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adamrshields's review against another edition
4.0
Short Review: This is a first contact story, but based around a 14th century german village. There is also a second modern story line about two academics, one a historian that finds the village and researches it. And the second academic is a physicist that is working on faster than light travel.
The german village story line is the main one and it is well researched and detailed about the life of the villagers and real history around the time. Lots of good discussion around aliens and how they could be conceived of in regard to Christianity and moral theories of belonging. The Christianity is well presented, but this isn't a 'christian fiction' book.
I thought the german village story got a little bogged down in the middle, but overall I really enjoyed the book.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/eifelheim/
The german village story line is the main one and it is well researched and detailed about the life of the villagers and real history around the time. Lots of good discussion around aliens and how they could be conceived of in regard to Christianity and moral theories of belonging. The Christianity is well presented, but this isn't a 'christian fiction' book.
I thought the german village story got a little bogged down in the middle, but overall I really enjoyed the book.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/eifelheim/
kaboomcju's review against another edition
4.0
I realize that Flynn based this (the modern day bits) off a series of short stories/novellas; however, this would have been a great read without the "Today" parts. The modern parts didn't add anything new to the story. Tom finds out the "travelers" are aliens. Yes, we already know that because that's the main part of the story that takes place in the 1300s. It's a good read that would probably be better without all modern "stuff" throughout.
benlundns's review against another edition
2.0
First, I loved all the scenes that took place in 1348-49. That stuff was great and felt real. The current day stuff felt like such a waste, and didn't feel like it really had any impact on the rest of the story. If you never heard of Tom or Sharon, the rest of the story is not effected in any way. And pretty much all of my problems were with those little asides. First, why do we need whole sections of the book that you can't understand unless you speak 2 or more languages. If you want the characters speaking a different language, cool. A little footnote would be nice. Just like you appreciate subtitles in a movie, it's nice to know what people are saying. Second, so much jargon. Both the characters are in very specialized academic fields, so 90% of the current time chapters are them expositing why whatever they are obsessing about is the most important thing ever. And it might make sense to try and understand some of it, if it had some relevance to the story, but IT DOESN'T, AND THE STORYLINES THAT GET STARTED DO NOT GET RESOLVED. (Can you tell that's a pet peeve of mine?) As a result, reading those passages, my eyes glazed over, and I started to skim. Just like you would do when reading a textbook for a class that you don't care about but is required in your curriculum.
I really wanted to like this book more, and I think if it was just a story of a village in the 1300's during the plague, it would be a decent and interesting read, but all the extra non-necessary stuff really drove down my excitement to read the book.
I really wanted to like this book more, and I think if it was just a story of a village in the 1300's during the plague, it would be a decent and interesting read, but all the extra non-necessary stuff really drove down my excitement to read the book.
branch_c's review against another edition
5.0
This is an absolutely fascinating book with a great concept and excellent execution. I enjoyed the 1348 sections more than the modern day ones, which is fine, since the historical story makes up the majority of the book, and the short modern day parts are well placed and serve their purpose admirably. It's also a very erudite book, with many archaic terms to look up, not to mention phrases in German and other languages, but amazingly, this works, and these touches add to the realism rather than making it dry or academic.
We learn about the aliens in a somewhat clouded way, which, on consideration, seems appropriate, since we are seeing them from the perspective of the 14th century villagers, who literally have no idea what they are - for all they know, they could be demons - or maybe just very different strangers from outside their insular existence. The protagonist is the village pastor, Dietrich, so we get most of the story from his viewpoint, one in which Christianity is matter-of-factly true. Dietrich is also well-educated in "natural philosophy" though, and he produces and accepts ideas about physics and biology that seem decidedly before their time.
The only aspect slightly lacking for me was the aliens' perspective - everything we learn about their biology and technology has to be described in terms that Dietrich can understand. And I can believe that some of the aliens might still be sympathetic to religious concepts, but it seemed a bit of a stretch that they would take at face value Dietrich's statements about the coming of Jesus - to the point that they thought that this "lord from the sky" might be a being of energy who could rescue them. Even with translation difficulties, surely they would have recognized this as theology and not science - so I was skeptical that their alien religious tendencies would extend to some of them actually accepting Christianity as true! Anyway, it would have been interesting to see one of them as a viewpoint character - but this was a tradeoff and in the end I think Flynn made a fine choice in telling the story as he did.
There's a plague episode toward the end, which brings to mind Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, and yes, it's as graphic and depressing as you'd expect it to be, but this clearly was intended to add to the power of the story, and it does so fairly well.
Definitely recommended, and I'll be interested to check out other books by Flynn.
We learn about the aliens in a somewhat clouded way, which, on consideration, seems appropriate, since we are seeing them from the perspective of the 14th century villagers, who literally have no idea what they are - for all they know, they could be demons - or maybe just very different strangers from outside their insular existence. The protagonist is the village pastor, Dietrich, so we get most of the story from his viewpoint, one in which Christianity is matter-of-factly true. Dietrich is also well-educated in "natural philosophy" though, and he produces and accepts ideas about physics and biology that seem decidedly before their time.
The only aspect slightly lacking for me was the aliens' perspective - everything we learn about their biology and technology has to be described in terms that Dietrich can understand. And I can believe that some of the aliens might still be sympathetic to religious concepts, but it seemed a bit of a stretch that they would take at face value Dietrich's statements about the coming of Jesus - to the point that they thought that this "lord from the sky" might be a being of energy who could rescue them. Even with translation difficulties, surely they would have recognized this as theology and not science - so I was skeptical that their alien religious tendencies would extend to some of them actually accepting Christianity as true! Anyway, it would have been interesting to see one of them as a viewpoint character - but this was a tradeoff and in the end I think Flynn made a fine choice in telling the story as he did.
There's a plague episode toward the end, which brings to mind Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, and yes, it's as graphic and depressing as you'd expect it to be, but this clearly was intended to add to the power of the story, and it does so fairly well.
Definitely recommended, and I'll be interested to check out other books by Flynn.
barium_squirrel's review against another edition
5.0
This is a fantastic hard sci-fi story. It is told in two parts: one part is about an academic couple studying history and physics, the other about an academic mediaval monk whose sleepy village is contacted by aliens. The two stories weave together seamlessly, and I'm a sucker for stories set in academia (I don't know why, Lord knows I hated college). The history is exquisitely researched and the first contact portions raise intriguing questions about the nature of humanity and personhood.
sitnstew's review against another edition
3.0
Eifelheim was presented to me as a recommendation from a close friend who tends to like books that are very dense in background details and include thick, heavy minutia. I can certainly appreciate that but I tend to find those details tedious. Eifelheim wasn't a significant departure from the type of books I tend to enjoy and Michael Flynn is a very skilled author so I found myself quite taken by the story and setup of the book. It falls smack-dab in the middle of sci-fi and historical fiction and is one of the more original plots I've discovered recently. To say I devoured it would be a far stretch of the imagination - sometimes I got lost in the details - but I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Despite Michael Flynn's excellent storytelling, I felt that the novel could have been condensed, possibly even to short story form, even though it isn't a particularly long book.
Overall I enjoyed it and will likely check out more books by Michael Flynn but I doubt I will be raving about it to anyone.
Overall I enjoyed it and will likely check out more books by Michael Flynn but I doubt I will be raving about it to anyone.
lindsfisch's review against another edition
1.0
Could not finish this for the life of me. I wanted to.. so.. slow.
camshaft97intexas's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This is not 'space opera', instead, the genre is 'hard science fiction'.
jhouses's review against another edition
4.0
Un nave extraterrestre varada en la Selva negra durante la Peste Negra. Un libro interesante que yuxtapone la búsqueda de un arqueólogo de una explicación para la desaparición de una aldea medieval y los mitos que le acompañan y la narración del párroco de la aldea.