As I'm not very familiar with 'Ashes to Ashes' (still haven't finished 'Life on Mars' yet), I was rather hoping you'd talk about who that is in the icon and why he's "not the brightest button on the planet".

Probably 'Deep Secret' - that's the one that's set at an SF convention. I can't remember any situation in 'A Sudden Wild Magic' where the quote would be appropriate.

('Hexwood' also has a mention of hobbits, but only in the context of Harrison complaining that there aren't any - which didn't stop one of the foreign publishers sticking it with cover art recycled from an earlier edition of LoTR.)