Tom shakes his head he's frustrated, flummoxed and completely baffled. 'A great burst of light washed through the stained-glass lancets in the north wall of the church, casting rainbows.' And 'An avalanche of thunder followed upon the flash and the bells in the tower pealed a mad, arrhythmic clanging.' All falls silent and Dietrich looks at the cracked windows and knows for certain whatever had been approaching his village had arrived.Ģ) Historian Tom Schwoerin and his long-time girlfriend, a physicist by the name of Sharon Nagy, sit in their small apartment near La Salle University in Philadelphia. And, yes, 1348 marks a time when the Black Death stalked great swaths of Europe during the Middle Ages.Īuthor Michael Flynn packs so much into his epic tale where we're presented with two unfolding dramas:ġ) One morning in the village of Oberhochwald, Father Dietrich, learned scholar and village pastor (and the novel's main 14th century character), shivers and hugs himself, musing: Something will happen today. Heinlein Award.Įifelheim by Michael Flynn – a stunning page-turner where a reader will learn a good bit about the medieval world and medieval philosophy, about the Catholic church and Catholic theology, about theoretical physics, historiography and mathematical history (cliology), about the clash of values and cultures when a small German village in 1348 makes first contact with aliens from another planet. Tom and Sharon, and Father Dietrich, have a strange and intertwined destiny of tragedy and triumph in this brilliant SF novel by the winner of the Robert A.

It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague.

Dietrich is an educated man, knows science and philosophy, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact between humanity and an alien race from a distant star when their interstellar ship crashes in the nearby forest. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago?įather Dietrich is the village priest of Oberhochwald, the village that will soon gain the name of Teufelheim, in later years corrupted to Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength across Europe but is still not nearby. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. In 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled.

Eifelheim by michael flynn