In 1348, Father Deitrich is the educated, rationalist pastor of a small church in the small German town of Oberhochwald. He awakes one morning with a sense of foreboding, after hearing strange sounds and lights coming from the deep woods. Soon the town is in turmoil, as fires occur without apparent cause. The next day, the lord of the town, Manfred, sends a small group that includes Deitrich to investigate, and they find a strange new structure around which a ragtag group of grasshopperlike beings are trying to treat their injured.

Deitrich and some of the townspeople seek to help the aliens out of Christian duty to beings in distress, for his observations lead him to believe that they must be rational beings that may have souls, not supernatural demons. The aliens have translation devices that allow them to converse with the Germans, and slowly Deitrich and the others learn to know the Krenken as a race, and as individuals. When winter approaches, Lord Manfred, on Deitrich's advice, accepts the surviving Krenken into the village as new vassals. Some of the aliens assist the lord in a military operation against a rogue neighboring lord, and several Krenken allow Deitrich to baptize them as Christians. But this is the year the Black Plague is spreading throughout this part of Europe, and the Krenken also have a health problem of their own, with dire implications.

Back in the 21st century, Tom finds that his research into Eifelheim, previously called Oberhochwald, in conjunction with Sharon's new theories of space-time, is leading to startling conclusions regarding historical events in 14th-century Eifelheim.

An effective historical sci-fi tragedy

With Eifelheim, Michael Flynn returns to the Hugo-Award-nominated novella of the same title that first gained him notice in 1986. Like much of Flynn's science fiction, Eifelheim focuses primarily on history and character to tell a tragic morality tale. Flynn makes the 14th-century town of Oberhochwald a very believable place, and the people there, especially Father Deitrich, interesting and sympathetic. The Krenken are also well characterized, both as a race and as individuals, making the reader care equally about their fate as well as that of the humans.

The primary problems with the novel lie with the pacing and structure. The 14th-century narrative that makes up most of the book moves exceedingly slow, with the most interesting events appearing as compelling moments that are interspersed within long sections of medieval village life, church services and theological discussions that sometimes become tedious. The contemporary sections with Tom and Sharon are too short and too far between to be compelling on their own, and the narrative device that has their story being told by a German colleague seems extraneous. This would have been a better novel if the 14th-century narrative had been tightened and the 21st-century story had been made more compelling, with Tom's historical documents providing more of the 14th-century story. Eifelheim also cannot help but suffer in comparison with by far the best science-fiction novel of the medieval Black Death, Connie Willis' Doomsday Book.

But the strengths of Flynn's novel—its memorable portrayal of a medieval German village and interesting characters, both human and alien—make it well worth reading for anyone looking for a poignant novel of ironic tragedy.