A Canticle for Leibowitz
"Puzzling over cultural fragments that we cannot immediately comprehend…"
Semiopunk
A series by Josh Glenn, cross-posted from our sister site HILOBROW, dedicated to surfacing examples of the sf subgenre that one might call “semiopunk.” Also see Josh's semiopunk sf story "Validation Session" (2020)
The Man with Six Senses
"We are surrounded by imperceptible, patterned forces that subtly guide our behavior…"
Embassytown
"The Ariekei's discovery of the myriad possibilities of signifier/signified connections proves catastrophic."
Solaris
"Is true understanding even possible? What does understanding imply?"
Odd John
"He devised strange shapes which epitomized for him the tragedy of Homo sapiens, and the promise of his own kind."
Friday
"Durned if I didn’t begin to find connections!"
The Glass Bead Game
The game is a difficult and rewarding "exercise in deconstruction and decoding, pattern recognition, and patterning."
Validation Session
A brilliant white pattern, or schema — a functional-looking mandala — appeared on the sticky tabletop.