Reviews

A beautifully told story with colorful characters out of epic tradition, a tight and complex plot, and solid pacing. -- Booklist, starred review of On the Razor's Edge

Great writing, vivid scenarios, and thoughtful commentary ... the stories will linger after the last page is turned. -- Publisher's Weekly, on Captive Dreams

Friday, June 13, 2014

Eifelheim reviewed

by Joseph Moore at Yard Sale of the Mind:
Glad to say I’ve finally gotten a chance to read Michael Flynn‘s excellent book Eifelheim, which had been sitting in the pile on the floor near the bed for some number of months now.
In a nutshell: Good book. Go read it.
In addition to great storytelling and loveable, warty characters, what makes this story of alien first contact excellent is the sympathetic treatment of 2 mysterious peoples: medieval villagers and space aliens.
Humility prevents TOF from quoting further. See link for details.
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4 comments:

  1. I found Eifelheim to be an extraordinary novel and a total surprise coming out of nowhere: it was mentioned by several Catholic authors in a year-end "Books I've read this year" feature in the Ignatius Insight blog. I then read it first in a Kindle edition and afterward bought a hardback version to keep. I have frankly not liked science fiction since my teenaged years because so much of it is so badly written. The sense of wonder it evoked in my adolescent brain could not be continued as maturity came, alas. But Eifelheim was different — very different. I very much appreciated the respect with which the Catholic religion was treated and the interface between the colliding world views of the Krenken on the one hand and the (wise) Fr. Dietrich on the other was absorbing. The idea of a mathematical historian was also new and intriguing to me. Bravo!

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  2. Just boughy and read Eifelheim, in about a day. Great book. What book of yours should i read next?

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    1. Depends on what you liked about Eifelheim. Some have said good things about The Wreck of "The River of Stars" but found it slower going. Some have liked the short fiction in Captive Dreams. The space opera series that starts with The January Dancer and runs through Up Jim River, In the Lion's Mouth, and On the Razor's Edge has been popular. There is also the now harder to find and somewhat obsoleted Firestar series if you like near-future (as in 1999-2020!) high tech SF with lots of characters. Fallen Angels, with Niven and Pournelle and still in print is a romp that turns certain assumptions on their heads.

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