Nova (novel)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Nova is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. Nominally space opera, it also explores the politics and culture of a future where cyborging is universal, yet major decisions are made using the Tarot. It has strong mythological undertones, particularly relating to the Grail Quest. Nova was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969. It is listed by David Pringle as one of the best 100 science-fiction novels written since World War II.
After writing Nova at the age of 25, Delany stopped writing for several years. When he began to write again (his next novel was the sexually-explicit Dhalgren), he adopted an experimental writing style much different from his earlier work.
Synopsis
In the 32nd century, political power in the galaxy is split between two factions: the Earth-based Draco and the newer Pleiades Federation. Both have interests in the Outer Colonies, where mines produce trace amounts of the prized power source Illyrion, the superheavy material essential to starship travel and terraforming planets.
Caught in a feud between aristocratic families, a scarred and obsessed captain from the Pleiades, Lorq von Ray, recruits a disparate crew of misfits to aid him in the race with his arch-enemy, Prince Red from Draco, to gain economic dominance by securing a vastly greater source of Illyrion, direct from the heart of a stellar nova. By doing so, von Ray would completely shift the balance of power of the existing order, and would cause the downfall of the Red family and Earth's dominance of interstellar politics.
The central metaphor of the novel, as its title may indicate, is a nova: a destructive event that, paradoxically, also creates new elements. In the book, at the explosion 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.
The characters follow a quest plotline, in that they visit numerous different worlds to pursue their goal, all while being pursued by the Red family.
Motifs
Nova, although science fiction, has a number of character motifs in common with Delany's literary and literary-pornographic works: the Mouse, a damaged artist who wears one shoe like The Kid in the later Dhalgren; 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 derelict with a rope holding up his pants.
Nova also makes external references. Captain Lorq von Ray, on his obsessive quest with a crew of outcasts, clearly alludes to the similarly scarred Ahab in Melville's Moby-Dick. Within the novel, the story is interpreted by Katin as a quest for the Holy Grail, with Illyrion playing the part of the Grail. As in Grail quest stories, there is a failed attempt to gain it, and someone must sacrifice themselves (in Nova, their sanity and senses) to finally do so. Delany even plays to Grail lore superstition by omitting the last word of the book. Delany also makes an offhand reference to Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy (a random planet is named "Trantor").
Also central to the story is the idea of culture. One often-repeated concern in Nova is that, due to the dispersal of the human race among other star systems, there is no common cultural capital. The society is in a pre-revolutionary state. Social class and economic tensions have caused the feud between the "new money" von Ray family and the "old money" Red family, both of whom exploit the Outer Colonies (akin to our Third World). In this respect, the relationship between Draco and the Pleiades resembles that between the British Empire and the USA in the 19th century; the Pleiades is an increasingly successful breakaway federation with its own distinctive dialect, yet its elite speaks with the dialect of the parent Draco. However, the characters eventually embrace this new world.
As part of the New Wave of science fiction, the book deliberately goes against hard science-fiction motifs and themes. For example, von Ray uses the Tarot after a first, scientifically superior, mission fails. The book is undeniably the product of the 1960s in other ways. Although set in an imaginary future, a culturally iconic assassination—parallel to that of John F. Kennedy—has taken place. The complaints of lost cultural diversity resemble those concerning Americanization in that period. The characters can be seen as hippies, with itinerant lifestyles and drug use extremely widespread and popular, and the design and terminology of the Mouse's 'sensory syrinx' (a sound, scent and hologram projector) is that of 1960s electric guitars.
As Delany is an open homosexual, several characters in Nova can be interpreted as being gay, or at least bisexual. Although Sebastian and Tyy are a heterosexual couple, and Lorq von Ray lusts after Ruby Red, Delany is not explicit about other central characters' sexualities. Katin's sexuality is never mentioned, and although the Mouse is described as having had relationships with women in the past, he and Katin (an uneducated gypsy and an intellectual respectively) have a clearly homoerotic friendship that is almost identical to the openly sexual one between Korga and Marq Dyeth in Delany's later novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.
Influences
Nova is considered one of the major forerunners of the cyberpunk movement. It prefigures, for instance, cyberpunk's staple trope of human interfacing with computers via implants. Writer William Gibson was greatly influenced by Delany, and his novel Neuromancer includes allusions to Nova. However, while Delany's vision of the future is optimistic, the cyberpunk movement has a distinctly dystopic outlook. As an example, Gibson includes a character, Peter Riviera, with the same holographic projection powers (although via implants) as the Mouse in Neuromancer; but Gibson's character is a psychopath.
