What do you think?
Rate this book
157 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
"Two Lesbian Agents with glazed faces of grafted penis flesh sat sipping fluid through alabaster straws."That's a funny, satirical line a troll might cook up to lampoon life in 2020. Burroughs wrote it around 1962. There were sci-fi writers galore predicting the future in the 50s and early 60s (Nova Express was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966), but none of them capture the unsettling texture of the actual future like Burroughs. Just goes to show the potency of cut-up technique. As David Hopkins put it in his study of surrealism: "... collage had summoned up a world that was profoundly inimical to human control."
"Take two opposed pressure groups--Record the most violent and threatening statements of group one with regard to group two and play back to group two--Record the answer and take to back to group one--Back and forth between opposed pressure groups--This process is known as "feed back"--You can see it operating in any bar room quarrel--In any quarrel for that matter--Manipulated on a global scale feeds back nuclear war and nova"Also,
"I have said the basic techniques of nova are very simple consist in creating and aggravating conflicts—“No riots like injustice directed between enemies”—At any given time recorders fix nature of absolute need and dictate the use of total weapons—Like this:: Collect and record violent Anti-Semitic statements—Now play back to Jews who are after Belsen—Record what they say and play it back to the Anti-Semites—Clip clap—You got it?—Want more?—Record white supremacy statements—Play to Negroes—Play back answer—Now The Women and The Men—No riots like injustice directed between “enemies”—At any given time position of recorders fixes nature of absolute need—And dictates the use of total weapons—So leave the recorders running and get your heavy metal ass in a space ship—Did it—Nothing here now but the recordings—Shut the whole thing right off—SilenceThis is a familiar process by now. Social media is the nova recording device. As someone on the Internet once said: "Today, Twitter is a planetary-scale hate machine. By which I don't mean "people post hateful things on Twitter." I mean literally generates hate, as in, put a bunch of people with diverse perspectives on Twitter and by the end of the day they hate each other more than when they started."
—When you answer the machine you provide it with more recordings to be played back to your “enemies” keep the whole nova machine running—The Chinese character for “enemy” means to be similar to or to answer—Don't answer the machine—Shut it off—"