annulation

The ring-cycle science behind the novel's energy economy — the chemistry and physics of annular (ring-shaped) reaction cycles that James Incandenza's optics work helped make feasible (see annular fusion). His mock-memoir traces the fascination to a childhood image of turning "somersaults with one hand nailed to the floor": "This was how I first became interested in the possibilities of annulation" (p. 503); an interview with him was "posthumously included in a book on the genesis of annulation" (p. 65). At E.T.A. it is curriculum, and Anton Doucette's crisis is "this insurmagulate conceptual block that keeps him from grasping annulation" (p. 569).