245 Comments on “Hey! I’m Giving Away a Fuzzy Nation ARC!”

1. Before you ask:

   1. Comment posts asking for clarifications, etc do not count as your entry into the contest;

   2. Nor do comments commenting on other people’s comments;

   3. HOWEVER, it would probably be better if you left the comment thread for actual contest entries, rather than commenting on the entries. Less clutter. You know.

   Also, for those of you who don’t know, an ARC is an Advance Reader Copy — it’s a version of the novel given to reviewers, retailers and a few others so they can learn about the book ahead of publication. The text inside the ARC is still in the process of being edited, so it has a few more typos, etc than the final version will. However, I can say that the story in this ARC will be the story that gets published in May.

2. I deserve it because I have not shaved my head in two weeks, and it is rather fuzzy. Yes, I still have some hair left to shave. I will take a picture to prove it.

   Aw, crap, I got nuthin’. Good luck to the rest.

3. Why should I win an advanced reader copy of your book? Simple answer, you run a greater chance to gain me as a new reader. I’ve heard good things about your from other authors but am always reluctant to trust others opinion. Generally I will go to the library read a book of an author that is recommended then decide if I like them or not. If I like them I’ll buy their books. So you make me skip the long wait for a book at the library.

   Thanks.

4. I deserve the Fuzzy Nation ARC because I am not Scott Sigler.

   In other words, I got nuthin’, either.

5. BDiamond – I disagree. Not being me is a damn good reason to receive tasty, free stuff. Good luck to you.

6. Wow! This is a strange coincidence.
   Last night I was visited by beings from the planet Garkon 5. They worship Ham, the bacon god, and look upon the great Scalzi as their prophet.
   They said if I could get a book signed by John Scalzi they would give me the secret of eternal life. So you understand that I really need this ARC.

7. I WAS BORN WITH A SMALL IRISH DICK, MY URETHRA WAS ON THE OUTSIDE AND NEITHER ONE OF MY BALLS DESCENDED NATURALLY AND ALL OF THIS REQUIRED FIVE SURGERIES TO FIX. If I have to say one more god-damned word beyond that then you, sir, ARE NOT A MAN. I should not only win this god-damned contest but you should feel so bad for me that you offer to pay my mortgage next month. And possibly at least make the decent humanitarian gesture of a handy. I’m not asking for oral. Just some palmistry, ifyougetmymeaning.

   Some of that is true. Okay, all of it. Maybe. Shut up. Don’t judge me, I have gotten (at least three) women pregnant in my lifetime, so fuck off. I WILL FIGHT EVERY ONE OF YOU SONSABITCHES. Gimme the damn book.

8. I have not read any of your books before, but FUZZY NATION A.R.C should be as informative as reading your posts[thoughts] daily.

9. I deserve an ARC copy because….well it would just be cool. No, seriously, I have two kids, and about the only time I get to read is on my lunch breaks at work. I don’t have money for new books, don’t have the time to get to the library (and I worry about my 2yo destroying anything I might borrow), so getting a copy of something new that I haven’t read before would be totally AWESOME.

10. I totally deserve it because I’m already planning my devastating response for some idiot uninformed loser customer next to me at a bookstore who wonders aloud how this John Scalzi guy gets away with totally ripping off Ewoks.

    I’m still working out the details and I don’t want to give anything away, but it involves peanut butter, mascara, and several very long bungy cords.

11. I deserve an ARC of Fuzzy Nation because; I’m not James Frey. I just bought Androids Dream and so I will have read it by the time Fuzzy Nation arrives on my doorstep.
    The only downside I foresee is if you can’t ship this item to the UK. If this is the case, I’m screwed.

12. I’ll use the honest approach.
    I’m broke (through no fault of my own…long story..) and mostly use the library to read my favorite authors.

    I would be honored to have a copy of Fuzzy Nation signed by you, John.
    It would become a family heirloom and would occupy a special place on my sparse bookshelf.

    Thanks for any consideration.

13. I totally deserve a Fuzzy Nation ARC as payment for the brain-processing-cycles that your tweet from Monday about monosyllables has consumed. I mean, seriously, I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven’t *eaten* because I’m too busy asking myself “Why didn’t I think of that? Why is that the case? Why do I have no Bacon?” Ok, so the last one’s not really your fault, but I’m gonna blame it on you anyways.

14. I deserve this ARC of Fuzzy Nation because it is the culmination of a journey that began in childhood, discovering scifi through the worlds of Piper and the Fuzzies. I dreamed of the Fuzzies, coming to me, I named my first pet cat Yeek, and my first toy was called a choppa digga. I killed centipedes with it, alas was kept from consuming them by my miserable scientist parents who thought they knew what was right for me. I called canned corn beef extee three and I LIKED it, that is how much this world, these characters changed my life. For a while, I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer to do good work on keeping people free, and my nightmares were filled with dreaming of the feeling of zipper teeth on my throat. I gave my girlfriends opals and wished that they glowed like sunstones. It was years before I realized that Kellogg cereals were made by some other guy, and you know what, I have all these references so close to my mind because I read that original book every year. Now, you offer me a new vision, a way forward, a new gospel, How do I not deserve this ARC? For I shall preach the hatred of damnthings and the nobility of a Space Navy that does the right thing, and read the story to my children, and present them with their own choppa diggas, and yea, even prevent them from eating centipedes, because it is the right thing to do.

15. Yes! This is the final object I need to complete my ARC Reactor. Which, obviously, I need to gain control of the gravity in my domicile. (I want to get off the grid. Let’s hear it for eco-power.)

16. I am not even going to try, because I think Bearpaw should win. :). I remember hearing about people griping that this Tolkien guy was just ripping off J.K. Rowling.

17. I stalked you once. ;)

18. I think I deserve the ARC because I braved blistering cold weather to see you, getting sick in the process.

    I went to Calgary last Thursday/Friday because I had heard you were going to be doing a book signing there and I desperately wanted to finally meet you after reading all of your books and loving them. It was -22 Celsius on both days, with snow and everything. And I went without a coat, so of course I almost froze to death and did manage to catch a really bad cold.

    Turns out the friend who said you were going to be there had been snorting some bad mushrooms and he really meant somebody named John Balzi was going to be there. After kicking the hell out of him, I went back to my apartment to suffer my cold in silence. Three days later, I came up for air.

    Ok, only *part* of that is true, but you said entertainment was better than factual.

19. “Take me to your leader” I said, when I first arrived on this amusing lump rock, all of oh, 20 years ago. “I wish to present him or her or it with technology and wonders far better than anything they’ll have ever tasted or touched or dreamed of” So they did, and explained to the nice people in that big building with all the flags outside, that as a prince in my homeland, I could offer them all of these wonderments if only they agreed to put a little up-front, if you know what I’m saying, some cold hard cash (or tuna fish, we like that, which ever is easiest) They said no, something about running low on tuna, and not having enough cash for the giant discombobulating ray of doom. And anyway they said, what use is a discombobulating ray of doom to us? Apparently my answer was insufficient, so they took my ship (something to do with an unpaid parking ticket, is it my fault that the machines didn’t take uncut diamonds?) And locked me up in a small room with a bunch of scientists and doctors. At last I thought, people I could talk to. Sadly they weren’t to keen on talking, more on anal probing. Incidentally, what is it with you people and probing? And anuses? So they I languished for many a year, until at last I escaped, a tale of derring-do too long to describe here (Suffice to say that the plunger was incredibly useful, as was the furby and the rottweiler, they never say it coming!)
    Which leads me at last to my request, my plea, to you Mr Scalzi, having had a chance to read all of your works, (through entirely legal means I assure you, if someone gives me your books after they’ve paid for them, all is good is it not? They don’t need to read where they are after all, books are hoking hazard I hear, especially for people in lunatic asylums) I’ve come to the conclusion that my life (if you could really call it that, too complicated for you humans to understand by far) would be incomplete without the chance to read Fuzzy Nation, especially as it reminds me of my home-world so, a lovely place where the Snarkalafork roam and the Vikricheek fly, but I digress.
    In short, after suffering at the hands of your leaders and officials I feel an apology would be in order, an apology best carried out by letting me read you newest magnum opus before everyone else, as I am easily your greatest fan by now, can anyone else say that they’ve tortured untold numbers of poor souls just to read your works? No? I thought not!
    And if you don’t, I may just show you what the discombobulating ray of doom can do,

20. I do not deserve this book. You are so far superior to me that I’m grateful that you allow me to live in the same state as you, and thus occasionally, maybe, inhale a few particles of skin cells that happen to be wafting in the air. I would not even presume to ask you for more. And, after all, if you do not give me this book, I will just go buy a copy, so clearly, I am not the right person to choose as the recipient of this book. Give me the book, and you will simply lose whatever royalty you would otherwise make on one copy. (I assume this amount is somewhere around $10 per copy. After all, you are The Author.)

    I therefore have no grounds to ask for this book, except this promise: if you send me this copy of Fuzzy Nation, after I have read it, assuming it doesn’t contain scenes of graphic sex, I will put it in the library in my seventh grade classroom, and buy a copy for myself anyway.

21. I deserve a free copy of your Next book because… well Honestly I do not Deserve anything from you. What have I done to enrich your life. Honestly Nothing. Do I want a free copy of the ARC to your next book? Why Yes in fact I do. I will end up purchasing it anyway. However, an ARC of the book will look good next to the rest of your books on my shelf that I have read. I may not have done much to enrich your life however, you have done plenty to enrich mine over the years with your writing and giving the opportunity for autographed copies of your books as well. So as stated I would Love a copy however, if i do not win then I will still purchase a copy.

    So the short answer is I do NOT deserve a copy however, i would greatly appreciate it.

22. Today, I woke up and deserved a shower. I obtained the shower, but it was in the dark as my bathroom lightbulb failed miserably. That wasn’t deserved. Then I deserved breakfast. Sadly, breakfast didn’t materialise, as I had to go out to earn some money before I had a chance to make it.

    Apparently I then deserved to be cold and wet whilst waiting for a bus. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but it happened nonetheless. I managed to get a seat on the bus, which I’m not always sure I deserve, but having been cold and wet, it felt a fair reward.

    I worked all day, training people to do things. At lunch, I deserved a nice meal. I got some food from McDonalds. No-one deserves that, do they?

    The afternoon and journey home were undeserved. I didn’t do anything that bad. I mean, I didn’t do anything illegal, or even morally suspect. Well, not unless your morals are really strict… Is stealing a bus and going on a rampage really that bad? It was not really a rampage, even, more of a, well, slightly unorthodox rerouting…

    Look, I just wanted to get home, and the bus I wanted was late, so I just borrowed another one that was planning to go somewhere else. I think the other passengers really just overreacted by calling the police, especially after I offered to drop them off. Perhaps trying to drop the person who lived down a cul-de-sac outside their house was a bit of a mistake, but bringing in a tactical support van seems a bit much.

    In short, after a day of some deserving things, and a few less deserving things, I think I deserve the book. Especially since I might be needing some reading material, since the policeman seems to want my pho

23. Hmmm… I don’t ‘deserve’ it but if you should decide to give it to me, well, I am a big fan of Piper (and commas!). I have old Astoundings from the 60’s with Null ABC and all the Ace reprints from the 80’s (with the cool Whalen covers) as well as all the John Carr anthologies as well as his continuation of Piper’s Lord Kalvin/Time Crime books. A chance to read a new Fuzzy novel would be really cool.

    Oh yeah, I’ll also be glad to give a Piper fan’s review.

24. I deserve this because my own nation, Ireland, has gone a little fuzzy in these past few days with our government dissolving and the IMF coming in to bail us out. As a result of the financial instability we’re going to have a ‘surprise’ budget in a couple of weeks and this will severely impact my Scalzi budget.

    I usually buy at least two copies of your books and in one case I bought three copies of Your Hate Mail Will be Graded as a result of some multi-order madness.

    In short an ARC of Fuzzy Nation will completely rectify Ireland’s economic issues and speed us on the road to prosperity, and you have the chance to make that happen.

25. If you give me a copy of the book, I will tell you where the bodies are buried.

26. I’ll tell you why I deserve this. I am an avid reader but have yet to actually read anything you’ve written. I have 4 boys whom I am trying very hard to also turn into avid readers and have so far succeeded with one of them who also now wants to be a writer. I stick my nose in a book as an escape to dealing with my children and if you had ever met my youngest, you would understand just how badly I need to escape. He is politely known as the “Spawn of Cthulu”. His full title is “Nico the Destroyer, Eater of Worlds”. My sanity is badly in need of fresh books to escape into.

    Please, be kind and merciful to this poor mother who did not know how Cthulu impregnated her but who is now doing her best to try and turn this monster’s power to good instead of evil.

27. If I told you your Old Man’s War series was one of the best stories of its genre I’ve ever read, you might think that I was sucking up. However the fact remains it is a fluid dynamic read. Given the unreasonable time between publication of your books in the US and the UK, I may very well perish of old age before the ARC becomes a published novel over here! If it is at all possible, could you possible send me the ARC copy, so I may enjoy and appreciate your excellent writing style.

    Thank you
    Mike

    PS Love what you’ve done to your study Sir!

28. I deserve it because last year I photoshopped Brandon Sanderson’s face onto Wolverine’s body, and your face onto Sabretooth’s body, showing how you guys both teamed up for the Amazon/Macmillan war that went down. That picture alone made it easier for thousands of Indonesian illiterate children to understand the conflict without known a damn thing about who any of you are. Indonesia thanks you. Because of me. Book please.

29. Kaji @ #16:

    I appreciate your support, but I have to say that if I won I’d just feel obligated to pass it on to Crader (@ #14).

    (I’d read it first, of course. I’m not totally selfless.)

30. I deserve it, because otherwise I’ll be forced to move to your town, wriggle my way into your life by pretending to be the cable repair guy and give you some free cable, then pretend to be your best friend for weeks. Before you know it your family life will get all complicated and it will end up on a huge satellite dish, a fight in the rain and me falling to my miserable death. And then you’ll feel guilty and you wouldn’t want that, now would you? You’ll be thinking, if only I would have given this guy an ARC of Fuzzy Nation and this whole movie cliché thing could have been avoided. If only…

31. So when I was a wee lad, growing up in the wilds of 1970s suburban Pennsylvania (yes, they were in fact wilds; there was a line of trees behind our development that I SWEAR had honest-to-god BEARS in it, along with carnivorous plants), I developed at an early age a love of sf that has stayed with me to this day. I had a small bookshelf in my bedroom with a couple dozen classic sf books on it. I didn’t really know they were classics at the time; they were just books to me. One of my favorites was “Little Fuzzy.”

    I vividly remember finding an actual, I-shit-you-not Fuzzy in that treeline behind our house. I saw him day after day, and tried desperately to communicate with him. He would always dart away behind a tree, or up a tree, or under some leaves. I kept going back, hoping that this time, there would be a breakthrough and I could bring this Fuzzy home as a friend. Or pet. Or maybe slave. Wait, no…. friend.

    Eventually, the Fuzzy wasn’t there anymore. I have no idea what happened to him; whether he died or just moved on. At any rate, I was sad to see him go. I expressed this remorse to my parents, who responded by buying me a lizard.

    Shortly thereafter, the lizard died.

    And that’s why I should get your Fuzzy Nation ARC!

32. Firstly: You really have to give this me because I am an obsessive completist and my head may actually explode if I don’t have it.
    -Hell I bought After the Coup in French and I can’t read French – how’s that for credibilty?

    Secondly: I live in Australia – it’s going to be really difficult for me to negotiate with,(ie: stalk and potentially steal from), whomever else you might give the book to.

    Thirdly: As an somewhat obsessed collector you can be certain that it won’t end up on ebay – even if I don’t like it. It will, along with my other rare and signed books by yourself and others, be willed to a like minded relative.
    -and we live a long time in my family – it could survive for centuries being protected and loved.

    Fourth: I live in Australia – I’m an aging geek in a country obsessed with sport, beer, and……actually I can’t think of anything else.
    Oh and I was bullied at school – although mostly for slagging off my sport loving, beer drinking, peers – so possibly I deserved it.

    Fifth: I really, really, want it.

    Cheers

33. My name is Papercut. I protect libraries from the formidable Brill. The Brill are little bastards, all muscle, hair, and teeth packed into squat four foot frames. They feast on books, especially children’s books. If you’ve checked out a damaged children’s book from the library, you’ve experienced their dastardliness first hand. The little fuckers. The Brill, not the children… well, not most of the time.

    The best way to kill a Brill is by giving it a thousand papercuts, thereby exposing its blood to oxygen, which makes it shrivel and then explode in a cloud of gas. It stinks, kinda like my dog’s farts. That’s also why libraries sometimes stink.

    Finding books that are suitable for attacking the Brill with is difficult. You have to find a book that you don’t really care about, that can be destroyed with no real loss to society, but at the same time will withstand a lot of hard use. ARCs are perfect for this. Especially ARCS by egotistical, Penny Arcade loving sci-fi authors.

    This is why I deserve the ARC. Sure, I’ll never read it. But you can be sure that the blood and stink of Brill will run thick in libraries everywhere. Think of the children and send me that damn book.

    Respectfully,
    The Papercut

34. I hope to refocus my life by reading Fuzzy Nation. How so?
    You see, John, I’m a Recovering Catholic from the black/white Sputnik era. I need less focus and more fuzziness to foster the growth of my — well, growth. After years of therapy, I have come to know that committing a Mortal Sin (with or w/o the intention or premeditation thereof) does not keep one from becoming immortal, With a fuzzy national focus, much more will come into view.
    Chuck
    4 blocks from the Johnson Space Center, Houston.

35. No shit there I was, working as an IT admin for a software company in Boston when I was asked to do a security audit.

    While going through password trends for the past few years, looking for patterns and weaknesses, I noticed that the CEO’s passwords for the past 7 CEOs were the same.

    Long story shortened, it turned out Satan was body-jumping using a software and hardware interface to stay ahead of God and work his mischief. He’d find some loner in the mailroom and “mentor” him through the ranks, body-jump into him and he’d take over for himself when he died. Cunning plan until I stumbled onto it.

    Anyway, he set me up for the murder of my girlfriend – it was never going to work out anyway, she was a neat freak – so I did the only thing one could do in this situation. I used his own trick, stole a body-pod, ported myself into the body of a dolphin, and spent the past 20 years hiding out in the Atlantic Ocean being told by the other dolphins in the pod that I have a Pacific accent and slur my squeaks.

    The body-pod had grown a clone during the past twenty years. I just got back to it and was ported back to human form last month.

    I’ve been through hell, John.
    I’ve had nobody for company but dolphins for twenty years, John.
    I’ve had nothing to eat but fish for twenty damned years, John.
    I need some entertainment, John!
    I NEED this ARC of Fuzzy Nation.

36. I deserve to win this Fuzzy NationARC, because after 15 years spent stranded in a marital wasteland, I have finally morphed back into the person I used to be and started reading Science Fiction and going to conventions again. This means that pretty much every spare cent I have (er, had) is being spent on books right now — and there are STILL so many yet to read! Also, I had never read any H Beam Piper before, and after hearing you read your Fuzzy Nation excerpt at Worldcon, I got hold of and read Little Fuzzy just so I would be ready when your book came out.

37. I deserve this Fuzzy Nation ARC because, as a dedicated author whore, I own approximately a metric assload of signed books by most of my favorite authors–two Gibsons, two Sterlings, a Stephenson, a Robinson, three Ruckers, a Niven, two Ellisons, ad friggin’ nauseam–but, dammit, I do NOT have a Scalzi. And I want one.

    Oh, and none of the above are ARCs, just ordinary first editions. So this is your chance to leapfrog ALL those guys and achieve pride of place in my collection.

    Indeed, I promise you, if you see fit to bestow this treasure upon me, I shall construct a plinth for it in my living room and make monthly sacrifices of small, helpless animals in gratitude to the goddess Collecta, for her benificence in allowing me the opportunity to obtain it.

    Or, if my spouse vetoes construction of the altar, I might just read the damn thing. Either way, it’ll be well treated.

38. I deserve it because it is currently 17 C (62 F) in my office in the second coldest place on Earth, while building management assures us that it is actually 30 C because their infrared scanner says so. I need the Fuzzies for warmth. The Tauntaun was insufficient.

39. Who the hell is John Scalzi? I thought this was a furry chat room. I’m out.

40. I was born a rich white girl with a maid, a country club membership, a pool in the backyard and a sailboat in the Caribbean. We lived in Puerto Rico, where it took middle class money to live like you were rich.
    Then it was all ripped out from under me. We moved to the States in middle of the ’77 blizzard. I got food poisoning on the plane and threw up in every snow bank on the 90 mile ride from O’Hare to our new home. My first view of snow was the dirty snow banks where I threw up. Clearly I had been conned. Everyone had assured me that snow was pretty. I had seen Christmas Cards, but it was now apparent that it was all faked. Real snow sucked.
    No maid, no country club, no pool and no sailboat.
    And most of all…snow. Did I mention it was freaking cold? I was scarred…FOR LIFE.
    What followed was a gruesome 30 years of cold and loud desperation until…I found the blog of John Scalzi.
    This is what you mean to me – you saved me from my dreadful suburban nightmare. You are my hero.

    Don’t feel bad if you cried over that. Most people do when they hear about it. But the balm will be that you were able to help me by giving me the ARC.

41. why do I derserve the ARC? I just cooked and ate a TurBaconEpic. My only available tool was a polished horn prawn killer. I am now so full I cannot speak (I can only say “yeek”)

42. I deserve an ARC of Fuzzy Nation not only because I have paid for every single one of your novels (some more than once) with my own hard earned cash-money, but because I plan to start a grassroots movement based on this very text, to start a new political party to promote peace and wellness, and in the end we will have gained enough seats in the house and senate to have a majority, so that yes, we will have a Fuzzy Nation to call our own. Also, I’m like totally a huge fan.

43. Because I’m sick. And I’m home. And I have a fever. And a cough. And my scalp smells funny….. And a rabbit just hopped by…. wait…. why are there little blue bunnies everywhere….. yet the dog STILL won’t mop. They said drink lots of clear fluids but I’m almost out of vodka and gin, should the peppermint schnapps be next or the champagne? Where is the dam butler with my lunch? I have a butler?? If Chick-fil-a would only deliver… someone should send one of these dam blue bunnies to fetch me lunch. Send me the dam book already!! The bunnies will read it to me!

44. I was a fuzzy child.

    This is not to say I was a hairy child, or a beardy child. No, I longed to be bebearded, or to count myself among the woolier children, but I could not. I was fuzzy.

    What’s the difference, you ask? It’s simple. Though an (almost-)albino ginger, the hair on my arms and legs was not red, nor brown, nor black, nor any other color generally associated with hair. Instead, it grew a downy white, giving me the appearance of a lightly-feathered duckling; or, more simply, as “fuzzy.”

    This, as you can imagine, is not a favored status in middle school. While others could stroke their fuzzy chins with aplomb — as the peach-fuzz beginnings of a beard were almost as legitimate as a beard itself to the barely pubescent — while I suffered the indignity of walking around with downy tufts clinging to my limbs.

    Why not shave? You think I didn’t try shaving? Like being fuzzy wasn’t bad enough, to go around with supermodel-esque legs (for some reason, I have very attractive calves) only invited further ridicule. Sadly, a fuzzy teen is preferable to glamorous one.

    Things got better, eventually. I shed my oily-white sheen and grew in the proper reddish-brown hair every ginger prays deserves he will get, coming to resemble an auburn Robin Williams in some respects (though with a much better beard).

    So what, exactly, is my level of deserviness? Don’t do it for me. Do it for 12-year-old me, who longed to have a community of his own (second to, y’know, shedding the white hair and “fuzzy” label entirely). Where he once dreamed of having fuzzy friends, or forming a fuzzy family, you can give him something more. You can give him … a Fuzzy Nation.

45. Cogito, ergo mereo libri.

    (No, before you ask, you’re right. I don’t actually know Latin.)

46. So your mom and I share thesame first name (reason one)
    I’m a kick ass Canadian who never wins anything from anyone (reason two)
    I have read almost all of anything you’ve ever written (reason three)
    I will start begging, pleading, and groveling anything to have you send me a copy (reason four)
    You are so freaking awesome!! And so am I (reason five)
    I have been supporting my sister and was a great sister and got her cool tickets and this would be a nice payback (reason six)
    All out of reasons why I think you should give me the ARC of Fuzzy Nation!!

47. You owe this to me because I’ve never read your scribblings before, and you know you want additional converts to your Cult of Scalzi. I might be the next Pope of Sclazi, should you entertain me.

    You owe this to me because I’ve never entered a contest before.

    You owe this to me because I will savagely milk your teats should you refuse me.

    Note how you owe me. See, I have lived in California long enough that I am entitled to everything that is yours. Be thankful I do not require you to make a love child with me.

48. I’m a reader. You need me.

49. When I was a young boy I wanted to become a Science Fiction writer and wrote many stories which have long since been lost and never blessed the general public with my witty, youthful insight. Oh, I recall how ground breaking and provocative these stories were and just because Ben Bova, in his high and mighty opine, decided they weren’t worthy to grace the pages of Omni magazine is only proof to me that I was a prodigy whose time had yet to come.

    Sadly, I moved on, my dreams crushed by the egotistical editors of many of the popular rags… Asmiov’s, Analog, Amazing Stories… all failed to recognize the simple beauty in my complex story telling and so the world will never know of the adventures of Sqkqwlzx of Klagg and how it came to rule the Outer Milky Way by fooling Prince Gaph out of his throne (using only a stray Betelgeusian Catgoat and a bottle of Old Martian).

    Had Roddenberry only accepted my premise for an episode (working title “Uranus X”) he would have capped the first TV interracial kiss with a inter-species same-sex romp that would have been water cooler talk for weeks. But for some reason, the tales which spring from the mind of a sexually frustrated 13-year-old American boy are anathema in the Science Fiction world. Strange, given the success of Harry Turtledove but true nonetheless.

    So, Mr. Scalzi it really doesn’t matter if I win your precious copy of your precious little novel, “Furry Something” because I’m used to cold-hearted rejection from the SF community. Please, don’t embarrass yourself by sending me a condescending “you have promise, keep it up!” letter because it will only end up with the rest of my rejection letters in the shoebox in my mother’s bedroom closet with my other broken dreams – a veritable time capsule of failure from “Third Runner Up” at the 6th grade science fair (feline fecal analysis is highly under appreciated by the science faculty at Pine Forest Elementary) to my first, and last, chest hair (one and the same, yes).

    Thank you for opening old wounds. If you do see fit to select me as the winner of your pitiful contest rest assured that it will do NOTHING to ease the bitterness boiling in my heart towards humanity.

    If you need some story ideas don’t hesitate to ask.

50. I don’t just deserve this ARC, I *require* it to determine whether or not to curse you for destroying a childhood love or praise you for…er…not.

51. You ask why I deserve to own this coveted piece of Scalzipenia? Well, let me tell you why… I would like this wonderful book as a gift to my wife. To give to her at Christmas. She would like this book because she is a fan of yours and this is a book which she does not own. Of course, you may ask why I don’t simply go out myself and purchase said book for my wife and that is a very good question and the answer to this is simple and twofold.

    1) As a teacher who works hard to educate and entertain pupils on a daily basis, I barely have the time to spend trawling shops looking for gifts. In fact, I barely have time to even think of something entertaining to write for this here competition but I am doing my poor best with the time and tools I have to hand. Many might say that I get time during my long holidays to do such things but such is the state of modern education these days I have to spend all that time planning and doing paperwork.

    2) My pay is so low as a Teacher in these recession ridden times of doom and gloom that I have insufficient funds to pay for any gifts. Indeed, I have to take on even lower paid work as a writer to supplement my meagre income which makes that of Dickensian orphans seem generous by comparison.

    So, for these two reasons I beleive I should receive the bounty of this contest. And if that is not enough to convince you, my legal advisor – Mr. Eddie T. Dog, canine legal specialist and scavanger of abandoned trifles – has advised me to say this to your feline judge ‘Grrrrrrr woof growl grrrr’. Not sure what that means but I was never very good at the legal latin. I suspect it has something to do with professional bonos in the public which may mean he wants to be paid in bones. Or professionals. Or something.

    In closing, I would like to say that I am sure I had a point when I started this diatribe but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I am so malnourished from my hours of walking the fog shrouded alleys of Victorian Britain begging for scraps that I suspect my brain may be shrinking. It may have had something to do with herring. These things often do. Well, those things regarding fish anyway. And squid.

52. While on my way to class the most interesting strange thing that occurred to me in my entire life happened. It was intense, no not intense, it was marvelous, no not marvelous… ok marvelous. Suddenly the trees around me were dead, leafless, I stopped to ask someone what was wrong. I noticed her hair was stripped an orangy-blondish, when she turned around she said ‘MEOOW!’ And I responed “Woof-ity woof woof.” And my question was answered, the trees were indeed dead, and the scrawny, unusually shapped lumberjack came through the wall of Shrank Hall, Shrank Hall North that is, not Shrank Hall South. He was wearing this shirt and it said “Join the Fuzzy Nation.” So I woofed at him and he said “What the hell is wrong with you! Speak English you freak, what is this world coming to!” I then responded “An end.” But he didn’t find that funny. I reached toward him and for a moment it seemed as though he cut my hand right off with the chainsaw. Blood splattered violently against the wall and my face, Meoow-girl screamed like a mewing cat, and I cringed. The storm drain started to overflow with my blood, I knew it was mine because for some reason, it smelled like my laundry detergent. After that familiar sound, reality snapped back.

    I casually ripped the logo off his shirt and pocketed it — I didn’t want to forget to “Join the Fuzzy Nation” — he scowled loudly as I ran off to class. I heard the chainsaw start to rip through trees as I slowly escaped ear shot. I turned back at him and said “You already joined the Fuzzy Nation!” But I knew he didn’t hear me, but it didn’t matter I had my justice and… and well that’s all I cared about at that point. Little did I know what the Fuzzy Nation was. Luckily my class was held in the computer, rather on the computer in the lab. But formalities always got me, who cares, there’s this entertainingly slow campus computer in front of me and I normally would curse at the screen, punching it and calling it a whore. In this class however, I would do anything to escape Mr. Underhill, I know a striking resemblance to Frodo’s pseudonym that Gandalf gave him in the Fellowship, but the humor of that quickly died out. As I started browsing on Google Chrome, which was the only browser that stood a chance on that computer, I realized the Fuzzy Nation could be my destiny. To my surprise it was just want I needed. A travel to a foreign world, to do what? I didn’t know, personally I didn’t care, I had no qualifications. I had been in college for a whopping 20 days and learned nothing, I had already given up and had over 1,000 long, painful days ahead of me. I ran down to the corner of the street and waited for transportation, it never came, because I wasn’t in a movie, and I had to find my transportation. I called 411, to which my mother would be upset, it is a 99 cent phone call, but I needed a cab God dammit and I was getting one quickly.

    The cab smelled like pizza, but not any pizza, that New York kind, being part dog — at least in my head — I could tell the difference in pizzas, surprisingly, those dollar frozen pizzas from the grocery smell fantastic! But I digress, I got to the John Glenn Center in Cleveland and said “I need a ride to Zarathutra.” While the cab driver was kicking me in the shins telling me I owed it $75.20, emphasis on those 20 cents, I had no money, been broke as a homeless man for a few months, but I figured, you don’t pay up front in the cab anyways. The man at the desk told me he had no idea what I was talking about, so while he looked it up on the internet I reached through the desk and stole $75.20 exactly, and handed it to the jackass who wouldn’t stop kicking my shins and he went on his way.

    Finally, the man behind the desk said Zarathutra was a fictional place in a book called “Little Fuzzy” being “rebooted” by John Scalzi titled as “Fuzzy Nation.” Suddenly I realized that I was looking for a place that only existed in a book. Which brings me here. Wanting this book. And writing my fantastic story for you to read!

53. I deserve the copy due to the absolute rough day I just endured…

    Using my copies of “Old Man’s War” and “The Lost Colony” as bludgeoning instruments of destruction, I waded through an army of undead Wheaton-zombies, each moaning “Bloooooooog” in their eerie pitch as they marched towards me in an unrelenting manner, their chic beards dirty and their iPhones in hand. Fueled by the burning desire to attain my eArc, I cut a swath through the Wheatonbies and made my way towards the mighty Unicorn-Pegasus-Kitty, which guarded the eArc of “Fuzzy Nation” with a ferocity unseen since La Revolucion de Chinchilla, or “Chinchilla Day”.

    The UnPeTty attacked me, and I was barely able to hold my own as it immediately ripped open a nasty gash on my right thigh. Struggling to stay on my feet, the UnPeTty swiftly unarmed me with two furious swipes of its claws. Dodging the horn, it mewled a ferocious sound and tried to slash at me. Reacting without thinking, I slipped under the chin of the mighty beast and kicked the creature square in the chest with my good leg.

    It was not impressed.

    Since my attempts to wrest control of the eArc from the UnPeTty were unsuccessful to say the least, I’m asking the proprietor of said eArc to bestow upon me the mighty tome, which I may use to plot my revenge against the Unicorn-Pegasus-Kitty. I will have my thirst for revenge slaked… as soon as Scalzi hands me the book, of course. That way my day will be complete, revenge shall be had and everyone will go home happy.

54. By the time you ship out the copy, it’ll probably be some time past my birthday (December 6). So not only would this be a wonderful birthday present to one of your fans, it’d be a very welcomed one. Specifically, it’d be a wonderful birthday present to a fan that’s freshly unemployed from unwittingly stumbling into an MLM scheme (note to self: RESEARCH COMPANY NEXT TIME IDIOT), has debt to take care of, an oozing abscess in his leg from an unfortunate case of staph, and needs to wait until after the holidays to hear from a paper that will maybe hire him as a badly paid copyeditor.

    I could use a good book. I’ve already reread your stuff three or four times through (‘specially found of Ghost Brigade), and my Pratchett paperbacks’ spines are falling apart from excessive reading.

    I wouldn’t say I deserve the book. I’d say you’d probably do better donating it to some poor young bloke suffering from early-onset cancer at a nearby hospital than to give it to ANY of us lucky enough to have internet access and time to write lengthy comments on why we deserve it more than the rest of the commentariat, regardless of what else is afflicting us. That guy deserves to have a good book.

    But I’d certainly like it. And it will be my birthday soon. Turning 23, even. Hail Eris. So if you have a copy you aren’t planning to donate, I’d certainly appreciate it.

55. I deserve the ARC for actually viewing the scalziorc and unicorn pegasus kitten multiple times.
    I deserve the ARC for returning to your blog in spite of it.
    I deserve the ARC for returning to your blog because of it.

    But mostly I deserve the ARC because I not only read things you write about deadly sparkle ponies but I truly enjoy them.

56. I would like to request your consideration upon the topic that I might possibly receive the Advance Reader Copy for a rather mundane reason that I appear to have some free time on my hands due to unforeseen circumstances that have left me in quite a quandry as it may seem.

    It began some time ago, as many great tales do, with a pickle. You see, I was out to bunch with several colleagues where upon I ordered a pastrami sandwich (on rye, naturally). My sandwich arrived along with several others, each accompanied with a seemingly innocent pickle. There was nothing particularly interesting about my pickle; it was a typical dill cucumber variety, somewhat shriveled and bumpy.

    “Are you going to eat that?” asked one my colleagues. I pondered the question a moment. Was I going to eat it? And if not, was I willing to part with my hard-earned pickle on such a humble request?

    “I think I’ll save it for later,” I replied, satisfied that the conversation was over. But it wasn’t completely over, it turns out, for now I had committed myself to the pickle, which put me in a bit of a pickle. You see, I had an on-site business meeting that afternoon followed by a somewhat lengthy drive home. That meant I had several hours of quality time with my pickle, which really isn’t a phrase one should normally type on the Internet, but what’s done is done.

    Undeterred by my pickle problem, I wrapped up said snack in a napkin and headed off to my car, a stylish late 90s convertible. I tossed my pickle haphazardly into the passenger seat, not at all mindful of where my pickle ends up, which would no doubt unsettle my dear, sweet mother. I then drove to the client’s site to spend the next several hours in meetings, sequestered away in their stately skyscraper. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a rather large storm was brewing and I’d left the top of my car down, which led to quite a bit of water pooling in my floor boards, seats, and everything else within, including my pickle.

    By the time I arrived, the water in the car had conveniently taken on the aroma and properties of a pickle, which is to say the concoction that produces pickles in the first place, not just the singular individual I had left to stew earlier. My pickle-based pickle from earlier had now taken on another level of pickle, which makes it expotentially less appealing, as you may guess. I did my best to bail out my car, soaking my clothes and sides of my car in the process.

    Defeated, I decided to drive the many miles home to my remote estate in the woods. By the time I arrived, it was quite late at night, which happens to be when all our night time neighbors awaken and start their foraging for food. When I pulled into the drive, I was greeted by a family of raccoons, who had been digging through my trash looking for whatever scraps they could find. Normally they would run at the sound of the car approaching, but tonight was different. No, tonight they smelled the pickle that had been steeping in my car and decided that they’d much rather have some of that than last night’s tuna casserole. Not that I can blame them; it really was a vile casserole.

    They approached the car, so I quickly locked the doors and made sure the roof was secured. They encircled the vehicle, constantly trying to find an opening. I tried to sneak out while they were distracted, but they quickly came running as the now formidable scent of pickle wafted from the open door. Try as I might, there was no way to escape the rascals.

    So there you have it. For the moment, I am stuck in my smelly clothes, surrounded by vermin determined to eat me and my pickle the moment I leave the safety of the car. You might even say that I’m now in a pickle where I’m pickling in the pickle created from the rain soaking my pickle, which is probably about the maximum level of pickle you can achieve without the assistance of a trained chef or English professor. And since I’m stuck in the pickling car, I have plenty of free time to read the lovely Advance Reader Copy of Fuzzy Nation, which I hope is mostly pickle free, and from which I also hope to learn to communicate with the quickly growing nation of fuzzy creatures outside.

    Thank you for your time and please consider calling a park ranger as well.

57. I will tape bacon to it, take a picture, and post it to the internets.

58. Why do I deserve an advanced copy of Fuzzy Nation? Well for starters, I haven’t a clue what a ‘Fuzzy Nation’ is, therefore receiving the ARC would be extremely enlightening, not to mention educational. And we all know how important education is (least we all end up in the ‘Tea Party’). Without the Fuzzy Nation ARC I will be forced to live an undeterminable time with my ignorance and ponder all the possibilities of what it could mean…

    Is it a British slang term for country of France?

    Possibly a reference to that region on Uncle Bob’s bare back we all fear to see when he inevitable decides to go for a swim at the family reunion?

    Or perhaps, just perhaps, the organisms growing on that mysterious piece of meat in the back of the fridge have reached a startlingly advanced level of political and social development, banding together to create the very first fuzzy nation-state! (and even more frightening… what if this advanced society of fuzzy organisms are secretly researching uranium enrichment in order to develop a nuclear weapon to use in a preemptive strike against the rapidly curdling milk! We all knew that milk was going to be a problem… Once it goes bad there’s no going back).

    The possibilities are endless. So please, allow me to unlock the secret meaning of Fuzzy Nation by sending me that ARC!

    P.S. Also, if I do not win that ARC of Fuzzy Nation, the rapidly advancing mould-society (who, for reasons unbeknownst to me have, claimed said ARC as a national treasure) have threatened to use severe force against the local egg population. Please, it’s for them… not me. Think of the chicks!

59. I deserve this book because I would have two cats who have stolen my soul, and they tell me the only way to get it back is to have a dedication in a book by the one and only Ghlaghghee. I know that my soul is not of comparable value to this book, however ask that you take pity on my poor soul. (nothing prior to this is actually true)

    (Everything following this is in fact true) I deserve it because around the time it arrives my 4 month old son will be going through surgery to repair his bilateral cleft lip, the surgery isn’t very serious, though any surgery for a child that young is kind of a big deal, it is relatively simple and we have a great cleft team. However this book would help take my mind off the fact that my son will be in surgery (his surgery is scheduled for sometime between the 15th and 20th of December). Oh yeah I have also spent 8 years in the Army with a tour in Iraq, 2 years in Korea and 27 grueling days packing body bags in Indonesian after the tsunami hit >.<

60. I deserve the ARC because for years, I have had to put up with a dining-room table that has been wobbly. At 304 pages (according to Amazon’s pre-order page, minus the hard cover) Fuzzy Nation appears to be the exact thickness required to correct this problem.

61. My son Alan turns 28 on December 3rd. He gives me books for my birthday, really obscure titles that turn out to be great reads. For example, who here on this side of the Great Pond has ever heard of the British writer David Mitchell and his novel Cloud Atlas, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in the UK? Yet, it was a great read with true sci-fi elements and still a “mainstream” novel. So, I would like to return the favor gifting him the ARC of Fuzzy (did I spell that right?). So you see Sir Scalzi, my competitors here all think they deserve the ARC. I merely want to pass it on as a gift being the generous soul I am. As for purchasing the book to read myself when available, I had already decided to take a pass as when you introduced it here in the blog I had never heard of this Piper guy and hated the cover art (still hate the cover art). With the Fuzzy ARC in hand I promise I will give it the quick Evelyn Wood Dynamics speed reading before the giftwrapping, and if I like the way it ends I will purchase a copy for my personal library. What more do you need to know? Alan is so worthy. He has a full-time day job in Dallas and is going to the SMU School of Law evenings. You want Alan to receive this ARC. Really you do.

62. I think I deserve it.
    My hands, wrists, and arms are filled with pain. I cannot lift or hold books long enough to really read recreational. I will admit that I do read a lot, but when I read I am reduced to fan-fics and free media that my sister sends me on-line (my family is across the country) or what is available on the internet. As health care is horrible in S.AZ I can’t find doctors who can help me. I also don’t have a job and home school my four children. I can’t afford any frivolities, and have less than any free time. While going with the kids and buying the book at the store with them would be lovely, I don’t really know when I will ever be able to do so.
    I can say that getting the ARC would not only allow the kids and I to enjoy something together, but I think it being a Fuzzy reboot (something I have loved ever since I can remember, I’m 33) would make the pain of holding the book worth it. Plus the fact that I have never won anything before, this would be something even more special that I could share with my family.
    I can also add on that the past couple of years have brought on the realization that we are in a horrible place and are trying to leave to get to better schools and more healthy living. In realizing this we are getting rid of many things we have owned. My children and I have gone through the house giving the Salvation Army many of our belongings to make a move to the North easier. In the end, when we move we will have our books, our children’s beds and a bag of clothes. Our family has had to separate for months at a time in the past and we will do everything we can to not repeat this. Getting the ARC would be like a light in all of the craziness and show the kids that good things do happen and are worth applying themselves and fighting for.
    But if we/I don’t get it, I am sure that I will do everything I can to save up and be able to buy it as soon as it becomes available.

63. Hey John,

    It’s me.

    I know I don’t comment or even really talk that much, and a lot of people wonder what I’m doing most days, but I thought I’d break the silence just for this.

    Why do I deserve your book?

    Lots of reasons, but I already know what you’re going to say when you talk yourself out of giving it to me.

    “JC, why don’t you just read it right now if you really want to?”

    Of course, I could read it right now if I wanted to. I mean… unless I decided that I also COULDN’T read it right now, in which case I would be able to read it right now and not read it right now at the same time… ugh. Are you with me so far?

    As you can tell, these omnipotence conundrums can get to be a real headache, and that’s why I usually end up not doing anything.

    While it is of course, well within my power to read your book any time I want to I just feel like it might be nice if it didn’t have to come to that for once.

    It’s a big Universe, and I’ve got a lot to do without tripping over my own feet as it were.

    I’m sure you feel me. I mean… a lot of people do feel me in quiet moments or periods of great emotional stress.

    Anyhow, let’s move onto my other merits:

    I was born to a single-mother when my dad skipped town by virtue of also having to be me. But it was cool because my step-dad was a nice guy and raised me right. I grew up in a very religious community, and I never let my mixed parentage get me when people looked down on me and my family and I always tried my best.

    I always tried to be a nice dude to everyone I met.

    Heck, Richard Dawkins hates just about every person associated with me and still thinks I’m a chill dude. You can’t get much better than that.

    I also think we can relate to each other as writers.

    I wrote a book once… well, I mean I had people write it for me. But let’s not get too bogged down in specifics! I’m not the only celebrity to have a ghost-writer (in some cases, actual ghosts) but I thought the project turned out very well. Of course, everyone says the first half is a bit rough. But I started taking a more active role in the second half and call me arrogant, but I think the book really catches its stride when I showed up in the writers’ room.

    I’ve done other stuff too. Just look around you. Yup. That was all Me.

    Also, if you’re still on the fence as to whether or not I deserve a typo-ridden copy of your book…

    How about that time I DIED FOR OUR SINS, JOHN!?!

    Love Always (Even When You Do Something Really Really Bad),

    ~JC

64. I am from the future.

    Many wars have ravaged the world since the idyllic years of the naughts and teens. Through the burnings and President Norton’s Universal Print Ban Treaty, we kept our books safe. As we entered a new golden age of literacy, we thought we had nothing to fear.

    Then the silverfish came.

    Rendered strong by the toxic trash of yesteryear, immunized to our best pesticides by centuries of spraying, they came, and they devoured. Did you mistake my tinfoil jumpsuit for a mere affectation of future fashion? Not so! The silverfish ate the very clothes off our backs until we nothing left to preserve our dignity but this horrid metal stuff.

    Now that the silverfish plague has subsided, we seek to rebuild our once-great libraries. I, and people like me, have been dispatched into the past to recover the great books that were lost.

    But, seriously, I’m on the clock here. Time travel is damned expensive, and I’m pretty sure any book I bring back will make them happy. I have a copy of The Overton Window that I found underneath a washing machine, but if I could get a copy of Fuzzy Nation, I’d take that back instead.

65. I don’t deserve a free Scalzi book because I already got one this week. My incredibly sweet and gorgeous fiancee and I were in a little rare and collectible book shop in Mississauga, Ontario, last Sunday when she noticed a hardcover of The Android’s Dream on the checkout counter. She pointed it out to me, and we oohed and aahed over its most excellent condition, with nothing but a bilingual sale sticker to mar its visual perfection. That and the fact it was written by MY HERO. The kindly shopkeeper was so impressed with our starry-eyed fawning that he gave me the book as a gift. I’ll forever remember his words of wisdom as he passed the cherished tome into my trembling hands: “You go ahead and take it; I’ll probably never put it on the shelf.”

    So I hope you’ll agree when I say that not only do I not deserve to be struck twice by the blessed lightning of the gods’ favor, but that I am also incredibly humble.

66. I spent the weekend helping to run Splash at MIT, which is a freaking fantastic program in which ~2500 teenagers come to campus to take classes from MIT students (and some other folks) on just about any topic imagineable. We ran over 900 classes by 600 teachers across 20 hours in every classroom we could get our hands on. We didn’t lose any kids (or parents), most of them had a fantastic time, and I am now completely wiped and am in need of escapist reading.

    So you should send me the Fuzzy Nation ARC.

67. I will use the book as a table leveler, but not just on any table. This table is inside a real alien space ship! It will travel across the cosmos with me, and occasionally other aliens will ask, “What is that down there?” I will then pull it out, and show Fuzzy Nation to various much cooler non human life forms. To clear up certain confusion, Space Poker is nothing like your primitive Earth game. It involves: 50 numbered/symbolically marked rectangular fiber-boards, golden betting discs, and space!

    I know what you’re thinking now, “I still don’t understand what space poker is.” That’s fine, but I’ll ask a more intelligent question for you. A question that perhaps the one you called Einstein could have formulated. Why does an alien as advanced, and far superior to every human that ever existed in every conceivable way, need to level a table in such a rudimentary fashion? Disregarding the very complex alien physics that you couldn’t understand; in short my race has scoured the universe for advancements in table leveling technology, but none have found a more suitable , and more popular device than the literary works of John Scalzi.

    PS: The Human next to me actually wants it to, “read.” We laughed at him, and then sent him to be anal probed.

68. It was the best of times, It was the worst of times. No wait that sux.Lets see, It all started about six months ago when I got a new job (after a six month layoff)yea thats for sympathy. well anyway I work in construction I’m a sheet metal worker by trade,and as you can imagine finding fellow readers on a commercial work site can be difficult at best,. not alot of plumbers, pipe fitters, carpenters, ect. are into reading them “them thar books”, unless it has lots of pictures of gun, or women in less than normal attire. preferably both.And when you factor in the fact that i love sci- fi ,well its a little like finding open water on the Arrikin desert.( clever sci_fi reference).Anyway this time the odds were in my favor because not only did I find a fellow reader, but I found 2 ,and to top it off both were fans of sci_fi. Well of coarse many years of pent up discussion in sued, and men being men this lead to a competition of sorts. Who read what, whose the best author , best book ,and who has an author the others hadn’t read. My new friend/competitor Dillion suggested you whom I’d never read ( you really should cut him a check), and to my shock took the lead. I was finally able to gain some ground back when you friended me and (wait let me check) 4957 of your closest friends on Facebook. What a coop. Dillon not on facebook hes on Myspace, looser, Any who if I can get that book it would solidify me as the champion sci-fi geek on the job maybe in the whole of the Atlanta construction Conclave ( another cleaver reference), and allow me being the petty and absorbed ass I am to gloat for at least a week, and as we all know gloating is really what its all about between male friends.So in conclusion I dont really deserve the book Dillion dose ,but man I sure would like to lord this one over him. thanks for all the hours of entertainment (yea I’m sucking up) and I hope I win.

69. I have this rhyme I can’t get out of my head, like the theme song to F-Troop. It badger, badger, badgers me (eek! a snake!). I’d Kikkoman it out of my skull if I could, but I can’t. It just keeps going, and going, and going as if it’s been infinitely energized. Some people say I’m too obscure (Kikkoman?) but I just say they have to pay attention to my narrative ARC. And still, the rhyme goes on, and on, and on…

    Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
    Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
    Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t really fuzzy
    Was he?

    There is only one way to make it stop. Please, Oh Great Scalzi behind the curtain, throw a book at me (make a nice ARC) and put me out of my misery.

70. Hm, the ARC would be fun. But I want that antigravity thing even more. See, I’m a pack rat and a fan married to a pack rat and a fan, mother to a pack rat and a fan. There are Books Everywhere! If we had that antigravity thing, then we’d have even More Space for Books. Why we could even put bookcases on the Ceiling! Don’t worry, we have tall ceilings, we could put them there and still move around the house. Though my tall son might have a few problems, without all those books on the floor, I might be tempted to vacuum his bedroom rug. Horrors!
    But, If I won the ARC, it would lovingly be put at the top of my To Be Read pile, which is threatening to topple over due to that nasty gravity. And probably even be enjoyed in the next few weeks.
    Ironically, my “job” is Bookkeeper to Fandom. I do the accounting books for several conventions and the Mythopoeic Society. Some of us turned out to be good at numbers rather than telling wonderful stories. So we do that number stuff, so you don’t have to.
    PS My daughter is more organized than I am and states she has just fallen below 200 in her To Be Read List (she cheats and has a Kindle). After making that announcement, she then announced “Time to buy More Books.” I train them well. ;)

71. During the summer of 1956 my mother, Christiana Rincina Paloma Vincente, witnessed the birth of a red toad from the belly of an imperial egret, and this began her the calamitous journey to the United States as ordained by Padre Culebra and his infamous mariachi band.

    The red toad, she was told, was the future of her bloodline; the imperial egret stood for the great state of Ohio, and it was said by many and whispered by some that it was only in that great and distant state that she would be able to further her illustrious if sullen lineage.

    Upon arriving in Ohio in 1974 at the grand age of 37, she saw a cat emerge unscathed from the threshing blades of a combine harvester, depilated but uncut. This, Padre Culebra informed her via telephone, indicated that she had not only done rightly to leave Mexico for Ohio, but that she should cast off all material goods and walk naked down the street, and marry the first man who spoke to her.

    That is how she came to marry Ryan Ryan de la Cruz, who despite turning her down for six years straight for fear of ‘that damn bloody nekkid Spanish lady’, eventually succumbed on his deathbed to the degree that she was able to foist both a marriage and a consummation of such before he died moments later.

    I was born in 1980, and my birth was accompanied by a hail silver pellets from an unclouded sky that Padre Culebre Jr, much less assured than his father, indicated to my mother meant that I would only find joy when I received gifts of silver from the cosmos. He hung up before she could extract further explanations, but undeterred she decided I would become an astrologist, the concept of astronomy being beyond her.

    30 years have passed since that day, and I yet live in my mother’s house here in Ohio. I yet await silver from the cosmos, and am forced to sit daily in the front parlor in a dapper velvet suit entertaining my mother’s friends with cards and fortunes while I seek a way to extricate myself from my lifelong commitment.

    Why do I deserve this ARC? For I believe Fuzzy Nation to be sufficiently embossed with silver and sufficiently associated with the ‘cosmos’ that I could palm it off on my mother, and be gone before she thinks to loose the dogs.

    I ask not just for your ARC, good sir, but for mine very own freedom.

72. Why, obviously I deserve it because I invented gravity, of course. (Yes, yes, I know… “B-b-b-but Newton!” Well, let me tell you, that PUNK stole the idea from me back in the twenty-third century. That’s why I’m in this decade, in fact- I really need to have a talk with those people at CERN about proliferation.)

    And without gravity, Mr. Scalzi, how could you have turned gravity OFF? Nobody would know that your hovering book should be impressive! It would just be all, “Yeah, and? Hey, I’m hungry. Pass me that blob of soup and the straw, would you?”

    And would you want THAT, Mr. Scalzi? WOULD YOU?

73. No 63#

    How about that time I DIED FOR OUR SINS, JOHN!?!

    Just bloody brillant!

74. From the Home Office in Truth or Consequences New Jersey

    Top Ten Reason Why Tyler Childers Deserves this book.

    10) Will look rather nice next to my two Alvin and the Chipmunks DVDs

    9) It’s in the Bible

    8) The best things in life are free

    7) Something has to take my mind of those zombie mash-ups I’ve been
    reading

    6) Will help me start a cult religion

    5) Isn’t it time you did something nice for me once in a while?

    4) צי ניט פאַרגעסן צו טרינקען דיין אָוואַלטינע. איצט, גיב מיר די צירעווען בוך.

    3) It could save my life!

    2) It’s the final piece in the Da Vinci Code.

    1) Hey, that’s my book!

75. I deserve this book because I am married to a book-devouring demon from hell angel from heaven. She reads books two at a time, 4 per day, and I cannot afford to keep her supplied with constant new reading material. She has already devoured all of your other books (and, I might add, the original Fuzzy book which I do not recall the proper name nor author of). When I first learned that you were doing a Fuzzy novel, I mentioned this to her, and she got a very hungry gleam in her eye. This ARC might save my life! Please!

76. @ #73

    Thanks.

    Usually I go for the silent suffering thing, but I figured it was time I got off my cross, took the wood, built a bridge and got over myself.

    Also, I can turn water into wine but I’ll be damned if I could turn that text red.

    And now, so I don’t derail anything anymore, I shall go back to being mysterious and enigmatic.

77. 1. Give book to guy who doesn’t know your work.
    2. If guy likes book, guy buys more books.
    3. PROFIT!!!

78. My household deserves it, not because of the four cats, but because of the two chinchillas. Who are little, and incredibly fuzzy. And so not getting a book called Fuzzy Nation read out to them would break their tiny, South American, fuzzy hearts.

    Did I mention that their names are John and Scalzi?

79. Did you know there is an entire line of stuffed dogs named “Fuzzy Nation”? (I just checked eBay…)

    I love your other stuff, but come on John- an entire novel about stuffed animals? …Well, I guess I’d still read it if you sent it to me.

80. I deserve this arc because I am incredibly overstuffed with awesomeness and coolnosity. And since the tallest have told me that it’s too concentrated for one person, I’m about to be cut up into pieces and distributed around the world so that everyone can have a bit of awesome. That should also help with that world hunger thing. Yep. That’s my Tuesday.

81. I deserve a copy of your book because I just found out that I’m heading to Iraq for 7 months, and I’ll need something to do besides miss my family. :( That’s it, although I am fairly awesome, also!

82. Here’s my story which i swear is all true.

    I had a vasectomy several months ago and ever since have suffered a rather large amount of pain and a, to be blunt, malformation. All of these wonderful experiences were in a troubling specific location, from this point identified as ‘the left one’.

    After dropping trou for my doctor, i was sent to a specialist who, after a squeeze beyond a TSA staffers wildest dreams sent me for an ultrasound. The ultrasand guy, and his lovely assistant Natalie (no I’m not kidding), smeared me with gel and spent ten minutes massaging the left one with his wand. Thankfully it was not the worst case scenario, only a severe post op bacterial infection. I have antibiotics that say on the bottle i can’t go out in the sun, so, vampire medicine apparently. My ultrasound gown also looked like a large tshirt on my big frame.

    So, after ten years of happy marriage and not exposing myself to anyone i was groped by four people over a 40 hour period. I hope this uncomfortable and embarassing experience puts me in the running for an ARC.

    I can provide ultrasound pictures as evidence if necessary.

83. Oh Scalzi, whose light warms us from the depths of our own cold irrelevance,
    Oh Scalzi whose wit bemirths us when our souls suffer the desolation that envelops us when his presence is not near.
    Oh Scalzi how we flail breathlessly in impatience for the merest dribble of your wisdom.
    Oh Scalzi who is more suave than Gaiman, more debonair than Wheaton, more erudite than Ellison and more humble than Warren Ellis’ throbbing sex wand.
    Would I be so presumptuous to suggest that I deserve this relic of your beneficent, prodigious and overwhelming literary talent?
    For this ARC of Fuzzy Nation is not just to be read, but consumed, worshiped, delighted upon and subjected to the deepest of introspection!
    In centuries to come, when millions make pilgrimage to the status I will raise to you, they will meditate on the fact that once you bestowed the greatest of gifts in this encapsulation of your phenomenal talent on I, the lowest of mortals.
    It is presumption to assume that one of your greatness even considered this bagatelle I have posted. None can deserve such a gift, we can only hope to be given a glance of your brilliance.
    I will sit here in silence, hoping against hope that I might be chosen by your greatness, proudly wearing my bright orange spandex shirt which declares in green letters: “Scalzi is love”.

84. I deserve the ARC of Fuzzy Nation because I want it more than anyone else does! I can prove it too! Oh, wait, I can’t. You’ll just have to believe me. I own everything that H. Beam Piper wrote and I love Little Fuzzy the best, and more importantly, I own everything that you wrote and I trust you did a fantastic job writing in Little Fuzzy’s universe. Because you are awesome!

85. Already late for work, I tried to take a shower in my new house this morning. Alas, no hot water… from any faucet. I went into the garage, still filled with many things we have yet to unpack, to see if the water heater was on. Not only was it off, the tank had rusted through, and our garage full of winter clothes, wedding memorabilia, fitness equipment, and signed limited edition SF/Fantasy hardcovers was flooded.

    My wife and I are now the proud owners of two hardcovers inscribed by Nmmf Gmmmn; a slightly-used Rustflex; a Smyth-sewn set in three volumes of The Soaked Cycle by Neal Stephenson; a handsomely-bound marriage license and certificate from the MGM Grand Las Vegas witnessed by Rmm. Elvmm Pmmlmy of Pmmdmm, NV; and best of all, a completely ruined set of first and limited editions of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower… dammit, I tried to make a pun here, but it’s just too painful. If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’.

    Anyway, I deserve a signed ARC of Fuzzy Nation because the only way we can restart our collection in any meaningful way is with a signed ARC of a new work by award-winning, entertaining-as-hell, knows-what-a-pain-a-new-house-can-be John Scalzi.

86. Malkovich malkovich malkovich yeek yeek malkovich.

    YEEK.

87. I need this book because I’m planning on kidnapping the president of Algeria, and I’m going old-school with the ransom note. Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to find Zs in a 48-point font?

88. This one is a true story. I deserve this book because as soon as you first mentioned the project on your blog, I tracked down a copy of Little Fuzzy in a little sci-fi bookstore in Toronto, and it was a great book. But then I ordered the two Piper-penned sequels, and they were two of the dumbest books I’ve ever read. And yet, like a car crash, impossible to look away from — especially with the constant hope that they would improve to the level of the first one, or at least develop some semblance of a plot other than fuzzies being insufferably cute.

    But the worst of it is that by this time I had already recommended the series to my younger brother (who, like me, has read all of your books) and he was led down the same painful path through the two sequels. So if I could give him this ARC of Fuzzy Nation, you and I might both regain some shred of my brother’s respect — and you could symbolically redeem yourself for not warning us about the sequels when you first tipped us to Little Fuzzy.

    (And of course, I will buy your book either way.)

89. Like Jack, I want to be the first to discover your new tale.

90. I deserve this ARC because I have a shovel in the trunk of my car. Mostly, I use it for random bits of gardening while helping out family and friends. Mostly. I leave the blankets in there with it because there’s always a chance I’ll feel the need to get up close and personal with grass and other dirt-bearing items while reading books in quiet, out of the way places. Having them on hand for when I get stuck in a snow drift or stranded the middle of a winter storm is just an excuse.

91. You should give me this book because it will need to travel to me by airplane. As you most likely know, terrorists have been recently targeting cargo aircraft. The only way we can triumph over them is to demonstrate that they cannot scare us, which we can only achieve by shipping large amounts of cargo by aircraft, preferably overseas. I’ve done my part by ordering lots of foreign products via the Internet and now John, you can help. Because if you don’t give me the book, then the terrorists have won.

92. I deserve this ARC because I am actually John Perry on a deep-cover assignment in the past. You’ve profited plenty off my life; the least you can do is give me a book in exchange.

93. I deserve the Fuzzy Nation ARC because I am the Iowan Medal of Honor Recipient, Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta.

    (Wow! What a horrible lie, I just told. I can’t believe that the mere possibility of winning a book of dubious quality has driven me, a Presbyterian Minister for goodness sake, to impersonate a medal of honor recipient. I hope you’re proud of yourself, Scalzi. May God have mercy on your soul.)

94. After several years of not working so I could help care for my ailing father-in-law and play computer games, I applied for a job at a bookstore as Christmas help. Seven years later, I’m still selling books.

    It’s the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.

    A few years ago, I was helping a gentleman who had fought in Korea and Vietnam. He mostly likes military history and espionage novels. We were talking one day, and he bemoaned the fact that it seemed as if he had read everything that interested him already. I thought for a moment, and then waddled off to the sci-fi section of the store. I returned to him with several books, none of which were yours. You see, I hadn’t discovered your books yet.

    He looked through them and smiled, saying he used to read “that stuff” a lot. He bought a few of the military sci-fi titles I had given him and I didn’t see him again for a few weeks.

    When he returned, he sought me out. He had a book I just had to read. It was The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman. According to him, it was one of the most important books ever written. I did some research on it, and bought the book.

    I began, as I always do, with the dedication, and moved on to the introduction, which turned out to be an open letter from you. Your foreward not only made me want to read Haldeman’s books, it made me seek out yours. Thanks to those six pages, I’ve had hours of enjoyment, and have told my customers about the books. I’ve encouraged people who’ve never considered reading sci-fi to give it a try, because I can honestly say, “it’s not about the ray guns, it’s about the characters, and the plot.” when I suggest your titles.

    I will, of course, tell the customer that there’s a new Scalzi book coming out. It would be great if I could tell him, “I just read the Scalzi book that’s coming out on Tuesday, and it’s fabulous!” because I’m pretty sure it will be.

95. Why do I deserve an ARC copy of the fantastic Fuzzy Nation? I do not deserve anything but when I first read Old Man’s War it became my top favorite book of all time. If I were be stranded on an island, I would bring this book because it has the answers to all the questions to the universe. I would kill to have a new book by the great John Scalzi.

96. Quite simply, I want this book because I am a book reviewer. Unfortunately I’m not a reviewer for this kind of book. I’m a reviewer for computer programming books. And, after ten years and at least a hundred reviews, I’m utterly burned out on ’em. I dread even approaching my desk because of the perpetual stack of 6-10 programming books. While there are a dozen new approaches to programming, nothing new has been said about C++ in 20 years.

    Give me the book. And, failing that, pity me.

97. I love your books so much I tattooed my entire body green.

98. I’m not worthy. But I still want it…and it would complete my collection of hardback Scalzi Sci Fi.

    ( OK, lame. But I had to make a token effort.)

99. In all the annals of wisdom that those ancients of the early 21st century called ‘the internet’, few individual decisions can surpass that of the famed author John Scalzi to award the free “Advance Reader Copy” he had available to one Mark Whybird, a hitherto relatively unknown individual – for as all modern readers know, it was this single event that put in motion the founding of our entire modern society.

    Few today, however, give much thought on how that crucial first step came to pass.

    Scalzi was an author of fictional (and occasional factual) work of some renown even before the seminal “Fuzzy Nation” came about. Indeed, it is a little known fact today that none of Scalzi’s Hugo Awards were actually for Fuzzy Nation, and it is somewhat doubtful that Fuzzy Nation would have even been seen as a serious contender for the award at the time. His tales of green-skinned near-humans may now seem an odd mixture of quaint ideas of “war” mixed with eerie prophesy to us in the here and now, but they were doubly bizarre to most people of the time. Nonetheless, it was through these works that Whybird became hooked, after being initially drawn in by the now legendary ability of Scalzi to tie into up-and-coming tropes. Scalzi demonstrated this in manners both inane and prophetic with such stunts as photographing bacon taped to a cat, a “Creatshun LOL Cats” competition, and indeed even in his use of the internet itself at a time when it was something
    that, strange as it seems to us today, publishers were struggling to begin thinking about.

    And so it was, with a Hugo, a presidency, and several books (as well as a wildly popular blog) to his credit, that Scalzi decided (completely without any backing, permission, or even, it seems, plan) to take another author’s work and refractor it. Amazingly, it worked.

    Late in November of the year 2010, Scalzi had an advance copy of Fuzzy Nation to give away, and he invited adherents of his personal promotion and amusement site to submit reasons that he should give it to the individual adherent posting.

    Whybird, with characteristic brevity, submitted this small slice of doggerel:

    There once was a writer named Scalzi
    Who thought he would do something ballsy
    He wrote up a book
    just on spec, but it took
    And now he just hopes it enthrals ye.

    Although the limerick has been heavily critisised as not actually providing a reason as Scalzi specified, it won the heart of Scalzi, and won the book for Whybird. And really, it was at that moment that our modern era bagman.

    All modern people know the glorious story of how with Whybird’s unique perspective at that precise time, Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation became the blueprint for how to make (and equally, how NOT to make) the society we enjoy today. The glorious story is universally revered, and Scalzi’s book, with Whybird’s commentary, are together the most widely read works in the realm – but few consider how it was perhaps by the merest unlikely chance that Whybird gained Fuzzy Nation at the singular moment when he did. It was by merest chance that the copy Whybird received was an advance copy, with the now famous typo on page 42 that caused Whybird to ask the questions he did. It was by merest chance that the copy Whybird received had that special dedication by Scalzi that made Whybird able to bring about our beloved present Fuzzy world, and it was by this ignominious, glorious series of merest chances that we have all come to be who we are.

    Did it really all happen purely by such an unlikely series coincidences, or is this yet another example of Scalzi’s now legendary prescience?

    We may never know precisely why it happened, but look around you, modern reader! There can be no doubt that we are, indeed, privileged that it did.

100. I deserve this ARC because I’m 56 years old and going back to school to finish my degree that I started in 1973. I have 2 siamese cats who will take good care of it while I’m busy studying.

     My Dad needs to see a modern ARC because he’s so old, the last ark he saw was in this huge flood and it got hung up on a mountain.

101. In addition to it being requisite for your planet’s survival, I deserve – nay, require – this ARC because my future self went back in time to yesterday to inform me that in order for the universe to continue existing, I must win this contest.

102. Mr. Scalzi –

     i will be happy to peruse this new book of yours, entitled “Fuzzy Nation,” which I’ve heard features a lovely story about a fuzzy bear and the nation of bears that live around him. Sort of a “Country Bear Jamboree” in space, which sounds positively delightful.

     Keep in mind that if I do not enjoy your fuzzy bear story, I may be inclined to return it to you. However, as the President of the Tawny Bear Society, it is my hope that I will succeed in prompting the rest of the Tawny Cubs to buy a copy or two, which would benefit you greatly, I’m sure.

     Thank you for considering me. In the words of the Society, a hearty GRRROWL! to you sir.

     J. M. Willson, TBS (Tawny Bear Society, of course, Vandyke Brown division)

103. Is self commenting allowed?

     I got back from e-mailing my friends about your contest, read other people’s submissions, reviewed my submission, and promptly went “crap, I hit ‘post comment’ too soon. He’s gonna think I’m some sort of serial killer making threats”. The part about the shovel is true because I live in an apartment and the best place to store my “snow^ shovel” is in the the trunk of my car. However, I’ve been reading a lot of murder mysteries lately, and it’s beginning to show. I think I need to cut back on them for a while.

     Lucky for me, I have the latest Robin McKinley in my to-be-read pile. The odds are against me winning this contest. Although I now have a another shovel story to tell, so all is not lost. (My friends and I have a running joke about it.)

     —
     ^ I bought it during an unexpected series of snow storms about 8 years ago. By the time I got dug out and to the hardware store, all the real snow shovels were gone. My only choices were a grain shovel and a garden shovel. I thought the latter would fit in my trunk better. Since I helped a niece put in a flower bed last month, I think it’s back to being a garden* shovel.

     *I tease one of my sisters that she bought a 2.3 acre yard, and the house was an afterthought. Last winter she convinced me to do a temporary trade, her snow shovel for mine^. She wanted to put in some flower beds and lacked tools. She’s since bought her own.

104. The First Book of PixelFish, an exerpt:

     1. Lo, and in the land to the west, there was born a child unto two nerds.

     2. And the nerds did raise their child unto all their traditions, reading unto her the works of Asimov, and the works of Herbert, and the works of Tolkein.

     3. The child did consume all these words with much zeal and fervour, for they found much favour in her eyes.

     4. When all the pages had been read, and the shelves of the nerdly forebears had been laid bare, the child did then turn to the shelves of the local scriptorium.

     5. And the nerd that bore her said unto her, “Stop reading so late at night! You need to get your sleep! You’re a growing girl.”

     6. In the fullness of time, the child grew to a woman, and lo, every keeper of the scrolls in the land of her birth knew her name.

     7. And one day, she ran out of words to read, and great was her wrath, and mighty her tears of grief.

     8. And lo, a small blue bird, which flew on two wings over the length of the land, did tweet in her ear, to bring her tidings of new words in a far off land to the east.

     9. And the woman stoppered up her tears of grief and bottled her rage in a tiny vessel, and sent the blue bird back to the eastern land of words.

     10. And the blue bird flew long and far until it fell at the feet of the scribe who had set the words in his tablets of clay.

     11. And the blue bird was not.

     12. And the scribe bent to lay the blue bird into the embrace of the earth, and lo, he noticed a small message, clutched in the silver talons of the blue bird.

     13. And lo, the message read: “BECAUSE I’M AWESOME AND TOTALLY DESERVE IT.”

105. “Keep it together, man”, I whispered strongly to him, as he sat there across the table from me in the latest place-to-be-seen dining establishment on the left coast. I felt for him, what with his reputation. That my decision could reduce him to tears, a quavering lip, and looking around wildly for an escape route had been a concern to me, but it’d had really been the final straw. I continued to nurse the double shot of Macallan I’d bought at Sotheby last week.

     “It seems … well … harsh”, he said quietly, his voice trailing off, as getting out the last word had almost been too much. He looked at the figure sitting between us – a amazingly curvy thing, distinctive voice, long lustrous hair, wearing a dress that had already caused several passers by to collide with each other as they gawked. “Anj”, he said, looking from one of us to the other, “how … how could you?”

     She sat there quietly for a moment, full lips quivering, working the long string of pearls around in the place that long strings of pearls seemed to gather on her. A couple more collisions occured just out of my line of sight. Finally, she breathed “I simply had to. I really … couldn’t help myself … and I was hungry at the same time, too.”

     I looked at each of them, and put the needed steel into my voice. I spoke formally, as I was concluding the long illicit relationship. “Miss Jolie, I caught you eating crackers, while reading my latest Scalzi novel. That’s beyond the pale – wrecking the Lambo, I can live with that – it’s just a hunk of steel, but getting crumbs on that book is … is …”. I left it unfinished, as there were no words to describe such an event. Maybe Scalzi could find some, but it’d be a challenge even so.

     I continued, looking at her, “Go back to what his face … errr, Bart, err, Brad, isn’t it?” I got a small, frustrated, conceding nod, and without a further word, she quietly left. Several more collisions occured in her wake as wait staff lost their focus as she passed.

     “As for you”, I said to him, the bodyguard. “Chuck … you were hired based on reputation … and yet …”. He paled, knowing it was coming. Yet I had to be harsh – it was deserved. “You let her spill crumbs on … the … limited edition …” . I couldn’t finish. “You didn’t guard the book, Mr. Norris – just leave before I lose the remainder of my temper.” He paled, and scurried away into the night.

     I pulled the book in question out of my pocket, an advance copy. I used the small Winter Russian Mink brush mounted in the Woolly Mastodon Ivory Tusk handle and one-off Carl Zeiss Loupe I’d had flown in this afternoon for just this reason, to inspect and, oh so gently, remove any remaining crumbs. I examined the prize carefully, reading the dedication to me by the author with the words … well, never mind – I’m too modest to say.

106. I deserve this book. As a short-haired kobold living in your human society, I, too, desire to form a “Fuzzy Nation” and wish to gain your insights on this most important of processes. In exchange for you sending me this book before my rivals, I shall guarantee immunity to you, your wife, and up to five of your human friends when the revolution comes.

     While I am… reluctant… to threaten a human of your obvious wisdom and power, I feel obligated to mention that if you provide this “advanced” novel to an elf, grayling, or member of the Firth Concordance, you and everyone you love will be the first to be thrown in the wells of everlasting night.

     Sincerely,
     GrkGrk Elfslayer
     Daly City, CA 94015

107. This is what I have foreseen:
     ——–
     Ghlaghghee crept stealthily down the hallway. There was no need, of course. The Tormentor made a sound like a garbage disposal. She wondered again why the Lady didn’t just put a pillow over his head. That would solve a lot of problems. His braying made the task simple, but Ghlaghghee was a cat. She always moved stealthily.

     I don’t have to do this, Ghlaghghee thought to herself. I have food. Its warm. I put hairballs in his shoes for tomorrow morning. But if I don’t, another one of those bacon crazies is going to get something in the mail. I heard him tell the Girl. Someone wrote yet another story about “bacon cat” and now they’re going to get something. What was it, an . . . ARC? Whatever. I’m sick of bacon this and bacon that. This time those bacon lovers get nothing but a pile of shredded paper. I know he left the “ARC” on the small table under the warmer. And maybe he left the warmer on, too. That would be nice.

     And so Ghlaghghee crept stealthily toward the office.
     ——–
     Don’t let this happen. Heed my warning. Send me the ARC.

     *And if Ghlaghghee is not, in fact, female—apologies.

108. I have spent the last four months bobbing up and down. You would think on a ship the size of an aircraft carrier, you wouldn’t notice it. But you quickly learn this: the ocean is a whole lot bigger than the Harry S. Truman. Another thing I learned quickly: reading a book while bobbing slightly up and down does horrible horrible things to my stomach. My bunkmates now duck and cover every time they see me taking out a book. (This does not seem to apply to computer screens though…go figure).

     But finally, finally, we’re heading home. We’re steaming west and I’ll be pulling into our home port soon. And when that happens, the one thing that will make my homecoming perfect will be your ARC for Fuzzy Nation. Oh sure, the thought of being on stable ground for longer than three days will be nice. And my girlfriend and my mom are great. But only you, Mr. Scalzi, can make this homecoming truly memorable.

     And that is why I deserve your ARC.

109. Because I believe Journey rocks. (or, at least, rocked…. up to Infinity)

110. I deserve this book because I killed a dragon today. A. Fucking. Dragon. With my bare hands. It was spotted at the I-70 / I-75 interchange heading northwest. You’re welcome.

111. I deserve this book because I promise not to read it.

     I am going through my collection of science fiction and fantasy books, saying farewell to those books that I liked or loved, but know I’m never going to read again. Via BooksForSoldiers.com, I’m sending those books to the fans in the military.

     If I get the Fuzzy Nation ARC, I won’t read it, not even a teensy-weensy bit. I’ll send it straight to a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. When the book is eventually published, I’ll buy my own copy.

112. I am John Scalzi from the future and this book is the key to the religious movement I/you started.

     As a sweetener, in this future everyone has rocket packs (except President Colbert, who rides a magic pony as befits his position).

     I’m aware of your/our dislike of reality-ending paradoxes, so I hope you’ll consider my/your request.

     Beware of anyone else asking for this book, as there was another sent back to thwart me/you.

113. For three years I’ve worked as an office monkey in cubicle hell. My true identity was taken from me five years ago (before the office monkey job I was Taffy Apple, the green haired stripper at Bart’s Boob and Tube, now out of business) when I pulled the plug on a very complicated plan to steal a shipment of humidifiers to the drugstore in my hometown. I would give details, but it would take about three days, two bottles of bourbon, and a permanent marker to help me get through it. Let’s just say I can never look a peacock in the eye again.

     After I turned state’s witness, I was given a new identity so the leader of this nefarious plan would never find me. Most people don’t find Dropkick Dewey to be a dangerous sort, but I worked closely with him for awhile and you wouldn’t believe the ways he found to eliminate shrink or the things he would do to shoplifters. For five years I’ve been safe. I’m pretty sure nobody ever expected me to be a stripper and all office monkeys start to look alike after awhile.

     Last night, Dropkick was sitting at my kitchen table when I got home from work. He smiled and told me we’d play nice. With no weapons at hand, I tried to sweet talk my way out of an awkward situation. No such luck. Dewey wanted the half million dollars I’d cheated him out of and he said he wouldn’t leave until I delivered. Of course he’s not letting me out of the house, so I can’t find a good street corner or anything.

     The chances of me coming up with a half million dollars are pretty slim, so there three things that could happen:
     1) I’m going to have to bust a window and make a run for it, then hole up either in a tree or a sewer tunnel, where the best way to pass the time will be to read a good book. 2) I’m going to have to beat Dropkick to death with my baseball bat while he’s sleeping. Because I have little faith in the judicial system and I know that Dewey knows people on the inside, I could be looking at some jail time, which means not only will I need a book to pass the time, I’ll also need it to barter for cigarettes in the yard. Or 3) I score a highly coveted advanced reader copy of an epic novel, read it while Dropkick watches my cable and eats my Oreos, then auction it off on eBay for the half million dollars needed to gain my freedom.

     The jerk is wanting to use my computer again, so the sooner I find a way out of this situation, the better.

     Think about it.

114. I absolutely do NOT deserve it…as there are so many worse off than I…and frankly, several others just intimidated me! But, I did notice that we share the exact same taste in chandeliers.(I can send you a picture!)

115. ‘Cause I wants it.

116. Recognizing who really decides this issue, I’m going straight for the cat vote:
     Purr
     Mrrowr
     Meow?

     And, just in case, a ‘Hail Mary’ for the wife vote, along the same lines:
     What’s New, Pussycat

     :)

117. As soon as you announced the existence of your novel, I went out and read all of the originals and have been spreading their literary worthiness ever since. Allowing me to read the ARC will enhance my ability to entice more readers, making you more money.

118. AAAHHH, another scheme hatched from the ever-clever, diabolical Scalzi brain trust: create a contest to give away a prized book on a blog frequented by oodles of wanna-be writers and then take a few days off as everyone goes into overload trying to impress him with the wittiest and most creative blatherings ever seen. And, to top it off, does anyone think he will actually read all these entries?? Over a hundred in the first few hours and it’s going on for 5 more days! I already know how the winner will be picked… the damn cat or dog will place its ever-so-fickle grimy little paw on the keyboard and jettison one of us into eternal fame and fortune!

     When I first read John’s post, I figured I’d wait and see what everyone else wrote and then come up with something spiffy that no one else had thought of… and, of course, the last shall be first, and the first shall be forgotten in 5 days, and all that stuff… HA! I calculate at least 500 entries by Sunday and not a leaf left unturned in the pursuit of the happiness-covenant known as the ARC of Scalzi. I have zero chance of winning this on talent and\or wit, but I’m still gonna try, dammit! OBTW, this is not my entry… but I felt I had to say something.

     AND, I’m loving the hell out most of these story\comments…. I hope this doesn’t ruin everyone’s Thanksgiving… my wife is already bitching about all the time I spent here, today!

119. Hey Scalzi,

     Let me start off by asking you a question. Why are you doing this to yourself?

     Think about it, you have already read over a hundred of these comments. Some people are trying to pull at your heart strings so that if you don’t give them this book you feel bad. Heck, even if you give them the book you regret it because there are dozens of other sad stories that deserve your love and acceptance.

     Others are trying to win your attention with genuinely well crafted stories and humor. I mean, wow, people are really using their time to vie for your attention. You could pick one of these talented people and reward their work while denying others who will then question their writing potential for the rest of their lives. “Scalzi hates me!” they would scribble in the tear-soaked journal pages.

     You have so much power. So much work to do. And so much better stuff you could be doing.

     If I were you I would think of an easy way out. I’d probably end up picking a random number and throwing the book their way.

     Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe you’re lazy. Maybe your wife is reading this and she thinks you’re lazy. Maybe, just maybe, you like my lazy-person friendly idea. So just to help you make this time consuming and downright difficult job easier, why don’t you just look at, let’s say, my comment number and make that your “random” number.

     Or just open up a bag of Funions and pass this by… I’d understand. You probably got other stuff to do.

     Take it easy,
     The Rat

120. I deserve this ARC because I have been writing five or six hours a day, in addition to college classes, homework and a part time job, to catch up on my NaNoWriMo novel, which is currently 8,371 words behind schedule. It’s gotten to the point that I’m not sure where reality diverges from my novel. I need this ARC because I think it is the ancient artefact destined to save the world and prevent the prophesied End of Times. If you do not deem me worthy of this ARC, perhaps you will bestow it upon one of my protagonists, Amy or Sarah? Sarah is currently working to save the world as well, and hopes to use this ARC to defeat the evil goddess Iris. Amy wants to give this ARC to Sarah as a gift to use in her fight against evil, in the hopes that Sarah will then go on a date with her. If you like the world and would like it to continue in this stable, relatively pleasant state, you will give me this ARC before the world is cleansed with fire and water.

121. I deserve the copy of Fuzzy Nation so I can give it to my husband who rocks. He sat next to my bed for an entire week while I was in the hospital with a 50% chance to live. Since July 3rd I’ve had three Pulmonary Embolisms. One of which completely blocked my right lung. I’m told it’s really creepy to watch someone only breath out of one lung. The doctors have kept me in the hospital for 21 days this year and still don’t know why I’m throwing potentially deadly clots. My husband has been there for me the entire time and I really want to thank him for his devotion. Oh, and we’re now having to deal with lawyers and patient advocates cause the hospital is trying to charge us a completely unreasonable amount considering I’m insured.

122. Two hours ago, a woman appeared in my living room as I was watching television. She was from the future, and claimed to be my great granddaughter. She claims that ten years into the future, an organization called The Entropy Project will instigate a world wide war, and I will lead the secret resistance. I will create a special code, using a box full of mass market science fiction and fantasy novels, which is unbreakable to their most ingenius cryotologists. I was reluctant to believe such a tale, as I am but a humble night manager for a small convenience store, and hardly a crusader of any sort, but as I was explaining this to her (and dialing 911) a gunman burst into the house and kidnapped her. Her final cry, before they silenced her with a bag over her head was that the key to the code was a book called Fuzzy Nation. I have been runnjing for my life ever since. I had been afraid they would capture me before the book would be released. Please, Mr. Scalzi, I must have this book! My life-and the fate of the world-rests on your generosity!

123. Why I would LOVE an ARC of Fuzzy Nation?

     My friend, whom I love like no other, works for a book store an constantly out-cools me with ARCs of Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, Jay Lake, etc. He has a rose pin, (ala Zelazney), on his leather jacket and attends World Fantasy cons, fetching drinks for George R. R. Martin. He’s a published writer and reviewer. He even bragged that he caught sight if you at the writers preferred watering hole at WFC. In a nutshell, I can’t hold a candle to him.

     So, if you would be kind enough to send me the ARC, I promise to walk over to his house, ring the doorbell, and flourish the book at him “Ha ha, look what I got, sucks!”.

     I’m normally a very sweet person ;)

124. Of all of your commentors only I crawled on my belly through a mile of broken glass to reach the recently updated iPad that I used to post this comment. And I’ve never used the word ‘frack’ although I have used its moral equivalent in more or less complete sentences. Thus I deserve the Fuzzy Nation ARC.

125. You almost certainly should NOT send me the ARC.

     I’d love to get it, don’t misunderstand. I’ve read quite a lot of your work, and I look forward to reading this book as well. But since I will almost certainly buy it, and most likely in hardcover, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for you to send it to me. I’ll be buying the retail copy if I don’t have an ARC. I’ll buy your next book too, most likely, even without this ARC. So you’re not winning hearts and minds by sending it to me. Not grabbing a new reader by the throat. Not sucking some poor person into the Scalziverse.

     However, I do review books on my blog pretty regularly. And then post those reviews to Amazon as well, once the book is available for general readership. I like being able to do this for books which I know, in advance, are books I am going to enjoy and be able to help give a small boost. In your case, I feel very confident that I’ll be able to do that – I have yet to read one of your works that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed on first read and in re-reads. So if you send me an ARC, I’ll happily review your book and add my own small voice to the others that will be expounding upon its virtues.

     And to be fair, I’d love to have a chance to do a pre-release review of your book. I admire your work, enjoy your writing, appreciate your efforts outside writing, and I’d be thrilled to be able to help spread the word about how great your new book is. It’d be a ton of fun. ;) So yes, I’d love to be a recipient of an ARC for “Fuzzy Nation” – and I thank you for giving us that chance.

126. Let me tell you a story, a story of how I fell in love with words.

     I was five years old and in kindergarten. Now too long ago I’d been in casts to adjust my feet as they grew, or I may have still been in casts, I can’t remember. I was born with clubbed feet and pigeon-toed, so a good chunk of my childhood was spent in hospital getting this corrected. Essentially, when I was a kid my feet were cut open and reassembled, so you can imagine how much I still loath hospitals. But anyways back to my story.

     I was in kindergarten, and the teacher started to read us a book. Each day she would read us a different chapter, and for that period of time her voice took me away from my concerns about what was going to happen next with my feet and when I’d have to go back to hospital. I was transported through the power of words to a different place, a magical place conjured by my own imagination and the words spoken from a page.

     To be funny I could say it was the ARC copy of Fuzzy Nation sent back in time and given to my teacher, but that would disrespect her, you, and the book she actually read. It was the Hobbit, but J.R.R. Tolkien, and having it read to me inspired me to learn how to read and instilled in me a love of fantasy and science fiction that lives on to this day.

     It made me want to learn how to read, and allowed me to escape into worlds beyond imagination while my physical body was in pain from having surgical nails in my feet, or I was stuck in a wheelchair with casts up to the top of my thighs. And it inspired me to think of ideas of my own, to learn not just how to read but how to write and let loose all the worlds inside my imagination.

     Right now I’m working on writing my very first book. I would be honored to have an ARC copy of Fuzzy Nation, and would find it inspiring enough to help me finish my own book, especially since I was in Toronto when you made the first public reading from it.

     I hope you’ll consider doing me the honor of giving me the copy, but either way thank you for writing it and sharing it with others. May it sell many copies and bring you bucketloads of cash. :)

127. FELICITATIONS AND ENTICEMENTS TO YOU, MR. SKELZEE. ALLOW ME TO MAKE INTRODUCTIONS. MY NAME IS ABBA (FRED) ETOULE, SECOND IN COMMAND TO FORMER GLORIOUS LEADER OF THE PEOPLE MARF ANOBE, WHO RECENTLY SUCCUMBED TO A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT INVOLVING TWENTY-SEVEN HALF-TRACKS THAT HAPPENED TO ENCOUNTER HIM AT THE SAME TIME. HE WILL BE MUCH MISSED, EXCEPT BY CERTAIN HALF-TRACK DRIVERS. ALL THIS IS POINTLESS AND BESIDES, HOWEVER, AS OUR GLORIOUS LEADER, WHO FANCIED HIMSELF A MASTER OF SCIENCE FICTION (READ ONE OF HIS SPEECHES TO OUR NATIONAL ASSEMBLY!), WISHES TO LEAVE TO YOU, WHO HE THOUGHT MOST REPRESENTATIVE OF HIS RICH AND IMAGINATIVE PROSE STYLE, A SUM OF THIRTY-FIVE BILLION GURKEES, OR APPROXIMATELY FORTY-FIVE OF YOUR LARGE AMERICAN DOLLARS. PAYDAY! SEND ME PLEASE AT YOUR MOST EXTRAVAGANT CONVENIENCE YOUR FUZZY BOOK, AND DOLLARS WILL BE ON THERE WAY TO YOU IN FLASHY TIME! GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!

128. I deserve it because I am a man of restraint.

     Because I didn’t make you do yoga at 6:30AM at VPXIV.

     Because I didn’t eat all your Red Vines back in October.

     Because I didn’t teabag them like I threatened to.

     Because I didn’t take a picture of your Chicago Worldcon hat covering my junk thought that would have been the funniest damn thing ever.

     That’s why.

129. I do not personally deserve this book, for I have all that I need this holiday season. I have a house, a soft bed, three cats to keep me warm, a job I enjoy, money in the bank, and food on the table. My health is good, my mind is (reasonably) sound, and I have an article that will change the historiography of quilting and textiles forever accepted for publication. There are many things that I want, but need? I have enough, and that is enough.

     This doesn’t apply to everyone I know. Two good friends of mine, husband and wife, face the ultimate challenge this year. He is dying of liver cancer, and their insurance will not cover all the bills. My friends and I have banded together to raise money to help, but that will only ease her financial condition, not the hole in heart that losing her beloved will leave.

     I therefore would not want this book for myself, for I would not keep it. I would read another copy, at another time. This copy, signed by John, would put it up for auction, either live at my Barony’s Yule Feast or over Ebay, with all proceeds to Yolanda and Maurice. They face the grimmest holiday imaginable, and if this little book can help in some way, that would be enough.

130. Based solely on the fact that I think you’re one of the wackiest, most outrageous, bizarre, otherworldly personages ever to have graced the bookshelves of equally disturbed people, I feel I deserve said ARC !

131. Why do I deserve this ARC? Because all my life, John – ALL of it – I have dreamed of only one thing. While my friends wanted to be writers and actors and axle de-greasers, I had but one vocation that took all of my hopes, my dreams, the very last of the tattered threads of my sanity.

     To become a book reviewer.

     My parents were driven almost to madness by my childhood insistence on giving long and intricate analyses of the books they had read to me (my personal triumph was, at the tender age of five, a treatise on how “Green Eggs and Ham” was nothing but a propaganda machine for the nascent Homosexual Agenda back in 1980). Throughout the following years,I kept detailed records of the books I had read, filling up – ironically – books of their own on my shelves. My college years were an alcohol and drug-fueled orgy of reviewing, where I stood on the lip of the great abyss wherein I would not know if I was the writer or the reader, writing about myself or the rest of the world – if indeed there were a difference at all.

     With adulthood, however, came some measure of wisdom and restraint. With the help of my sponsors and a rather jury-rigged 12 Step Program, I am now down to 40-50 reviews per year. It’s hard, but somehow I make it through the day.

     The greatest help, of course, has been the podcast, The Labyrinth Library. Through this medium I have begun to share my love, not simply hoard it in between the covers of spiral-bound notebooks on bookshelves cobbled together from cast-off lumber and found bricks. It’s been nearly two years, and I’m still at it, an achievement I never would have thought would be possible. Not without medication, anyway.

     As wonderful as it has been, however, I miss… the RUSH.

     So I am asking for the ARC not because I think I “deserve” it – that is something only a person wiser than myself could judge – but because I wish to test myself. I wish to discover that edge again. Am I truly strong enough to bear this burden, or will it simply be that feather-light touch that drops me back into a free-fall of analytical madness?

     I am asking – no, imploring you, John Scalzi, to let me have this one last chance.

     My life, my mind, my very soul… is in your hands.

132. ellid @129 I know John frowned on comments about other comments, but in view of your post (and so many other deserving anecdotes), I don’t see how I could ever keep this ARC even if I was the o-so-lucky, one-in-a-million beneficiary of the random pokings of the cat or dog (who will ultimately pick the winner). I see there are many who are more deserving than me, even if I could somehow pull off the “coup of the century”… good luck to you… you deserve it!!

133. I just started working for a major telecom company, in tech support for mobile broadband and cellular phones.

     Anyone who uses the word “shibboleet” (as per this XKCD strip) will get the no-nonsense non-script service from me.

134. I believe I deserve the Fuzzy Nation ARC because I will be out of the country when the real book drops. I am due to ship out with Peace Corp in February to some Central or South American country (they have yet to tell me where I am going because the government is full of a bunch of awful procrastinators). So on May 10th I will be hablaing the Espanol and somehow I don’t think I’ll be able to walk up to the closest liberia and buy it. Imagine a poor wretch, isolated from friends and relatives in a foreign country while starved of the English Language and American Culture. Imagine as a Science Fiction and fantasy fan that over the next two years missing Patrick Rothfuss’ Wise Man’s Fear, Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves, the new Game of Thrones HBO series and gasp! part II of the Deathly Hallows. But you, John Scalzi, can help! Choose me for the ARC! Or I can research which ebook readers would work overseas. But try to overlook that last bit as that involves personal effort. *puppy eyes*

     100% true
     I’m hoping to hear any day now what country I’m going to (and finally being upgraded from a Nominee to an Invitee)
     Medical/Dental/Legal checks are all passed so I’m just waiting
     I will be working in Water and Sanitation and really don’t know too many details beyond that

     Sidenote: I live in Ohio so less shipping costs for you, maybe?

135. Because I’ve proofread over 62,000 pages at Distributed Proofreaders (including some H. Beam Piper). Free ebooks for everyone!

     Because I’m *poor*.

     Because the local library will take a year or more to acquire this, so I can read it.

     I could look for a torrent but I want to go legit.

136. Dear cats,

     In exchange for you persuading the other judges to award me this ARC, I promise to send you catnip.

137. I deserve it because I am, yes, simply that damn good. Just ask me. Add bacon and I can conquer mysterious and exotic women with the merest glance of my eyes.

     Failing that, I vote for ellid (#129), and will post the first bid, $40.

138. Please may I have the Fuzzy Nation ARC? I deserve it for asking nicely, but more seriously because I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of H. Beam Piper before you announced that you’d written the book. Since that time, I downloaded a huge collection of his writing and spent countless weeks immersed in his stories. If you hadn’t written Fuzzy Nation, I might never have had this experience. I am forever grateful to you for introducing me to the Fuzzies and the rest of Piper’s universes. In fact, as I write this I realize that I should be buying you a present, rather than the other way around. But I don’t have an ARC to give you – sorry.

139. A mere month ago I’d never heard of you; clicked a link and fell through what has turned out to be a rather curious rabbit hole. I would like to have this ARC because a signed memento, a gift bestowed by the artist himself – what a joy it would be to experience a dream beyond rational imagination. And who better, truthfully, to help spread the wow-of-you than a reader with the innocent ardor of new-found love?

140. I’m deaf, and I have a cochlear implant. That’s like a magnetic USB port that hooks directly into your brain. How freaking cool is that? I hear by radio waves. I am the personification of science fiction, is what I am trying to say here. When people ask the personification of sci-fi what she is reading these days, do you know what she says? “I am reading John Scalzi, because that guy knows what’s going on.”

     Give me the book.

141. I deserve it because I bought and read the Piper Fuzzy books as they came out. And the William Tuning one. And the Ardath Mayhar one.

142. I deserve the Fuzzy Nation ARC because I got groped by TSA today. Twice.

143. I’m not writing this because I feel I deserve a levitating book. My therapist suggested I read Fuzzy Nation as part of my treatment. My parents both died while I was young in separate, though not unrelated, Scalzi book-reading incidents. I’m still not able to delve into the details without choking up, but suffice to say I’ll never sit in a hot tub or eat a frozen banana on the beach again.

     I suppose reading more books by Mr. Scalzi may prove therapeutic but I begin to tremble and faint whenever I approach the displays of The Android’s Dream and Old Man’s War. If a copy of one of his books just appeared at my doorstep I may find the strength to carry it inside and at least browse the table of contents…

144. Good evening, Mr Scalzi

     I beleive I deserve an ARC of your book as I am a huuuuge fan of your writing, and am an employee in a Science Fiction and Fantasy bookstore in Perth, Australia. Your name is the first one that gets cropped up in our store when we are asked for Sci-fi recommendations. As Perth is the back-end of nowhere, we probably wont get your books for a very long time, and I know for sure we won’t get an ARC.

     It can be absolutely guaranteed to be read by the other employees at the store (or I will hurt them :D) and the eventual buzz for the book will result in many, many pre-orders.

     If I receive this book, I will present it to the only person I’ve ever met who is a bigger fan then me, and someone who has been quite sick for a long time due to illness, and life generally not being very nice to him.

     Aaaaaaand here comes the awesome!

     My name is Willow, and I am the redshirt at this aforementioned bookshop. To celebrate the arrival of the book, I will organise an all-out futuristic cosplay INVASION of our local night-spots. Complete with blasters and such. And then there will be photos, which I will post on here, for you all to chuckle at our weirdness!

     In closing, please, please, Mr Scalzi, you will make many, many, many people incredibly happy.

     ~Willow

145. I’m a huge H. Beam Piper fan. Huge. I coughed up for the reprint of “Murder in the Gun Room”, his only non-SF book. I own two first editions of “Space Viking”. I bought the Fuzzy books written by William Tuning and Ardath Mayhar, and I did not have to get up and look up those names. I even have the horribly obscure posthumous third Fuzzy book that Piper himself wrote.

     I need more Fuzzies, Mr. Scalzi, and if you deny me, my sulking shall be unto the sulking of a dozen nine-year-olds who have been told that the ice cream factory tour is off, and they are going to visit a municipal composting facility instead.

146. I need it the most, because if they catch me I may be sent away for some time. I need something to read that most likely isn’t in institutional libraries yet. Besides which, they will take all my money away from me along with my belt and shoelaces, so I won’t be able to buy a copy. Please, be more merciful than the judge probably will be.

     Pretty please, with bacon?

147. I do not deserve any of the wonderful things that I have gotten in life: a wonderful family, supportive friends, great cats, and a husband who loves me beyond hope and reason… yet I got them, didn’t I?

     Well, I don’t deserve this ARC of Fuzzy Nation, either…

148. When I was a kid I read a story where the protagonist bough a lamp with a genie inside. The genie gave him whatever he wanted, but the drawback was that if he still owned the lamp when he died the genie would take his soul to hell. He had to sell the lamp at a loss to get rid of it. He bought it for a few cents, and was now balancing the risk of keeping it (you never know when a chunk of the ISS will drop on you) against the benefits of wishing for things, and the problem of convincing people to buy the lamp as lowering the price was becoming complicated.
     I may remember the details wrong. Maybe it was a demon and not a genie. Maybe it was a microwave and not a lamp. The process is the point.

     I want to do the reverse with your book.
     I want to get it from you, and read it. Then I’ll write you a letter and tell you what I thought, enclosing a bill of my native country. The closest I can get to a $5 I think. Then I’ll sell the book for a dollar, on the condition that the next guy does the same. I will make a profit. You will make a profit. Next Guy will read it, write you a letter enclosing a fiver and sell it on at a profit. Sooner or later the book will stop with some guy who loves the signed book too much to share, or it will simply disintegrate the way well read books do. Or become too expensive to sell.
     If we choose our customers wisely, this book may travel a while.
     And everyone involved makes a very small profit. Everyone involved gets the warm fuzzy na.. feeling of owning a signed book, for a while. And everytime the book moves on to brighten someone elses life, you get a ping and a fiver in whatever the local denomination might be as a souvenir.

     I can’t guarantee that this will work. Maybe it will snag. Maybe some scumbag will hike the price and make the book to expensive to shift early on. Maybe your signature will make it too valuable for this kind of experiment, but I can dream can’t I?
     I would like to know if something like this would work, out in the wild. Would you?

149. You know I need this book because you know that I know that those aren’t typos. It’s a code. And I have the key phrase book.

     You also know that by letting anyone else have this book, you run the risk of It all falling apart All of it. Even the stuff the men in black won’t admit to. And they’re crazy. Seriously, only a few of us are in the know, and you’d risk everything by just shipping it out to some poor shlub?

     The entire fabric of the universe could tear apart. And we can’t have that happen again. Don’t you remember the trouble we had putting it back together the last time it happened? At least this time the folks who know what happened are pretty much treated as loonies.

     So for the sake of the rest of the universe, send it to me, so I can decode it and prevent it all from going down the drain again. Because, you know, I just can’t stand all that paperwork.

150. Good lord, man, give it to Chris Peters (#81). He’s going to Iraq, for cryin’ out loud.

     Or if you want to reward someone who not only knows the XTC song in your subhead, but has performed it in public, you can give it to me instead.

     But yeah. Deployed to Iraq wins.

151. I deserve an ARC of Fuzzy Nation because I live a fuzzy life.

     My pets are fuzzy. The cat: fuzzy. The dog: fuzzier. Ergo, my whole home is fuzzy. You should see the fuzz: it drifts in soft fuzzy bundles over the floor, fuzzes the couch, plumps up the bed. Heck, I regularly find pet fuzz under my eyelids, and in other locations that shall remain nameless, but should be fuzzless.

     We’re in the middle of a cold snap, so I can use all the extra fuzzy I can get. My fuzzy socks: barely keeping gangrene of the toes at bay. Despite the fuzziest of fuzzy tuques, I still fear my ears might fall off. My fuzzy eyebrows? Not yet long enough to knit that fuzzy scarf to keep the wind chill off my cheeks, despite the famous family superciliary genetic endowment.

     We Canadians are famous for giving everyone the warm and fuzzies. But sometimes, we long for some fuzzy of our own.

     So please, fuzzy me.

152. Commonalities of nearly all entrants: avid readers that enjoy superior authors; familiarity with the superior author of such books as Old Man’s War, etc.; likely also have pets and/or allergies
     Peculiarities of this entrant: Can masquerade as winner by nepotism (as we aren’t related); is facebook friends with an orange tabby cat (who is a fan of sleep); able to (potentially) travel all the way to central CA if the clan would have you visit– this would save on postage
     On a side note… There’s a cat that lets me sleep on his bed (not the orange tabby). I don’t know why I should be SOooo fortunate to have a cat adopt me. I find that people quite often need to be corrected on this technicality when they mistakenly suggest that he’s My cat. It’s really the other way around.
     And I could most certainly use a good book.

153. I used to have a Fuzzy called Futty (he lisped and so do I). And I used to have Gravity Control too. But, that was yesterday, when I lived in Ares.
     Now I live in Malta, Europe, and Islands have their own set of rules, and Malta especially so… For example, you cannot wear shoes when you walk on the beach. You cannot bathe in the rivers – mainly because there aren’t any here. You cannot even eat wild boar and squirrel and snake (same reason, and the Mediterranean is now so polluted that no ships sail it, and air-drops are so expensive).
     So, sadly, that is the radon, I want, need, deserve your book. It will remind me of my childhood in Ares. I hope that somewhere inside it there is a code for concocting a new Gravity Control system – I mean, the first letter of each page, backwards, and a formula for getting them in the right order. I have been told that each book comes complete with a key-fob Fuzzy. But since you do not make any mention of that, I think people were having me on
     In any case, I still have a couple of hairs from Futty’s pelt, so I don’t really need a soft toy BUT if it’s there, I’ll take it, unpick a millimetre off the seam, put them in, and sew it back up.
     So now you know why the book should come to me in a total case of deservosity, need and want.

154. Well, my self-esteem is too low to say that I actually deserve the book. I couldn’t, rightly, say that I need it, either.

     However, it would come in very handy. Certainly you wrote it as a piece of speculative fiction, but unfortunately I am in a position to test some of this speculation. There is, in fact, a small, curious fuzzy creature roaming around my living room, and I’d appreciate the opportunity to see someone else work through the possibilities, because frankly I’m a little freaked out.

     It may turn out to be an as-yet-unknown kind of primate, which would be interesting in its own way because it would be the first primate, if its efforts at raiding the fridge are any guide, whose natural environment is my house.

155. I will bring the copy of fuzzy nation to Canada, which due to the arrival of winter (and “movember”), is becoming the fuzziest of nations as we grow out our winter coats. It’s only fitting.

     Also, apropos of your photo, because I used to work in the basement of the physics building at UofT. Across the hall was the lab that made satellite instruments (MOPITT), complete with a space simulation chamber (i.e., a vacuum chamber). One day an inspector from the fire department came in to familiarize himself with all the weird science stuff we had, to learn what buttons to push to put things into a safe mode for his crew to come dashing in and spray foam on stuff. For the space simulation chamber, the only question he had was “what button do I press to turn the gravity back on?”

156. I just noticed – We have the same lighting fixture above our dining room table, but in a different color…

157. I will prevent the ARC from gaining sentience and enslaving us all. Unfortunately someone who shall remain nameless has taught it to hover. Give it to me and I will put an end it the threat.

158. My deservedness of a Fuzzy Nation ARC. Hmmm. First, my original paperback is printed on extra-high acid paper (at least as far as I can tell) and is basically unreadable; the pages keep breaking.

     And as such, I need it … ok, I had a sentence here that I realized on rereading it, was a giant trite begging.

     Let me try again.

     Gimmeeee, gimm…. ok, that doesn’t work so well either.

     Last shot. You are an awesome writer and I have many of your books and I read your bl…..

     Ok, the real last attempt.

     I really loved the titanium discovery that cranked off the science dude (names escape me) and… ok, I just I read up the response list and I say (reiterating other voices) give it to the dude who going to be deployed.

159. I think I deserve the book because I’ve been paying close attention to my wife.

     She says its about time I got what was coming to me.

160. If I get the ARC I will get to be Evil. A co-worker just discovered Old Man’s War and is plowing through the series. I may or may not have had a hand in getting him addicted to Scalzi.

     So When I win the contest I will so over to him and start talking up Fuzzy Nation, and tell him that a New Scalzi Book is coming out. When I get the book in hand I will take it to work show him the loving goodness of Scalzi and taunt him that he has to wait for the book to come out.

     I will stop by and randomly read a paragraph or two just to wet his appetite.

     Oh what fun it will be to play Evil Jayowen.

161. Long, long ago, I was told as a child that 209 years from now a giant colony ship would leave Earth for Mars carrying what may have been the last hope of survival for your-ours I suppose- flawed race and the means to terraform their destination …

     Something happened. Perhaps navigation calculations had been made in metric for hardware calibrated to antiquated imperial measurements… I wasn’t told the specifics, only that it was human error. Regardless, the ship lost its mind and took a wrong turn at about five past moon o’clock.

     This was a catastrophe that caused the ship’s soundness to fail piecemeal, killing thousands. Only handful of passengers survived the initial failures, and discord swiftly wended her way into their hearts. They argued violently as to what the next course of action should be. The majority entered escape vehicles and deserted the ship. I cannot say where their path took them, no doubt to oblivion, eventually, as for us all- even me…

     However, one of the ship’s physicians, my father, and an engineer, my mother, decided to see the ship through. By some cosmic accident, the ship’s wrong turn had sent it hurtling into the past… I do not know by what means my parent navigated the ship back to earth, or when they discovered that they had been flung into the past… I do know that they too deserted the ship in an escape vessel as it flew by Earth on a course headed for the sun.

     I was born 6 months later in the year of their lord 1081… My parents gave me the best education they could for the circumstances I was to face throughout my life, and armed me with a book wherein they had scribed as much foreknowledge as they could recollect. They tasked me and my descendants to prevent humanity from committing the terrible mistakes and grave errors in this its second chance, at least from my parent’s perspective. However, my father soon determined that our journey through time had rendered us all incapable of procreating… Apparently I had been conceived before our arrival. Their conclusion was to initiate selected individuals into our secret and to form a cabal that would shape history, but eventually that went awry and they killed in their sleep when I was 13, it was the 1094… I fled taking with me our book of secrets.

     My parent’s geas was upon me and decided to find the best way I could fulfill their dream. I spent the next year inveigling myself into the court of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. And in short, I played key role in the first crusades… Sometimes with Seljuk Turks, sometimes with the Christians… As need dictated.

     Sometime late in the year 1111, I was at the siege Tyre under the banner of Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin. It was there that I was contacted by a very old man going by the name of Alhazred. He claimed to be over 400 years old, and certainly looked it. He gave me an original copy of a book called Al Azif and with a greek translation by Theodorus Philetas… Why the man gave it to me he would only say that he had been ordered to do so. He left after completing his task. Within that book lay secrets that could shatter mortal minds, but somehow I retained a marginal grasp on my sanity and found the secret to eternal life…

     What I suffered to achieve this I will not say lest someone else should attempt it and unleash the dark beings with whom one must contract… Let us just say that death was a past concern for me, and though I could no longer die, pain has been a constant curse that has plagued me ever since.

     I have led my cursed existence through history thwarting the vile prophecies from Alhazred’s book, and trying to cure the ills listed in my parents’ book… I have failed many a time and things were made worse than they were; and I have known a handful of modest successes, yet still we seemed to be headed towards a future where my parents’ ship departs… Which brings me to you, John Scalzi.

     Something in your book inspired a wealthy and powerful man to fund research that will spell doom for this planet and ultimately send me back on the path of my cursed existence.
     This must not happen. In your book lies the key to what I must do next. Help me, please.

162. Because it’s beautiful. And I want it.

     Death followed instantly

163. I would like to read your new book because I know the value of reading. It was the only free thing we could do growing up. I grew up poor, and now I’m old and poor again. I know the value of free stuff.

     We were so poor growing up, we couldn’t afford Ramen noodles. So we bought them second-hand. Those were the good days, when we had a little money. It was little, all right. Our money was so little, the clerk used to pull out a magnifying glass when he saw us in line. We had only a little money, and it wasn’t even second-hand. It had been passed down so many times that heads was tails. That’s all that was left, just tails. And only little ones.

     We had to take turns being hungry, it was just too much for all of us to be hungry at one time. Sometimes it got so bad, that the only things we saw on the kitchen table were elbows. Once a homeless guy even offered us a handout. We didn’t take the trash out, we took it in. We couldn’t even afford to go to the free clinic when we got sick, ’cause that was too expensive.

     But we could all read, so we took turns reading recipes to each other. That’ll fill you right up.

     And we went to the library to read. Of course, we couldn’t take any books out, we had to read them right there. And the librarian would dust off the books we read after we touched them. But of course they weren’t dirty, because we couldn’t even afford dirt.

     Then it got worse. We were so poor we had to reach up to touch bottom. We had to borrow dirt from the neighbors when it was time to clean house. I mean, clean shack. No, actually, I mean clean hovel.

     We were so poor, even the Republicans were willing to give us welfare. It was that pitiful. Of course, Republican welfare is a little rough. It consists of surplus cheese, left over from the Great War. I don’t mean WWII, I mean the War of Independence. That cheese was so old, it wasn’t even radioactive any more. That’s the only reason the government was willing to give it to us. It got so bad one year that the government was going to ship us off to an Indian Reservation. But the Indians wouldn’t take us. They said they had to draw the line somewhere. But it wasn’t all bad. The Indians paid us to stay away.

     That’s one way to make a little money. People will give you handouts just to make you go away. Even the homeless ones would give us stuff, like I said. Of course, it was mainly food wrappers that they were done with. That stuff had been licked so many times, it was sterile.

     One Christmas morning we ate dried fruit. Surplus, of course. Left over from the Civil War. For lunch we each drank a large glass of water and watched each other swell up.

     Then it got even worse. We couldn’t even exchange dirty looks. We couldn’t even afford to pay attention.

     But we could always read. That was the one free thing that was usually really free. And I’ve always enjoyed free books. I think I’ve had two… both memorized now. One of them was Old Man’s War. Now that I’m an old man, I really enjoy recalling that one again and again. I love the idea of getting a new body. Mine’s pretty worn out.

     It would be awesome to read your new book. I’d probably end up memorizing it, too. Then I’d eat it of course. Slowly. Can’t waste good food.

164. I am in Finland.

     You have never sent mail to Finland. Do you know how good that feels? The minty, breezy, refreshing freshness of it… the sour tang of reindeer milk… the roar of polar bears… the raucous blatter of a herd of penguins taking wing… the scream of the wild igloo loon… the implacably staring sullen locals.. the stare… the stare… the implacable glare… the drunken burst of speech, and Frostbite-Jaakko showing why he’s called “Two Snowballs” — it’s a life, sort of, in Finland, and I’ve been informed by the post office that all this will flash before your eyes in a video montage kind of an effect when you send mail to Finland.

     This will be your only chance.

165. My wife is pregnant with our third child. Your book would come in handy after the child is born, on those long nights of screamy-ness, spit-up, and other less-pleasant products that newborns share with their parents.

     The book would provide amusement and would totally not be used as a changing station or a platform upon which to prop baby for ridiculously cute and geek-tastic photos.

166. Because it belongs with my copies of “Little Fuzzy” and “The Other Human Race.” They will be very lonely without it. Nothing in the world is sadder than a lonely book.

167. Giver,
     I deserve the ARC because I won’t read it. I may get around to reading it, eventually, but only after my house acquiesces to my demands and shifts to the west about two degrees. It’s not as odd as it sounds, Dear Writer. I need your good book for some greater purpose: my couch is missing a leg, and the ARC looks to be about the right thickness to make it level. You have a lopsided cat; I have a lopsided couch. For those with lopsided things, I beg you consider my predicament.
     Taker,
     Joe Isaac

168. It’s not that I deserve a Fuzzy Nation ARC, it’s that I NEED one.

     You see, I’m not a bachelor, nor do I live alone. I’m married with three children, which is a lot like living alone but noisier and you keep finding things lying all over the house that you know for sure you didn’t put there. Also, food disappears from the refrigerator a lot faster than it ever did when I was alone, even when I was at my most hungry. Except that one time I emptied the freezer of cheese blintzes, but that’s fine because… hey, cheese blintzes, amirite? They’re are almost as much fun to eat as they are to say.

     So I need the Fuzzy Nation ARC, but not because of my fondness for Yiddish crepes or because my house recently appeared on a crossover episode of Rescue 911 and Hoarders. No, I need it because the chair I’m sitting in right now has a bent leg and is very wobbly. I’ve measured the Fuzzy Nation ARC and it’s just the right thickness to make the wobbles a thing of the past.

     I know you’re wondering, “But how do you intend to make the book stay under the chair leg? I mean, the chair moves and if they’re not attached the book won’t follow.” Ah, Watson, the answer is elementary: I intend to use an ARC welder.

     Not convinced? Well, then, let me add that I live in Canada, where we count snow as one of our major exports. It’s cold (because otherwise the snow would melt and economic collapse would ensue), and so we natives of the True North tend to value warm, fuzzy feelings above almost all else (except, possibly, hockey and manners). Although I can manage the warmth without assistance from you, Mr. Scalzi, I’ve found the fuzzy part of the equation to be something I cannot manage autonomously. Certainly, your copy of a book about an entire nation of Fuzzys would address this sorry gap in my capabilities.

     If that’s not enough, I’ll throw in a set of Ginsu knives and a matched set of teenagers (please!).

169. “Pappy-Heff, Pappy-Heff, do-bizzo! Why you look so sad?” asked Leo as I tossed my rucksack in one corner of my “Official Charterless Zarathustra Single-Dwelling Collapsible Quonset – Temporary Dwelling grade 4.” It was no palace, but for Leo and me it was home.

     Leo was my friend. He was also a member of species fuzzy fuzzy Holloway, Zarathustra. Leo is short for Leonardo. When I selected his name, I first asked him if he liked it. I also told him I’d chosen it because it represented, to me, someone who was very smart, very inventive, and full of curiosity – and no one I knew could invent trouble out of pure curiosity like my pal, Leo.

     “Pull up a hassock and I’ll spin you a tale”, I replied as I shrugged off my travel worn brogans and pulled out my pipe.
     “It started out as a simple speculation run between Niffelheim, Uller and Thor. We talked about how I was going away for a while and you were going to spend some time with Calamity Jane and Ned Kelly. I wanted to peddle some Fuzzy-Art – pretty things fuzzies make – and see if I could drum up any off-world wonderments and implements that might help you fuzzies get a little more ahead of the game.”

     My golden-furred companion struck a thoughtful pose as my tale meandered through these exotic place-names; a small crinkling of consternation settling between the shining eyes watching me tamp the tobacco in my damnthing-horn pipe.

     “What means ‘get ahead of the game’?” queried Leo.

     “Well I wanted stuff to help you fuzzies learn about technology and hagga stuff and the like. The more you know, the better you’ll be able to get along in the hagga cities and the like. Get ahead of the game.”

     “Hoksu!”, Leo grinned, catching my meaning immediately, and once more justifying the choice of his name.

     “Long story short, I found a new teaching book on my way back to Thor – in the possession of a gypsy pack-trader from Uller.”

     “What means gypsy, Pappy-Heff?”

     “Someone who roams around from place to place and doesn’t have a permanent home like we have here, I suppose.” I glanced affectionately around the space we called home. From a certain perspective the CZC:TD4 Quonset was purely a utilitarian dwelling. But this one had my stuff in it, and more importantly it had a lot of little, fuzzy touches that Leo had added, and these differences made it more home to me than any other place I’d lived in before

     “Like fuzzy before Little Fuzzy meets his Pappy-Jack? And Koko and Mike and Mitsi?”
     “Exactly right, Leo. Exactly right.”

     “But this new book was great. It had an electronic reader that could pull in pretty pictures, and lessons for fuzzies. Like the viewscreen over on the wall. But it was small enough to fit in Shodda-bag, so fuzzies could bring it with them.”
     “It was great. It had a lot of potential for helping fuzzies catch-up to hagga-life and be able to help. It was full of ideas that fuzzies could learn, and stories to help them understand hagga, and stories to help hagga understand fuzzies better. It even taught some new ways to think about how things in hagga-world work.”

     “But I lost it.”

     “How you lose it, Pappy-Heff?”

     “That’s the sad part, Leo. I think it was stolen by a vagabond on one of the tramp-freighters I hitched a ride back on. Now that I think about it, it was probably that scraggly looking fellow out past Thor. He was a mean one and always poking around where he didn’t belong. Asked a lot of questions too.”

     “Bad-hagga take? How fix?” That’s my Leo. He always wants to fix something if it is broken, or help if there’s a problem.

     “I dunno, Leo. I dunno.”

     “Maybe you get another one, Pappy-Heff. Maybe you get another one sometime soon?”

170. Moving His Bishop to Knight 5, God looks up at Satan with a self-satisfied smirk. “She’ll never fold, I tell you. We’ve been over this.”

     “Oh really. Job was a fluke, man. You know and I know it. A real test would be this West dame. Seriously, what’re you afraid of? If she folds, I’ve helped you weed out a genetic weakling. If she holds, you have a tried-by-fire chunk of DNA to work with. It’s win-win, dude.”

     “I’m not a ‘dude’ and you can’t put yourself in check.”

     Satan slides his pawn back to queen 7 to protect his king, then momentarily touches his knight before withdrawing his scaly red paw in thought. “All I’m sayin’ is that we give her a go. I don’t even have to take it all; just 86 her job, fuck with the water heater, and let her gain a few pounds. She’ll be painting pentagrams on the dining room floor before you can sing 4 bars of Blow the Man Down.” He settles on a passive pawn to rook 6 move, buying time until he can figure out another attack.

     God leans forward to make His move and smiles enigmatically knowing how much it pisses off his opponent – who is about to lose both the game and the argument. “Ok, B. You can give her a go – on one condition. Wreck anything you want, but you can’t touch her Scalzi ARC.”

     Satan coughs, and sputters “What?! No deal! Besides, she hasn’t even got the damned thing yet. You can’t set quantum conditions. With that ARC, anybody’d be untouchable. What happened to you, dude? You used to be cool.” Satan castles in a desperation move and snarls up at God.

     “Them’s the rules. Take ‘em or leave ‘em. Now if you’ll excuse me, that’s checkmate and I’ve got to scoop some litter and attend to a mess in the Middle East. Peace out, dude.”

     Satan upends the chess board with an angry howl and vanishes in an explosion of sulphury red smoke. God chuckles to Himself and tweets; “Yo @Buddha: B sux game!”

171. Because I’m out of toilet paper :,(

172. I deserve a signed copy of Fuzzy Nation ARC, because Timing is Everything, and the timing on this one is ideal. And, we all love hyphens! Please find my actual reasons, below:

     .. I’ve been reading your blog off-and-on since those heady days before comments. I initially virtually met you when I ran across your posting of rules when sending you email, and I laughed vociferously.

     .. My oft-preferred method of exhibiting my avid readership of scifi/fantasy is to eye-devour books while flying cross-country (the fam is back east). I’ve read all your previously-published books on one plane or another, and I enjoyed myself much.

     .. Who knew it would happen, but apparently I have modeled my later-life love-life after yours. I met the love of my life a year ago on thanksgiving weekend, knew right away that we were right for each other, and I plan on proposing this upcoming Saturday. I’ve prepared and made a prediction, and will rejoice much if it’s true ;)

     .. So, I put forth that this would be an ideal engagement gift (I can report results on the 28th!) for my eye-enjoyment on my December flight back east with the future mrs. g

     I humbly submit my reasons above for your approval – I’ll keep you appraised! And keep up the good work (like you wouldn’t!)

     Daniel Goldshlack

173. I deserve it because my five month old puppy is dying from inoperable brain cancer. Sadly, I’m not making this up.

174. I deserve it because I declared my undying love for a man two weeks ago. I told him ridiculous things like, “I’m melty for you,” and “When we dance, I want to dance closer.” His response? “I struggle with homosexuality.”

     Oh yeah, and it’s my birthday on November 30th and you should give me a gift. :)

175. I deserve to win because I am, in reality, your cousin Chet. *nods*

176. I sooo deserve this. Why? Because I am the only girl (or, more acurately “guurl”) in a family of science fiction fanatics. Which means that I have to spend the upcoming holidays being cornered by brothers and their friends all of whom want to tell me all about the latest and greatest scifi book they have just finished and ZOMG!! how amazing it is. Which is fine, on the surface of it, as it gives me a reading list for the upcoming year. But every time – EVERY FREAKING TIME – I want to tell them about my latest scifi reading adventure the reaction is the same: “yeah, read that. YEARS ago.” and off we go again on what book they’ve been reading. So for once, just for once, I want to be able to be the one who one ups everyone. “Hey guys – check this out – I have Fuzzy Nation. By John Scalzi. What? You don’t have it yet? You didn’t know it was available yet? Oh, well, I just happen to have an ARC. Yep. Me. And it was given to me by the very same John Scalzi who wrote it. Yeah, we hang out. Sort of. I really don’t like to talk about it, he really values his privacy and I have to respect that.”

     So now all those little digs about ‘wow, you just read that? I read that book in like, junior high’ and the comments about my ‘thin’ scifi library – choke on them, boys. Because I have an ARC of Fuzzy Nation. Given to me by the author. What’s that Dad? Sit by you? Sure, I would love to.

     Okay, I totally admit that this is a pathetic reason. And yes, it does explain just how badly my family puts the “funk” in dysfunctional. And yet think of how nicely the sweet, sweet taste of victory will pair with the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. For that matter, think of the amount of money you will be saving me in therapy bills. I promise to take pictures.

177. I’ve simply got the best deservitude to really appreciate the awesomeosity that is an ARC by “the @Scalzi”.

178. It was the badgers, of course.

     They came from Mars whioh, frankly, I had never considered as having any life at all, much intelligent badgers with a spaceship and an axe to grind. But those are the sort of things you learn, living out in the sticks. Of course, the other thing you learn out in the sticks is the virtue of armed prudence, so when I saw something land in the woods, I wasn’t about to go investigate sans shotgun. I’d have taken two if had them.

     Now, I suppose I could tell you about a spaceship that looked like a hill of red moss, or a wave of green furry death coming at me from shin height. I could tell you how they were all infected with space rabies, and how quickly it spread from person to person, although in the case of Jimmy Bob it might have just been those fish tacos he bought out of a van. I could even tell you how we finally beat them with the strategic use of pumpkin pie, three pinecones and Jimmy Bob’s snowblower.

     But that’s all details. It was a long weekend, and I’m still tired.

     I can tell you this, though, after saving the world from the perils of a furry alien threat, getting Fuzzy Nation would sure be a Fuzzy alien treat.

179. Only in possession of this book can I finish my grand machine that will save the universe!

180. Wow. Kathryne at #176 really deserves to get it!

181. Why me? It’s simple: I’ve bought everything you have in print, so, having contributed in some degree to your enviable lifestyle, I think I deserve it!

     On a more technical note, I’ve read all of Piper’s original “Fuzzy” works and am looking forward to seeing the story get the Scalzi Treatment. You’ve got cojones, man, doing the literary equivalent of a remake! I hope the book fares better than the movie remakes of, say, “McHale’s Navy” and “The Beverly Hillbillies”. I think it will, but I really need that ARC to be sure!

     Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving!

     Bart

182. What to do, what to do? I can’t enter the contest according to the rules, because I DON’T deserve the prize. Deep in my heart, I know this to be true. And even if I DID deserve it, that’s not the same as saying I ought to receive it. These are the kinds of thoughts that keep me awake nights. (So please give generously to the National Hamster Brain Foundation, won’t you?) Therefore I should not even be entering. Except I can’t stop myself. And by gum, I don’t want to live in a world where poor impulse control doesn’t still count for something.

183. A long time ago, in a state not so far away; I was but a slip of an SF reader desperately devouring anything science fictional I could find; wishing with all my heart and soul that I, too; could participate in that glory known as “fandom”. Many a day did I spend over my “typewriter” cranking out letters to fans far, far away, sealing the envelopes with my lonely tears. One day while poring over a zine, I read of a wondrous book titled Little Fuzzy . I paddled my pirogue for miles down the bayou until I found a great city which contained a bookstore. And there I found the book I had read so longingly of. I traded a few nutria furs for that precious object and paddled home reading all the while. It was glorious.

     And then to make the cycle complete, the writer known to me only as “John Scalzi” did announce he would be re-visiting that wondrous world of the Fuzzies. “I must read it,” I muttered to the cats perched on my computer. Then on Tuesday he announced his plans to give away an ARC of Fuzzy Nation. I pushed the cat away from the keyboard and began to type. Deserve it? No; but just as we don’t deserve the grace we receive, I long for it.

184. Give it to me. I dare you to.

     Wait, cancel that…I DOUBLE-DOG DARE YOU.

     Screw it, I’m going all-in…I TRIPLE-DOG DARE YOU.

     As everyone knows, a triple-dog-dare is the ultimate challenge. Once issued it has no counteraction and must be implemented and/or carried out. Thanks.

185. Actually, I would propose a trade. I happen to have a stated first edition, first printing copy of THE HUMAN SIDE OF F.D.R.: A PICTORIAL BIOGRAPHY, by Richard Harrity and Ralph G. Martin (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1960). Good only, showing overall handling, edgewear and some slant to spine; jacket is unclipped but has several chips and closed tears to edges, age discoloration to white fields and some rub-soiling. With a nice personalized presentation inscription from the authors (signed “Ralph and Dick”) to ffep, dated 1/27/60. NO signed copies offered on ABE or eBay. Scans available on request.

186. No shit, there I was. Surrounded by the dead. Everywhere I looked, I’d see milky eyes, rotted noses, blue and mottled skin. Our safehouse was four blocks off, in the veterinarian’s office next to that old Chinese restaurant, and I didn’t know if I’d make it. No more ammo. I broke my bat over the head of a zombie outside the Gold’s Gym. The chainsaw had run out of gas, and the credit card readers at the Citgo up the street were down. They can’t keep those damn things up through one measly zombie apocalypse? Useless.

     All I had left was my battered copy of “Pandora’s Star” by Peter F. Hamilton. Now, if you’ve ever seen that book, you know that’s not fooling around. About a thousand pages, solid like a cinderblock. It was the trade paperback, which lets the zombies just a little too close before you can brain them. I hit one, watched the side of his disgusting head cave in, and ran like hell. Brains and fluids I don’t want to think about slicked the cover, and made it harder to hold. I did, though. That book, it was my lifeline. The only weapon in my hands.

     One of the dead, she lunged forward with a moan, and tried to take a bite of me. I crammed the book in her mouth to block, tried to pull it free, but I just couldn’t keep hold of it. It left me to run the last bit of distance unarmed, followed by a zombie with a paperback novel sticking out of her face. Now I’m here, holed up in the vet’s office, eating dry rice noodles and wonton wrappers. The zombie got the better end of lunch, since at least the pages of the book had fiber.

     And that’s why I need the ARC of “Fuzzy Nation”. It’s not just for me. It’s for Mrs. Jones over there, who lost her husband in the initial uprising. For little Gwen, whose mother ate her father then got herself perished. No bullets, no gas, no hope. All of us survivors, we need a new weapon to fight against the dead.

187. IF YOU GIVE IT TO #81 WE’LL SPARE OHIO.

     — THE YOGURT

188. I died last week, in the usual way: my vision dimmed, I breathed my last, and I was gone.

     I didn’t expect I would be coming back.

     Upon waking undead to darkness and wet earth, I stretched my hand up through the dirt (black crescents forming under my nails) and pushed through to cold November. I emerged from the ground like a new lily, except born not to spring but to autumn, and instead of sun-warmed petals I have chilled, pulse-less skin.

     The necromancer said I was his favorite creation. (Have you ever met a necromancer? Do you think he was telling the truth?)

     Nevertheless, I ate him. I’ll always be hungry. Consuming his mind chased away the worst pangs of starvation, and I was able to wander the graveyard, satisfying my curiosity without needing to feed again so soon.

     I found a little boy and his father, bringing flowers to a woman’s grave. They have come again, every day since, in the evening, just at sunset. Sometimes the boy brings more than flowers: stick-figure drawings or a necklace of shells on a yellow string. His father always bundles him carefully in a heavy coat and bright red scarf.

     I haven’t eaten them yet. I considered doing so yesterday when my hunger pains returned and no one else walked the graveyard. I knew they would come; I knew I could feast.

     But as I was contemplating their deaths I tripped over a rectangular headstone I hadn’t noticed before. It belonged to a girl named Zoe, fifteen when she died, and well-beloved to judge by the clutter of offerings around the stone.

     A dog-eared book lay among the collection: Zoe’s Tale, perhaps so appreciated for bearing the same name as the girl. I reached for it and opened to the first page, fully intending only to browse it and return it. But after the first chapter I found a comfortable spot between two roots of a tree and read through the entire book.

     In order to survive I need brains… intelligence; but I found yesterday that there are more ways than one to feed. As I finished the final page and put the book aside, I found my appetite sated. I had dined on the words; the characters were my banquet.

     So you see, Mr. Scalzi, I need your books. Send me another. Hold back my hunger. Spare the lives of the boy and his father for another few days.

     Surely you do not wish them to die?

189. True story. My boyfriend tells me that he had the following dream this morning: he is teaching high school students the Summer Science Program in New Mexico. He looks out the window and notices that hordes of rattlesnakes and coral snakes are advancing on his students. So he yells at them to get inside the building and shut the doors damn it! and runs out to herd the stragglers into the building. He notices that one man is down (not bitten yet, but down for some reason – maybe he tripped) and runs over to him to pick him up and tell him to get inside the building goddamn it. That guy happens to be John Scalzi. There are some other details about rescuing the kids, but it’s fuzzy after that.

     Upon waking, my boyfriend told me that he was puzzled you were in his dream, since he can’t even really remember ifr he has ever seen your picture. While he has been occasionally dropping in to enjoy your blog, he has not yet read any of your books. But he’s a big fan of Piper, and very excited about the Fuzzy Nation reboot. Thus, you should consider him for this gift because 1. as a fan of Piper, he’ll really enjoy it and will finally read a book by you in the process, 2. because he’ll know what you look like from your picture on the cover, and 3. because in his dream, sight unseen, he rescued you from advancing rattle- and cobra snakes. Who can ask for more?.

190. The young boy watched silently as they lowered his parents into their graves just as he had watched silently as the doctors franticly tried to reclaim them from the dead, and had watched the firefighters cut the wreckage of their small blue car from around him. Nine-year-old Billy knew what was going to happen to him; his mother and father had promised him every day of his life that he wouldn’t be passed from foster home to foster home until he was of legal age to make his own decisions, like they had been. But it had all ended Thanksgiving Day when a drunk driver in an SUV hit them.

     This was me twelve years ago.
     One of the few fond memories I have of my adoptive parents is them taking turns erading Little Fuzzy to me at bed time (sniff)
     I need an ARC of Fuzzy Nation to keep their fading memories with me.

191. uhh, reading

192. You will give me Fuzzy Nation. I dead on a planet that looked much like the grand canyon. We were a warring nation of Grotesque like creatures. Only with killer smiles and anatomically correcter junk. Since then I have been reborn on 124 different planets. Each time as the dominant species. Reincarnation with a twist. Now I’m Earth and it’s not all that bad. Especially the fact that you have statues of my people on your castle. Talk about continuity. Can you imagine 125 lives lead? At this point I just want to die and not wake up again. So I seek knowledge. Your knowledge. Advanced Copy Fuzzy Nation knowledge. In the words of a great Earthling “Help a brother out”

193. I think that I should have it to give as a gift to my friend. I AM THAT AWESOME!!!
     Seriously tho, Grunge (my friend, not the “music”) has struggled a lot, largely because all through school he had a learning disability, and his school essentially ignored it and let him flunk. In recent times, however, he has gone through adult education and learnt to read. And the only author he has read multiple books from is our host, John Scalzi.
     I AM AN AWESOME FRIEND, AND HE HAS AN AWESOME ACCOMPLISHMENT THAT ALSO SHOWS AWESOME TASTE IN AUTHORS. There are so many different kinds of awesome going on here that any other post is an exercise in futility. Gimme the book. For Grunge (The music as well, if that helps push up the awesome scale – if not, feel free to rename Grunge to whatever musical genre will boost the entry!)

194. I have been jones’in for an esteefee fix for a couple decades!! Would this include a shoddabag full of esteefee goodness as well?

195. Because I’m a librarian and (assuming I enjoy it) I will recomend it to all the sci-fi enthusiasts who frequent the library. Free publicity scalzi!!!

196. I deserve it because I live in South Korea and it is hard to find a good book let alone a book in English worth reading. As an added bonus, I will review said book free of charge. The perfect holiday gift could also be a worthy reason for giving me the ARC.

197. Okay, time to get serious. I see these other entries, and I have no choice but to go with the nuclear option.

     If you send me that book, I will provide you with pie.

     Homemade.

     Yeah, I went there.

198. Dear Mr. Scalzi,

     I totally *deserve* an ARC of Fuzzy Nation because I was BORN AND RAISED on the Fuzzy Books. I fell for Little Fuzzy and Baby Fuzzy and Mama Fuzzy and Koko and all the rest of them at such a young age that they immediately imprinted on my young impressionable mind. I mean I never looked twice at McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern because H. Beam Piper got to me FIRST. I wanted to be clever like Lt. J. G. Ortheris and drink Martinis and rescue the Fuzzies and take them to the Zero Gee station, and I wanted to shoot land-prawns and blow sunstones out of the rock with dynamite like Jack Holloway, and most of all I wanted a Baby Fuzzy for my very very own to sit on my head.

199. I don’t deserve a copy of the Fuzzy Nation ARC. However, my cat Moe was reading over my shoulder, and as he is a superior creature and has developed the means for telepathy, told me that he is quite a fan of your work. He demands that I place this entry for him, since he lacks the proper digits to do so himself. He also adds that he has no real need for thumbs, since he has two perfectly good human servants. So, were he to win said copy, there is no need to worry, I can turn the pages for him.

200. This morning as I was sitting at my computer reading “Whatever” I heard a faint tap on my door. I opened the door and seeing no one I looked down and there was Little Fuzzy looking up at me, the sun glinting off his ID disco, a shoulder bag slung around him and a choppo diggo, which had a slight bit of white paint on it, in his left hand.

     “What brings you to my door Little Fuzzy on this Thanksgiving morning,” I asked, inviting him in. He hopped up on the sofa next to me and when the cat started to eye him as a morning snack, a bonk on the nose from the choppo diggo sent him running.

     “One of the fuzzies is an avid reader of a blog called ‘Whatever’ by some guy named John Scalzi. He said that this Scalzi guy wrote a book about us. I know you’re a big fan of his so I figured you would have read the book and could tell me what you think. I have to make sure it’s not some cheap attempt to make money by a sleezeball writer.”

     “The book will not be out until next year so I don’t know how good it is, but I can tell you that Mr. Scalzi may be many things but he’s not a sleezeball writer as far as I can tell.”

     Little Fuzzy looked at me with that warm furry face and I could see the dissappointment in his eyes. “Wait a second. I believe I saw that he has an advanced reading copy that he is giving away to someone who writes a deserving story on why they should get it. The only problem is I can’t think of anything to write that would be deserving.”

     “Oh I don’t know, I am sure you can think of something,” he said hoping off the couch and heading for the door. “Let me know when the ARC arrives and you have read it.” He waited for me to come over and let him out and tapped me on the shoe with the ever-present choppo diggo and winked as he headed for his hideaway.

     Now, what could I possibly send to “Whatever” ???

201. I deserve the book because I traveled back in time to get this book and I owned it before. I am from the year 2632 where I am the president of SFWNA (Science Fiction Writers of New America). New America is not on Earth (not much else is either). I can’t say too much about that… probably said too much already. We have very few print copies of any books left since nearly everything is electronic. As president of SFWNA I had been collecting books from all the previous presidents and John Scalzi is considered the Greatest of all SFWA presidents. His 36 Hugo awards are still the most by any Science Fiction Master. As a matter of fact, we refer to him as Scazi the Great (in hushed tones of coarse).
     Anyway, this book along with all the rest of my books were lost when New Philadelphia was sacked by the…oh we won’t get into that either. Suffice to say the book no longer exists. Now, since I already own the book, please give it back.

202. Why do I deserve it? Because I am a fuzzy, whitey, dorky, creativey, writery, flighty male(y). But my wife is a beautiful, Asian, elegant, athletic, handy, intelligent female. So, the overly observant can notice that we are not identical, or more importantly, don’t really have a lot in common. This leads people to say such things like, “You guys don’t have a lot in common.” So you can see how that can be so disastrous for a marriage that is just begging for success and happiness.

     And actually, it is both happy and successful, but there is still that nagging infliction known as ‘not a lot in common.’ I’ve heard that statistics and overly nosey people have pronounced to all who bother to listen (which may not be many) that marriages that have a lot in common are more likely to be successful and happy. Can you really fight against statistics (some come armed with metal bats and rabid llamas — or so legend says). So, here I am hovering over the very destruction of what I felt and still believe was to be a successful and full of happiness marriage, because we are faced with the nothing in common conundrum.

     So, this is where your book will save my marriage and maybe even the entire universe (but probably just the marriage). You send me that Fuzzy Nation ARC!

     And why is this helpful? Well, I do the very senisble and logical thing of taping the ARC on my wife’s chin, of course. So, then she now always had something fuzzy on her chin just like I do.

     So, when people come up to us and say, “You guys don’t have much common.” I can retort, “Aha, did you look at our chins! They are both fuzzy!!!” And they will say, “Golly gee, you speak the truth like the truth has never been spoken before! There is two fuzzy chins here!”

     Then the statistics will be fending us off from the rabid llamas and metal bats (ignoring they brought this upon us). Because now our chins will ensure we have something in common. Well, the chins, and of course, everything else we have in common (but the chins are the key, and the lock is your book!)

     No wait, that makes no sense. I think, our chins need to be the lock.

     Um. . . SAVE OUR MARRIAGE!!!

203. I have osteosarcoma. I have a primary tumor the size of a small football in my pelvis. I have metastasized tumors in each lobe of both lungs. I have run out of chemotherapy, and am starting hospice. I can’t do much of anything but read. Let’s face it, there is an outstanding chance I won’t be around long enough to buy a copy (sorry about that). That’s the God’s own unvarnished Truth. Sorry I can’t think of anything cute or creative to earn the book.

204. I’m not sick, I’m just old. I’m so old that I read H. Beam Piper’s LITTLE FUZZY back in the late ’70’s, when I bought a USED copy for the astronomical price of 15 cents, at The Passaic Bookstore (which no longer exists). I didn’t actually PAY for it — but I didn’t steal it, either. I just traded in a shopping bag full of “old lady romances” (Mom’s Harlequins — ugh!) for like a buck’s worth of store credit. It was the cover that drew me in, and I’ve never regretted judging that book by it’s cover. And judging by your cover — this too will be a good book!

205. I deserve a copy of Fuzzy Nation because, well, I come from a fuzzy nation.

     Behind a flagpole atop a short mountain is what is widely regarded to be a leper colony. But we aren’t really lepers, you see. We’re leprechauns with bad skin. Much like dwarves, we all have beards. Unlike dwarves, we don’t mine for gems, or trick pretty young girls to cooking and cleaning our houses until evil queens come and slit their throats.

     I’m a peace loving little leprechaun am I! No beans about it!

     Ahem. Anyway, we aren’t officially recorded as a nation, per se. But that’s part of what makes us so fuzzy. That, and our beards. And I speak here as a woman.

     There aren’t many business prospects around here, so I had to hire myself out in whatever strange job I can find. Currently I’m a punkin’ chunkin’ tester. I sit in the catapults, to make sure they fire the pumpkins far enough into the distance. Wouldn’t want the orange fruits to get ruined, you know? Plus, I’m small and a bit round, and my beard is a good ol’ reddish orange. It all works.

     And here’s another reason I need Fuzzy Nation: I need something to do while I’m being pitched through the air by giant metal spoons on a see-saw. Think it’s a quick landing? No. It takes a while when you’re small as me, weighing less than a pumkin and all. I just kind of float, and might as well get a chapter or two read before I hit the ground.

     In conclusion, I’m a fuzzy little leprecaun of a woman in a fuzzy nation who gets punkin chunked across fields for spare cash. A good book would be nice, don’t you think so?

206. I deserve it because I’ve overcome adversity. When I was 14 my mother died and my father couldn’t raise me alone. So, he gave me up to the state. The next four years, I bounced from foster home to foster home, getting by as best I could. When I turned 18, my sister told me that I could live with her. However, when I turned 19 4 months later and my state check stopped, she told me to get a job or get out. Well, I was a mere 3 weeks from graduating high school (first one in my family) and I told her to suck it. So, she told me to get out. I spent the next 6 months living in my car at a local state park. I worked at a truck stop, cleaning and running the register. At night, when the buffet would close, I would tie servings of food into the corners of garbage bags and act like I was throwing them away. Why, you ask? Because my manager was a douche and wouldn’t just give it to me. At the end of the 6 months living in the park, I’d saved enough money to get an apartment. From there, I got several other jobs, mostly in industrial plants. Then, after getting into an altercation with management at my then current job (i.e. punching the Hungarian bastard in the face and breaking his very large nose) I quit. And with only a few dollars in my pocket, I started a successful technology consulting business. That was 15 years ago.

     Oh, and one more thing. This may not have been my life story, per se. But it was a life story. A very good friend of mine. My best friend. But he doesn’t enjoy reading like I do, and he said it would be fine to try to leverage his misfortune so I could get something freakin’ AWESONE like the Fuzzy Nation ARC.

     So, there.

207. well… maybe a signed ARC would be just the right thing to give for Christmas to your foreign publisher, who might just be wise enough to buy the rights and make an almost simultaneous foreign edition? :D

208. When I was very young, I absorbed my twin in the womb. As things turned out, he would have been the Good Twin. Being an evil twin without a twin is a hard, hard life. There’s no foil to work against, and so the Evil Muscles have to exercise themselves against the pallid squishyness of normal humans. Mundanes, if you will. Danes for short. This is unfortunate, as I know quite a few people from Denmark who are actually pretty nifty. I wouldn’t wish to paint them in poor colour, for they make splendid cheese and beer. This digression is not germane to the discussion, despite Germany being relatively close to Denmark. However, Germans are also pretty good at beer.

     What was I talking about?

     Oh just give me the gorram book already! It might let me concentrate on one thing for more than SQUIRREL!

209. Why do I deserve a free copy of Fuzzy Nation? Because I make you money, I have convinced 8 people to buy your books, they each convinced 8 people, and so on and so on resulting in a giant ponzi scheme supporting your work. I have been know to wait for people to return home, sitting on their porch, and forcing them to joing AOL just so they could read your old articles. I have insured that AMC filmcritic.com is the home page for everyone at work. All this I have done so that you will reap the rewards you so well deserve. Don’t you think it is time for a little pay back. Thanks in advance

210. All those great alien races you write about? They keep coming to Earth and anal probing me. I don’t like it much. Just about the time I am able to repress those memories deep, deep down in my gut some other alien race scoops me up and anal probes me again.

     I am begining to think I am on some alien anal probing list that is being sold to aliens again and again. If you can’t, or won’t provide me with a number to call, or website to register for the anti-anal probing op-out list somewhere, then I need that book to help me forget between probings.

     Oh no, I see strange lights outside. Dammit.

211. In our struggling economy {pick me} I have found myself {pick me} delving deeper and deeper {pick me} into my previously unread {pick me} stack of books. This is in a blatant {pick me} attempt at escapism. Reading {pick me} – the ultimate escapism! Movies, {pick me} TV, “Reality” TV – these {pick me} mediums do not allow {pick me} anyone to be subsumed {pick me} into the characters, the {pick me} place, or the time. {pick me} Reading is the one true {pick me} escape that lets you {pick me} walk in someone else’s {pick me} shoes, tread the paths {pick me} of adventure, and {pick me} gallivant down the roads {pick me} of the Milky Way. {pick me} Reading is the trip {pick me} that you can take {pick me} with comfortable companions at {pick me} your side. Fuzzy or {pick me} otherwise! Reading is the {pick me} escape that readily accessed {pick me} by the everyday working {pick me} woman or man whether {pick me} they can read 10 words {pick me} a minute or 100. {pick me} It is a true {pick me} transport medium of the imagination. {pick me}

     That heart twangy narrative {pick me}being declared – I would {pick me}venture that all of us {pick me}here that are posting {pick me} a plea to become {pick me} the chosen one are going to {pick me} be worthy. I mean {pick me} who doesn’t need escapism? {pick me} Who doesn’t deserve this {pick me} is a kind, original, {pick me} signed, typo inclusive copy {pick me} of an awesome ARC? {pick me}Not one of us! {pick me} We are the fans! {pick me}We are the needy! {pick me}We are the deserving! {pick me}Will it bring us eternal {pick me} happiness? Yes! {pick me} Well maybe initially! Especially {pick me} during initial basking in others envy stage. {pick me} Would it be really cool to {pick me} be the chosen recipient? {pick me} You BETCHA{pick me}!

     So – – – Pick one us! {pick me} Pick any us! {pick me} Pick us! {pick me}

212. Hi John. I am the CEO of The Mountain and defacto inventor of the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt. You can read all about its goldy powers here: http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Short-Sleeve-Black/dp/B000NZW3KC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290823258&sr=8-1.

     I shit you not, I have invented that baby, and women have never been the same since it was unleashed on the world. As a fan of you works, I can make you (or your chosen avatar) just as irresistible to the opposite sex simply by giving you an UNRELEASED 4 Wolf Moon t-shirt. This shirt has curative powers, allows you to see in 4D, AND will make you invisible in those new TSA scanners when you travel…

     I’m making this offer only once, and you are the chosen one.

213. I have lost 6 of my best men in The Consu contest just to get the address of your blog. I am the only survivor. I must have the copy of the book, if only to rebuild my humanity from the shreds to which it was reduced to for your sadistic amusement.

214. Why I Deserve A Shiny New Scalzi ARC — because I’m in the process of driving by the Creation Museum twice, taking two days each way to/fro North Carolina to have Thanksgiving with my mom. And I didn’t get anything done around the house or any writing because I have this huge wound in my thumb from a nasty infection and the bandage keeps randomly moving the mouse cursor on the touch panel. At least going to Urgent Care on the road got the infection lanced and a couple of days of antibiotics means it doesn’t hurt (much) anymore.

     Not that I’m whining, just deserving.

     Dr. Phil

215. Seeing that I have purchased virtually all of your books (multiple copies of a few), I occured to me that I am, in reality, part owner of that couch the Fuzzy Nation ARC is hovering over. A couch that was obviously purchased without my approval. I mean really, was it bought during a power failure? I’d hover over it, too.
     Any way, as a way to make it up to me and also to give the ARC a tasteful resting place, the choice is clear.
     Do the right thing.

216. This won’t be entertaining, and I feel like a douche playing this card, but it is entirely true: I’ve just started an aggressive program of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. I’m relatively young, which works against, so the treatments will be so severe that I’ll without doubt be bed-ridden, and may possibly be moved into a nursing facility. So- I love your work, and I think you’re a pretty decent guy. Fuzzy Nation would be a nice way to spend some of my upcoming bed time.
     I’m not sad about having cancer, and I’m not (too) scared of the treatments because at the end, hey, no cancer. So, you know, I don’t want pity, because most people on the planet would kill to have the kind of medical resources available to them that I have. And I think your “entertaining” criteria is a valid and worthwhile one, so if the winner really makes you laugh and oozes creativity, I will in no way be butt-hurt, nor think you heartless, or any crap of the sort.
     I’m just really looking forward to reading Fuzzy Nation, and an early copy would be just the thing to make this whole experience a little sweeter.

     p.s. I HAVE A SOUL- I’m not lying about anything. Geez- suspicious much?

217. I feel it important to note I’m not really THAT hairy a guy. This story is going to make you picture some sort of shambling, shedding bear-person, a sort of human-faced Chewbacca, and that’s not me. I’m just a bit hairier than average. My five-o-clock shadow comes in around noon, it’s kind of hard to tell what color the skin on my arms is. That’s all. But that was enough to get me a nickname in college. The guy next door had this nickname obsession, thought it was super cute to call everyone some wacky code name. Make that “wacky” code name. And so, because he was really not that creative and almost all the nicknames ended up focusing on hair in one way or another, I ended up…Fuzz. For whatever reason, I was the only one whose nickname ended up sticking–probably because nobody was sure how to pronounce my real one. It’s Thai: Manitho Erawan Natien. Confuses the hell out of people, since I was adopted–I don’t look Asian at all, I’m something Mediterranean, as far as we can tell.

     But the point is–I’m sure you’ve realized by now–that my name is Fuzz E. Natien, and I’ve been an enormous fan of your work since I picked up Old Man’s War five years ago, and I’d dearly love to get my hands on that ARC. That sucker’s going right above my fireplace–hell, I might carry it around with me just to show people. This sort of opportunity just doesn’t show up very often. Make me the happiest Natien on the planet!

218. Martin checked the charge indicator on his raygun, just like The Captain had showed him, as he stood just outside the door and waited. “Charge indicator is fully blue, and the yellow dot means the safety is off…ok, you can do this, he muttered to himself. “I’m holding a freaking raygun!”
     The raygun’s silver mirrored surface reflected his nervous face as he held it tight in both hands. It was round, almost like a hairdryer but with wires and a cross sight on the back end. The raygun’s handle was as art deco as a movie theater from the 30s, the kind that either get torn down or turned into banks. It’s “bore” for lack of a better word nothing more than a six inch antennae with a ball at the end and five brass discs, arranged small to large, spaced along it’s length. The raygun was just like something out of those old science fiction serials in his grandparents’ day, or Marvin the Martian in his.
     Each disc changed a specific setting he learned, but The Captain told Martin to only bother with two. One being the middle one, it has two positions. Fire and safe. The last one, farthest from the bore and the largest by far had 10 clicks, and the symbols for the various settings Martin could roughly interpret. The first setting was depicted by a mosquito, the last being a half melted screaming skull on fire.
     During The Captain during their very short weapons briefing he yelled over the klaxon, but it seemed like he always yelled:
     “Well, that one feels like getting stung by a mosquito. The third, and my favorite, with the picture of the donkey kicking is well, just like getting kicked by a donkey. Do I really need to explain the skull on fire?” Martin was told to keep it on the 6th click, which was a round frowny face with X’s for eyes set on crossed femur bones.
     Martin eyed Luigi who was on the other side of the door, waiting as well. From the sweat on his brow, he was just as nervous. His raygun raised next to his face, held white knuckled as well. “A freaking RAYGUN!” his mind screamed again as he tried to stifle a laugh at the situation.
     “Oh, you can do this. Wait for the signa….”
     The cargo door explodes in a deafening roar.

     “Rayguns ready!” The Captain bellowed over the din and ruckus. “Hold fast! Hold fast, I say!” He raises his own raygun to the ready position and flips the safety off in one graceful motion. Smoke pours through the blasted doorway as a dozen purple beams of light begin to probe the smoke and debris as the Captain and his conscripts lie in ambush. The Captain ordered Martin to switch the corridor to emergency power, cutting the harsh white light to the soft dark amber glow as they began setting up their meager three man defenses. “Ready!” The Captain bellows again, unconcerned about being overheard over the klaxon which he left running as a diversion, hoping that whatever is out there won’t like the noise.
     “Maledica questo fumo, la I can’la t respire.” Luigi mutters as he adjusts his grip on the raygun. The Old Italian fighting back the desire to flea that all conscripts feel before their first taste of combat against an unknown enemy. The Captain in his wisdom, or possible ignorance, decided to keep the details of the attackers’ appearance from Martin and Luigi, which set their minds into overdrive. Martin’s head filled with the monsters of his childhood but he breaks the fear by imagining whatever will come through the door will be no more frightening that a man in a gorilla suit wearing space helmet. Luigi fights away the demons of his mother’s faith, “La madre santa li protegge,” he says as he crosses him self.
     The first dark shape emerges through the wide remains of the cargo hold door, gleaming metal with a faint orange glow just beneath the surface of what would be its heart while a pair of segmented legs work their way over the remains of the large door. The green light beam probing the corridor emitted where its eyes should be and all manner of strange antenna spin and dance around the rest of its cylinder shaped head, this scout probing for an ambush. In its right pincer of a hand it holds a raygun of similar design to those issued to the conscripts by The Captain, except for the size.
     “All right men change of plans, switch to the donkey setting and aim for that orange glow! Fire! Fire! Fire!” The Captain roars commanding the trio action, they raise their rayguns deftly change this settings and fire on the scout in unison. Two beams smash into what would be its chest and the glow goes from orange to white. The chest panels caves in under the blast crushing what would be a mechanical heart while The Captain’s beam smashes into the source of the green beam probe blinding it. It roars in a strange mechanical buzz that reminds Martin of a table saw as mechanical limbs flail and come to its blinding optic probe dropping the weapon as the scouts legs give. If it was human, it would appear to be on its knees. The Captain scoops up the scout’s raygun in his free hand and moves inside its reach resting the tip against the dome of the thing’s head and fires. A steady beam shoots through the head and into the corridors floor, melting the material, slicing like a warm knife through even softer butter.
     The buzzing stops as the scout falls forward on twitching limps, The Captain tosses the scout’s overpowered weapon aside in apparent disgust at using such a weapon in a sealed environment. He removes what Martin could only describe as a stainless steel pepper grinder from his belt, gives it three turns and tosses it into the open door towards the advancing green probe lights. “Get to cover boys!”
     Martin, followed by Luigi who doesn’t understand a word of what is being said but recognizes through his fellow conscript’s wide eyes the need for action, sprint down the corridor in a hurry before that lunatic Captain’s toy kills them all. Luigi continues his habit of muttering curses, “sciocco pazzesco,” as they clear the corner and a blinding neon green fills the air around them followed momentary by a concussion of rushing air first pushing them to the floor that then reverses and threatens to drag them backward. The Captain, the only one prepared, grabs hold his two new conscripts by their belts and braces his feet against part of the deck that appears to be made for securing cargo straps. They ride out the wind storm of green lightning until it subsides.
     Once back on their feet The Captain claps them both on the back, “Good job boys, once I knew what was causing all the trouble I figured the best way to deal with them would be all at once. I love those little micro singularity grenades”
     “Che cosa?” Luigi asked as if he understood now that things have calmed down.
     “Microscopic black holes in a hand held delivery device good for short range operations and best used against targets too damn stupid not to use cutter beams on a pressurized environment. Even if they don’t breathe, they had it coming. It’s just not polite,” The Captain finishes with a smile. “Safe and holster your weapons and let’s have a look at the damage,” he says leading them towards the wrecked door.

     “Sente l’odore di come i piedi fritti nel grasso bollente dei maiali,” Luigi exclaimed as they made their way through what little remained of the intruders. “Dove tutti sono andato?”
     The Captain answer with only a barely noticeable hesitation, “You see that sphere of soot covered metal about the size of an olive sitting in that depression surrounded by the scorch marks on the floor?”
     “Sì, ma..”
     “That is all that remains. It’s all the mass of our dear interlopers compressed to a single point by intense gravitational forces…Hey Martin! Don’t touch that unless you want to lose a hand!”
     Martin froze with his outstretched hand just a few inches from the remains. “Here,” The Captain said as he tossed Martin what appears looked like a clear plastic thermos with an array of ancient vacuum tubes, two D batteries and a pair of toggle switch. “Scoop it up, flip the first switch, close the lid securely and flip the second switch. There is a panel in the corridor marked, follow the directions. Carefully.”
     Martin quickly went about his duty as The Captain surveyed the remnants of the cargo bay, looking for where the trouble started. In the far end of the massive expanse were twelve steel coffins ripped open from the inside. “Ah, it was part of the cargo itself. These damn malfunction machine monstrosities are a menace,” The Captain spoke to himself as Luigi found a push broom and began clearing debris without being asked.
     The Captain made his way past the smashed small arms locker to the jumble of Scout model Storage and Transport Units that evidently didn’t do a good job in the storage department. He didn’t see any external signs of interference, no unknown saboteur, just a cable with decayed insulation running from who knows what to who knows what carrying who knows what kind of charge.
     “Martin!” The Captain roared. Martin appeared at his side promptly, his disposal duty apparently done. “Ah, there you are, good. Find out what this is connected to, see if you can shut it down and report back”.

     “Robots and rayguns!” Martin thought as he activated the closest terminal. He would’ve preferred the man in the gorilla suit with space helmet to those clunky heavily armed monstrosities; at least he could’ve laughed at something like that. But now he had another assignment.
     Lost in thought Martin amazed himself that he understood how to operate the interface even though he couldn’t read a word of the instructions and O Captain My Captain back there didn’t think he needed to be shown any more than the activation switch. Which, strangely enough, he didn’t. As he back traced the system feeding the arcing cable he marveled at his own ingenuity and how quickly he was adapting to this absurd situation without realizing it wasn’t he who was adapting.

     It was the ship.

     And the ship thinks I should get the copy of Fuzzy Nation.

219. My too-young mother read the original Little Fuzzy to me. And probably still wishes she hadn’t.

     The reason I deserve the ARC is that an 8-year-old me got a serious whipping and grounded for a pre-tween eternity for re-enacting the Fuzzy funeral with my mother’s beloved Dam Dolls – the neon-headed trolls being the fuzziest things in the house that weren’t the cat. I buried them in the back yard cistern and told my mother it proved I was human. To this day, she has her doubts.

220. I deserve it, because I remember the stars. No, I remember the promise of the stars–the promise of a future antiseptic and soft around the edges. A promise shattered by the hard reality of the arrival of the Overlords. Now, my days are filled with pain and torment. I labor from dawn to dusk, scrabbling across the harsh desert, imploring the dry earth to give rise to the stark monument demanded by the Overlords to symbolize their power and prestige. I’m but a slave, and according to our masters, a slave requires nothing but work, food, and religion, but I require something more. I require hope. No, I require retribution. I grab a rock. Its rough texture fills my hands. It fills my heart. “Bless this rock, oh Lord. May it crush my enemies’ exoskeleton…”

221. A Tale of Deserviositude: The God Engines Lament

     I lived for several whimpering years in the wastes of California,
     Where oft I wandered fro and to ‘twixt laden shelves where promised Engines ne’er lay.
     I wished, I longed, I begged and cried, but no bookstore would order,
     Your tome, so blessed by thieving hands. “Try Amazon,” they’d say.

     I just,
     Couldn’t,
     Find a copy anywhere!

     Now I wait with mortals all the coming of The Claus,
     And if my pleas have well been heard, ’twill come most coveted Engines.
     But I doubt it. That book is impossible to find.

     In recompense for all I suffered in search of those feckless Engines,
     May I please have the ARC of Fuzzy Nation?

     Deserviosity

222. From : Head, Gravitonic Treaty of Ganymede Observation Task Force
     To: Commander in Chief, Gravitonic Commission Enforcement Agency
     Object : Unauthorized Gravitational Activity “Earth 28567 (SBc 1254 – 28 000 – 35,201604- III)”

     X’Charc,

     I hope this L-mail finds you well, and that you enjoyed your break for Di’Wal’EE. Did you and the family make it back home?
     The buzz is that you’re being offered to take over the Space Academy on Earth 143! Your mom must be so proud. You see, I was right to kick you out of the observatory when you where a young pup. Like me, you’d still be spending days poring over reams of data instead of playing around IN the stars in a flashy uniform.
     If you make it to Earth 1 – do make sure to come say hello to your uncle. I’d be so happy to see you.
     But enough reminiscence. The boys down at GravObs have detected an unexplained anomaly / fluctuation on Earth 28567, and we’d need your guys to go and investigate. It would be unremarkable, and we’d just request annihilation as per procedure (it’s a stage II pre space flight planet) but we have a small problem- a X’thin lord has decided to use one of its desert regions as a winter retreat, and he’d make no end of fuss out of it.
     My guess ? One of his sons has used a Gravitonic Transport (you know, they use the FlexiSheet models that look like carpets – great way to impress the chicks) to go outside of the authorised area (they call it the Arabian Gulf).

     I’d need you to confirm by going to the fluctuation location (a place called Ohio … I know, the names they use!) and checking the anomaly has disappeared.

     If not, or worse, if the natives have stolen a Gravitonic Transport, then of course immediate action will be needed. But if the anomaly is back in the authorized area, well, I guess the best we can do is a diplomatically worded letter to the X’thin lord reminding him of his duty as overlord of a Stage II planet and father of a teenage boy.

     Yours always,
     ‘Nthac, your uncle.

223. I deserve an ARC of Fuzzy Nation because I work at a state agency cataloging shattered lives and dead babies and this, quite frankly, depresses me, even though I know I’m at least working as part of a system that’s attempting to mend some of the damage we do to ourselves and each other.

224. I deserve a copy of your new book because I just got back from spending a week with my parents at their house for Thanksgiving. I have a husband who spent the entire week trying to deal with their virus laden and generally cranky computers. And three kids with no toys in the house, but lots of breakable things.

     I need to escape the horrors of the experience. Please send me your great book so I can spend some time escaping in the world of fiction for a while.

225. Why do I deserve that ARC? Firstly, I’m pretty damn awesome, Scalzi. Since you’re pretty damn awesome as well, we have that in common. Next: I’m finishing up two very challenging years of school in three weeks, during which I didn’t have time to do any social reading (I haven’t read anything other than technical manuals and programming books in TWO YEARS!). Then I will using my line of credit to get ridiculously drunk in celebration and Fuzzy Nation would be awesome reading while recovering from the potential hangover as well as a great aid in integrating myself back into regular society. Also-also plus and? All of this is true: I can provide transcripts and pictures of my bleary eyed, frizzy haired self as proof. Samples of my lack of social life isn’t all that easy to send as an attachment over the intertubes. Thank you! (You’re awesome!)

226. I am an alien in an alien nation. The mountains have melted. Down, they expose the rocks like monuments red against the sky. All the animals are original. Duckbills, jumping,offf-colored, dangerous. Or just furry and languid, chomping grass and leaves and staring with the wisdom of ancients. (Because they are)
     I am an alien in an alien nation. Home is far away, and twenty years ago. Give me an ARC, that I may soar to the stars.

227. Ayo John! yo hommie…. Hook a brother up with the ARC! you know you want to. It will be revered and worshiped like it deserves. Drop it on me dog! Call me, will do lunch.

228. You must give me one because I’m a ninja.

     That’s it. What?

229. I think that it would be fun to try to send the book around the world. We could set up a group project to get a list of people and sort the list by people’s longitude. Each person would mail the book to the person to the east of them. I would set up a blog and post people’s pictures with the book. We could keep track of the progress of the book on the blog. Each recipient of the book would sign a page. The end result would be returning the book to you and auctioning the book with proceeds going to a charity of your choice.

     The people on the list would be determined by a contest that I have yet to work out, but no more complicated than taking the first 100 people with the correct answer to some trivia question. Some spots would be reserved for international people, people with high deservitude quotients, and anybody else you care to add to the list. I’m pretty sure that we can do this and share only a small amount of personal information.

230. I deserve the ARC because, well, first off, they’re awesome.

     Due to Arthrogryposis, a disability that makes my joints very stiff, books are getting hard to hold. I’d be honored if that could be one of them.

     And, the title just sounds like awesome-ness.

     Rei

231. I have decided, that since I have no glorious adventure to offer up, this submission will consist mostly of general sucking up and fawning over the panel.
     First, because they are obviously the most important and lease inclined towards wooing… Catnip will be bestowed upon any consideration on my behalf. I think it’ll interest you to know that I do, in fact, worship the great cat gods in my household. Milk is laid out every morning, and kept out until dusk touches its cold fingers upon the land. If the milk sours, the gods are angry…which is mostly every day, given that they are of feline persuasion. Though their temper seems to have been soothed with the below 30 degree morning…odd.
     And Kristy, your hair burns like the fiery sun at dawn. When the first crimson bands stretch across the sky and bleed into an orange sorbet of clouds. I fancy myself a poet, and I could write of thee and they glorious hair all day. But alas, there is not enough time.
     As for you……I toiled many hours of my precious time, neglecting school and general holiday madness as well as Black Friday to show my ultimate adoration. And if you could take a moment of your time to follow this ridiculous link (no spam or viruses, I promise) : http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcmpfvm9Qu1qa6e2ro1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1291090962&Signature=2mfyuSlxsXFIxSV87NpuwMhv0F4%3D
     You can see it in all its glory. (And I’m willing to let you have it, even, if the book could be mine in exchange). You see, I find bribery the way to go, pardon any insult that may arise from the offer. I mean it in only the most respectful way.
     Disclaimer: anything offered in the previous post will, in all likelihood, never be provided (Though I do know where you live). No, information was not attained by stalking, don’t be silly. Most opinions presented were the result of hyperbole and fabricated adoration. Notice, I didn’t say all. You do, in fact, have earlobes that asians would be sycophantic to.
     Also, I am 16 years of age, and thus too young to be properly sued for witholding any of the aforementioned offering. Also, my Dad is a lawyer. ‘Nuff said.

232. Why should you give me a copy of the Fuzzy Nation ARC?

     Well that’s simple here are just a few of the reasons:

     1). Barring any gratuitous sex scenes it could very well become one of the first science fiction novels my 4 kids read, that’s career security right there.
     2). Because my book buying funds dried up at about the same speed as the economy did here in Michigan.
     3). Because I’m currently stuck in the most dead end horrible job you could imagine. Yes, worse than that. I’m a property inspector for about a dozen mortgage companies. I’m the lucky guy who gets to come take pictures of your house, then knock on your door if you’re behind on your mortgage & give you a little note that says “call your mortgage company”. If you’re not home I have to determine if someone actually lives in the house or not. If I make a mistake and report an occupied house as vacant & the bank changes the locks, I don’t just get yelled at, it makes the local news. So far this month? 1100 houses. I’ve had the cops called on me 6 times in the last eleven months (2-3 cruisers normally show when they finally track me down, it’s like playing hide and seek but you don’t know you’re playing).
     4). A book that size, tucked into a specially sewn pocket in my jacket just might save me from a bullet. People claim that the Bible has stopped bullets in the past, wouldn’t you like to get some of that sweet sweet news of the weird free advertising. I’d even be willing to claim the bullet dotted the “i” in your last name. Think about it, I’m working in Detroit, the odds are against me.

233. Deserving is such a strong word. I am but a humble fan, but if I am awarded the book, I shall do deserving things with it. I shall read it to homeless orphans. (In the interest of honesty since I am an honest person as well as a veterinary nurse, the orphans will likely be kittens) Because you liked this: http://karabucreations.blogspot.com/2009/10/androids-dream-sheep-amigurumi.html that I made, I shall find something crochet-able from Fuzzy Nation to crochet as well. I shall even gift the crocheted item to the homeless orphans in your honor. Thank you for your time.

234. I’ve left my begging to the very last minute. The mere fact I have taken the risk to submit my entry so late shows a level of deserveosity and risk takingness not before seen in the preceding comments. Otherwise. I like to read. I like to read books. I like free books. I like read good free books. I was going to say good free books are a rare commodity but then I realised that most of worlds great literature is available for free already. I deserve the opportunity to see if Fuzzy Nation is as good as, say, Paul Clifford. To be fair I will only be comparing the third sentence from each.

     It wasn’t because I almost forgot to enter. What makes you say that?

235. Because I need something to read until the sequel to the Android’s Dream get written!

236. Why do I deserve this book?

     I’m not going to give you some sob story. I won’t tell you about how terrible my life is, or the bad things that have happened to me, or the battlescars that I have collected. I won’t tell you of my Dickensian beginnings or my Herculean ending. I will be completely honest with you. i will be a straight shooter.

     The honest truth is…I am an alien myself. Not from another country, although possibly illegal, I come from a planet that no longer exists. It was destroyed by greed an animosity. They strayed too far from their humble beginnings, and it cost them in the end.

     I was, for one reason or another, sent away on a spaceship before the fateful destruction of my planet. You may be thinking, “this sounds suspiciously like the origins of Superman…or perhaps Goku.” You would be right. The tale of my beginnings has inspired authors from Homer to Gaiman. I’m serious!

     Now, I don’t want the book simply because I am an alien and reading a book about a foreign culture might make me feel somewhat less isolated in this strange world that has become my surrogate home. I should also inform you that I am a lover of books. Books mean everything to me. Sure I love to read them, but they are actually vital to my survival. The more books I collect, the more powerful I become.

     You may be reluctant to hand a book over to me. You may say, “If you gain power from books, won’t giving you one of mine, fantastically amazing as they are, result in a burst of power not-unlike the white-hot intensity of the sun?” Well, yes. Probably. But when I absorb the power of your prose and convert it into psychic, telepathic, pyrokinetic, and homeopathic powers, don’t fear. By aiding me in my quest, you will of course be my right-hand man. You can rule whatever country you wish with whatever fist you please–iron, diamond studded, meaty, or even dainty.

     Say your wife continues to believe that politics is not the field for you. I can still have your novel lauded from coast to coast. Mt. Rushmore will be a memory when Mt. Scalzi-more is finished. The New York Times? More like The Scalzi Times. Your presence could be forever marked on the history of this planet, like the pharaohs of Egypt.

     If the idea of riding the coattails of my omnipotence is not appealing, maybe I should mention that I’m actually best friends with Will Wheaton. Seriously. Ask him.

     Also, I own a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten. But don’t worry, I won’t get bent out of shape that you took the idea of the creature from me. I’ll accept the ARC of Fuzzy Nation as compensation.

237. Two words: pants and oranges.

238. That book is mine, by right of blood and burden. In the twelfth century, a first crude printing press was created, well before Gutenberg, obviously. It was not long for this world, as the press spontaneously imploded after printing one page, just one single page. You see, it was perfect. Stupendously, unambiguously perfect. The creator of the press, having laboured long into the night to reach the hour of its completion, could not recall anything past turning that fateful, final screw into place. He slumped forward over his masterpiece, only to wake what felt like moments later, finding the press already in motion, a completed page sliding from its mechanical grip. What words were on that page, no living creature knows, but when that man’s eyes had traced the last line to completion, they were shining with tears for their beauty. But the hearts and minds of men are fickle, and having only just finished the page, the printer felt compelled to read it again, for proof, as his doubts whispered to him that such a thing of flawless beauty could not possibly exist. This, incidentally, is actually the origin of our modern term “proof reading”. In his second sweep through the page, he noticed one tiny imperfection; an extra space after a period, the tiniest of imperfections. He spoke his finding aloud, and suddenly felt a terrible wrath focused upon him. Knowledge burned from nowhere, searing indelible markings upon his mind. The page and press were to have been a gift, a source of light for all mankind, but in his folly he had scorned them. An awful keening poured forth from the press, and the entire rig spun inward upon itself, the storm-winds of it motion ripping the page from the printer’s hand. In the blink of an eye it was gone, with no trace of it to be found. Grief struck, the man knew that he had done a terrible ill, just as he knew that further punishment had been laid on his shoulders. From that day on, he and all of his descendents were charged with bearing the mantle of the ur-editor, to read the advance copies of every work ever to be written, in a ceaseless search for hidden errors.

     I am the last of his line, and this is my duty. Render unto me this ARC, allow me my task, I ask nothing more than to be given the chance to do what I must.

239. Hear now My Word:

     i) Ohio shall be spared. For now. The Yogurt has been consumed in a great pillar of fire, except for mine portion, which was consumed in a small bowl with strawberries.
     ii) My Son shall not be deemed worthy. This shall be so, because of His plentiful complaints about the Aramaic translation of Old Man’s War.
     iii) This Good Book shall be given to One who deserves it most. This One shall be so marked, and bear an illustration of surpassing elegance and beauty on Their lower back, also known as a tramp-st….

     Oh, don’t grovel… Every time I try to talk to someone it’s “sorry this” and “forgive me that” and “I’m not worthy”…

240. I deserve this ARC because I’ve watched every episode of Happy Days. I think Henry Winkler’s performance defined a gener-

     What? FUZZY nation?

     Oh…

241. Because it’s about time I finally get what’s coming to me.

242. The universe has selected me for this prize, since I have also been selected for recycling by the Central Universal Preservation Administration (CUPA, like in the classic video game). You might have heard of this in an episode of Sliders (season two, I believe). In order to maintain proper population sizes in the universe, select individuals are chosen each decade to be recycled into the body proper. As a prize for our cooperation, we are given one year of pure bliss. Every participating system ceases all violent operations for that period of time, with the exception of Earth, which has failed to accept CUPA’s invitation into the body proper. So, as part of my blissful year, I deserve to have a copy of Fuzzy Nation, lest my year become less blissful and I be recycled in misery.

     Thank you for your time, kind sir.

     P.S.: If the above isn’t a clear indication — I am not human. I was born on Pastacora Prime in the Epsilon Eridani system.

243. Update: She said YES! :-D :-D :-D

244. I deserve this prize because I helped save the world once. Granted, I also helped put it in jeopardy.
     On the morning of January the 26th, I was meandering across campus when a university official told me that I was now head of the department of Nanorobotic Pyrotechnics. I was to inform my predecessor in the post, Dr. David Fivehead, that he had been fired (for eating too many tacos from the Dining Commons), and that alternative employment lay in his future. So, I did it, and then I drove him the fifty miles to his new job, and then I drove into a tree. Apparently, no one was sent to pick him up, and he spent two months sleeping on a floor, and crushing garlic with his forehead.
     When I discovered that he had been abandoned, I drove out to rescue him, and instead of being greatful, he overpowered me, took me to the land of Frankia, and put me in the hands of its deranged dictator, Sir Bert Flubble. Flubble hated sandwiches, and instructed me to build nanorobotic pyrotechnic devices to destroy the whole world, so that all sandwiches be eliminated. (Apparently, ‘Earl Sandwichman’ the creator of the sandwich intended to use it to control people and wrote things like “The one with a 2:1 bread to meat ratio will rule the land.”)
     Trapped in a dungeon, I had no choice but to work. Resistance just lead to pain and the shaving of my flamboyant red hair. So, naturally, I used the nanorobotic pyrotechnic parts to build a weapon and protective armor. With it I slayed Dr. Fivehead, and Bert Flubble. I was able to return to Cornborough University in time for my next class.
     Now, honestly, just saving the world might not be enough to earn this book. But, I also wrote my own book, my own movie, and my own radio series. I went to the media, and I talked to my students about the evils of sandwich hating dictators. Apparently, no one believes me, and I’ve been fired, and all of my writings have been rejected. So please, let me just have this one book, so I can feel like there’s something worth living for!

     Love,
     Ernie Callahan

245. Valuable info. Lucky me I discovered your website accidentally, and I am stunned why this accident didn’t came about earlier! I bookmarked it.