The science fiction crowd lives in the future. Really. A lot of the subscribers to Analog have already received the April issue, and have been discussing it on the Analog forum, and their main web page shows the April cover. I've got a story in that issue, but I haven't received my contributors copies yet. Oh, I suppose I shouldn't feel like I'm missing them until, um, April.

Why do Analog and Asimov's come out with issues so early before their cover date? I had a Halloween story in the last October issue of Analog, which would have been a lot more appropriate if the thing actually came out sometime near Halloween (October 31). Instead, I received my copies near the end of August. I don't think too many readers were really in the mood for a Halloween story in late August. I suppose the story should have been in the January issue for it to reach readers at the appropriate time.

I'm not sure what kind of game the publisher is playing with the cover dates. Could it be that they know the US Postal Service is so unreliable that they're giving themselves a big cushion, so readers will always get their issues "on time?" I'm not sure if it was the Post Office's fault, but I once received a June issue before the May one. I was so confused for that month.

Maybe there's some sort of fault in the space-time continuum that causes temporal magazine dislocations. Perhaps there's a story idea there.