Bill Willingham's (the Fables series) storytelling here (a slightly different version of which was published by his Clockwork Storybook collective in 2001) is reminiscent of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Twelve-year-old Max the Wolf (who's not a wolf) is not carried into another world by a twister, as Dorothy was. Instead, he has no recollection of how he appeared in the Heroes Woods. A quintessential Boy Scout who doesn't panic about his amnesia, Max relies on his "five most important rules of detection" to determine his surroundings. He realizes he's landed in a very different world when Banderbrock, a warrior badger, talks to him. Banderbrock, who suffers from amnesia, too, believes they are in the afterlife.
As they search for home and answers, Max and Banderbrock realize they're being hunted down in the Heroes Woods by Blue Cutters, a gang that uses their swords to change the essence of their prey. They're rescued by one of the book's most memorable characters, McTavish the Monster, a barnyard cat known by many exaggerated titles, including Lord Mousebane and Dogkiller. Soon they meet the affable Walden the Bear, which completes a collection of eccentric characters that readers will likely fall in love with and long remember.
Instead of journeying down a yellow brick road, this band of fugitives travels down the Mysterly River, to seek the Wizard Swift for sanctuary from Blue Cutters and answers about how to return home. The wizard behind this curtain is genre-breaking. --Adam Silvera, a bookseller and intern at Figment.