Embassytown

We are at the edge of the "visitable" space and there, on a planet, there is a bubble called "embassytown" - a bubble from the outside where another type of lifeform exists. They manipulate biology like no-one else, but also the Ariekei ( hosts of embassytown ) have this weird characteristic of language/thought: they do not do metaphors. They do  not understand significant-signifier relation, only simile, hard comparisons. 
This is the main of the book, the meeting of these creatures, which are very "strange" -- for them to understand someone, this person needs to be actually 2 people, quasi-clones, that talk with the same intention, the same way. 

It all goes south when the capital for which Embassytown is the outpost, sends it's own "Ambassadors". 

The strangeness of the Aliens were great and ( with reasons) made me remember Roland Barthes and the works on semiotics.