Dietrich's fondness for logic and dialectic invoked fond reminders of The Name of the Rose!īoth the contemporary and the historical segments share a common flaw: the entire book is too didactic for my tastes. The conflict over Oberhochwalds unexpected extraterrestrial tenants becomes tense and heated toward the end, as the Black Death descends upon the village. In contrast, the historical setting of Eifelheim (then known as Oberhochwald) and its protagonist, Pastor Dietrich, are at least more complex. Both characters seemed too self-absorbed to ever have entered this relationship in the first place-not that we would know about that, since Flynn provides scant details on their pasts. In the epilogue, Tom and Judy visit the site of Eifelheim, with only a passing mention that Sharon is 'busy' elsewhere. However, there's no resolution to what I considered a very interesting aspect of the plot. Flynn hints at relationship strife between Tom and Sharon when Tom begins spending more time with a librarian, Judy, who joins him on a quest to research the mysterious disappearance of Eifelheim.

The present-day chapters are tiresome, their characters flat and largely uninteresting. While every story will rely on coincidence in some fashion or another, Eifelheim's plot resembles a meticulously constructed house of cards built in the windiest location on Earth (a quick Google search turns up no consensus on this point). Michael Flynn concocts a 'perfect storm' of coincidences, particularly for the two present-day main characters, to carry his narrative. A blend of semi-hard, semi-sweet science fiction with historical fiction, Eifelheim comes across as intelligent yet smug.