Nova (novel)

This article is about the Delany novel. For the Burroughs trilogy, see The Nova Trilogy.

Nova

First edition (hardcover)
Author	Samuel R. Delany
Cover artist	Russell FitzGerald
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	1968
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	279

Nоva is a science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany and published in 1968. Nominally space opera, it explores the politics and culture of a future where cyborg technology is universal (the novel is one of the precursors to cyberpunk), yet making major decisions can involve using tarot cards. It has strong mythological overtones, relating to both the Grail Quest and Jason's Argonautica for the golden fleece. Nova was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969. In 1984, David Pringle listed it as one of the 100 best science-fiction novels written since 1949.

As the title indicates, the central metaphor for the novel is a nova: the destructive implosion/explosion of an entire sun, which, paradoxically, while it destroys most of a solar system, also creates new elements. In the book, at the eruption of a nova, not only do the laws of physics break down, but so do the laws of politics and psychology. This idea permeates the entire plot and storyline.

After Delany completed Nova at the age of 25, his published output stopped for several years, although his writing continued. His next published novel was the pornographic Equinox in 1973.

Synopsis

The novel is set in 3172, when most humans belong to one of two factions: Earth-based Draco and the Pleiades Federation. The most important family in Pleiades is the Von Rays, and the most important in Draco is the Reds, who own Red-shift Limited, a company making interstellar drives. Starship travel depends on Illyrion, a rare and valuable power source.

The story begins on Triton. A blind man named Dan tells a young drifter called the Mouse how he flew on Lorq Von Ray's starship, the Roc, and how he was injured in a dangerous voyage. A flashback to the Mouse's childhood follows, explaining how he stole a sensory syrynx (a machine capable of producing sound, images, and scents) and learned to play it from his friend Leo.

Lorq recruits the Mouse and other passers-by for a journey on the Roc. One is Katin, an intellectual who aspires to write a novel. Others are the brothers Lynceos and Idas, whose third brother is an indentured Illyrion miner; Sebastian, owner of flying pets; and his companion Tyÿ, a Tarot reader. Lorq plans to fly through a nova to acquire seven tons of Illyrion. As the crew members leave Triton, Dan falls into a burning canyon and dies.

The third chapter is a flashback to Lorq's youth, beginning with his boyhood on the planet Ark, when he meets Prince Red and his sister Ruby. Prince was born without an arm and has an artificial one. As they play, Lorq mentions Prince's arm, angering him. Later, they sneak out to an arena and see Lorq's parents and the Reds' father watching animals fight.

Lorq becomes a starship racing pilot; his crew comprises Brian and Dan. He meets Prince again at a party, where Brian mentions Prince's arm. Lorq asks Ruby to run away with him, but Prince finds them and punches Lorq, scarring his face. Lorq's father describes how his great-grandfather secured the Pleiades Federation's independence by piracy and attacking Red-shift's mines, leading to a feud between the families. He also explains that the lower price of Illyrion from the Outer Colonies will shift the balance of power in the galaxy, bringing about the downfall of the Red family and ending Draco and Earth's dominance. Therefore, the two families are trying to destroy each other. Lorq wonders where to get Illyrion; later, Dan tells him how his ship accidentally fell into a nova but survived.

The main narrative resumes. Tyÿ gives Lorq a Tarot reading about the mission; however, the Mouse has stolen a card. The Roc arrives at the planet Vorbis, and Lorq visits his aunt Cyana, who tells him a star likely to explode soon. Prince sends Lorq a message bragging that he destroyed Brian's life because he mentioned his arm, and that he intends to kill Lorq. Meanwhile, the Mouse visits some hunters and reunites with Leo. Ruby attacks Lorq, but one of Sebastian's pets saves him and the Roc returns to Pleiades.

The crew try to relax, but Prince and Ruby arrive. They argue with Lorq; Prince states that Lorq's quest will ruin both Draco and the Outer Colonies. Lorq replies that he is fighting for change, and Prince for stasis. Prince then reveals why he hates Lorq: their visit to the arena on Ark showed him how vicious and cruel his father could be. Sebastian and Lorq attack Prince and Ruby; Lorq uses the sensory syrynx to overwhelm their senses, leaving them seriously injured near a river of lava.

The Roc travels to the star, but Prince and Ruby reappear. Lorq boards their ship, and the star begins to erupt. Lorq seizes control and flies toward the star, killing Prince; Ruby dies too and Lorq flies through the nova, collecting the Illyrion but injuring his brain.

At the end of the novel, Katin and the Mouse leave the Roc and Katin declares that his novel should be about the Roc's last voyage. Echoing Katin's observation that stories about the quest for the Holy Grail are never finished, the last sentence of the novel is incomplete.

Characters

• Lorq Von Ray. Lorq is the scion of the wealthy Von Ray family, the most powerful clan in the Pleiades Federation. Originally a carefree playboy, Lorq is drawn into his family's feud with the Reds and, as a result, becomes obsessed with finding Illyrion. When Prince Red attacks him as a teenager at a fabulously opulent party in Isle St.-Louis in Paris, he scars Lorq's face badly; but Lorq refuses to remove the scarring for the rest of the novel and as a result carries an air of menace.
  As the book unfolds, Lorq learns that his family was founded by pirates, who killed members of the Red family in previous generations in order to keep the Pleiades free of Earth-based corporations, although Lorq's ancestors did so with the support of the Pleiades' citizens. The Reds, however, still carry a grudge.
  Although Lorq Von Ray is described as looking between forty-five and fifty years old, according to the dates in the book he is barely thirty. The explanation for this discrepancy between Lorq's actual age and older appearance is provided in the Mouse's speculation that Lorq is "aged, not old". He has a Norwegian father and a Senegalese mother from Earth.
• The Mouse. This is the nickname for Pontichos Provechi, a young Gypsy from Earth, who, by age 18, has led an extremely varied life, and is just beginning to work in a starship navigation crew. He also entertains people by creating illusions and music with his "sensory syrynx" (a sound, scent, and hologram projector).
• Katin Crawford. Katin is an intellectual from Earth's moon, who received a liberal arts education at Harvard University and who has worked till now at a series of unfulfilling clerical positions. Katin is a loner. His passion is to explore various moons across the Solar System. He also aspires to write a novel, for which he constantly records notes, although the form is obsolete by the time Nova takes place. The word "novel" is, incidentally, etymologically related to the word "nova." Both come from the Latin novum, which means "something new." Sometimes Katin annoys his colleagues by going off on long lectures on any number of topics; in this capacity, he is sometimes comic, even while acting as the novel's expository voice.
• Sebastian and Tyÿ. This wandering, working couple consists of Sebastian, a powerful-looking man who is nonetheless gentle—he keeps a number of unusual pets with him, his "flapping black gillies"—and his companion, Tyÿ, a quiet mysterious woman and tarot-card reader. Like many of Delany's characters, Sebastian is racially mixed: Although he has Asian features, his hair is naturally blond. Both are from the Pleiades and consider it an honor to work for the Von Ray family.
• Lynceos and Idas. These twin brothers are of African descent, but one is an albino. Eventually we learn they are two members of a set of triplets. Having been born and grown up in the Outer Colonies, all three brothers had a tendency to use drugs and make mischief. As a result of one of their pranks, they ended in a type of indentured servitude and were forced to work in the colonies' Illyrion mines. (Such arrangements are common at that time to "recruit" workers for the mines.) The two talk in tandem. Jokingly Katin calls them a pair of "glorified salt and pepper shakers." Their names come from the twins who were among Jason's crew in his ancient quest for the fleece. Lynceos means lynx-like, i.e., sharp-eyed. Idas suggests someone from the pleasant fields of Mt. Ida.
• Prince Red. The scion of the Earth-based Red family, Prince was born with only one arm. In place of the other, he wears an artificial limb, which has unnatural strength. Its grip can compress sand into quartz crystals, which he can throw with the force of bullets. A troublemaker from birth (in his youth, he was forced constantly to shift schools because of discipline problems), he detests Lorq for numerous reasons, some of which he is not consciously aware of.
  Because of the power his artificial arm gives him, Prince can become extremely violent if anyone so much as mentions his deformity. As a little boy he sprains Lorq's mother's wrist when, innocently, she asks for his hand to take him home when he has gotten into mischief after dark with the other children.
• Ruby Red. Prince's younger sister, Ruby, is a quiet-spoken woman, who appears to be completely under Prince's control. As an adolescent, Lorq falls in love with her, but she rebuffs him because of their families' hostile histories.
  Prince appears to have an unhealthy attachment to his sister—which, often, she seems to reciprocate. While their father, Aaron, is still alive at the time of the novel and in charge of the Red's vast industrial holdings, Prince and Ruby are the most visible members of the Red clan.
• Dan. An Australian drifter and former member of Lorq's crew, Dan is the first to suggest to Lorq how a nova might be a source for Illyrion. Unfortunately, by the beginning of the novel, an accident on the first mission has damaged his senses and probably his sanity. He kills himself soon into the book, and most of his appearances take place in flashbacks.

Characters like the Mouse, Lynceos, Idas, Tyÿ, Sebastian, and even Katin can be seen as hippies, with itinerant lifestyles and drugs.

The book's third chapter (of seven) is basically a long flashback that shows Lorq and Prince's childhoods and the political background against which the story takes place. Lorq first meets Prince and Ruby when they are all youngsters, during an attempt by their parents to end the feud between the families. The meeting ends, however, in disaster and embarrassment, and the fundamentally cruel natures of both Prince and his father Aaron—as well as the senior Von Ray's innate love of violence—become clear.

Setting

Nova is set in a science fictional universe with high technology, including interstellar travel and large-scale use of cyborg adaptions. Most people use intravenous drips from nutrition rather than eating, and disease is considered to be impossible.

However, in contrast to the technological background, reading the tarot is considered both scientific and accurate. Indeed, the Mouse is ridiculed as old-fashioned for his skepticism about it. In chapter four, Tyÿ gives Lorq the most detailed tarot reading in the novel. As a child, he also had a tarot reading mentioning a death in his family, about a month before his uncle, Secretary Morgan, was assassinated. Later, Cyana makes Lorq draw a card before she gives him the nova's location.

Politically, the galaxy is divided between three factions: Draco, based on Earth, and the earliest area to be colonized; the younger Pleiades Federation; and the even newer Outer Colonies, where Illyrion is mined rather than manufactured. In chapter three, Lorq's father explains these regions in terms of social class. Draco is primarily controlled by corporations and governments based on Earth. Pleiades was settled later by "small businesses... cooperative groups; even private citizens...a comparatively middle class movement". Lorq's great-great-grandfather attacked ships from Draco, including those owned by Red-shift, attempting to expand into Pleiades, helping assure its independence. A few generations before the novel begins, planets much further from the Galactic Center were discovered to possess Illyrion, and corporations in Draco and Pleiades subsidized people "from the lowest population strata" to move there.

Technology and science

Illyrion is a fictional superheavy element with an atomic weight above 300, explained as being part of the hypothetical island of stability. It is a powerful energy source; a few grams provide enough energy for a starship. Katin estimates that 8-9,000 kg has been mined.

Almost all the characters in the book are cyborgs, equipped with four sockets (in the small of the back, back of the neck, and both wrists) that allow the user to connect directly to a computer. These can be used to control starships or less complicated machines; in the opening scene, one character uses it to control a "sweeper" to clean the floor. People using these sockets are called "cyborg studs".

The sockets are based on the ideas of a 23rd century philosopher and psychologist, Ashton Clark, and are intended to counteract the alienation caused by the separation between work and life. When the plugs and sockets were invented, work was done directly by people, reducing mental illness and making war impossible.

Future history

The 20th century is a pivotal period in Nova's future history. Cyana, a curator at the Alkane Museum, claims that almost a quarter of its galleries are devoted to the period. She justifies this by saying that the it encompasses the greatest change in humanity's fundamental situation: "At the beginning of that amazing century, mankind was many societies living on one world; at its end, it was basically what we are now: an informatively unified society that lived on several worlds."

Characters make frequent references to 20th century culture. At Prince's party in Paris, a group of entertainers performs a song by The Mamas & the Papas. Katin makes an offhand remark indicating that Monopoly is still in existence, and mentions Bertrand Russell and Susanne Langer as renaissance figures.

The novel refers repeatedly to a historic Vega Republic, which tried to secede from Draco in 2800. Katin states that they tried to create original art, and calls them a "last stand for cultural autonomy". However, the secession failed, and Vegan art and architecture has been absorbed by the wider culture in what he calls a "parlor game".

Themes

Intertextuality

Nova has a number of motifs in common with Delany's later works; for example, the Mouse, a damaged artist who wears one shoe as does the Kid in the later Dhalgren, is a "classic Delany protagonist" in the mold of Jean Genet and François Villon. Other motifs include Katin, an intellectual and writer who attempts to record the events around him; the twins Lynceos and Idas, one black, the other albino; and Dan, a barefoot derelict, with a rope holding up his pants.

The novel has also been compared to sea stories, with Dan recalling the blind pirate Pew in Treasure Island and Lorq Von Ray the captain of the Flying Dutchman, and described as suggesting "Moby Dick at a strobe-light show".

It also refers to other space operas. A planet is named is named "Trantor", after Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and the name Ashton Clark is similar to the writer Clark Ashton Smith. Ruby Red has a poisoned tooth, recalling Frank Herbert's Dune. Prince's ability to squeeze sand into glass and quartz fragments strongly parallels the power of many action heroes (most notably Superman), and the idea of aristocratic families feuding in space is found in numerous other space opera novels. The character of Katin is partially written to resemble the classic "bore" in science fiction literature—a character who constantly gives lectures and explanations to describe the universe of the book. In Nova, however, Katin is constantly ridiculed for filling this role and on occasion is used for comic relief.

Myth

Nova also makes heavy use of myth. An author’s note at the beginning of the book thanks Helen Adam and Russell FitzGerald for their help with Grail and tarot research. Reviewers and academics have compared it to the story of Prometheus and the Holy Grail. However, the correspondences are not directly one-to-one but far more tangled; the characters are not heroes and villains in disguise but used to give resonance to the text. Jo Walton has suggested that the story is what has been prefigured by myth, or that the tale of Lorq Von Ray has had other tales attached to it.

For instance, Lorq Von Ray has been compared to Prometheus. Idas and Lynceos share names with two of the Argonauts, the brothers Idas and Lynceus of Messene. Katin notes the story's "archetypal patterns" at the close of the story.

The tarot

Much of the story revolves around a tarot reading Tyÿ gives Lorq at the beginning of the second mission, in which she rather successfully predicts the stakes and outcome. For example, The Tower appears, indicating that a powerful family (presumably the Reds or Von Rays) will fall, and the large number of pentacles indicates wealth. Prince and Ruby are represented by the King of Swords and the Queen of Swords, respectively. An anomaly in the reading, however, occurs when Tyÿ drops The Sun—which Lorq considered to represent a nova—and the Mouse pockets it, thus making it impossible for Tyÿ's reading to include this card.

Smaller Tarot readings dot the rest of the novel. As a young child, Lorq receives a reading indicating a death in his family: within a month, his Uncle Morgan is assassinated. Likewise, Lorq's Aunt Cyana (Morgan's widow) has Lorq choose a single Tarot card for insight: it is The Hanged Man, reversed, indicating that Lorq will succeed in his quest, but at a very high price.

Delany makes it clear that the Tarot should not be used for outright prediction. As Katin tells the highly skeptical Mouse: "[T]he cards don't actually predict anything. They simply propagate an educated commentary on present situations[.]" (Nova, 112). "[Tarot cards] only become superstitious when they are abused, employed to direct rather than guide and suggest." (Nova, 113) But, as the plot develops, sometimes it's difficult to distinguish clearly between useful "guiding" and abusive (superstitious) "directing."

The tarot used in Nova is a modified Rider-Waite deck. Although Lorq is most closely concerned with tarot, the Mouse also benefits from its use, as it helps him remember his mother using them to help her people. At the end of the novel, he asks Tyÿ for a reading.

Creativity, art, change, and stagnation

Although the novel takes place in the 32nd century, the society within it is described as highly stagnant, even taking into account the spread of interstellar travel and cyborging. Often, however, the book suggests that those minor characters who repeatedly make this judgment are simply looking for symptoms of change and vitality in the wrong parts of society—a theme Nova shares with Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination.

In short, within the fictional future of Nova, humanity began to colonize space by the end of the 20th century. A few centuries later, and cyborg implants were invented. The combination of increasingly cheap Illyrion (the fuel of starships) and universally adaptable implants has created, by the time of the novel, a highly mobile and transient work force and population.

This mobile population has a drawback, however. In a pseudo-intellectual argument raised throughout the novel, characters make reference to a "lack of cultural solidarity" (a concept that vaguely resembles the idea of cultural capital). Because the population is constantly on the move, there is no shared culture, nor have there been any successful attempts to create new broad-based artistic and cultural movements since the end of the 20th century.

In Cyana Morgan's museum, in addition to the predominance of 20th century-based exhibits, within a hall of paintings, Katin notices that many of the works share the same subjects—and, in many cases, the same names—even though the tags clearly indicate the paintings were created centuries apart, and on different planets. The most famous art collection in the museum is actually a forgery of an existing set of works, and the forgeries are considered more popular and valuable than the originals.

The main interest of the book—unusual for a science fiction novel—is the two approaches to art characterized by the Mouse and Katin. In playing on his sensory syrynx, the Mouse is spontaneous, improvisatory, highly personal and immediately emotional. While he uses whatever material is around him as the basis for his art, the Mouse's creations on his syrynx are, however, beautiful, ephemeral and disposable. As well, the design and effect of the Mouse's sensory syrinx has an overall feel of an expanded 1960s light show, of the sort that had then begun to accompany traditional rock concerts. In Nietzsche's terms, he is a Dionysian artist. Katin on the other hand is (again in Nietzsche's terms) an Apollonian artist. He is deeply intellectual, highly theoretical, largely impersonal, and concerned with the richness and complexity of the statement his artwork will make in terms of history. The irony of his approach is that, for all the hundreds of thousands of words he has dictated into his recorder about his theory of what the novel should be and do, he is still looking for a subject—a story—that is important enough in historical terms to stand up under all his theorizing.

When the Mouse's approach gets out of control, as the novel dramatizes in one climactic sequence, the instruments of art become murderous weapons. When Katin's approach gets out of hand, the result is paralysis and silence.

The conclusion the Mouse arrives at to Katin's problem—and for the reader appreciating the book on this level, it should be no surprise—is that Lorq's quest itself, which will revise the power structure of the entire galaxy, is the historically proper subject for Katin's novel, at the same time that Katin realizes he must learn how to employ some of the Mouse's immediacy, spontaneity, and energy. It does not hurt that, by the end of Nova, Lorq's quest has achieved the shape of a classical tragedy: Lorq has had to sacrifice his senses in the same way that Dan—at the start of the book—has already lost his; and in the way that the Mouse has been so afraid might happen to him. In many ways the novel is about perception itself—its value, its pleasures, the information it allows us to access, the sense it allows us to make of the rich and colorful social universe.

As the quest continues, soon Lorq drops the rationalizations for the Red/Von Ray vendetta, except for the fact that his actions, for better or worse, will produce a major cultural shift in humanity, even though nobody can tell what that change will be, or if it will be a positive or negative one.

Race

The story's main character, Lorq, is Afropean. His father is of Norwegian descent, and his Earth-born mother is Senegalese.

The residents of the Pleiades Federation (and the Outer Colonies) overall are an extremely mixed racial population. In addition to appearances, characters from the Pleiades sometimes have names that indicate a mixed racial heritage. For example, one of Lorq's childhood friends is named “Yorgos Satsumi,” which contains a clearly Japanese last name, but a first name that is decidedly Greek.

This is in sharp contrast to the Earth-centered Draco society, where the leaders tend to be uniformly Caucasian. Individuals from Earth also tend to have extremely "WASPish" names. For example, a character named "Brian" is eventually revealed (at least, in the 2002 edition) to have the full name "Brian Anthony Sanders." Moreover, according to the Mouse, Earth still has problems with racism: he recalls seeing Gypsies lynched when he was younger.

Ironically, although this racial diversity is considered one of the novel's most innovative features, at the time of its first publication (1968), the inclusion of minority characters proved to be a liability due to the racism ingrained in American culture at the time (see Publishing Status below).

Man and machine, society and alienation

The society of Nova is in a pre-revolutionary state. Economic tensions have created a feud between the "new money" Von Ray family and the "old money" Red family, both of whom have a large stake in intergalactic transportation. Shortly before the novel's events (within the lifetime of Lorq's father), the Pleiades region achieved political autonomy from Earth/Draco, and is now an independent federation. At the time of the novel, citizens of the Outer Colonies are beginning to support the idea of independence as well.

One thing all characters have in common is their cyborging. Individuals who cannot or will not accept these implants are effectively removed from society. The Mouse, for instance, mentions that his people (the Gypsies) refused the implants and, as a result, were treated with intolerance and even killed on Earth.

Prince's anger over his artificial arm, while irrational on the surface, is eventually hypothesized to have been caused by its effect on his ability to cyborg. Generally, a person has a total of five implants, two of which are located in the wrists. Since Prince was born with only one arm, he cannot fully connect himself with a machine.

Although the society seems on the edge of a revolution (or some other unspecified major change), the future of the novel is optimistic. As Katin reveals in one of his expository monologues, the problem of labor alienation has been overcome through the use of technology: practically all humans have cyborg socket implants that allow them to interface directly with the machines they use. These sockets are highly adaptable. Characters plug them into everything from small vacuum cleaners to the navigational systems of starships. By directly interfacing with the machines, workers are able to identify with their work, and the result is greater psychological wellbeing and less labor alienation.

Sex and incest

Nova was written prior to Delany's turn to sexuality as a major focus of his work. Nevertheless, the novel suggests several sexual subtexts. In the same way that a homoerotic current informs the relationship Melville describes between Captain Ahab and the cabin boy Pip in Moby-Dick, a similar undercurrent vibrates through the scenes between Captain Von Ray and the Mouse.

Throughout the novel, the intelligent and beautiful Ruby remains both loyal and subservient to her brother, Prince, even to the extent of going against her own feelings. Their relationship strongly suggests an incestuous nature. Prince refuses to allow her to interact with Lorq. In turn, Ruby maintains a close emotional attachment to Prince, one that, in a suggestive scene near the novel's end, proves disastrous.

Assassination, pain, and violence

In Nova, a culturally iconic political assassination has taken place. The advanced technology at the time allowed millions of people throughout the universe to experience the sensations and emotions of the victim (Secretary Morgan, the leader of the Pleiades Federation) as he died—and, directly afterwards, the emotions of his widow (and Lorq Von Ray's aunt), Cyana Von Ray Morgan. The murder was brutal: Morgan was publicly garroted at his second inauguration, and almost decapitated. Although the assassination was eventually revealed to be the work of a single man, ("Underwood"), for a period of time afterwards, many popular conspiracy theories were developed. To deal with her grief—and that of Pleiades citizens—Cyana Morgan adopted an extremely stoic posture and slowly retreated from the public eye.

This death is clearly a dramatic rewriting of the November 1963 "televised" assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, which had taken place only five years before Nova was published. Cyana Von Ray Morgan, the widow, strongly resembles Kennedy's wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in her responses, her appearance, and her interest in art.

Lorq, Prince, and Ruby—all heirs of wealthy clans who grew up in luxury—live what Lorq refers to as "meaningless" lives, indulging in sex, expensive hobbies (e.g. space-yacht racing), and partying. Lorq's transformation begins when, in a physical fight, Prince scars Lorq's face deeply with his artificial hand. Later in the novel, both Lorq and the Mouse attack Prince and Ruby, causing them great pain. As the novel nears completion, Ruby remarks that, prior to that event, neither she nor her brother had a true concept of what pain was really like; neither of them truly fathomed the importance of their actions and the feud until they were personally hit by it.

Practically all the socially powerful characters have violent natures, which often they try to hide or repress. Despite the elder Von Rays' attempts to end the feud, make peace with Aaron Red, and have their children become friends, the Von Rays cannot escape the fact that the family wealth and status were based on piracy and murder. Although outwardly Aaron Red appears harmless (he is described as bald, portly, and easily embarrassed) and he seems to be friends with members of the Von Ray family, events can bring out his natural violence and reveal him as an abusively indulgent father.

The novel hints at these buried emotions, when, for example, the Von Ray and Red families meet in the Outer Colonies at a reconciliatory reception. Seven-year-old Prince uses his artificial arm and its strength to kill Lorq's mother's pet bird in front of Lorq and Ruby. Later that night, the adults leave to watch the future equivalent of a cock fight, but with winged reptiles rather than roosters. The novel's violence gathers force in an unexpected eruption from Prince against Lorq at his party in Paris; much of the novel tries to explain the origins of this rage.

Both rage and pain are eventually recognized by the mature characters to have been a necessary component of their lives. Lorq realizes that, without Prince's attack to 'wake him up,' he would have gone on with a carefree life; he maintains his scar as a reminder of this. The successful completion of Lorq's quest has an extremely painful outcome for Lorq personally. As well, now that the need for Illyrion mines is gone, we know, the Outer Colonies will collapse socially and economically. The Red heirs fought for the status quo; only near the end of the novel do they experience the pain that goes along with the realization of what Lorq is trying to do.

Style

Delany uses a careful prose style to present his work both sensually and metaphorically. He uses language to differentiate the characters; for instance, people from Pleiades speak with verbs at the ends of their sentences, and Lynceos and Idas begin and finish each other’s sentences. The same is true for point of view; due to their different upbringings, Katin, the Mouse, and Lorq all have different perspectives on the assassination of the politician Morgan. Also, each page in the book carries a header that gives the year and location of the scene (e.g., "Draco, Earth, Paris, 3162"). This is useful because of the flashbacks in the long journey around the galaxy.

The novel’s prose style has been called "poetic", with every metaphor serving the larger design. The sensory syrynx is an example of this. The name alludes to the Greek god Pan’s pipes; moreover, early in the novel, the Mouse refers to it as his "ax". This is both a weapon and a slang term for a guitar, fitting both the functions it performs in the novel. Furthermore, it symbolizes writing and invokes the Cretan labrys, implying the labyrinth. This allusive style has been described as a way to overcome the linearity of prose and enrich the text by invoking the textus, or web of meanings, in which Delany considers any given text to reside. Another example of this is the word nova itself; literally, it denotes a supernova, but it is also the plural of novum, Latin for "new thing", a term that can be used to mean science fictional inventions.

Publishing history

Cover of 2002 paperback edition.

While awaiting publication by Doubleday, Nova was submitted to Analog editor John W. Campbell for potential serialization. Campbell rejected the novel, saying in a telephone conversation with Delany's agent that, though he had enjoyed the book, he did not feel his magazine's readership "would be able to relate to a black main character."

Because there was no magazine serialization, however, in its first six months the novel did not get the initially wide exposure to readers that might have helped gain it a Hugo Award.

Bantam Books' 14th and final printing of the novel was in 1990. After this is it was out of print until 2001, when Gollancz reissued it as part of their SF Masterworks line. In 2002, Vintage published a new edition with some textual changes. The Library of America included it in their 2019 anthology American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969, and in 2022 Centipede Press published a limited hardback edition including Tarot cards designed by Russell FitzGerald, who created the original cover art.

Textual changes

In the original novel, Lorq's crew member Brian disappears without explanation after a single chapter. In later editions, Prince sends Lorq a message while he is visiting the Alkane museum, describing how, with no more provocation than a careless comment Brian made about Prince's arm, he used his wealth and power to systematically destroy Brian's life until he became homeless and died of exposure. Prince claims that he has killed some two dozen others in a similar manner for similar reasons.

This passage significantly alters Prince's characterization. In the first edition, the worst that could be said of Prince is that he had been "spoiled" and had a violent temper. The new material turns him into a remorseless murderer and adds a moral component to Lorq's quest absent in the earlier versions.

However, the above passage is in both the original typescript of Nova and Delany's handwritten version of the novel in his notebooks from 1967. These are in the Samuel R. Delany papers in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, part of Yale University Library. Delany omitted it when a friend who had read the manuscript found the section too extreme. However, when Algis Budrys' review complained about Brian's absence, Delany decided to restore Prince's message to the novel so readers would know what happened to Brian. This was present in editions printed for book clubs a few months later.

Additionally, in the first edition of Nova it is unclear whether or not Lorq's parents are still alive by the time the novel ends. When Lorq begins his quest, his mother is already dying of a degenerative disorder, but at the end he makes no mention of them, nor does he try to contact them. However, in another (much briefer) passage added in the Vintage Books edition, related to the above, Lorq has a memory that implies both of his parents and Aaron Red died during the past ten years. This is in neither the original typescript nor in the notebook version, and is a true addition.

Reception

Algis Budrys reviewed the novel in Galaxy Magazine, declaring that

"Samuel R. Delany, right now, as of this book, Nova, not as of some future book or some accumulated body of work, is the best science-fiction writer in the world, at a time when competition for that status is intense. I don't see how a writer can do more than wring your heart while explaining how it works. No writer can."

He praised Nova as "highly entertaining to read" and commended Delany's integration of his sociopolitical extrapolation into his story, his accomplished characterization, and his "virtuosity" in presenting the novel's "classically posed scientific puzzle."

However, Judith Merril's review in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was mixed. She noted the variety of readings it allowed and experiences it detailed:

"Here are (at least some of) the ways you can read Nova: as fast-action far-flung interstellar adventure; as archetypal mystical/mythical allegory (in which the Tarot and the Grail both figure prominently); as modern myth told in the SF idiom . . . The reader observes, recollects, or participates in a range of personal human experience including violent pain and disfigurement, sensory deprivation and overload, man-machine communion, the drug experience, the creative experience – and interpersonal relationships which include incest and assassination, father-son, leader-follower, human-pet, and lots more."

However, she described it as "more of a fascinating exercise than a satisfying achievement" and "somehow lacking". Kirkus Reviews said that though Delany had "an extensive imagination", the reader might be overwhelmed. The review in the British New Wave magazine New Worlds by M. John Harrison, while acknowledging the skill and energy with which it had been written, called the book a "waste of time and talent".

Nova was soon regularly referred to as "the perfect science fiction novel". It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969. In 1984, David Pringle listed it as one of the 100 best science-fiction novels written since 1949.

Jo Walton wrote articles about Nova on Tor.com in 2009 and 2010, describing it as "one of the best of Delany's early works" and noting that it had aged well and felt "cutting edge". She called the setting "a fully realised and kaleidoscopic future" with "surprisingly interesting economics". However, she thought the female characters were few and poorly developed. Alan Brown also reviewed the novel for Tor.com, opining that it was "a classic of the genre" with few obvious anachronisms.

Influence

Nova is considered one of the major forerunners of the cyberpunk movement. It prefigures, for instance, cyberpunk's staple motif of humans interfacing with computers via implants; however, in Nova these are not used to enter cyberspace but to control physical machinery.

William Gibson has said he was influenced by Delany, and Nova has been described as the stylistic bridge between Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and Gibson's Neuromancer. Neuromancer includes allusions to Nova. The character Peter Riviera resembles the Mouse in that he also has holographic projection powers (although via implants) and is introduced in Istanbul; but unlike Delany's character, he is a psychopath. Likewise, Gibson includes a character who awkwardly wears only one shoe; this character, Ashpool, is an insane killer.

Adaptation

In 2023, it was reported that Neil Gaiman was adapting the novel into an Amazon Prime Video series.

External links

• Errata for Nova, approved by the author.
• Nova at Worlds Without End