I am perfectly aware that my obsession with the works of Iain M. Banks (or Iain Banks, when he's writing gritty crime novels) border on the fetishistic. I also know that Diziet Sma and co. are as likely to appear in any Eyrie work as King Herod would be to appear on the board of the Bethlehem Playgroup & Creche Association.

I also know I have the writing talents of a pile of lemongrass recently micturated on by a goose, and that the idea of me being shunted up the ziggurat (lickety-split, if so you choose) is ludicrous at best and damaging to the series at worst.

The implication that I am angling for a place on the staff is inherently absurd. I can't think up coherent plots, for one thing. For another, I don't have the kind of clairvoyant Ultravir space brain one needs to remember the entire bloody UF canon and fit one's own work into it.

I'm sorry if I have inadvertently exposed you to the un-American idea of "not being egotistical to the point of implosion". I know my limitations.