NOVA - INSCRIBED TO JOHN BRUNNER by Delany, Samuel R - 1968

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1968. First Edition. A superb association copy of this novel set in the thirty-second century, "a grail epic cast as space opera, whose hero must trawl the core of an exploding star for the fabulous element that is the power source of the galactic civilization" (Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4-168). Nova features "faster-than-light space travel, countless colonized planets, and widespread merging of humans and machines into cyborgs...The way Delany's characters jack into technology planted the seeds for a subgenre that would flourish in the 1980's: cyberpunk" (Heer, Jeet. Samuel R. Delany: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Super-Nova. Library of American blog, January 8, 2020). Inscribed to the author's long-time friend and fellow science fiction author John Brunner (1934-1995), whose association with Delany dates back to the early 1960's; Brunner's pseudonymous 1963 novel The Psionic Menace (written under the name Keith Woodcott), would be bound dos-a-dos by Ace with Delany's Captives of the Flame, and Delany would visit Brunner and Michael Moorcock in 1966 during a 21-day trip to London. A significant copy connecting two masters of the genre. Peplow & Bravard A21. First Printing. Octavo (21.5cm); black and pink cloth-covered boards, blocked and titled in black and gilt on spine; dustjacket; [8],9-279,[9]pp. Hugo Award-winning author John Brunner's copy, with his pictorial bookplate mounted to front pastedown, and inscribed to him by Delany in a contemporary hand on the title page: "To a very patient friend - Best and even better to you, John, from / Chip Delany." Old, faint dampstaining to spine ends, with a splash mark to upper edge of textblock, some residual staining to hinges, and some mild waviness and faint staining to lower margin of first 15pp; Very Good. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $4.95), gently spine-sunned and lightly edgeworn, with a few faint splash marks to spine panel, and a few faint wrinkles on rear panel; Very Good+.