Professor Paul S. Wesson lives a double life. As a Cambridge-educated astronomer, he writes articles and books on cosmology which are loaded with boring equations. As a normal person and non-geek, he writes science-fiction books in the manner of Marx (Groucho not Karl). Told that he would only be famous after his death, he has issued a fatwa against himself, and is never sure when the assasin's bullet will strike.