Nova

In the far future, humanity has spread across the stars, enormous corporations compete for control of the galaxy, and Captain Lorq von Ray is preparing to fly directly into the heart of an exploding sun. This is what passed for ambition before people could improve their professional standing by posting motivational remarks on LinkedIn.

Samuel R. Delany’s Nova is a dazzling work of science fiction in which space opera, mythology, politics and economic rivalry collide at extremely high velocity. Lorq recruits an assorted crew of outsiders for a perilous mission to obtain Illyrion, the immensely valuable material upon which the balance of galactic power depends. Naturally, the most convenient place to acquire it is inside a star at the moment it becomes a nova. There are easier procurement procedures, but they seldom result in a classic novel.

First published in 1968, Nova combines the grand machinery of traditional space adventure with Delany’s characteristically inventive ideas about language, technology, class and culture. Its universe contains cyborgs, aristocratic dynasties, interstellar commerce, ancient vendettas and enough symbolic material to keep an attentive reader occupied long after the spacecraft has parked. Beneath the excitement lies a sophisticated reworking of myth, most notably the quest for the Grail, although the Grail did not generally involve stellar explosions or threaten the economic stability of several hundred inhabited worlds.

This 1986 Gollancz edition offers a splendid opportunity to own one of the landmarks of modern science fiction without first having to cross the galaxy, acquire a specialised crew or develop a dangerous obsession with defeating a rival industrial family. It is bold, intelligent, strange and impressively compact for a story encompassing personal revenge, galactic capitalism and the rearrangement of civilisation.

The copy is in Fine condition and is virtually as new. In other words, it appears to have travelled through the intervening decades with considerably less damage than most of the characters. An excellent copy for the Delany collector, the serious science-fiction reader or anyone who prefers their family disputes to involve collapsing stars and the future of interstellar society. Sold by Crappy Old Books, despite showing very little evidence of being either crappy or, in practical terms, particularly old.

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