Someone probably knows this in more detail, and I can easily get the magazine wrong. But I’ll share the anecdote, maybe it’ll ring someone else’s bell.
Back in the day, talking 40s to 50s, Analog published a letter to the editor that was “from the future”. Several years in the future. The writer was commenting on the stories, the topics, the writers, etc. in that issue.
Several years later (and I want to say it was, like, 9 years), Analog published that issue based on that letter. They contracted the authors and stories, the whole thing.
>In the November 1948 issue, Campbell published a letter to the editor by a reader named Richard A. Hoen that contained a detailed ranking of the contents of an issue "one year in the future". Campbell went along with the joke and contracted stories from most of the authors mentioned in the letter that would follow the Hoen's imaginary story titles. One of the best-known stories from that issue is "Gulf", by Heinlein. Other stories and articles were written by some of the most famous authors of the time: Asimov, Sturgeon, del Rey, van Vogt, de Camp, and the astronomer R. S. Richardson.
Analog used to publish the rankings a few months after each issue came out. When the actual rankings for this issue came out, was there any correspondence to Hoen's prophesied rankings?
Back in the day, talking 40s to 50s, Analog published a letter to the editor that was “from the future”. Several years in the future. The writer was commenting on the stories, the topics, the writers, etc. in that issue.
Several years later (and I want to say it was, like, 9 years), Analog published that issue based on that letter. They contracted the authors and stories, the whole thing.