To date, The Forever War is my all-time favorite science fiction novel, so it should come as no surprise that I blubbered sycophantically upon meeting this pioneering author. Mr. Haldeman sat to my left, and Jack McDevitt, author of Cauldron , Outbound, and A Talent for War, sat to my right. On that particular night, Mr. McDevitt won the Nebula Award for his novel Seeker.
You know, it is a marvelous thing when you sit between two great masters and realize that they are friendly, interested, polite, down-to-earth people. Science fiction, and maybe writing in general, puts out a humbler breed of celebrity than most arts.
Anyway, I wanted to thank Anne and the editors at Ace for allowing me to join their table.
On to the business at hand.
As always, I wish to thank the lovely and talented Anne, for everything she has done to help me on this project. The Clone Alliance, the previous Wayson Harris novel, passed from manuscript to novel easily. The Clone Elite, which you now hold in your hands, required far more work. Thank you, Anne, Cam, and the rest of the crew for all of your overtime.
The first problem was that I ran into a bit of a literary detour while writing this book. The detour should have lasted eight weeks, instead it distracted me for six full months. The good news was that I had finished the first draft of the novel before hitting that detour. The bad news was that when I finally turned the first draft of The Clone Elite over to my readers, I did not receive the warm response I had hoped to get.
They all said the same thing—the first pages of the book were choppy, the middle seemed to fly by, then the book fell apart in the last lap. They all disagreed about the source of the problem. John Thorpe, the first one to read the book, wanted Harris to find true love with Marianne, Ray Freeman’s sister. I thought that sounded good until Rachel Johnson pointed out that at the end of Rogue Clone Harris says he never speaks to Marianne again.
I originally killed Freeman at the end of this book. Rachel liked that a lot because, as she said, you cannot save humanity without sacrifices. Mark Adams and John (Thorpe) said absolutely not—not if I ever planned to write another Harris book. As of this moment, I have signed a contract for a new three-book series of Harris books. Book one is due out in 2009.
In the end, the repairs were done during rewrite; I hope you enjoyed the final results.
Thank you, Rachel Johnson, for spending so much time helping me get this book in shape.
As always, I turned to Lew Herrington when I needed advice about life in the Marines. And, as always, I did not turn to him nearly enough. I wish to apologize to the Marines for everything I have gotten wrong about their tactics and their culture.
I thank my agent, Richard Curtis, for help placing this book and for the sage professional advice he often gives.
Above all, though, as I close this series of adventures, I wish to thank those of you who have read these novels. Thank you for coming along for the ride.