Eifelheim

Tom, a historian, enlists the assistance of his longtime partner, Sharon, a scientist, to solve a fourteenth-century mystery revolving around a ghost town and stained-glass windows depicting strange creatures and medieval manuscripts. Did intergalactic travelers land in the German Black Forest? Did their visit lead to the Plague that swept Europe? Anthony Heald is an engaged narrator who gives the impression that he, like you, is puzzling out an explanation that will make sense of all of these events. He sounds enthusiastic and somber, curious and convinced. His presentation of the intellectual exchanges between Tom and Sharon is quietly vibrant and grounds this thriller in the modern day. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 21, 2006
A present-day scientific odd couple who are longtime domestic partners, physicist Sharon Nagy and historian Tom Schwoerin, look into the fate of the Black Forest village of the title, which apparently vanished in the plague year 1348, in Flynn's heartbreaking morality play of stranded aliens in medieval Germany. Most of the narrative focuses on the consequences of the discovery in the 14th century by Eifelheim's pastor, Father Dietrich, of a crashed space ship carrying the "Krenken," horrific grasshopperlike aliens. Despite Inquisitorial threats, Dietrich befriends, baptizes and attempts to help the aliens return home. Flynn (The Wreck of the River of Stars
) masterfully achieves an intricate panorama of medieval life, full of fascinatingly realized human and Krenken characters whose fates interconnect with poignant irony. Through human frailties, the very Christianity by which Dietrich hopes to save Krenken souls dooms them all.