One of three original anthology series to debut in 1970, Harry Harrison's Nova was the only one of the three to appear in hardcover (The photo shows paperback reprints of the first three, with the title of the third changed.) Harrison's introduction to the first volume rejects claims by some critics that science fiction dates to Lucian of Samosata, or to 19th century gothic novels (Harrison's frequent co-editor Brian Aldiss would make a case, three years later in Billion Year Spree, for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein being the first true SF novel), laying SF's origins with H.G. Wells. Noting the number of SF short stories published every year (in the magazines), and the proportionally greater number of anthologies and author collections, Harrison echoes earlier editors who discovered that the anthologist's solution is to assemble volumes of original stories.

In addition to the stories below, Nova 4 includes Alfred Bester's essay "My Affair with Science Fiction," which would appear in Harrison & Aldiss' anthology of essays Hell's Cartographers in 1975.

Most frequently published authors: Barry N. Malzberg (6), Brian Aldiss and Naomi MItchison (4 each), Robert Sheckley (3).