Eifelheim

Michael Flynn

In the movies, first contact with an alien species always takes place in modern times, or in the future. There is no reason why it couldn't have happened in the past. In this case, in the middle ages during the Black Plague epidemic in Europe. This setting provides the canvas for Flynn to write what is largely a historical fiction novel about life in the middle ages. Yes, there are aliens. But the book is less about the aliens than about how the middle age world view informs thinking about everything. Specifically, we look at how literal the christianity of the time is, and strangely enough contrast this with a hyper-literal translation of the worldview into something the aliens can understand. It is almost comical that the locals don't see that talk about "a God in heaven, who will return to earth to save us" is interpreted as a being that also understands space travel and will be arriving shortly to help with ship repairs. Flynn then intersperses the story with a modern day couple doing research in cosmology and historical mathematics, unknowingly pursuing the first contact event from 700 years earlier. So while this has the makings of a great sci-fi/historical fiction mashup, I found myself bored. Maybe some editing to take it from 400 to 300 pages would have sped things up just enough to maintain my interest. I pushed through and read the entire thing simply because of my own personality defect of needing to know the end of the story (I hate loose ends).  Otherwise, the descriptions of middle ages life were interesting in the beginning and then not interesting enough to keep me engaged.

Wait