I had to stop reading after 50 pages. The style didn't appeal to me, the info dumping at the beginning ("Mouse, what does Illyrion mean to you?" ... "Katin, what is Illyrion?") was simply annoying and the characters everything but likeable. ( )

I had to stop reading after 50 pages. The style didn't appeal to me, the info dumping at the beginning ("Mouse, what does Illyrion mean to you?" ... "Katin, what is Illyrion?") was simply annoying and the characters everything but likeable. ( )

The back cover of this books reads "These are (at least some of) the ways you can read Nova: as a fast-action farflung interstellar adventure; as archetypical mystical/mythical allegory (in which he Tarot and the Grail both figure prominently); as modern myth told in the S-F idiom …". I’m glad I can read it as an interstellar adventure, because I know jack shit about the Tarot and the Grail, and could care less. Unfortunately as a space opera style adventure, I thought it was pretty boring. If you are into the Tarot or the Grail thing, inscrutable allegory, or other things, you might get more out of Nova than I did.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2009/06... ( )

Nova is the first Delany book I ever read, and remains my favorite work by him. It is a space opera written in an era when space operas had become unfashionable complete with space pirates, interstellar corporations, larger than life heroes and villains, and all the other trappings one normally associates with writers like Doc Smith.

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 instrument, and ultimately weapon, 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. ( )

Set Your Controls For the Heart Of the Sun.

But only if you really, really, really need to.

A spaceship captain gathers a ragtag crew for a tour around the joint to collect rare elements that are worth quite a bit in this society before the final stunt that you can probably guess at from the title.

Also has elements such as jacking into machines, and odd gadgets. This is all reasonable. Throwing in yet another tedious use of Tarot literally and symbolically drags it down, as does the extremely rushed final part.

Probably more interesting 40 years or so ago, but very mundane now.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/02... ( )

Samuel R. Delany’s Nova is a space opera centered around a privileged young spaceship captain and his ragtag band of alien misfits. It’s hard to say exactly how cliche all of this was when Delany originally wrote it, but much of the book feels silly when read contemporarily.

Of course, being of Delany’s authorship, it is a somewhat challenging and somewhat flamboyant read, which lends the otherwise typical story a unique flair. In the end, it’s not one that I would recommend to folks interested in checking out Delany’s early scifi work. Bite the bullet and work your way through Dhalgren. ( )

It is easy to forget that one of the joys of science fiction is the immersion into worlds. The old Golden Age of Science Fiction (think Campbell, et al) was often nothing more than immersion and the science of dreams. And it is just as easy to forget that the immersion into strange, incomprehensible worlds that reflect our fears of what will happen to us did not start with the cyberpunk movement. In another golden age of science fiction (think Ellison, et al) authors were exploring new ideas in science, in the mind, and in writing. The balance of all these parts was often unachievable (depending on the ability of the writer) but, when executed, made the finest writing.

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. ( )

Nova is in some ways a much more traditional scifi yarn than The Einstein Intersection (Delany's previous book): it tells the story of the various members of the small crew of a starship that visits a series of planets in the course of an interstellar quest. In other ways it is every bit a surreal and challenging as anyone who reads Delany has come to expect. This is virtuoso writing; he may leave you confused but you have to admire the man’s facility with putting together words to achieve exactly his desired effect.

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. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Y8N9SS... ( )

"Nova" je prvi put objavljena 1968. godine, što znači da je roman: kratak, jasan i novovalovski. Trebalo bi se raditi o space operi i - iako se radnja odvija u svemiru i prevladava klasična premisa dobar momak se sukobljuje s lošim momkom - u ovom romanu ima i puno drugih stvari koje ga izdvajaju od klasičnih sličnih djela. Dijaloga je puno više nego akcije, a značajni dio romana zauzima i reminiscencija glavnog lika u prošlost. Likovi su pravi dilejnijevski neobični i katkad bizarni do groteske. Odnosi među likovima zapravo nose roman koji će možda neke razočarati na polju uzbuđenja, ali će zato opčiniti svakoga žednog dobre SF ili ne-SF književnosti.
Ire ( )

Plotwise this is standard Sci-Fi adventure, easily translated as a Boys Own 19th Century sea yarn: an obsessed captain after hidden treasure in deadly rivalry with a just as obsessed villian. But the above average writing talent of the author and the exotic but real characters and settings carry it beyond the ordinarily space operatic. Although not a SF Masterwork it certainly is a minor classic of the genre. ( )

Despite its 1960’s “New Wave" trappings--in true beat writer mode, Delany signs the novel at the end: “Athens, April ‘66-New York, May ‘67--Nova is a classic science fiction space opera with wonderful characters and an exciting story. Sort of cyberpunkish without (thankfully) much of the cyber. ( )

n/a