Rentz’ first published story, featuring an intriguing combination of time travel and bingo on an Indian reservation. Not exactly time travel, as the researcher, funding by the Tribal Board, has a technology that is able to see into the past. In the end … spoiler .. rather than using that technology to right historical rings, saving the weekly bingo games at the casino is the top priority for the elders.
It’s a light story, but managed to take me back in time to my first (and last) game of bingo, with my nan at the social club in Blackhall Colliery in the north east of England, in about 1968. Keerist, that feels so long and far away, that to see that through a time travel machine would be like looking into an alien world. In terms of the story in hand, it’s nice enough as far as it goes, but it is very much a first published story, drawing a lot on the author’s experience, and my guess would be (happy to be proved wrong!) that there won’t be that many Rentz stories appearing in Asimovs in the future. But kudos to her for getting in there!
