Nova by Samuel R. Delany

Interesting sci-fi bogged down in melodrama and metaphor

Samuel R. Delaney’s science fiction novel Nova was published in 1968 and nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel the following year. The story takes place in the 32nd century. Mankind has spread to other planets. Earth is the home world to an interstellar government known as the Draco Sector, consisting of hundreds of inhabited worlds, but pioneer settlers have ventured beyond even its boundaries to farther stars, establishing the Pleiades Federation and the Outer Colonies. The main characters in the book are the interstellar equivalents of sailors. To conduct their work, almost all humans are equipped with cybernetic ports in their bodies through which they plug into the starships, computers, mining equipment, or other machinery that they use to perform their manual and intellectual labors.

Although humanity has emigrated far and wide into the vast heavens, Earth cultures have remained remarkably preserved through the centuries, with many people speaking Greek, Turkish, and Portuguese in space. One of the main characters is a gypsy. This multiculturalism seems pretty farfetched, or at least wishful thinking. If anything, mankind will likely become more ethnically homogenous over the next thousand years. Delaney, however, seems to revel in the romance of likening future space travel to the ancient days of Mediterranean seafaring.

These travelers of the 32nd century all seem to be scholars or enthusiasts of some 20th century writer or painter. Artworks of our recent past maintain an unrealistic level of esteem in this distant future, mainly so that Delaney can indulge in cultural criticism of the present day. Another of the main characters is an aspiring novelist, which gives Delaney the mouthpiece through which to pontificate on his own philosophy of literature. Another holdover from an earlier time that appears repeatedly throughout the novel is the tarot deck. Delaney presents a clever twist by making the majority of this future society firm believers in the tarot, while the few who denounce card-reading as mere superstition are considered kooks. Unfortunately, the tarot cards don’t really serve much purpose in the narrative other than that Delaney really seems to find them interesting, so the inordinate amount of time spent on them just feels like a waste.

All of these idiosyncratic literary touches just distract from the science of this science fiction, which is really quite interesting. Delaney’s conception of mankind’s colonization of the galaxy has the potential to develop into another Dune- or Star Trek-sized mythology. The method he has envisioned for how man flies and navigates his spacecraft through interstellar space is quite inventive and plausible within the fictional universe he has created. As the title of the book indicates, the plot of Nova also has something to do with the life cycle of stars, and the speculative astrophysics with which Delaney peppers the story results in some fascinating theories.

To enjoy these interesting ideas, however, the reader must wade through a melodramatic space opera, complete with a tortured romance and a villain who resembles Darth Vader as a high school bully. I liked the story of where these characters were going and what they were trying to accomplish, but their inner dialogues just seemed to amount to a lot of unnecessary digressions intended to add depth and interest to the story. More often than not, such musings ended up feeling shallow rather than profound. Nova is not a bad novel by any means, but it is hardly a timeless classic of its genre. The reader is left feeling halfheartedly interested and only partially satisfied.
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