Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. [...] With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly." As Burroughs battles with the self, what is human, and what is "reality", he finds that language is the only way to maintain dominance over the "powerful instruments of control," which are the most prevalent enemies of human society. Criticism While Naked Lunch was an initial shock to the literary community, Nova Express was considered the end of Burroughs's stylistic experiment and of the Nova Trilogy. The novel received more praise on its own, as it was often compared to the other books in the trilogy and Naked Lunch. Eric Mottram stated that although "Burroughs's repetitive narcotic and homoerotic fantasies become tedious in sections of his third novel ... it is from these obsessions that his most powerful work develops." Reviewing the novel for a genre audience, Judith Merril compared Nova Express to "the surreality of certain dreams, or the intense fascination of a confusion of new impressions in real life." References 1964 American novels 1960s LGBT novels American science fiction novels Grove Press books LGBT speculative fiction novels Novels by William S. Burroughs