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.Humility prevents TOF from quoting further. See link for details.
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.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Eifelheim reviewed
by Joseph Moore at Yard Sale of the Mind:
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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!
ReplyDeleteI blush. Thank you.
DeleteJust boughy and read Eifelheim, in about a day. Great book. What book of yours should i read next?
ReplyDeleteDepends 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.
DeleteSeems like this is the best way to reach Mr. Flynn when in a happy rush to share excitement over Eifelheim.
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading it. And now I will have to recommend it to everyone as the best novel in medieval setting since Eco's Baudolino.
Thank you, Mr. Flynn.
Why am I this excited?
Because I love books and stories, but medieval studies (Interdisziplinäre Mittelalterstudien in Bamberg) with focus on everyday life, religious orders and material culture thoroughly spoiled almost all historical novels for me. Not because there are so many details wrong (still great fun to bicker about those), but because almost no author succeeds in getting eye to eye with medieval people, grasping and portraying the wonderful combination of strangeness and familiarity medieval live holds for modern people. Getting the competence, the functional order of life and sheer humanity of the people of that time.
Most characters in historical novels are either cliches or modern thoughts and concepts wrapped in some basic research about the historical setting. This research seldom touches on the character or tone of the story.
You did portray this time and its people with research and heart. I really feel like it needed a science fiction author used to imagining alien cultures to appreciate medieval culture and thinking. To take it serious, to take his characters and their view of the world serious.
It is just marvellous to use a story about alien first contact to let the reader explore the alien and the human (yet somehow alien too) cultures at the same time.
Also for someone fluent in German, English and Latin, knowing a lot of stuff about the period there were many instances I silently laughed and thought "Oh no, he wouldn't throw in that figure/aspect/philosophy too, would he? Oh, he just did it again!"
Do I have details to bicker about?
Well I'm a German scholar of medieval everyday life. But I learned to restrain myself. :-) Let's just say the use of German or its very literal translations sometimes had me chuckling (Himmel Arsch und Wolkenbruch!). And of course I see some shortcomings in research and interpretation (friars are not monks). But they were made with a good mindset, with the courage to tell an alien story full of strange language and concepts and without the classic hero's journey.
So I want to congratulate you, Mr. Flynn, on a story that speaks of great effort in research, an eye for the meaningfulness of small stories and an astonishing grasp of human nature over the borders of time and place.
Again, thank you.
Sebastian S.