skopia
How does a self arise from parts that have none? Hofstadter answers by braiding Godel's proof that no system can prove all its truths with Escher's staircases and Bach's canons into strange loops.
Chiang treats theology, linguistics and free will with the rigor of proofs. A linguist learns an alien script written all at once, and it changes how she experiences her whole life.
Zeno quits smoking constantly and never quits. Told by his analyst to write his life, he sets down a marriage begun by proposing to three sisters in one evening, and lies gorgeously throughout.
Phenomenology's mature statement: Husserl brackets the world's existence to study consciousness on its own terms, then asks how one mind recognizes another as a mind rather than an object among objects.
The Canterbury Tales in deep space: seven pilgrims travel to the Time Tombs and the blade-covered creature guarding them, each telling the story that brought them. Simmons switches genre with every tale.