Schuyler
Misanthrope
Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn. New York: TOR, 2006, 320pp. isbn: 978-0-765-30096-6.
I haven’t reviewed a book here for awhile, mostly because the reviews were greeted with a bit of a thud, but I feel compelled to tell you all about Eifelheim. My Spousal Unit, who keeps me supplied with reading, recommended it to me. It’s ostensibly science fiction, and I haven’t read much of that lately either. Michael Flynn is a well-established SF author, having collaborated with the likes of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. But this is more a book of Medieval history with a bit of a twist.
The basic plot is this: It’s in the 1390’s in the Black Forest of Germany during the time of the Black Plague. A priest named Dietrich is the only learned man in the village of Oberhochswald (Upper high forest), a remote village. In a parallel yarn, a modern historian has discovered that no village exists at that site any longer, an anomaly that he wants to explain. He happens to live with a theoretical physicist. The couple are having a difficult time relating to each other’s work.
Cut to the chase: Lightning strikes in a cloudless sky. Trees are uprooted. The aliens have landed. They look like grasshoppers and they are mean spirited. Some villagers call them demons; some try to help and nurse the aliens, some of whom are severely injured, back to health. They manage to establish communications through the help of alien technology. The two groups then begin to learn about each other. When the Plague arrives the aliens are not affected, but they have problems of their own. Earth food lacks an essential amino acid necessary to nutrition, so the aliens have a kind of plague of their own to deal with. Meanwhile they try to fix their ship, but fiber optics are hard to come by. They try to use copper wire in place of it. And when humans start to die of the plague, it is the aliens’ turn to learn compassion.
Meanwhile, it is in the villager’s and the alien’s best interests to keep the rest of the world at bay. But the fact that the aliens can fly and have ‘thunder clay’ and other advanced weaponry is a great temptation to use in battle against the bad guys. Who wouldn’t want the demons on their side?
To tell more would give too much away. The amazing part of this book, though, is how the humans and aliens teach each other, and how the aliens attempt to impart advanced technical knowledge, such as E=MC(2) or that bacteria is responsible for the plague (small lives), to the humans in a way and in language they can understand. On the other hand, the humans teach the aliens about fellowship, compassion, and, indeed, Christianity, making some converts along the way. Don’t think this evil or foolish. It’s fascinating how the two groups learn from each other and how they come to recognize the ‘humanity’ (if you will) in each other.
Further, it turns out the alien craft is not exactly a ‘space ship’ at all, but uses advanced physics to travel between the stars by ‘looking within,’ a parallel to the introspection of the Church of the time, that placed great emphasis on personal responsibility for salvation. This last explanation is particularly intriguing. I think you, David, would be especially interested in the physics of this because it provides an answer, quite frankly, on how we could traverse the stars. It is internally consistent with what ‘real’ physicists know about the nature of the world and, like all good science fiction, you can’t help but wonder if real truths have not been revealed.
As the modern day physicist and historian begin to close in on this, it gets, well, very very interesting. It’s a difficult book to read. Not only is the text dense and provide some heavy going, the accounts of Medieval life, and especially death at the hands of the plague, are pretty gruesome. I told my wife not to read it because for her and her interests, It’s not worth the grief. If you can get through it, however, the book is very rewarding. I think I’ve found a new author. And if you can ever get beyond Amanda Quick, heart throb though she is, that‘s really something.
I haven’t reviewed a book here for awhile, mostly because the reviews were greeted with a bit of a thud, but I feel compelled to tell you all about Eifelheim. My Spousal Unit, who keeps me supplied with reading, recommended it to me. It’s ostensibly science fiction, and I haven’t read much of that lately either. Michael Flynn is a well-established SF author, having collaborated with the likes of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. But this is more a book of Medieval history with a bit of a twist.
The basic plot is this: It’s in the 1390’s in the Black Forest of Germany during the time of the Black Plague. A priest named Dietrich is the only learned man in the village of Oberhochswald (Upper high forest), a remote village. In a parallel yarn, a modern historian has discovered that no village exists at that site any longer, an anomaly that he wants to explain. He happens to live with a theoretical physicist. The couple are having a difficult time relating to each other’s work.
Cut to the chase: Lightning strikes in a cloudless sky. Trees are uprooted. The aliens have landed. They look like grasshoppers and they are mean spirited. Some villagers call them demons; some try to help and nurse the aliens, some of whom are severely injured, back to health. They manage to establish communications through the help of alien technology. The two groups then begin to learn about each other. When the Plague arrives the aliens are not affected, but they have problems of their own. Earth food lacks an essential amino acid necessary to nutrition, so the aliens have a kind of plague of their own to deal with. Meanwhile they try to fix their ship, but fiber optics are hard to come by. They try to use copper wire in place of it. And when humans start to die of the plague, it is the aliens’ turn to learn compassion.
Meanwhile, it is in the villager’s and the alien’s best interests to keep the rest of the world at bay. But the fact that the aliens can fly and have ‘thunder clay’ and other advanced weaponry is a great temptation to use in battle against the bad guys. Who wouldn’t want the demons on their side?
To tell more would give too much away. The amazing part of this book, though, is how the humans and aliens teach each other, and how the aliens attempt to impart advanced technical knowledge, such as E=MC(2) or that bacteria is responsible for the plague (small lives), to the humans in a way and in language they can understand. On the other hand, the humans teach the aliens about fellowship, compassion, and, indeed, Christianity, making some converts along the way. Don’t think this evil or foolish. It’s fascinating how the two groups learn from each other and how they come to recognize the ‘humanity’ (if you will) in each other.
Further, it turns out the alien craft is not exactly a ‘space ship’ at all, but uses advanced physics to travel between the stars by ‘looking within,’ a parallel to the introspection of the Church of the time, that placed great emphasis on personal responsibility for salvation. This last explanation is particularly intriguing. I think you, David, would be especially interested in the physics of this because it provides an answer, quite frankly, on how we could traverse the stars. It is internally consistent with what ‘real’ physicists know about the nature of the world and, like all good science fiction, you can’t help but wonder if real truths have not been revealed.
As the modern day physicist and historian begin to close in on this, it gets, well, very very interesting. It’s a difficult book to read. Not only is the text dense and provide some heavy going, the accounts of Medieval life, and especially death at the hands of the plague, are pretty gruesome. I told my wife not to read it because for her and her interests, It’s not worth the grief. If you can get through it, however, the book is very rewarding. I think I’ve found a new author. And if you can ever get beyond Amanda Quick, heart throb though she is, that‘s really something.