Interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes thought provoking. Refreshing to read something so truly different. ( )

El Inspector de la policía de Nova, define el propósito de Expreso Nova: poner al descubierto y arrestar a los criminales de Nova: "Muestra quienes son y lo que hacen y harán si no se los arresta. Los gobiernos son mentirosos cobardes, colaboradores traidores"; el prometido jardín de las delicias es una "cloaca terminal", y aunque la policía consiga llevar a los criminales a las cortes biológicas, los jueces mismos son gente corrompida, adicta a las drogas y las prácticas sexuales venusinas... Burroughs ha creado nuevamente una obra de fantasía y realidad, histeria y risas, una auténtica feria de horrores cuya lema podría ser: "Que todos los jugadores muestren ahora las cartas", y que Burroughs presenta como última prescripción literal en beneficio de la supervivencia y la cordura del hombre.

I have a hardback of this but the cover's the same as this paperback so I'll just stick w/ that. "Nova Express" has been published as Science Fiction but it seems like it belongs in a category all its own: part drug vision, part formal experiment, part social criticism, part fantasy, etc.. When I 1st read these Burroughs novels, I was thrilled by the way they mutated in & out of such categories. Burroughs seemes to've felt no need to try to tame his writing into any particular market niche & that's one of its many strong points. "Nova Express" is yet-another exploding ticket to a wild ride thru universes of [b:naked lunch|7437|Naked Lunch The Restored Text|William S. Burroughs|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1219259455s/7437.jpg|4055]es that's been an initiation for many a soft machine wild boy. ( )

The final installment in WSB's Cut-Up Trilogy, and in my opinion the most fully realized one. It employs the same nightmarish sci-fi imagery as The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, but in a more streamlined manner. The cut-up technique still makes for difficult reading, though, so if you're in the mood for anything even resembling a coherent narrative, this is not the book for you. It isn't precisely what you'd call an example of intellectual honesty, either; Burroughs's admission late in life that apomorphine had not cured him of his junk addiction makes all the glowing testimonials in Nova Express ("You can cut the enemy off your line by the judicious use of apomorphine and silence--Use the sanity drug apomorphine") sound almost pitifully absurd. Maybe he sincerely wanted to believe, at the time, that he had found and benefited from a wonder drug, but the fact that he had to take two apomorphine "cures" while writing this novel should have been an indication that the drug's effects were less than miraculous.

But if for no other reason than its deadly accurate appraisal of the ruling class's attitude toward the rest of us, Nova Express remains relevant today. The greatest lines ever written by Burroughs appear in this book, and at the present moment they're even more germane than they were in 1964:

"'Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing--'

"Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth?

"'Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time.'

"Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. (...) Who took from you what is yours? Now they will give it all back? Did they ever give anything away for nothing? Did they ever give any more than they had to give? Did they not always take back what they gave when possible and it always was? (...) All that they offer is a screen to cover retreat from the colony they have so disgracefully mismanaged. To cover travel arrangements so they will never have to pay the constituents they have betrayed and sold out. Once these arrangements are complete they will blow the place up behind them."

(See "Survival of the Richest: The Wealthy Are Plotting to Leave Us Behind" by Douglas Rushkoff - Medium, July 5, 2018) ( )

Like watching an avant-garde B-movie through a heap of glass shards. Prose sharp and jagged, cut up and folded in, deforming any light that passes through. Burroughs imparts neither comfort nor ease. He was a soothsayer. He gets bunched in with the Beats, but he was 4 or 5 clicks beyond anything Ginsberg, Kerouac, etc ever imagined they could imagine. No bullshit sentimentality can save us. We’re up against weaponized mescaline, image guns and virus crystals. Don’t be fooled by the hepcat junkie lingo. The authorities know full well that the new mass man is easily manipulated by fear and anger. Run away first chance you get. ( )