The novel also features an array of motifs ranging from the occult - in the form of Tarot card reading - to aesthetes who discuss the merits of art showcased in the Alkane, a museum on the planet Vorpis. Prescience and Delany go together like Mouse and sensory-syrynx performances. He spearheaded the movement before the notion even existed. And Delany’s inclusion of computer interfacing with mechanical limbs and implants predates the cyberpunk genre by years. Its formative ideas behind race relations, free-flowing information overload, and questioning one’s own purpose are as relevant today as when the novel was released. Nova was written and published at the height of the 1960s hippie movement, but out of touch and dated it is not. Oh, and their crew isn’t the only one vying for that precious substance. Procuring that much Illyrion in one go requires skimming the surface of the sun and entering a nova at just the right moment. There’s just one planetary-sized problem. Thereby, shifting the balance of power and control in the galaxy to a new faction. Set up to crash and burn like a Shakespearean tragedy performed in space, Nova follows the orphaned gypsy, Mouse, as he and a group of cyber stud renegades are recruited by the bullish pirate, Lorq Von Ray, to amass seven tons of the vital energy source, Illyrion. “Basically, gentlemen, Illyrion is something else.” And with those words the central conflict and quest at the heart of Samuel R.
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