Here are the winners in the great Tales of the Unanticipated giveaway. I asked people to explain why they were worthy of receiving a free copy of this great semi-prozine. I then picked the four best responses.
My favorite response was from Aaron:
I need a free copy because I just blew my discretionary magazine allowance on an Interzone subscription, which is entirely your fault because "Sublimation Angels" kicks ass . . . although that Eugie Foster "Sinner Baker Candlestick Maker" story kicked ass too, but don't try to change the subject . . . and also I like that they publish Jason Stoddard a lot, but I thought you and he were the same person for the longest time, so I'm blaming you for that, too.
That's right. Play on my guilt. But in this case it worked.
Shaun kept things short and sweet:
TOTU is my literary soulmate, destined to spend our leisure time together since the ancient Golden Age. Thus, I want a copy.
Who am I to deny someone a leisure-time merging with their literary soulmate?
John won a copy for this plea:
I'm an avid fan of Norm Sherman's Drabblecast - a podcast I'm thinking you're aware of, what with the links to it from your "Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim" on Dunesteef. From what I've just been looking into, there'll be stories in issue 30 of TOTU that will remind me of some of the work presented on Drabblecast!
In any case, a simple request seems in order. Just a simple one, now. So, to ask nicely for one rare duplicate: Please?
What pushed John's pleasant request into the winner's bracket was how he hid my name in the last two sentences as a riddle (and in full confession mode, he also thankfully told me about the riddle, otherwise I'd have missed it). Even if he misspelled my name, that brought a smile to my face.
Last but not least, William confessed that deep, dark gardening secret all genre fans have contemplated:
I'm TOTU worthy because I once kept a secret garden in which I planted discarded computer circuits, hoping robots would grow from them.
Congrats to all the winners. And don't forget, you can order copies of Tales of the Unanticipated issue 30--which contains my "Twenty-First Century Fairy Love Story"--directly from TOTU Ink.