For one fateful weekend, the annual science fiction and fantasy convention, Rubicon, has all but taken over a usually ordinary hotel. Now the halls are alive with Trekkers, tech nerds, and fantasy gamers in their Viking finery - all of them eager to hail their hero, best-selling fantasy author Appin Dungannon: a diminutive despot whose towering ego more than compensates for his 5'1" height. . . and whose gleeful disdain for his fawning fans is legendary. Hurling insults and furniture with equal abandon, the terrible, tiny author proceeds to alienate ersatz aliens and make-believe warriors at warp speed. But somewhere between the costume contest and the exhibition Dungeons and Dragons game, Dungannon gets done in. While die-hard fans of Dungannon's seemingly endless sword-and-sorcery series wonder how they'll go on and hucksters wonder how much they can get for the dead man's autograph, a hapless cop wonders, 'Who would want to kill Appin Dungannon?' But the real question, as the harried convention organizers know, is 'Who wouldn't?'