Whereas Triton seems a cognizant, introspective maze caught up in self-contemplation, I found Nova to be much the opposite. It is a futuristic tale of revenge featuring Holy Grail undertones, tarot card broadcasts, a man with a sun rattling around in his cranium, star-flung gypsies, and a much larger inventory of brain-charming images and ideas.
Lorq Von Ray is a starship captain racing the wealthy and powerful Prince and Ruby Red to the source of enough Illyrion to change the economies of entire star systems. But what is Illyrion? Is it a superheavy element which in grams can power entire cities for years? Or is it something more elusive and hard to define?
To carry out his mission, Von Ray enlists the help of the cyborg studs, the Mouse, Katin, Lynceos, Idas, Sebastian, and Tyy. Once pulled in by the quietly leviathan personality, there is no escaping his gravitational field until the uncertain end.
This novel is first and foremost a space adventure, but Delany manages to make plenty of social commentary. The cyborg studs raise questions of the relationship of man to machine, mythology-draped society blurs the line between science and mysticism, and Katin, the anachronistic novelist that has yet to write a word, presents the creative writing process from a totally new perspective.
Overall, this was an incredibly entertaining novel. The last few scenes with Prince and Ruby Red were some of the best I have read since Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination.
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