Twenty-five years ago I scoffed at the idea of ordering books on the internet. As if! Well, I’ve come around a bit on that front. But I still very much enjoy browsing the magazine rack in person on a lazy Saturday afternoon, picking up favorite mags and rooting around hopefully behind the gardening periodicals for new discoveries.

Barnes & Noble still has a wonderful magazine selection, vast enough to keep me busy for hours every week. And yes, I do find a few new mags — this week it was 3×3 Illustration Annual No.15, a 420-page full color magazine of the best in innovative commercial illustration, and Parade Magazine’s Best of Star Trek issue, because you can never get enough Star Trek. But as usual, the magazines I took home with me were the old standards: Asimov’s, Analog, and an impulse buy, the latest Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Asimov’s looks particularly appealing this month. It’s a special tribute to Gardner Dozois, who died last year. It features memorials from fourteen of Gardner’s friends, including George R.R. Martin, Connie Willis, Jack Dann, Pat Cadigan, and ten others. There’s also novellas from Greg Egan and Allen M. Steele and short stories by Michael Swan­wick, Jack Dann, Eileen Gunn, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Tom Purdom, and others. But the highlight for me is Lawrence Watt-Evans “How I Found Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” the sequel to his Hugo Award-winning “Why I left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” one of the finest SF short stories of the past three decades.

Analog has stories by James Van Pelt, James Gunn, Jack McDevitt, Bud Sparhawk, and much more — plus “Beneath a Red Sun,” the story responsible for the absolutely stompin’ cover art by Dominic Harman. And Alfred Hitchcock, which I haven’t cracked open yet, has stories by O’Neil De Noux, Eric Rutter, Mat Coward, and many others.

[Click the images for Red Sun-sized versions.]

Here’s Sheila Williams’ issue summary from the Asimov’s website.

Asimov’s Science Fiction — March/April 2019
March/April 2019 is a special tribute issue to long-time Asimov’s editor Gardner Dozois. Gardner, who won fifteen Hugos for best editor during his time at the magazine, is remembered by thirteen distinguished authors in a heartfelt “In Memoriam.” We’re also reprinting “The Peacemaker” from our August 1983 issue. With a melting Antarctic, coastal inundations, and drowning lowlands, this poignant tale may be even more relevant today than it was when it won the Nebula thirty-five years ago.

March/April contains a thrilling mix of stories by authors long associated with Gardner as well as tales by exciting newcomers. Jack Dann touches on what happens when “Mr. Death Goes to the Beach”; Michael Swan­wick treats us to “Eighteen Songs by Debussy”; Eileen Gunn investigates “Terrible Trudy on the Lam”; Kristine Kathryn Rusch unravels the mystery of an eerie “Transport.” Lawrence Watt-Evans returns to his famous diner to show us “How I Found Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers”; Allen M. Steele reveals the secret of “The Lost Testament”; Alex Irvine tells the brutal tale of “Isla Tiburon”; Greg Egan’s comp minds look for freedom through “Instantiation”; and Tom Purdom takes us on a “January March.” We have three tales by first-time Asimov’s authors. Zhao Haihong gifts us with “The Starry Sky Over the Southern Isle”; Rammel Chan introduces us to some questionable “Tourists”; and Kofi Nyameye forces us to face the unthinkable when “The Lights Go Out, One By One.”

Robert Silverberg’s Reflections commemorates the craft and art of “Gardner Dozois.” In his On the Net, James Patrick Kelly provides us with a moving appreciation of “Gardner!” Peter Heck reviews books by John Kessel, Terry Brooks, Kevin J. Anderson & Sarah Hoyt, Tim Powers, Barry Malzberg, and others. Plus we’ll have an array of poetry and more features that you’re sure to enjoy.

Read all the details and order copies from the Asimov’s website here. While you’re at it, check out their back issue special — 12 double-sized issues for just $15.95!!

The cover for the March/April issue is by Eldar Zakirov for “The Peacemaker.”

Here’s Trevor Quachri’s summary of the March/April double issue of Analog.

Analog — March/April 2019
We always like to do something a little seasonal when the opportunity arises, so for our March/April issue, you can expect something in the April spirit (either April 1 or April 15 — take your pick), like “Hop and Hop with Gleepglopgeep! A Bedtime Reader,” from Tim McDaniel; “Parenting License” by Leah Cypess, and “The Little Sailboat,” by James Gunn, along with a selection of more serious (but still seriously good) hard SF, ranging from C. Stuart Hardwick’s “Dangerous Company” and “Beneath a Red Sun” from James C. Glass, “Second Quarter and Counting” from James Van Pelt, and “The God of All Mountains,” by Jo Miles, as well as “The End of Lunar Hens” by M.K. Hutchins, and “The New Martian Way,” an SF mystery from Brendan DuBois.

Then there’s a new fact article from Richard A. Lovett, plus stories from Matt Kressel and Mercurio Rivera; Sarina Dorie; Tom Greene; Bond Elam; Brad Presslar; Bruce McAllister; Bud Sparhawk; Eric Del Carlo; Jay Werkheiser; Vajra Chandrasekera; Jack McDevitt; Steve Rasnic Tem; Elizabeth R. Adams, as well as all our regular columns.

Despite what the blurb tells you, this issue contains no stories by Steve Rasnic Tem or Bruce McAllister. Caveat Emptor.

Get more details at the Analog website.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine — March/April 2019
Courting Danger

Love and passion are often the beating heart of enthralling crime stories. Tales from the flip side of the Valentine’s Day card in our latest issue careen from crashing a wedding to crashing a funeral, from fleeing an abusive partner to ensuring that one’s love will never (completely) die. Herein are thirteen stories of love, loss, and legally questionable choices for those passionate about crime fiction and short stories.

A young banker’s life is upended when he is jailed for embezzlement, but he gets out just in time to wreak havoc as “The Wedding Crasher” in a new tale by Doug Allyn. A master thief, meanwhile, tries crashing the funeral of his beloved ex-wife in Robert Mangeot’s “Star of Zoe.” And O’Neil De Noux’s New Orleans P.I. Lucien Caye takes on the case of a hapless ex-con whose ex-wife won’t allow visitations with his son in “The Peeschwet.”

Amanda Witt’s tale of a young mother’s desperation to escape an abusive relationship is taut and tense in “Up in the Air.” Franz Margitza’s “Eulalia” is a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, with its dark theme of measures taken to hold on to one’s love. Eric Rutter’s “Mrs. Carter” recounts a wife’s heartbreak when Pinkerton detectives show up to arrest her husband.

In “Louisa and the Tunnel” by Marianne Wilski Strong, a Cape May resident’s love of Louisa May Alcott stories helps her understand why a wealthy woman won’t allow historians on her property to research the Underground Railroad. A cleaning lady working late at night at a courthouse hears the painful wail of a departed spirit (she thinks) in Cheryl Skupa’s “Ghost in the Nemaha County Courthouse.”

Radio producer Margo Banning is pressed into service to help catch a German spy in Terence Faherty’s WWII-era “Margo and the Red Carnation.” In William Burton McCormick’s “Murder in the Second Act,” two sisters solve a crime set around a traveling theater troupe. Kevin Egan’s savvy courthouse security officer, Foxx, aids a fellow worker and gets involved in a consumer credit case in “The Courthouse Paperboy.” And Mat Coward returns with a tale that begins with a menacing note sent to a practical joker in “What Invisible Means.” Finally, the buck stops with Mark Milstein’s fast-food restaurant manager when an electrical outage cascades into a series of unfortunate events in “A Curious Transaction.”

Joining us this issue is Laurel Flores Fantauzzo stepping in as our new book reviewer. Laurel is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and the author of the acclaimed nonfiction mystery The First Impulse.

Once again, we’re pleased to present a bouquet of thirteen tales featuring characters we think you’ll fall in love with.

Want more details? Of course you do. Get them at the Alfred Hitchcock website.

Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine are published bi-monthly by Dell Magazines. Issues are 208 pages, priced at $7.99 each.

We last covered Asimov’s and Asimov’s with the January/February issues, and Michael Penkas reviewed the Jan/Feb 2017 issue of Alfred Hitchcock here. I took a look at what you get from their back issue sales here.

See our most recent magazine rack survey here, and all our recent magazine coverage here.