Which some people might like, but the big question on the readers mind throughout -“How are they going to enter the nova and extract the Illyrium?” - gets completely skipped over once it is about to happen, then very briefly explained via infodump after the fact.Īt a future point where the galaxy is populated, additional elements with atomic weights in the 300 range have been discovered. The story gets well bogged down in mundane character activity and forgets about the premise and the plot. … ( more)Ī whole lot of buildup to a rushed ending. Delany including rare images from his early career. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. But an even more dangerous fuel than Illyrion is revenge. To help him secure the priceless fuel, Lorq recruits a gypsy musician, a would-be novelist, and some other ragtag misfits. When a star goes nova and implodes, in the seething stellar wreckage for a few days-even hours-lie tons of Illyrion, the element that makes interstellar travel possible. This sets Lorq on a demonic quest, through which he hopes to find vengeance. Lorq Von Ray was a playboy and young space-yacht-racing captain who, at a party at Earth's Paris, clashed with Draco's Prince Red. In 3172, the universe is divided between three political units: the stars and worlds of Draco, with Earth as its power center the Pleiades Federation, on whose capital world, New Ark, lives the incredibly wealthy Von Ray family, descended from well-heeled merchants whose ancestors made their fortune as pirates and the Outer Colonies, where, in their underwater mines, tiny quantities of the fabulously valuable Illyrion have been discovered. A quest for a priceless element-and revenge-fuels this far-future interstellar adventure that 'reads like Moby-Dick at a strobe-light show' ( Time).

Delany nova