Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2015; 3,008 words
Rating: 2, Not recommended
Time travelers visit a dinner party in McCarthy-era Hollywood where something important almost happened.
The buildup works quite well. We're given lots of reasons to worry that people may fail to pass as authentic, and small things do go wrong as the evening goes by. We realize that some of the real guests see that something is wrong with the visitors. Everything is set up to make us anxious about the outcome.
And then there is no outcome.
Beyond that, one wonders if twenty plus people could really crash a party like that and not be ejected. And, as always with time travel, one wonders what the point is of trying to change the past--wouldn't that erase the future that paid for the attempt?
