Nova Express (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: William S. Burroughs
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—cautionary
- Time of Work: Dated March 17, 1962, and July 21, 1964, in the novel, but generally the space age
- Setting: Earth, with references to other planets and the Crab Nebula
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, Crime or criminals, Police, Other worlds, Substance abuse, Drug addiction or addicts, Earth, Viruses
- Locales: Earth, Fictional planets
The Plot
William S. Burroughs’ Nova Express (1964) initially appeared as an independent work, but Burroughs has remarked that after he assembled Naked Lunch (1959) by making selections from a pile of pages, he used leftover pages for The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express. The various sections of Nova Express embody scraps and pieces of Burroughs’ previous work; for example, a foreword indicates that the section “This Horrible Case” was written as a joint effort with Ian Sommerville, who also...
[The entire page is 987 words long]
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