A s the term is generally understood, there are no "characters" in Nova Express, although many named personages are given extensive quoted material as part of a discussion, dispute, or declaration. These nebulous creatures, often resemble human beings, but in a mutant or deviant form appropriate for the constantly shifting sense of reality that informs the novel. The question of what is human — what constitutes the Self — is at the center of Burroughs's projection of a "space" (inner and outer) age, and since the location of Nova Express, like Naked Lunch (1962), is ostensibly the mind of the author, all of the "characters" are, to some extent, aspects of his imaginative assemblage of tendencies drawn on his experiences and his constant reflective investigations of his own mind.

Familiar figures from Burroughs's world reappear here: the narrative consciousness with some version of Burroughs's name — William, Lee, Bill...