Nova
Ratings24
Average rating3.4
3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Lorq Von Ray is a wealthy playboy and acquaintance of the equally wealthy Prince and Ruby Red. Prince, shy one arm and always ready to hold a grudge, can't forget the time as children that Lorq inadvertently offended him. Ruby can't chose between them. Lorq driven by a past failure, gathers a starship crew to do something potentially fatal to them all.
Review
I've had a mixed experience with Samuel Delany. I've thought some of his books were works of genius, others not very good. I remembered Nova as one of the former. On re-reading, I find it occupies more of a middle ground.
Nova is a highly stylized novel, full of archetypes and implication, and with only a thin thread of story to hold it together. The characters are sharply outlined, but, on examination, fairly shallow. You know who they are and what they're doing, but they come across as purely tools of the author rather than living, breathing individuals.
At heart, this is a classic tragedy of inevitable outcomes driven by flawed and ultimately petty humans, though Delany cheats a bit on the ending. He sets his story against a grand, space operatic background, but there's a lot that we have to take on faith – we know where he's going, he sets out the parameters, and the details are an excercise for the reader. Delany sketches out the characters and their motivations, but there's a lot more style than substance to most of it and. I liked the result less this time around.
A product of its time, there's also quite a lot on tarot, reminiscent of (but predating) Piers Anthony's similar focus.
Reads like a long short story. There were a lot of fun ideas. There where also aspects of Prince Ruby's development that felt forced and unrealistic. Vocq on the other hand was the Ahab that we all wished for.