Eifelheim

Eifelheim was a book that I didn’t read with my 9-year-old. It’s a very good book, but not appropriate for the age. My mom recommended it, and I glad I listened.
There are two settings for this book. One is a small village in Germany in the late 1300’s. The other is a University town at the current time. In the German town, a priest named Dietrich discovered a shipwrecked spaceship populated by beings resembling something like a praying mantis or grasshopper. They are able to communicate through the advanced technology of the aliens. Dietrich brings the creatures who are suffering the cold of winter to his lord, who takes them in as vassals. News of demons in the town begins to filter out into the surrounding countryside. There is much philosophical talk between the highly educated Dietrich and the Krenk (aliens) about the state of the universe. The townsfolk assist the Krenk in repairing their ship, although the copper wires the blacksmith makes are a poor substitute for the fiber optics the Krenk had been using. A number of the Krenk become Christians. It is discovered that the Krenk are dying because their bodies require an amino acid not available on earth so the rush to fix the ship becomes even more urgent. Throughout are the various personality difficulties in the village and among the Krenk. Finally the ship is fixed and takes off, and 8 Krenk remain behind to nurse the villagers who’ve just been hit with the plague.
In the modern time, Tom is a historian trying to figure out why a town in a naturally good location disappeared and had never been replaced. He keeps finding documents suggesting demons but is unwilling to admit that they might be aliens. Tom’s partner, Sharon, is a physicist on the cusp of a major discovery. She makes a breakthrough when she discovers one of the illuminated drawings that Tom had collected and sees it to be a circuit that she had just built to test dimensional travel.
There was a lot of science that I didn’t really understand, but that didn’t take away from the fun of the story. My mom doesn’t normally like Sci-Fi and she enjoyed it too. It presented a view of Christianity that was neither pie-in-the-sky nor angrily atheistic. The characterizations rang true, and I appreciated watching various characters grow, or in some cases, refuse to grow. This was a book that contributed to my faith in Christ and was very uplifting, even in the sad parts.