century. This is a topical work that is part of a political debate between British ("left") and American ("right") authors of hard science fiction. In this anthology it is presented as an example of a hybrid of hard science fiction and space opera.