Embassytown by China Mieville

This book begins like a traditional science fiction novel, with a self-deprecating space-adventuring narrator, Avice, who doesn't take herself too seriously (think Hans Solo in Star Wars), returning to her home town on a planet at the very end of known space. She sprinkles her story with unfamiliar terms and words, much as Anthony Burgess does in A Clockwork Orange, and, as in that book, most of the meanings gradually become clear. So far, so good.

The natives of the planet have a language unique in the known universe, one that only a few especially-altered human Ambassadors can speak. And then a new Ambassador arrives from off-world, whose speech causes a violent disruption of the fragile balance between the natives and the humans. Avice is thrown into the middle of the conflict, of course.

From here on the book departs wildly from the familiar science fiction realm. Goodness, it's really about language, and how it can affect thought patterns and even ways of life. It's about the signifier and the signified. It's about semiotics. It's science fiction for the graduate-school crowd.

Traditional science fiction often provides purely escapist reading: grand adventure stories in deep space/alternative universe settings. Mieville takes this and adds a big dose of philosophy and scholarship. If I knew more about language development and so forth I might be even more impressed, or I might be struck by the shallowness of his ideas. As it is, I just found the book fascinating.