New York: William H. Morrow, (1995) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A novel about the Vietnam War and its effect on the young people who came of age during that era, by this award-winning author, best known for his science fiction but who also spent most of 1968 fighting in Vietnam, where he was severely wounded. The story of a "year in the life of Darcy 'Spider' Speidel - a teenage college dropout, Spider is drafted and sent to Nam as a combat engineer. He is just a scared, uncertain kid reluctantly playing the game of war for keeps; after he's wounded during the onset of the Tet offensive, he's evacuated back to the States, where his real war begins. His onetime sweetheart, embroiled in the hippy counterculture, has taken up with a new, draft-deferred boyfriend. Confused and helpless, the traumatized Spider lacks the support of even his doctors and his family. Haldeman uses bold language, powerful images and a graphic style to tell his emotional tale, in which concentrated, diary-like entries intensify the drama and despair." (Publishers Weekly) SIGNED on the title page. 340 pp. ISBN: 0-688090230.