by Nancy Kress
He was not alone. Why is it that in fiction you can kill off any number of people, but no dogs? My son had a less-than-helpful suggestion: “Make the plague carried by gerbils instead!” It’s true that probably not a lot of people would rise up in arms to defend gerbils.However,for the purposes of fiction,the emotional impact is just not the same.
So I was delighted when Jacob Weisman of Tachyon decided to publish the novel. Before he did so, he asked for one change. In my version, both love affairs (Billy/Cami and Jess/Tessa) ended badly. Jacob pointed out that, in the face of plague and death and armed rebellion, it would be nice for at least somebody to end up happy. Billy, being dead, probably wasn’t a good candidate. How about Tessa?
Jacob was right. I changed Chapter 75 so that Tessa and Jess have a chance to be together. Only a chance—but that’s all any of us ever gets, really. What you do with chances is up to you.
To a writer, e-books are what Thomas Wolfe said you can’t have: the chance to go home again. You can revisit out-of-print books, which are just as good as when someone first published them, but which the physical encumbrances of paper, bindings, and warehouse space have made no longer financially viable. These books can be resurrected, given another chance. Every writer I know is busily putting their backlist up for e-publication, grateful for their books to have a second life.
E-books also give writers a chance to include side material—such as this afterword. Without the constraints and expense of physical books, authors can play with the form. In such a spirit of play, I’m offering here the original Chapter 75 of Dogs. I think Jacob was correct in asking me to change it—but what do YOU think?
Send me your responses through the email on my website, http://www.sff.net/people/nankress/, or leave a comment on my on-going blog, http://nancykress.blogspot.com/. I’d love to know which version you prefer!