ABSTRACT
Some years before detailed hydrodynamic simulations and multiwavelength observations of novae crystallized in the thermonuclear runaway model, Samuel R. Delany, an American novelist, portrayed in the futuristic drama Nova (1968) the quest of a team of brave explorers in search of illyrion, the most precious substance in the universe, presumably synthesized during such cataclysmic events. Despite in the real world, element production in novae does not involve such precious substances, their interest from an astrophysical viewpoint is actually quite remarkable.
