Review

“Nova” by Samuel R. Delany is brilliantly written book, which is hard to categorise. It consists of a strong set of very distinct characters on a quest to tip the scales of power in the populated universe. It is a story of inherited debts and how political balance can push certain behaviours. Yet, at the same time this book is anything but that. It centres around its vibrant cast and can best be described as a space-age tragedy.

The book is a about a struggle for survival, while also comtemplating existentiality, where each character is a perfect imitation of a way of life, with all of the downsides and personal struggles such an imitation represents. It is in this meeting between different ways of life and their associated downsides and personal struggles that the book finds its true power.

The book itself is well-written and deals with a lot of different perspectives and thus is difficult to pin down to a simple comparison, however a love-child of the following books would probably end up producing “Nova”: “Dune” by Frank Herbert, “The Expanse” by James S. A. Corey and both “Nightflyers” and “Dying of the Light” by George R. R. Martin.

Score: 9/10

Samuel R. Delany is a very accomplished and prolific writer, who has the written word completely in his control. I imagine that a writer with this kind of power and ability in his writing must have a wonderful time being in the worlds that he imagines, while he creates them.

Goodreads