by Michael Flynn
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Product Description
Over the centuries, one small town in Germany has disappeared and never been resettled. Tom, a historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. By all logic, the town should have survived. What's so special about Eifelheim?
Father Dietrich is the village priest of Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact person between humanity and an alien race from a distant star, when their ship crashes in the nearby forest. It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague. Flynn gives us the full richness and strangeness of medieval life, as well as some terrific aliens. Tom and Sharon, and Father Deitrich have a strange destiny of tragedy and triumph in this brilliant SF novel.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Audio Book version is ruined by choice of Narrator, 2008-12-13
The idea for this book sounded very unique and interesting so I purchased the Audio-Book to listen to during my long daily commute. It was a huge mistake! The narrator delivers each line like he is acting in the final act of a Shakespeare tragedy after having overdosed on some melodrama maximizing medication. I tried so hard to listen to at least some of it but it honestly felt like punishment. Yes my opinion may seem extreme but every potential listener should be aware that it is not hyperbole. After i searched the internet for information on the narrator, i found that one of his main pursuits is the Oregon Shakespeare festival, which probably is a better fit for his delivery. It certainly could not be a worse fit than audio-book reader.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Could use some re-tooling, great premise, 2008-09-05
SPOILERS appear in this review, and deflate major plot threads.
My thoughts on this novel are that the NOW story thread never had sufficient relevance to the Then (main) thread to contribute meaningfully. It is curious that the NOW thread was a short story by this author previously. In this novel, NOW seems to be 10-15% of the novel. In a way, I would think NOW alone would present a better story, and I can see why the author was allowed/offered/asked to make a novel of it.
On the other hand, the author uses the NOW thread to create the final resolution of the story via the trip to Freiburg and subsequently Oberhochwald. It is hard to twine two story threads together when all from the first thread are long dead in thread 2. The interpersonal stuff, the friend helping Sharon on the physics side, and especially the librarian (who actually goes to freiburg with Tom) all seem like pieces of an unfinished relationship story, especially given the dysfunctional nature of Tom and Sharon's relationship.
The Then thread is essentially historical fiction with an anachronism thrown in - aliens, shipwrecked. A fair amount of the later story involves various philosophical and scientific (the two were indistinguishable) discussions which, being confined to trying to explain advanced concepts without language appropriate, became very tedious. I skipped quite a few pages when this started happening.
Later in the story, one alien mentions that his people previously had pagan gods, which to me meant that they should have grasped the concept of religion and particular who the Herr-in-the-sky was. I did think that the early NOW story implied there was a force or actual non-superstition-related reason why Eifelheim remained unpopulated, but the reader finds out that it was only due to the stories from the time of the first plague outbreak.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 eifelheim - historical SF?, 2008-08-30
An especially good book, the first I read from this author.
Modern research is meeting with the past, where intelligent aliens crashed in medieval Europe. A gentle and intelligent pastor is the bridge between the aliens, the european villagers and the modern researchers: a physicist and an historian.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A splendid achievement in Science Fiction, but not for everyone, 2008-06-02
This fine novel was extremely hard for me to put down, even in its final, depressing chapters. (How cheerful can you be, as the Black Death advances inexorably?) But it may have more pull for the quirky than for the mainstream reader. You need to have a strong interest in all or most of the following: 1) feudalism; 2) medieval theology; 3) central European geopolitics in the 14th century; 4) the far fringes of theoretical physics; 5) first contact. If you can wade fearlessly into these murky waters (and believe me, the theology alone is mind-boggling), you will find this to be one of the best SF novels in recent decades. A walk-on by William of Ockham (of "razor" fame) cemented it for me.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Unique, Literate, Historical, Science Fiction, 2008-05-15
Historical Fiction - Set in a German village during the middle ages
Science Fiction - Aliens have landed there too!
Literate - Germans and aliens talk about all sorts of thought provoking topics as they get to know each other, including philosophy, class hierarchy and quantum physics.
Special Effects - The black plague, Alien translation devices
This is one of the most unique, engrossing and fun novels I have read in a long time. Highly recommended.
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