King and Rice and Koontz continue to sell like ice cream in summer, but the rest of us struggle like double-glazing salesmen in hell. There is no try. I believe that Blood is still a strong, visceral, entertaining novel, and a work of integrity. In a perfect world, I admit the prologue would have been included. Turns out this ain't a perfect world.
Censorship is an insidious thing.
Had Raven demanded that I remove the prologue, I don't know how I would have reacted. I fume and fuss when I see censors demand that works like Crash and Natural Born Killers be banned. Such censors would, I'm sure, be equally outraged by much of the content of the published version of Blood . Yet, ultimately the book was censored, albeit by me. I do believe there is an important difference between censorship imposed from within and without, and I remain adamantly opposed to any restrictions on content imposed by the State.