My rating:

add to my books

Eifelheim

by Michael Flynn

3.65 · rating details · 780 ratings · 217 reviews

Centuries ago, one small town in Germany disappeared and was never 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. To his aston

...more

Mass Market Paperback, 512 pages

Published August 4th 2009 by Tor Books (first published October 17th 2006)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,481)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Apr 09, 2010

Jon rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Jon by: Alternative World April 2010 Selection

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, read-in-my-40s

3.5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed all the 14th century scenes and plot. I didn't care for the 'now' (i.e. present day) interludes. The peasants, priests, lords and aliens proved more believable than a modern day female quantum physicist cohabitating with a male cliologist (described as a 'big picture' statistical history theorist or something along those lines).

A very good first contact story juxtaposed with historical fiction set during some of the darkest days endured b...more

like 10 likes

· see review

Mar 15, 2010

Whitaker rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-scifi, e-book, 2010-read

First of all, a shout out of thanks to Ceridwen who, in reviewing this book on Goodreads, introduced it to me. It was a great review BTW and you should read it too.

We don’t often talk of the minor characters in novels: the walk-on parts with a few lines and no names. I think for this review, I just want to focus on two side characters. They are not terribly important, but their stories and the different trajectories they take lend added resonance to the main story. Julie Cao is a re...more

like 11 likes

· see review

Aug 07, 2010

Brooke rated it

· review of another edition

When I realized that several days had gone by that I hadn't picked up a book because I was dreading the idea of finishing this one, I realized it might be time to just send it back to the library. The print was so tiny that it kept giving me headaches, and the pacing was glacial. From reading a group discussion about the book, I desperately wanted to read the interesting bits, but it just wasn't meant to be.

like 4 likes

· see review

Aug 26, 2011

Dulac3 rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, historical-fiction, favorites

An interesting take on the First Contact story. This one takes place in the Middle Ages, as an alien ship crash lands in the Black Forest of Germany near the small village of Oberhochwald. Tied in to this tale of the past is one that takes place in the present as two researchers (and lovers) try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the village of Eifelheim (once called Oberhochwald) from recorded history and the implicatiosn this may have on their separate fields of study.

I ...moreAn interesting take on the First Contact story. This one takes place in the Middle Ages, as an alien ship crash lands in the Black Forest of Germany near the small village of Oberhochwald. Tied in to this tale of the past is one that takes place in the present as two researchers (and lovers) try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the village of Eifelheim (once called Oberhochwald) from recorded history and the implicatiosn this may have on their separate fields of study.

I found the tale in the past to be the more compelling of the two, though they do work well together as a whole. Flynn does an excellent job of bringing to life a realistic Middle Ages that doesn't look sneeringly down on the "superstitious savages" of that age. All of the characters we meet in Oberhochwald are fully developed people, none of whom are simply "good" or "bad". In many ways it is actually they, and not the extra terrestrials, who are the real aliens to the modern reader as we struggle to comprehend the worldview that they take for granted. Despite this I found them all to be ultimately sympathetic, human characters. We primarily follow the story of Father Dietrich, the intelligent and sympathetic pastor of the Oberhochwald church as he first investigates, and then befriends the benighted starfarers, but all of the other people from his village whom we see cover tha gamut of human experience and become more than just placeholders for "character type X".

The Krenk, the insect-like aliens from another world, are by turns humorous and frightening in their interactions with the humans of the small village and Flynn again does an excellent job of making even these non-human pseudo-hivemind creatures into fully fleshed-out "people" (without falling into the trap of making his aliens simply humans in rubber suits).

As the story in the past builds up from a mystery into a full-blown tragedy that both we and the characters of the story see as the almost inevitable outcome of the circumstances in which they find themselves, we can do little but watch in fascinated horror. Despite this tragedy Flynn does not leave us without hope: we see in the heroic actions of the characters of this tale (both human and alien) an acknowledgment that goodness can cross all boundaries and we are given examples of selflessness and love that are truly inspiring.

Next to this tragedy of life, love and death it perhaps isn't surprising that the story of two modern researchers grappling with the intellectual enigma of a lost medieval village and the secrets it may hold pales somewhat in comparison. The modern portions of the story still do hold some interest and are ultimately able to bring the tale full circle to a point of completion that is elegant in its resolution.

Highly recommended.(less)

like 6 likes

· see review

Jun 24, 2008

Mike rated it

· review of another edition

A classic first-contact novel, and Flynn displays tremendous talent for creating (and gets readers to really grapple with) characters who live in alien paradigms. That's actually a primary reason for my love of this genre. Oh, sure, I like the evil-conquest-blow-shit-up-War-of-the-Worlds stuff. But the real hook comes in the more anthropologically-oriented approaches. What would it mean to be in this kind of body, on this kind of world? These kinds of novels seem to wrestle that old philosop...moreA classic first-contact novel, and Flynn displays tremendous talent for creating (and gets readers to really grapple with) characters who live in alien paradigms. That's actually a primary reason for my love of this genre. Oh, sure, I like the evil-conquest-blow-shit-up-War-of-the-Worlds stuff. But the real hook comes in the more anthropologically-oriented approaches. What would it mean to be in this kind of body, on this kind of world? These kinds of novels seem to wrestle that old philosophy conundrum about how bats see the world, and in imagining the alien they in the best examples gloriously estrange us from our common-sense understandings of the human. (Ursula LeGuin's work is the gold standard here.)

For _Eifelheim_, it's paradigms, plural, because the book's central conceit is an alien craft crashlanded in 14th-century Germany, and we readers must (with great pleasure) untangle the priest Dietrich's scholastic Catholicism and natural philosophy as often as we do the culture and consciousnesses of the grasshopperish Krenk. The most amazing accomplishment are those passages where Dietrich's struggles (with his faith, with his scientific theories, with his dialectic engagement) seem genuinely insightful, rather than the cartoon superstitions we often attribute to medieval thought. As a novel of ideas, it's a winner; better yet, the novel embodies such ideas in thinkers and a vision of communal life, avoiding the airlessness of abstraction.

The book might get a higher rating if Flynn had avoided two things. First, a venal sin, there are moments where Dietrich engages with some Krenken insight, some bit of their science collides with his own worldview, and he leaps to name the insight and uses a term we 21st-century readers recognize readily. (E.g., in discussing the elements of information employed by the ship's computing system, Dietrich imagines calling them bits or bites....) Cutesy, and unnecessary, and popped me right out of the narrative.

But a far more mortal offense is a contrapuntal narrative set in the present-day, where a Bickersonian couple--she a physicist grappling with multidimensional space, he a cliologist (yeah, yeah) trying to make sense of the disappearance of a medieval German town--argue in an ostensibly screwbally manner, grapple with their own paradigms in ways that are meant to echo the 14th-c narrative, and generally pissed off this reader every time they apppeared and interrupted. While Dietrich and the Krenk Hans were embodied, complicated, challenging characters, Tom and Sharon were thin gruel. I found their technical jabber not just too technical but too jabber; I found the jokey tone and use of humor at best forced and at worst insufferable.

So the novel is more of a mixed bag. I'd have given the 14th-c narrative four or five stars, but I'd never have read past page 30 of the 20th-c narrative, and it'd be one-star; luckily the latter comprises only about 1/10th of the whole novel. If you grit your teeth and barrel through those sections, it's a pretty damn good novel....(less)

like 11 likes

· see review

Jan 02, 2012

Simon rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 14th-century-fiction

Mike,

I liked your review and read the book because of it. So I'm very grateful.

I agree with everything you say, especially the clunkiness of the "Now" parts - what made that so bad was that the characters were completely one-dimensional and unconvincing and, well, annoying. I wondered whether there was any point in a contemporary counterpoint to the main story. Perhaps it did something - the idea of the few surviving signs of the story being around, and being unders...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Dec 06, 2008

Adam rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of Connie Willis

Shelves: audio

I'd say that 3 stars if a fair rating for this book. First of all, it's almost like 2 separate stories. There's the historical narrative and the present day narrative.

The historical is by far the stronger story and that makes this book lopsided. The medieval town is fully fleshed out and holds most of the book quite well.

And that makes the present narrative all the more awkward. In terms of page count there is much less in the present. I don't know if it's the cause ...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Nov 17, 2007

Pam rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: historical fiction readers

A researcher investigating the disappearance of a Bavarian village (Eifelheim) in 1349 learns that a spaceship crashed in the area several months before the area was abandoned. It sounds preposterous but it's absolutely wonderful.

like 4 likes

· see review

Feb 11, 2008

Sandi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, sci-fi, historical-fiction

I loved the way this book combined historical fiction with science fiction. It just blew me away. I don't think I've ever seen alien encounters handled in quite the same way.

like 3 likes

· see review

Apr 10, 2008

Kristin rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-bkgrp-selection, science-fiction, hugo-nominee

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn was March’s book group selection that nobody finished, but we all wanted to. The group collectively just ran out of time. It happens. Eifelheim was also a Hugo Nominee in 2007 that didn’t come out in paperback until the end of the year so I didn’t have a chance to read it before the Hugo Awards were announced.

Eifelheim is set in Southern Germany in the late 1300's. The Black Plague has begun it’s death march farther north, but to the small village of ...moreEifelheim by Michael Flynn was March’s book group selection that nobody finished, but we all wanted to. The group collectively just ran out of time. It happens. Eifelheim was also a Hugo Nominee in 2007 that didn’t come out in paperback until the end of the year so I didn’t have a chance to read it before the Hugo Awards were announced.

Eifelheim is set in Southern Germany in the late 1300's. The Black Plague has begun it’s death march farther north, but to the small village of Oppenheim it is a distant threat. The main character, Dietrich is the spiritual leader of the village and friend to Manfred, the Herr of the lands. It is Dietrich who discovers the Krencken, a strange group of men which resemble large grasshoppers, who have taken up illegal residence in the Herr’s forest. The Herr wants them expelled and it’s Dietrich who persuades him that they have no place to go. It is through Dietrich’s eyes that we watch the metamorphosis of the village attitudes towards these strange men from afar.

There is a second storyline surrounding Tom and Sharon, an historian and a, well, I’m going to call her an astrophysist. Tom has taken an interest in why a small German village named Eifelheim was never repopulated when according to all his charts and modules it should have been. Sharon is exploring the space between space. This second story line wasn’t nearly as interesting as the one with Dietrich, but it had it’s place.

I really enjoyed this book. The nuances of medieval village life that Flynn incorporated added a subtle depth to not only the characters but the world they lived in. It made the appearance of the aliens and the villages acceptance (or not in some instances) plausible and believable. Flynn also hinted at a richer past to Dietrich, an almost “Brother Cadfael” background if you will, which elevated his character from that of a bumbling village priest to someone you wanted to sit down and get to know over a cup of mead.

I recommend this book. Well written and interesting. (less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Sep 10, 2011

Tracey rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Tracey by: Pam

Shelves: re-read

Stayed up much too late last night with this novel - wow!

Trying not to spoil it ... so will just say this:
I could have used a "Medieval Germany for Dummies" reference nearby at times, but muddled thru ok without it. The technology translations were just a bit precious at times - but the general feel of the encounter seemed to ring pretty true.
---------------------

The re-read was as enjoyable as the first time thru - I remembered the basics, but sti...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jun 18, 2007

Jenne rated it

· review of another edition

Hm. This was enjoyable, and had good characters, but I kept waiting for some kind of OMG! moment that just never really came. I thought that the researchers in the future were going to make some exciting discovery, but all they discovered was the thing in the past that we knew about all along.
Still, aliens-visit-13th-century-Germany is a pretty good story.

One other nitpick--it weirded me out that the aliens were supposed to be speaking bad German, but the way that was port...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Dec 30, 2007

Jamie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, historical-fiction

Fascinating book! This is a blending of sci-fi and historical fiction: a first-contact scenario that takes place in a 14th-century German village. The villagers must deal with aliens among them while the threat of the Black Plague presses in from all sides; meanwhile modern-day researchers are trying to unravel the mystery of a medieval village that was abandoned and never resettled.

The premise is a little far-fetched but the book is so well written that you hardly notice. I'm def...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Jan 13, 2009

Josh rated it

· review of another edition

When we think of stories about first contact with aliens, we generally think about Star Trek, or something like it, in which technologically advanced humans meet primitive aliens. Well, what if technology advanced aliens were to meet humans from the middle ages? This is exactly what happens in Michael Flynn's Eifelheim.

Eifelheim is really two stories in one. The first story is told from the point of Dietrich, a priest in the middle ages. Dietrich is not your average priest. He w...moreWhen we think of stories about first contact with aliens, we generally think about Star Trek, or something like it, in which technologically advanced humans meet primitive aliens. Well, what if technology advanced aliens were to meet humans from the middle ages? This is exactly what happens in Michael Flynn's Eifelheim.

Eifelheim is really two stories in one. The first story is told from the point of Dietrich, a priest in the middle ages. Dietrich is not your average priest. He was a student in Paris with William of Occam but, for reasons that become clear as the novel progresses, he decides to become the priest of a small town in the German countryside. Dietrich's story concerns the town's interactions with a group of aliens that a stranded on Earth and can't return to their own planet.

The second story takes place in the present day and concerns a couple who just happen to be a physicist and a historian. The historian is trying to figure out why the German town, Eifelheim, just disappeared. The physicist is trying to make the next great discovery in theoretical physics.

The parts of the book that take place in the middle ages (about 75% of it) are quite good. Particularly enjoyable are the philosophical and theological conversations between a medieval priest and an alien, due to the fact that Dietrich is much sharper than most readers would expect him to be. He accepts the technology of the aliens fairly easily and often even comes up with the appropriate modern word for it which, while not entirely believable, is definitely amusing. The alien visitors are also willing to learn more from Dietrich than one would initially expect. Dietrich and the aliens talk about pain and suffering and discuss the meaning of kindness in the face of utter hopelessness. On topics such as these, Dietrich is able to converse as an equal with the aliens.

The main flaw in the book is that the two stories don't mesh well and the one set in the middle ages is stronger. It felt, to me, like the story set in the present was superfluous. I understand that the present-day story was originally a novella written 20 years ago. The tension of the original novella must have been discovering what actually happened to Eifelheim. However, in the novel, you know what happens to Eifelheim because you're reading about it in the other chapters.

Michael Flynn also does one more thing that I really appreciated. At the end, he goes over the history and the physics that he describes in the book and explains which parts are based on actual history and physics and which parts he made up for the novel. It was actually something that I was wondering half way through the book.(less)

· see review

Jan 06, 2009

John rated it

· review of another edition

What if aliens came to earth... in 1348? That's the basic premise of Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, though the narrative is split between a modern-day couple, a mathematical historian (Tom) and a theoretical physicist (Sharon) whose work inadvertently dovetail to unlock the mystery posed by certain historical sources, including the apparent disappearance of the German village of Eifelheim. The narrative weaves back and forth between their work and the story of the residents of this village and their...moreWhat if aliens came to earth... in 1348? That's the basic premise of Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, though the narrative is split between a modern-day couple, a mathematical historian (Tom) and a theoretical physicist (Sharon) whose work inadvertently dovetail to unlock the mystery posed by certain historical sources, including the apparent disappearance of the German village of Eifelheim. The narrative weaves back and forth between their work and the story of the residents of this village and their "Krenken" visitors, grass-hopper-like aliens.

I didn't think that narrative structure worked as well as it could have. Inherent in the Tom/Sharon storyline was an element of mystery, but the story of the villagers made the situation clear early on (which is why I felt no compunction about starting my review by revealing it. Instead, it serves more to justify it: here, it seems to say, is the justification of this novel as science fiction. The Tom/Sharon narrative, we later find, is framed as a story told by a German historian who only enters the story later. It's never entirely clear how the 14th-century villagers' story is framed: we're just told the story, but it seems pretty clear that the historians couldn't have come close to discovering the story in such detail. Instead, we're just given it. That's okay, but it seems odd considering the trouble Flynn went to with the other story.

The story of these medieval villagers and stranded aliens has inherent pathos, as the two groups try to overcome obvious--and rather frightening--differences and then again as each group gradually succumbs to starvation (none of the foods they can find give the essential amino acids that the aliens need) or the bubonic plague. We meet some interesting characters, but even so, I felt like the novel would have been improved by deeper characterization.

The pace of the novel also seemed slow. In part, this might be blamed on the fact that we listened to this as an audiobook: they're inherently slower and sometimes stylistic issues become more pronounced--things that we would slide right over on the page seem to drag interminably when read aloud. I also wasn't taken with the reader, Anthony Heald. He was particularly annoying when "voicing" Sharon, but on the whole he didn't do much for me.

One particular strength of the novel was how well-researched this was. Flynn not only gets the details right, but he also works extremely hard to get inside the mind of medieval man, particular Pastor Dietrich, the protagonist of that storyline. At the same time, Flynn's aliens are no less alien than his medieval men (in fact, with their understanding of science, they're closer to modern men than the 14th-century human beings are, with allowances made for their different evolutionary path.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable and interesting read, even given the weaknesses noted. (less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Dec 26, 2008

Michael rated it

· review of another edition

SciFi Review: Eifelheim (Tor, 2006), by Michael Flynn

Heinlein Award winning Flynn has been enjoying considerable buzz recently, and his new novel (due out this fall) is already garnering positive reviews. To judge from Eifelheim, the acclaim is well deserved. Eifelheim will appeal strongly to the hard SciFi fan and to some general readers of literary fiction, but not be of much interest to the light saber and photon torpedo crowd.

Tom is a mathematic historian, using compu...moreSciFi Review: Eifelheim (Tor, 2006), by Michael Flynn

Heinlein Award winning Flynn has been enjoying considerable buzz recently, and his new novel (due out this fall) is already garnering positive reviews. To judge from Eifelheim, the acclaim is well deserved. Eifelheim will appeal strongly to the hard SciFi fan and to some general readers of literary fiction, but not be of much interest to the light saber and photon torpedo crowd.

Tom is a mathematic historian, using computers to explore geographic settlement patterns. His live-in partner, Sharon, is a theoretical physicist. If you think that this pairing could make for a cerebral and somewhat rarified relationship, you would be right. Their conversations make for some heavy reading but do manage to help provide excellent background for the plot, filling in with some interesting theories about the time-space continuum and patterns of human civilization.

Tom’s computer program suggests that there is no reason for a place called Eifelheim in Germany’s Black Forest to be uninhabited. It has ample natural resources, sits on what had been an important trade route, and was once inhabited. The area was devastated by the plague 700 years ago, but so were surrounding areas that have long since been repopulated. So why not Eifelheim? And why did it suddenly change its name from Oberhochwald (High Village in the Woods) to Eifelheim (roughly, Mountain Home) at the time of the plague, when it was being depopulated? Why do nearby cathedral stained glass windows depict giant grasshoppers?

The answers to these questions, at first unknown to Tom, is that Eifelheim is in fact a later corruption of Teufelheim (Devil’s Home) and that the village is the site of a crash from an alien spaceship. Many aliens survive, though their ship is disabled and non-functioning. They keep to themselves and their presence is initially kept secret by the few humans who know of them. One of Flynn’s interesting points is that 5 foot tall beings resembling a combination of mantis and grasshopper, with faceted golden eyes, are perhaps more easily accepted in a superstitious society familiar with tales of unicorns and skiapods (look it up :-) ) than they would be in our world. This is not to say they are easily accepted. The aliens are sensitive to cold; when winter comes, they come to town to take over human dwellings. A heroic priest, Father Dietrich, former student of Buridan and Occam (look them up, too. Prestigious, eh? Our priest is quite a scholar and able to be ruled by reason rather than fear), steps in and manages to prevent conflict. Many of the villagers label the aliens demons, but they are mostly won over as the plague comes to the area and the aliens (immune to the plague) nurse the sick, actually providing ways to cure some and identifying the healthy, so that the healthy may escape the plague. Meanwhile, the aliens themselves are slowly dying: Earth food lacks an essential sustaining nutrient.

Several elements contribute to this novel’s success. Flynn makes use of tropes from mystery to provide narrative verve to his story: suspense and detection. Will the aliens be able to repair their ship using the primitive materials then available before they all die? Will human and alien be able to live together or will suspicion and ignorance kill? When the plague comes, will the actions of the priest and intervention of the aliens allow anyone to survive? Will Tom find the truth about Eifelheim? Will he be able to prove it? Other factors contribute as well to the novel’s success. The novel is well-researched, with many actual historical events brought into the narrative; descriptions use terms familiar to the period (anyone know what a hippopede is?) and are detailed and vivid, helping to create a strong sense of place and bring to life a human mindset almost as alien to us as that of the aliens. The descriptions of the plague are accurate and horrifying. One comes to care about the characters, especially the alien dubbed Hans and Dietrich. The novel does take place against a grim background, with human and alien alike dying from forces they cannot control. The ending, however, will give a chill of wonder to all devoted SciFi fans and satisfactorily concludes a remarkable story, redeeming the choices of those who lost their lives so many years ago. You will never think of illuminated Medieval manuscripts in the same way again.

Eifelheim will appeal to most “hard” (that is, stories that explore ideas, often deeply, and ask questions rather than relying solely on action) SciFi fans. Those who like Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov’s Foundation series, and the Dune series will enjoy picking up Flynn. This novel is a Heinlein Award winner, so try other such novels here: http://www.heinleinsociety.org . Novelist has some good read-alikes: Neal Ascher, Joe Haldeman, and Nina Hoffman. Non-SciFi fans who are literate readers may have some trouble swallowing aliens, but those able to make the suspension of disbelief will be rewarded with interesting historical details, appealing characters, and interesting questions. Is religion a hindrance to progress? Where do laws and morality come from? How would we behave if confronted with an alien intelligence? How should we live in the most trying of times? What does it mean to be human? Is sacrifice for others noble or foolhardy? Is anything worth dying for? Some familiarity with current theories of physics and with Medieval history would enhance one’s appreciation of this novel. Don’t give Eifelheim to readers who want unadulterated action. If you want the sort of near-mystical thrill that can come at the end of great SciFi, generating wonder about who we are and what we might become, then pick up Eifelheim yourself.(less)

· see review

Nov 28, 2011

David Willson rated it

· review of another edition

It took perseverance to get through this book but after finishing it I can't get it out of my mind. Flynn has imagined an intricate scenario that combines and explores dozens of intriguing philosophical and cosmological ideas.

The story is divided between two timelines; one is modern while the other takes place in the mid-14th century Germany. A present-day physicist and statistical historian spend much of the book on the verge of world-changing discoveries, which are ultimately linke...moreIt took perseverance to get through this book but after finishing it I can't get it out of my mind. Flynn has imagined an intricate scenario that combines and explores dozens of intriguing philosophical and cosmological ideas.

The story is divided between two timelines; one is modern while the other takes place in the mid-14th century Germany. A present-day physicist and statistical historian spend much of the book on the verge of world-changing discoveries, which are ultimately linked to the hidden fate of a remote medieval Barony where the local Lord, priest and villagers must come to grips with the frightening appearance of shipwrecked insect-like aliens and the arrival of the Black Plague. It takes almost the entire novel for the two plot lines to converge but Flynn ties things up nicely in the end.

Eifelheim is so dense with ideas that it offers much more than what one might expect. Ironically, the modern reader will have greater affinity for the mentality of the shipwrecked aliens than their human ancestors from 700 years ago. This is disorienting, but effective. Intellectually, this is a novel that satisfies on many levels.

To bad the same can't be said for Flynn's character development. All of the main protagonists engage almost entirely in philosophical thought processes throughout the book. Flynn implies their motivations with thin back stories that don't build enough empathy. His secondary characters tend to be emotionally driven and more interesting, but the reader is never invited inside their heads. The end result is a book that is chocked full of ideas and nicely plotted, but has all the drama of a PhD thesis.

Flynn obviously researched history, science, quantum physics, logic and religion meticulously for Eifelheim and treads a similar path as Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle in that it occurs in the right place and time to integrate the historical birth of logic and natural philosophy into the plot. Unfortunately, Flynn doesn't have Neal Stephenson's gift for drama. There's plenty going on, but it doesn't get the juices flowing. I would rate it a 5 star book otherwise.

Still, I'm glad I read Eifelheim and recommend it to anyone who loves challenging speculative fiction and has the tenacity to see it through to the end.(less)

· see review

Apr 24, 2011

Jason Golomb rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, historical-fiction

"Eifelheim" is one of those transcendent science fiction stories where an author is able to treat very human and Earth-bound issues with a well-reasoned and fascinating gloss of aliens and science. Author Michael Flynn's alien mythos and capabilities are believable and seamlessly integrated into the very real history of plague-era Germany.

I picked up "Eifelheim" for two reasons. I love a good story of first contact. I find myself continually drawn to the classics in...more

· see review

Sep 29, 2010

Juliana rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: german, sff, christianity, historicalfiction

This is an odd one. Aliens crash land in medieval Germany (as they so often do), and we see how the villagers come to understand them (or not). The protagonist, a priest and scholar with a dark past, is pretty interesting. The frame story, set in the near future as a physicist and a historian figure out what happened to the village, has its moments, but isn't as engaging. The question of what medieval folk, mostly peasants, would understand about aliens and space travel, is an intriguing one. Ye...more

· see review

Jul 12, 2010

Steve Betz rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, science-fiction

Eifelheim is a book by Michael Flynn and is unusual science fiction book because it takes place in the Middle Ages. In it, an erudite parish priest in a small, isolated Black Forest hamlet discovers and ultimately befriends aliens (“classic Greys” by description) who have crash-landed in nearby woods. The story goes back and forth between then and the modern world, where a researcher who has figured out that something’s amiss in Eifelheim’s history, but doesn’t know what it is, digs in deep to...more

· see review

Jan 03, 2010

Angie rated it

· review of another edition

Maybe a 3.

This book COULD have been truly outstanding. A GOOD editor could have made the difference. The book is constructed shifting between "Now" and "1348". The medieval setting is fascinating, BUT there are places where the medieval portions DRAGGED as he went into TOO MUCH detail and all too many others where terms the average reader would not know were not at all explained or obvious from context. I wanted to skip entire paragraphs. In the Now portion Tom,...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jul 28, 2009

Michael rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

As others have pointed out, the parts of the book dealing with the present day are not interesting. Part of the problem is the sort of academic showiness of it all (OK, now they're speaking Latin... now German... OK, what language is that??). The showiness gets in the way. At one point a character refers to a structure as nonabelian... but to my knowledge the term "abelian" is only used in the context of group theory; in the context used here, it just seems like the author is trying to...more

· see review

Jul 24, 2009

Elizabeth K. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-new-reads

This was fun and adventuresome -- a medieval German village is visited by travelers from space, a bit like The Name of the Rose meets Alien Nation, which is obviously a win-win right out of the gate. I do not read a lot of this type of story, so I don't know if it's a very unique idea, but I got a huge kick from the premise of science fiction happening to people in the past. While we see most of the alien contact from the perspective of the earnest and open-minded village priest, I came to feel ...more

like 1 like

· see review

Feb 26, 2010

Thomas rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, history

Hard science fiction tends to elude me. First of all, I feel like I’m having to make too much of an effort to understand the science of the stories, but I’m a pretty smart guy, and besides, the stories usually work without the reader knowing all the details of the science. Secondly, hard science fiction novels tend to read like papers, and lack some of the “oomph” that I like in my fiction. Eifelheim is a hard science fiction novel, and I almost gave up on it three different times because it was...moreHard science fiction tends to elude me. First of all, I feel like I’m having to make too much of an effort to understand the science of the stories, but I’m a pretty smart guy, and besides, the stories usually work without the reader knowing all the details of the science. Secondly, hard science fiction novels tend to read like papers, and lack some of the “oomph” that I like in my fiction. Eifelheim is a hard science fiction novel, and I almost gave up on it three different times because it was so technical. What kept me going was the basic premise of the story.

The novel goes back and forth between modern-day times, where a theoretical physicist and historian are a live-in couple, each addressing their own research challenges, and Medieval times, just as the Black Plague is devastating Europe. The historian is trying to figure out why a city named Eifelheim disappeared from the map in the 14th Century, never to be resettled, and the physicist is trying to figure out why the speed of light seems to be slowing down over time. The portion of the book set in Medieval times is set in the city of Eifelheim, where the events that forced the town to disappear are taking place. The story focuses on the priest at Eifelheim, a man who respects science and scientific thinking, but also has a strong faith in God.

The portions of the story intersect nicely. There’s more to the Medieval story than the modern one, but it’s arranged so that, when the historian is trying to figure out a certain part of the puzzle, we’ve already read what happened, and know the answer. It’s also interesting to note that, while the residents of Eifelheim are discussing the possible causes of the plague, and how it moves from place to place, the author focuses in on the dead rats in the city, and the dogs scratching at their fleas. It’s an interesting form of foreshadowing, and one that increases the reader’s sense of dread. I’ve come to learn that any book centered around the Holocaust or the Black Plague will be tragic, but that the stories themselves resonate because of the tragedy, and Eifelheim is no exception.

The book focuses on the minutiae of Medieval life, so much so that it tends to bog the story down. I had trouble keeping up with the different characters in Medieval times, but the author included a cast of characters at the front of the book, and he also structured the story so that you really only need to know about a handful of characters. You can follow them, and understand what’s happening to everyone else through them. The author also went to great pains to make that era authentic, all the way down to using particular terms and styles of language that jarred me out of the story, because I couldn’t make sense of it immediately. Still, though, not understanding all these details won’t detract from the story, but for those of you willing to make the effort, I expect it will add an extra level of depth to the story.

Another interesting aspect of the story is that it focuses strongly on the presence of faith, and its usefulness in old and modern societies. This comes to full light in the Medieval times, as the residents of Eifelheim struggle to come to terms with the foreigners who come to reside in their city. The clash of cultures forces both sides to reinvestigate their feelings about science and faith, and the result is a fine balance of understanding both. In this respect, I think the novel succeeds brilliantly.

There’s a moment of serendipity near the end of the novel that resolves the issues of the modern day setting, but it’s a minor quibble compared to the artistry of the story set in Medieval times. There’s a blurb on the back of the book about how Michael Flynn grants a very human presence to his stories, and while I doubted that ability through the first two thirds of the novel, by the time I finished the book, I understood the praise.

Eifelheim is not an easy read, but I think it’s well worth the effort. This and Rainbows End were both tough books for me to finish, but the resulting themes and conflicts more than made up for the extra time it took me to read the books. Just be forewarned that it may take you longer than you expect to finish them.(less)

· see review

Feb 12, 2009

Wayne rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Aliens, the Church, medieval history, theology, philisophy, and quantum mechanics. What is not to like...or even LOVE?

What I find fascinating is the sympathetic portrayl of the churchmen in the narrative. Their desire to help and aid the "pilgrims" stems from their devotion to God. It is not often one sees this is science fiction (which can tend to be negative toward religion). Some of the philosophical/theological discussions involve whether or not the Krenken (the ali...more

· see review

Jan 08, 2009

Scott rated it

· review of another edition

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Eifelheim is the strangest science fiction novel I've ever read. Not strange because of the wild ideas or unusual happenings that it contains—those are typical enough—but for the very human, almost mundane reality that it depicts. Michael Flynn's novel reads more like an in depth historical than anything else. The greater part of it takes place during a year in the life of a fourteenth century German village.

And the aliens that get stran...moreIt would not be an exaggeration to say that Eifelheim is the strangest science fiction novel I've ever read. Not strange because of the wild ideas or unusual happenings that it contains—those are typical enough—but for the very human, almost mundane reality that it depicts. Michael Flynn's novel reads more like an in depth historical than anything else. The greater part of it takes place during a year in the life of a fourteenth century German village.

And the aliens that get stranded in the woods nearby.

But it doesn't feel like a man-meets-alien sort of story. Flynn was clearly meticulous in his research, and his tale steeps the reader in the science and society and religion of the medieval world in which it is set. The writing takes some getting used to, with prose that is both dense and rich, yet sometimes distracting with its self-satisfied witticisms. It immerses you in another culture and language, demanding that the reader keep up but making little accommodation to that end, which results in an uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding experience.

The book actually contains two parallel stories: the fourteenth century thread, which follows pastor Dietrich in his experiences with the Krenk (as he dubs the aliens), and the modern day thread, in which the couple Tom Schwoerin and Sharon Nagy uncover the mysteries of the medieval town now known as Eifelheim. If the book has a flaw I think this disparity is it, for the historical tale far overshadows the present one in all its hope and tragedy. The Tom and Sharon sections serve as commentary on the story of the past, and add some tension by giving us clues of what will happen without filling in the how or why. They do lay the way for a clever discovery and a sound resolution, but, ultimately, their journey feels flat to me. From a comment in Flynn's acknowledgements I gather that the "Now" portions are based on a previous novella, and that was the basis for the historical story. I'm sure he realized in writing the novel that he had something much more powerful in Dietrich's story; I think he would have done well to cut loose the "Now" part altogether and focus on the other.

But that is a minor quibble; after all, if I read the book again I can always skip those sections. And there is much to admire in Eifelheim. For instance, the aliens that Flynn has created.

Actually, it is arguable just what part of the story is really more alien: the creatures that have arrived from another world, or the strange beliefs of the characters that call Earth home. The Krenk have a much better understanding of the natural world than Dietrich does; things like microphones and computers and germs are entirely novel to the pastor, and half the fun is trying to decipher what the aliens are talking about from the perspective of one with a much more primitive world view. Flynn cheats a little bit here, making Dietrich progressive and enamored with "modern" technology—today he would be the first one checking his email on a smartphone; in his day he was fascinated by the mechanical possibilities of the waterwheel—and so it is not so much a stretch for him to see the Krenk as rational beings from another world instead of demons.

But in the end Eifelheim is not about aliens but about people—conflicted Dietrich, the fervent and pious Joachim, all the primitive but sincere villagers, Herr Manfred their lord; and we learn that the Krenk, like Hans and Gschert and the Kratzer, are very much people in their own foreign way. It is infused with religion; not in a proselytizing way, nor condemning, but showing it as it was: an integral part of people's lives. And so Dietrich tries to teach the Krenk about God, even as others are certain they are spawn of the devil. All this takes place in the shadow of the pest, the Black Death, which Flynn makes vivid and horrid and terrifyingly imminent as it ravages Europe and draws inexorably closer to Eifelheim.

Needless to say, this is no lighthearted fluff book. It is desperately bleak in places. But it also offers something profound: people, human and otherwise, working for good in the face of impossible circumstances. In other words, it offers hope.(less)

like 1 like

· see review

May 09, 2010

Sean rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sf

I just finished reading Eifelheim by Micahel Flynn. This book is a captivating story. Firstly, it reveals life in 14th century Germany at the time of the Plague. The Christianity practiced in that time period was more inquisitive and distinct. It was also the time of invention and inquiry into the natural sciences. Within that earthy realm between philosopher and pastor, the story unfolds about stranded travelers from another place. Interpretations of faith, body, and spirit among philosop...more

· see review

Nov 01, 2009

Lightreads rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical, science-fiction

In 1348 aliens are stranded in an isolated medieval village, while in modern times a physicist and a historian investigate the mystery of that disappeared village.

Hrm. Just . . . not quite. A book all about clashing paradigms – alien science with religious natural philosophy, narrative history with theoretical physics, the short modern mystery novella with the slow medieval tale of aliens and the Plague. And it just never came together in that elusive way we call 'gelling.' Lots of n...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Apr 06, 2010

Cindy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, historical-fiction, aliens, social-sf, alternate-history

I can't say this enough: I love stories that start with a simple premise (e.g. in Eifelheim aliens crash-land near a small 14th century German village) then follow the characters as they react and interact with the situation.

I'm really wavering between 4 and 5 stars for Eifelheim. Yet another conundrum due to the Quantized GoodReads Ratings. Let's lay out the case for each:

Five Stars:
I was really mourning the end of this book because I felt like I was so thoroughly...moreI can't say this enough: I love stories that start with a simple premise (e.g. in Eifelheim aliens crash-land near a small 14th century German village) then follow the characters as they react and interact with the situation.

I'm really wavering between 4 and 5 stars for Eifelheim. Yet another conundrum due to the Quantized GoodReads Ratings. Let's lay out the case for each:

Five Stars:
I was really mourning the end of this book because I felt like I was so thoroughly immersed in the 14th century German village. I loved the characters, and even the minor ones had back stories. I wanted to share a mug of beer and natural sciences discussion with Dietrich on Frau Honig's porch and have Theresia blend me some herbs for my headache. I wanted to go to one of Herr Manfred's fetes and dance and laugh with Mannfred, Max, Gregor, Lorentz and Trude.

The aliens were well and truly alien: from their way of speaking, their systems of logic, their mating and their sense of justice. It made for a rich first-contact story.

I found the occasional use of German (and alien-translated German) really natural and entertaining. I spent a year in a German-speaking Kantonschule in Switzerland, so Tom's Germanglish felt amusing and natural. When Flynn literally translated German words into English, it made the Krenken really sound translated and foreign. One example was "to oversit" was used for "to translate", where the German term is Übersetzen.

Final evidence for giving 5-stars is Tom and Judy's modern day historical research fit the 14th century pieces nicely together.

The evidence to drop a star:
Sharon and Tom's relationship in the modern-day interludes. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Why are these two together if they have so little respect for the other person and their life's work? I was so excited to read this knowing there was a female theoretical physicist (rock on!), but Sharon was self-centered, shrill and rude. OK, she's brilliant, but I'm shocked someone hasn't smacked her in the face sooner. This cosmologist emphatically does not want to be friends with Sharon.

Also, I was hoping for a little more stitching of Sharon's sci-fi discoveries with the alien race. The sci-fi end of the modern-day pieces felt wildly disconnected to the overall story until the last possible moment.

Since my gripes really are about a fraction of the modern-day pieces, I'm going to give Eifelheim the benefit of Quantized GoodReads Ratings.

QGRR=5(less)

like 1 like

· see review

May 29, 2011

David rated it

· review of another edition

Michael Flynn shows again why he's a go-to author: this is an excellent book, and his diligent research into medieval history shows.

Effectively, this is two parallel stories: one is a more-or-less contemporary story of two researchers in a long-term relationship and their work in physics and cliology (last seen in Flynn's In the Country of the Blind), and the other is the story of a thirteenth-century village where a spaceship full of aliens crashes. Most of the book is the medieval s...more

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 49 50 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (12)

More editions...

Genres

Science Fiction

92 users

Historical Fiction

31 users

Speculative Fiction

14 users

Science Fiction > Aliens

9 users

Fantasy

9 users

Historical Fiction > Medieval

6 users

Cultural > Germany

5 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

5 users

European Literature > German Literature

3 users

Science Fiction > Alternate History

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

About Michael Flynn

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Michael Francis Flynn (born 1947) is an American statistician and science fiction author. Nearly all of Flynn's work falls under the category of hard science fiction, although his treatment of it can be unusual since he has applied the rigor of hard science fict...more

More about Michael Flynn...

Books by Michael Flynn

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About Eifelheim

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Eifelheim

“The soul is the form of the body, but not as the shape of a statue is formatio et terminatio materiae, for form does not exist apart from material. There is no whiteness without a white object. But the soul is not a form in this simple sense, and in particular, is not the shape of the material it informs. Therefore, the shape of a being does not affect the being's soul, for then something lower would inform something higher, which is impossible.” — 4 people liked it

“Peace needs the consent of all, while one alone may raise a war.” — 2 people liked it

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved Eifelheim

Beyond Reality

856 members

last activity 1 hour, 46 min ago

shelf: read

Steampunk, New Weird, Biz...

541 members

last activity 3 hours, 42 min ago

shelf: read

The Alternative World

81 members

last activity 11 hours, 12 min ago

shelf: read

title link	preview: Eifelheim
avg rating	preview: Eifelheim Goodreads rating: 3.65 (780 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2975821-eifelheim?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312045047m/2975821.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2975821-eifelheim?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Eifelheim by Michael Flynn[/url]

Eifelheim

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website