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Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor driving the thirty-second century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it. The potential for profit is so great that Lorq has little difficulty cobbling together an alluring crew, including a gypsy musician and a moon-obsessed scholar interested in the ancient art of writing a novel. What the crew doesn't know is that Lorq's quest is actually fueled by a private revenge so consuming that he'll stop at nothing to achieve it. In the grandest manner of speculative fiction, Nova is a wise and witty classic that casts a fascinating new light on some of humanity's oldest truths and enduring myths.… (more)
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There's no way that anyone would have considered making this a movie when it was published in the 1960s. But in the 21st century we have both the effects technology and the audience sophistication to make it worthwhile. The Wachowskis could totally pull it off. Still, Delany is resolutely literary in this book, with the character Katin serving as a metafictionally reflexive anchor: he aspires to write a novel, an anachronistic impossibility in his star-spanning culture.
The story has a fine central ensemble of characters in the crew of the starship Roc: gypsy musician, moonish intellectual, soft-spoken cartomancer, scarred quester, and so on. The villains are detestable enough, although they have their justifications, and the heroes are interestingly flawed. There are exotic and inspiring landscapes, architecture, and space vistas. It's got grittiness and high sentiment, social philosophy and action-adventure. There's even a metafictional brag that it contains some sort of "mystical symbolism." In any case, it's a worthwhile read.
After reading this novel, I can understand why, in the 1960s, Delany had the literary fame he did. Again, in its poetic language and depiction of a subculture intimately linked to its machines, Delany, as in his Babel-17, reminded me of
Delany does a lot of things in this novel: poetic descriptions, intriguing characters, an adventure tale, speculation on human culture and political and social trends, and, like Babel-17, also presents some ruminations on art – particularly the aesthetics of the novel.
In the poetry department, Delany eschews precise technical description (for instance, when describing Prince’s prosthetic arm) for suggestion and mood. He also never exactly describes Tyy and Sebastian’s pets.
The characters were all interesting: the intuitive, spontaneous artist Mouse (his sensory-syrnyx is so typical, in its modulation of light, sound, and odor, of sixties' interest in multi-sensory, psychedelic art); the overly introspective and planning – yet brilliant – would-be author Katrin (It was a nice touch to reveal, in a bit of self-referentialism, that the novel is, in fact, the novel he always is talking of writing and prepares for with thousands of notes), the tarot reading Tyy; the twins (actually triplets who long to be reunited with their missing brother) Idas and Lynceos; and the compelling triumvirate of the obsessive Lorq von Ray, Prince and his sister, Ruby Red. Lorq von Ray comes across as generally likeable but his obsessive plans to harvest the power source Illyrion from a nova seem callous and egotistical when he explains the social and political consequences of finding it. Yet, he can also be seen as advancing history and the human condition (what economists would call creative destruction) even though its for personal ego gratification. The Prince, seeming psychotic that he is, can be seen as defender of the stagnant status quo. There is a definite sexual attraction between Ruby Red and von Ray but that doesn’t stop her from trying to kill him (the novel’s quest/adventure plot is paced in very unexpected ways). Though Delany does not say it, I got the sense there was an unspoken sexual attraction of Prince for his sister. Their dispute with von Ray stems from them regarding von Ray as the inferior heir of a fortune based on the piracy of von Ray’s grandfather.
As an adventure tale, I was interested in the story though it is paced oddly with many scenes taking place on worlds before the final encounter with the Prince, Ruby Red, and the nova begins. That encounter does not take up nearly as much room as it probably would if another author wrote this tale. Delany shows a command of astrophysics (though I confess I don’t know what astrophysics involving novae consisted of in 1968), but he doesn’t let a knowledge of hard science stop him from speculating on a vastly expanded table of periodic elements or the reality of Tarot. Delany, mainly through Katrin (though he is the “author” of Nova, I can’t think his stalling, preparations and note-taking make him a surrogate for the prolific Delany), expands on theories of history, literature (including the statements that a novel should reflect its time’s theory of history and that good characterization is done through habitual, purposeful, and gratuitous actions), and society. I found especially interesting his idea that twentieth century man is alienated because his “work” so seldom leads to tangible, productive ends.
As 1960s novels are wont to do, there is an assumption that the art of the sixties represents a new plateau and renaissance for man. Thus in Delany’s Paris of 3166, the music of the Momma and the Poppas is still played and there is also a seeming allusion to the music of the Byrds. (Katrin notes that the 20th century was the first time that information technology began to bind mankind into a single society, a point that cyberpunks picked up on.) Another sixties' allusion is the obvious use of JFK’s assassination and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ life for the segment on the assassination of Morgan by Underwood and the life of von Ray’s aunt, Cyana.
But Nova turns out to be much more than that. Written just before a five year dry spell that ended when Delany produced Dahlgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Nova bridges the gap between the popular author Delany was, and the experimental author he would become. The story touches on the overt sexual themes of the later works with an implied aura of incest between the villain Prince Red and his sister Ruby with overtones of sexual and mental abuse thrown in. The book is one of the first science fiction works to feature an explicitly non-Caucasian protagonist (in the form of Lorq von Ray, of Norwegian and Senegalese descent, although Podkayne of Mars featured a biracial central character six years earlier), and a multiracial supporting cast. Through the book, Delany touches on issues such as worker alienation, cultural rootlessness and resulting stagnation, and followed Herbert's exploration in Dune of the politically corrupting influence of a single resource economy.
And yet the book hearkens back to the works of the golden age, in a manner that is almost certainly intended. The inventor of the "plug" system for controlling machinery is named Ashton Clark, similar to the name of author Clark Ashton Smith. The Foundation series is referenced with a throwaway line about Trantor, Dune is referenced with an assassination attempt using a poisoned tooth, and so on. While moving into an experimental area, Delany seems to be announcing his connection to the works that have gone before, perhaps an effort to declare his writing to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.
Between the examinations of the effects of making an interstellar community a collection of rootless itinerant laborers anchored by a racist and elitist Earth and a piratical Pleiadies, there is a wild story here, as Prince Red and Lorq von Ray race to be the first to recover the heavy metal Illyrion from a nova and as a result gain an unassailable competitive advantage in terraforming planets and powering spacecraft. Also woven into the story is the artistic dichotomy between the spontaneous gypsy Mouse (using what is probably one of the coolest instruments, and ultimately weapons, in science fiction), and the stodgy introspective Katin, who does little more than perpetually take notes in preparation for his planned novel. But the conflict between Lorq and Red is the primary story here, and it powers through the pages until its bitter conclusion.
Hearkening back to the golden age of science fiction, and heavily influencing what would become cyberpunk (Gibson consciously imitated some elements of Nova in Neuromancer) and pretty much everything else that came after it, this is simply one of the best books in the genre.
Nova gives us some interesting and developed characters: think how rare a character like Katin is, a protagonist that isn't liked very much by most of his crew-mates, but who isn't a martyr or unjustly persecuted or bullied, he's just a guy the rest of the crew find annoying. There may be a few more characters than necessary, however, as Lynceos, Idas, Sebastian, and Tyy weren't very developed. Prince may have been a one-note purely evil antagonist, but his sister Ruby was more developed and dynamic, and their relationship with each other was interesting as well. Despite the cast of characters being small, this didn't cause the universe of Nova to feel artificially small, in fact the universe was impressively developed considering how short the book is.
In a few hundred pages Delany gives us a world of different political factions, economic systems, rival families, and (more importantly for me) a host of interesting settings. From Istanbul of Earth to the City of Perpetual Night, from the largest museum in the universe to Hell^3, the quest of this story spans the universe, each location being memorable and interesting. It's reminiscent of globe-trotting adventure movies like Indiana Jones, exotic locale followed by exotic locale, but while reading the book it never felt like Delany was throwing in new settings just to entertain (not that I'd complain if that were his motivation). Instead the settings gave context to, and magnified the action of, the story.
I'm making this book sound like a pulp sci-fi adventure or space opera, and in many ways it truly is primarily an adventure novel, but what pulls it out of the category of pulp is that Delany can really write, and that Delany uses the story to speak to what it means to belong, the process of writing a novel, and what it means to live more generally. Nova has something to say about the human condition, something that us fans of the genre would like to think many works of science-fiction achieve, but that in reality few do. It's far from a perfect book, but it's a good one, and it makes me want to read more Delany in the future. That being said, I already dropped Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand for really not being my cup of tea, so I certainly don't expect to enjoy all of Delany's works. Likewise, even if you liked this book, don't assume Delany's other books will be at all similar to this one, or that you'll enjoy them. But really, I guess there's no way to know until you try plunging in
All this to preface a book that does a good job at all. Nova is not Delany’s greatest work, but it is a very good book. This is the story of a rich captain trying to fly his ship through a nova to obtain one of the rarest things in the universe and, consequently, bring down his main rivals. Others who have read this may quibble with me on some of my word choices in this brief description, but that speaks to the complexity of this relatively short novel, and the layers of understanding that can be brought to bear. What leaps this above the standard science fiction novel is that it does not so much focus on the destination, but on the journey, and on the people taking that journey. The trip in the star does not even occur until the last twenty pages. But, by then, the star and the destination are not important. Instead, what is important is what makes up this civilization, and the people that inhabit it. And what you will notice is that you are now a part of that civilization; of that universe. And even some throw away ideas (those ideas that seem to help the verisimilitude of the author’s universe) come back to be important points At times I couldn’t help but think that this is the writing that gave William Gibson his base. And that Delany would have written cyberpunk back then if computers were what they are now. This is not a light breezy read (though neither is it James Joyce). But worth the time to explore.
Delany takes us from intriguing world to intriguing world, and paints compelling pictures of the strange places man has come to inhabit. The long scene set on Earth is especially compelling. Nova features an interestingly bizarre cast of characters who are caught up in intriguing relationships, most notably the incestuous pairing of the villainous Prince and his sister Ruby Red. The book is rife with, and at times even a bit heavy handed in its use of symbolism and plays on familiar mythology (in particular the Grail and Tarot cards).
My biggest disappointment came in the climactic final chapter, where Captain Von Lorq, Prince, and Ruby Red each meet their respective destinies. The final resolution felt rushed, not really worthy of the buildup that had preceded.
Of course, being of
The most exciting
…[T]he derelict lurched forward. Hip banged the counter. Long toes struck a chair leg: the chair danced on the
"You, boy. Do you know what it was like?"
The codger flapped out his hand, caught a chair, and yanked it to him. It rasped as he fell on the seat. "Do you know what it looked like, felt like, smelt like—do you?...
"We were moving out, boy, with the three hundred suns of the Pleiades glittering like a puddle of jeweled milk on our left, and all blackness wrapped around our right. The ship was me; I was the ship. With these sockets—" he tapped the insets in his wrists against the table: click "—I was plugged into my vane-projector. Then—"
the stubble on his jaw rose and fell with the words "—centered on the dark, a light! It reached out, grabbed our eyes as we lay in the projection chambers and wouldn't let them go. It was like the universe was torn and all day raging through. I wouldn't go off sensory input. I wouldn't look away. All the colors you could think of were there, blotting the night. And finally the shock waves: the walls sang! Magnetic inductance oscillated over our ship, nearly rattled us apart. But then it was too late. I was blind."
..."Ahhhl That was a pig trip, a dog trip, a trip for flies! The ship was the Roc and I was a cyborg stud for Captain Lorq Von Ray. He took us"—Dan leaned across the table—"this close"—his thumb brushed his forefinger—"this close to hell. And brought us back. You can damn him, and damn Illyrion for that, boy…"
It is the thirty-second century. Space is vast, endless, but not empty. Multiple suns, a plethora of planets, many teeming with life, the whole stretching 16 light-years from end to end. Spaceships roam from planet to planet, transporting the products of a vibrant economy. Powering all is a rare element called Illyrion. At first, it was manufactured in a low-yield but extremely costly process. Then mineable deposits were discovered on a few remote planets and mining supplanted manufacturing. Since a miniscule amount of Illyrion energizes civilization, securing several tons of it would be sufficient to convulse the balance of power in the universe.
Lorq Von Ray is confident he can collect those tons with a single ship. It's his Quest. Yes, his first attempt failed, and his crew of cyborg studs was decimated. For a second try, he recruits a new crew, each member (of course) with quirks. Sebastian, for example, signs on only after Lorq assures him "pets"—Sebastian's are large cranky birds—are acceptable. Tyÿ, a woman, does Tarot Card readings and proves to be an exceptional pilot. Mouse is a taciturn Gypsy and an expert performer with the syrynx, an instrument that produces sounds, light, even aromas. With a syrynx, one man can be more than a whole band. Katin Crawford, a 6' 9" Harvard man, enthralled with moons (more than, say, planets), is an aspiring novelist, even though the 32nd century has no novelists or novels. The author, Delany, uses Katin's obsession to riff on writing and storytelling, even implying that [Nova] is Katin's novel.
As in any worthwhile Quest, obstacles and challenges abound. Not the least of them are presented by Von Ray's contemporaries and lifelong rivals, Prince Red and his seductive and treacherous sister Ruby Red. Both intellectually and physically challenging are the Reds; too they represent a business empire, based in Draco, that rivals the empire established in Pleiades by Lorq's ancestors.
In telling this story, Delany evokes [Moby Dick] as well as Holy Grail lore. I liked it. A lot.
Two thumbs up.
At the end of the book I had no positive feeling from the reading experience, it was just meh.
Lorq Von Ray is a man on a quest, driven by his desire to defeat his nemesis Prince Red, wrest away the primacy of the Draco system, Earth and its immediate colonies, controlled by the Red family, and establish the supremacy of the Pleiades Federation, Lorq’s home system.
Science fiction readers like to see authors create substantial worlds, both as backdrops to the action and as places removed the confines of this world. Delany’s worlds span light years in our galaxy, with some, like the planet Vorpis, at once alien, inhospitable, beautiful, and testament to human ingenuity. Those weaned on the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars like characters to traverse vast distances in the blink of an eye, and Delany doesn’t disappoint. Too, many want their protagonists larger than life, stronger, wittier, prettier, and humbly flawed. Here Delany provides a host of fatally flawed characters, like Prince Red, blind with revenge, Ruby Red, magnetically beautiful but unalterably attached to Red, and Lorq, who can’t see beyond an ambition that could destroy him. This, combined with the idea of power, how to get it, how to hold onto it, should satisfy a majority of readers.
Delany notches things up by expanding on other subjects very much on the minds of humans stuck here on Earth for the foreseeable future. In Delany’s distant future, race and nationality are still dividers, as crew member Mouse’s origin story reveals, not to mention the contrasted appearances of twins Lynceos and Idas. Too, Caucasians predominate in the Draco sphere, while both Pleiades and the Outer Colonies feature a racial mix, as Lorq himself exemplifies. Like our world of today, where we find ourselves not only attached to devices that determine to an increasing degree whether or not we will be successful, in Delany’s world, human and machine fuse via plug-in sockets that make flesh and metal one, and employment and acceptance accrue to those who accept this merging. Delany also ventures into philosophy as it involves creativity, with Mouse an accomplished musician able to conjure moods and worlds on his syrynx that incorporates a sort of hologram projector driven more by spontaneity vs. fellow crew member Katin, highly educated, given to long expositions on a variety of topics, and obsessed to the point of inaction by intellectualizing and planning the novel he wishes to write.
In short, then, Delany’s Nova can be read on a variety of levels, from fast-paced space opera to exploration of societal issues to metaphysics, enough to satisfy all types of sci-fi readers, as well as those who only occasionally read the genre.
Lorq Von Ray is a man on a quest, driven by his desire to defeat his nemesis Prince Red, wrest away the primacy of the Draco system, Earth and its immediate colonies, controlled by the Red family, and establish the supremacy of the Pleiades Federation, Lorq’s home system.
Science fiction readers like to see authors create substantial worlds, both as backdrops to the action and as places removed the confines of this world. Delany’s worlds span light years in our galaxy, with some, like the planet Vorpis, at once alien, inhospitable, beautiful, and testament to human ingenuity. Those weaned on the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars like characters to traverse vast distances in the blink of an eye, and Delany doesn’t disappoint. Too, many want their protagonists larger than life, stronger, wittier, prettier, and humbly flawed. Here Delany provides a host of fatally flawed characters, like Prince Red, blind with revenge, Ruby Red, magnetically beautiful but unalterably attached to Red, and Lorq, who can’t see beyond an ambition that could destroy him. This, combined with the idea of power, how to get it, how to hold onto it, should satisfy a majority of readers.
Delany notches things up by expanding on other subjects very much on the minds of humans stuck here on Earth for the foreseeable future. In Delany’s distant future, race and nationality are still dividers, as crew member Mouse’s origin story reveals, not to mention the contrasted appearances of twins Lynceos and Idas. Too, Caucasians predominate in the Draco sphere, while both Pleiades and the Outer Colonies feature a racial mix, as Lorq himself exemplifies. Like our world of today, where we find ourselves not only attached to devices that determine to an increasing degree whether or not we will be successful, in Delany’s world, human and machine fuse via plug-in sockets that make flesh and metal one, and employment and acceptance accrue to those who accept this merging. Delany also ventures into philosophy as it involves creativity, with Mouse an accomplished musician able to conjure moods and worlds on his syrynx that incorporates a sort of hologram projector driven more by spontaneity vs. fellow crew member Katin, highly educated, given to long expositions on a variety of topics, and obsessed to the point of inaction by intellectualizing and planning the novel he wishes to write.
In short, then, Delany’s Nova can be read on a variety of levels, from fast-paced space opera to exploration of societal issues to metaphysics, enough to satisfy all types of sci-fi readers, as well as those who only occasionally read the genre.