annularity (the ring structure)

The novel's master figure: rings — cycles that feed on their own waste and output their own input. The word "annular" (ring-shaped) enters through the fusion process (see annular fusion) that burns toxins into energy whose by-products fuel the next burn, and the shape repeats at every scale: addiction's loops of relief and need, the yearly cycles of Subsidized Time, the Entertainment's viewers rewatching until they die, and — many readers hold — the book's own structure, whose end feeds its beginning. This archive's Annularity theme page collects the instances; the science itself is under annular fusion and annulation (see those entries).