A long time ago, I wrote the first part of a story, and waited to find outhow it middled, then worked with Jamie Delano and Alisa Kwitney on the end. Foryears people have asked how and when they could read all the story of TheChildren's Crusade. I'm glad to say that it's now been retooled and refinished,and is something both old and new - a forgotten jewel and a new delight."-NeilGaiman For the first time ever, the two-issue miniseries THE CHILDREN'SCRUSADE, written by Neil Gaiman, Alisa Kwitney and Jamie Delano, is collected -and with them, a new chapter written by Toby Litt that completes the tale asGaiman originally envisioned it. When several children go missing in asmall English town, the Dead Boy Detectives are on the case. A series of strangeand unexpected twists takes them to Free Country, a place that dates back amillennium, where children never grow old and are free from the abuse andtyranny of adults. But Free Country is failing, and what it needs is thestrength of five innately powerful children - including the young sorcererTimothy Hunter - to restore their uncanny world to what it once was. Thishardcover collects THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE #1 and THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE #2,written by Gaiman with cowriters Alisa Kwitney and Jamie Delano. A brand-newmiddle chapter written by DEAD BOY DETECTIVES novelist Toby Litt and drawn byartist Peter Gross (THE BOOKS OF MAGIC, THE UNWRITTEN) completes this compellingtale of ancient history, stolen dreams and lost children. It also features a newintroduction by Gaiman, plus new cover art by artist Mark Buckingham (FABLES,DEAD BOY DETECTIVES).

The Dead Boy Detectives are on the case. When several children go missing in a small English town, a series of strange and unexpected twists take them to Free Country, a place that dates back a millennium, where children never grow old and are free from the abuse and tyranny of adults. But Free Country is failing, and what it needs is the strength of five innately powerful children-including the young sorcerer Timothy Hunter-to restore their uncanny world to what it once was. Collects THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE #1 and THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE #2, written by Gaiman with cowriters Alisa Kwitney and Jamie Delano. A brand-new middle chapter written by DEAD BOY DETECTIVES writer Toby Litt and drawn by artist Peter Gross (THE BOOKS OF MAGIC, THE UNWRITTEN) completes this compelling tale of ancient history, stolen dreams and lost children. Also featuring a new introduction by Gaiman, plus new cover art by DEAD BOY DETECTIVES artist Mark Buckingham.

Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.

With the death of one of the Gang (as they call themselves), the war games escalate, directed now against the adults they hold responsible for the loss of one of their soldiers.

HE SWORE TO PROTECT AND SERVE. NOW HE HAS TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM. When the American Lunar colony was threatened, he served his country in battle. But when high ranking officers betrayed him and his soldiers, he had only one choice—rebellion. Now Sergeant Ethan Stark is in charge of a rebel organization he never intended to create, and the United States has just joined forces with its former enemy to insure his destruction. Stark has no intention of compromising his honor, even in the face of impossible odds. He and his soldiers have no desire to fight American forces, but they are willing to pay any price to defend the rights of the colonists they were sent to protect. Now Stark and his soldiers must fend off deadly aggression from their own country without igniting a full scale civil war.

The Boys’ Crusade is the great historian Paul Fussell’s unflinching and unforgettable account of the American infantryman’s experiences in Europe during World War II. Based in part on the author’s own experiences, it provides a stirring narrative of what the war was actually like, from the point of view of the children—for children they were—who fought it. While dealing definitively with issues of strategy, leadership, context, and tactics, Fussell has an additional purpose: to tear away the veil of feel-good mythology that so often obscures and sanitizes war’s brutal essence. “A chronicle should deal with nothing but the truth,” Fussell writes in his Preface. Accord-ingly, he eschews every kind of sentimentalism, focusing instead on the raw action and human emotion triggered by the intimacy, horror, and intense sorrows of war, and honestly addressing the errors, waste, fear, misery, and resentments that plagued both sides. In the vast literature on World War II, The Boys’ Crusade stands wholly apart. Fussell’s profoundly honest portrayal of these boy soldiers underscores their bravery even as it deepens our awareness of their experiences. This book is both a tribute to their noble service and a valuable lesson for future generations.

Continued from ARCANA ANNUAL BOOKS OF MAGIC (1994) #1. In the conclusion of the monumental Vertigo Annuals event, the plans of the strange children of Free Country come to fruition and the fate of that mystical land is decided. The children of the Vertigo titles will all be changed by their experiences...and one will not return.