The introduction argued for the care with which Burroughs used his methods and established the text's complex manuscript histories.

The Nova Mob—Sammy the Butcher, Green Tony, Iron Claws, The Brown Artist, Jacky Blue Note, Limestone John, Izzy the Push, Hamburger Mary, Paddy The Sting, The Subliminal Kid, Blue Dinosaur, Mr. and Mrs. D —are viruses, "defined as the three-dimensional coordinate point of a controller"[2] ... "which invade the human body and in the process produce language.

"[3] These Nova Criminals represent society, culture, and government, and have taken control by the use of word and image.

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.

"[8] 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.