Reception
Critic Don D'Ammassa rated the piece one of de Camp's "best stories", and placed it among those "of particular note" among de Camp's "many memorable short stories." Roland Green, writing for Booklist, called it of "outstanding merit" and one of the author's "vintage short pieces." To Tom Easton, it "is a classic explsition of the time-travel paradox," and de Camp "always one of my favorite SF&F writers." Harry Turtledove called the story "a fine specimen of the for-want-of-a-nail story: a small change in the past producing enormous ramifications as the centuries roll by," with "things so easy as the thought they would be ... a common theme in de Camp's work."
Read more about this topic: Aristotle And The Gun
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“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
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