Dedication

What you always read:

'I'd particularly like to thank my editor, [insert name here], without whose sage advice, incisive correction and gentle admonishment this work might never have been finished.'

What you never read:

'The fact that you're holding this book in your hands is no thanks to my worthless fuck of an editor, [insert name here], who is nothing less than a vampiric leech. I would have been better off submitting my manuscript to a butternut squash with a face drawn on it than to that epic waste of the Earth's resources, without whom history would remain entirely unchanged.'

From which we can draw one of two conclusions. Either:

a] All editors are absolutely sublime masters of their craft, truly altruistic types, whose sole purpose in life is to shepherd their naive, uncertain wards through the fraught and trap-bestrewn world of publishing,

Or:

b] Writers are in the same position as any other jobbing schmucko, and calling their boss a pointless streak of shit to their faces, however well-intentioned, will elicit precisely the same brisk hauling over the same energetically glowing coals.

Thus is forged Sheersy's First Law of Humanity, which states that massaging the right egos will get you everywhere.