this book is AMAZING.. It is the (so-called, fictional) account of persoanlities after a nuclear explosion, they can no longer have sex, or enjoy pleasure in any manner, so they resort to watching other people have sex in public, and many other vile (but very interesting)activities. It is written with amazing imagination, and extremely good descriptions that are almost tactile. It makes for really really good thought provoking and interesting reading. I have been looking for this book since 1984!!

Freaks Amour is a bizarre, frightening look into the future after a nuclear "accident." You will meet one of the most memorable cast of characters ever dreamed up, all of whom are freaks due to their parents' exposure to radiation from an accidental nuclear blast in (where else?) New Jersey.

Because their incredible appearance (graphically described by the author) causes them to be ostracized by non-freaks, they must resort to performing in live sex shows to earn a decent living.

A nicely-done and highly entertaining metaphorical tale of the underclass, the details and strange characters of this book will stay with you for a long time. I read this book when I was 12 and have been trying to locate a copy for the past 26 years.

I enjoyed Tom De Haven's Derby Dugan, but not to the same extent as his Funny Papers. There is more of a dark cloud over the characters in this novel. Yet, although he's no Runyon or P.G. Wodehouse, De Haven creates living characters that you don't mind spending time with.

Imagine a very depressed Damon Runyan. De Haven's story works best as an Oedipal love-hate story between narrator Al Br[e]ady, funny-page ghostwriter par excellence, and cartoonist Walter Geebus, a misanthrope who has long since run out of ideas but whose drawings remain one of the few things in Bready's world to believe in. Less engaging is Bready's unrequited--well, unconsummated anyway--love for Jewel, who is married to a real-life cartoon dimwit. That relationship is bittersweet, as is the narrator's love for his damaged sister, the unwilling keeper of the family secret that Bready can't admit. But it's Geebus who breathes life into the novel and into Bready--Geebus: selfish, manipulative, but capable of a sweet belated response to a young letter writer who idolized him as a boy but has since accreted layer upon layer of cynicism.

i think i got kicked out because my head was derby's in a rowboat. it's night. or because i said bad things about aol. but..
ohboy ohboy. this is wonderful stuff. i wish there were a real derby dugan now, when ugliness prevails and there is no art at all in the funnies. but it's not the comics, it's the american century past and the shmoes (and shmnoos)who lived it that are so wonderful (and shmoeful), i have been reading these books backwards so am hungering for funny papers, but then i started tolkien in the middle and the books still worked. and unlike so many academics, de haven doesn't let a lot of literature get in the way of his story, yet you still can appreciate that there's some serious writing going on.

I really enjoy the book Neuromancer, and was really excited when I found a copy of the graphic novel in a used book store in my home town. Since it was sealed I could not look inside until I got home. I must say I was truly dissapointed with the poor art work. I realize the story is the thing, but I bought a graphic novel for the graphics, I already have the text version, and would have stuck with it had I known the art work would be so bad. There is no excuse for a novel of such high quality to have such a low standard of art. While the street scenes and inside scenes looked good the people were lacking. I thought that the character Molly Millions was drawn especially poorly. She looks like Sylvester Stallone in drag most of the time. I am sorry to say this graphic novel was a dissapointment.

I'm fortunate to have a copy of this. It covers the first third or so of Neuromancer. It's a shame they didn't continue it.

Other William Gibson rarities and short stories at my complete bibliography/mediagraphy, http://www.slip.net/~spage/gibson/biblio.ht

If you like SF, specially the cyberpunk branch, this book is a must. Case, a Netrunner (who cannot jack in the net due some neural damage) is hired to do another run, to crack an ICE, to get into Tessier-Ashpools data...

Gibson's world is vivid, and he takes us trough lot of scenarios, all of them decadent, and all of them possible these days: Night CIty in Japan, Istambul, An spacial station full of Rastafarian guys (The sionites), Ashpool the last of the true magnats in the world...

And the personages are all interestng: Molly, a bodyguard (a razon-girl) with some kind of mirrorshades instead of eyes, Ratz: a bartender with a russian plastic arm, and even the AI's.

I liked it very much, and it's avery good introduction tho the cyberpunk world, that has been partially showed to us with films like "Johnny Mnemonic" or "Lawnmower", and the recent released "The Matrix"

just a comment. The term "CYBERSPACE" first appeared in this novel

Tom De Haven's Funny Papers is a fantastic evocation of the Good Old Days in New York of the 1890's and the beginning of the newspaper comic strip. It ventures, from time to time, into the realm bordering magic realism, but that only places the greater realism in higher relief. His character's parallel to the history of R. F. Outcault and the Yellow Kid, and the birth of Buster Brown, is well done and entertaining.

As with everything Tom DeHaven writes, this is a well thought out, well told story. Targeted for young adults it has plenty to offer his older fans, as well. "The Orphan's Tent" keeps the reader on edge with believable characters and a solid plot. The book has chills a plenty and just when you think you've got it all figured out DeHaven delights in informing you that you are dead wrong. This is a very enjoyable book and you can never go wrong with a talent like Tom DeHaven.

I wish I could get my hands on the second book in this series. It's got to be one of the most whimsical books I've ever read. I like my SF imaginative, fast-paced, and with a good sense of humor, and this book didn't disappoint. I'm not that good at picking stuff up, though, so I had to read it about 3 times before I really understood what was going on in the whirl of pageantry, weird alien-ish things, strange names, and a general assumption that I already knew most of this. It was disorienting in the same way a good party is disorienting: you enjoy it, then take some time to mull over what actually happened. It did kind of falter toward the end, with a sense that perhaps the author got somewhat lost, which is how it got 4 stars instead of 5. Incidentally, if you like reading out loud to kids, this book seems to have been written with storytelling in mind, and I don't think kids would find it too shocking.

I really enjoyed this author's last book but this one has the feeling of needing a strong editor to tell the author that some of his ideas need to be fleshed out, others tossed entirely, and that he needs to go back in and get the thing from its draft-like into a real novel.
"Under Ground" is kind of a mishmash sequel to DD's Depression Funnies, and takes place in various times up to the present. Many of the characters clearly based on real-life pop icons, the obviousness of this seems to make the author think is enough to justify not developing the characters past a few recognisable mannerisms. This book also rides heavily on the coattails of the previous book, strangely assuming that the Dugan cartoon character from the 1920's -- rather than any human characters -- is interesting enough to support these new, poorly concieved human characters from the 1950's through the present.
I really hate to pan this book because DDDF was so well written and enjoyable, but I'm putting it down 3/4 of the way through and not anticipating picking it up again.

Usually the final book in a trilogy adds resonance to the entire series. In this case, readers may enjoy Dugan Under Ground better if they haven't yet read its predecessors--in particular, Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, the second book in the series. Dugan Under Ground is a fun, vibrant romp, full of wonderful period detail. But the characters don't resonate the way characters in an exceptional tale do--or as they do in Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies.
To put it another way: If you read Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, you'll laugh and you'll cry. If you read Dugan Under Ground, you'll laugh. Which in and of itself isn't a terrible thing.

'Dugan Under Ground' is a wonderful novel which focuses on the underground comix milieu of the late '60's and early '70's, but covers far more ground in times before and after. It begins with the story of Ed 'Candy' Biggs, his betrayal-ridden personal life, and his trajectory from desperation to success and failure in his career as the inheritor of a classic newspaper strip, 'Derby Dugan.'

Through an odd sequence of events, Biggs takes on a young and brilliant protege, Roy Looby, a character very roughly based on R. Crumb. As Roy's sensibility and fame develop wildly, he's pursued by several fascinating characters, including his resentful and adoring brother who detests and delights in his role as the 'inker' of Roy's demented comix; an ineffectual and obsessive comix fan who becomes a financially hopeless publisher and quasi-academic promoter of comix-as-art; and a cynical hippie vixen whose identity shifts gears repeatedly throughout the chase. The novel itself becomes kaleidoscopic as it barrels on to its heartbreaking finish.

'DUG' will appeal especially to readers interested in the history of comics, of the underground scene in particular, to admirers of Crumb and of the Terry Zwigoff film on Crumb and his family (don't expect the Loobys to be just the same, though!) As a portrait of grand hopes and bitter disappointments in the America of the '50's, '60's and beyond, it stands beside works like 'Vineland' by Thomas Pynchon and 'Underworld' by Don DeLillo. I thought it was great!

I like Tom De Haven's work (his Derby Dugan trilogy is great) and was intrigued that this took place in my home town, Jersey City (where De Haven used to live). Though the illustrations captured the local color of JC, the plot is a mess. Any mystery that hinges on repressed memory as a major plot devise is going to have problems. It comes across as a stupid way to move things along. Surely a writer of De Haven's abilities could have come up with something better. This feels like he wrote it in an hour.