April Books 13) Eifelheim

13) Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn

Flynn’s The Wreck of the River of Stars was one of the best sf books I read last year, and I had high expectations of this Hugo nominee: a story of aliens landing in 14th century Germany, and the contemporary historian (and his physicist girlfriend) who works out what happened way back then. Flynn puts a lot of effort into creating a believable 14th-century world, with a relatively harmonious relationship between religion and science depicted; some of the best passages are where the central character (the village priest) and the aliens try to make sense of each others’ world-views in terms of their own. He has tried hard also (not always successfully) to catch the linguistic flavour of the period. I didn’t enjoy Eifelheim quite as much as River of Stars, though; I felt that Flynn’s occasional expositions of his characters’ motivations didn’t work so well here, and I found the shift from omniscient narrator to tight first-person at the end a bit jarring.

One thought on “April Books 13) Eifelheim

  1. Thanks! I’m curating the MMO Melting Pot whilst my girlfriend takes a bit of time off from it, and the EVE article is a great one to feature there.

    I wonder what happened? CCP have seemed so smart for years – they suddenly seem to have had a total brain transplant.

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