Eifelheim
Michael Flynn
Tor, October 2006, $24.95
ISBN 0765300966

Historian Tom Schwoerin learns that during the height of the plague sweeping across central Europe in 1349, Eifelheim became a ghost town. Tom could find no apparent reason why the town was never resettled once the worst was over. He enlists his significant other physicist Sharon Nagy to help him investigate what happened to the German Black Forest village Eifelheim. Tom studies strange stained-glass windows with giant grasshopper pictures on them, while Sharon struggles with a medieval manuscript that shows what looks like a circuit.

In 1348, a spaceship crashed in the Black Forest. The intergalactic travelers the Krenken, grasshopper-looking aliens, survived due to the efforts of local Pastor Father Dietrich. He makes friends with the Krenken and converts them to Christianity, eventually baptizing them, even while trying to help them find a means to return home. While the villagers follow the lead of their pastor that the outsiders are God fearing beings and not demons; others nearby assume evil has moved in Eifelheim and God's wrath brought the plague and killed the aliens who died from a diet insufficiency, as no food contained a key amino acid they needed to break down the nutrients.

This excellent science fiction thriller combines a delightful subplot of aliens visiting Germany during the Black Plague and a wonderful modern day "historical" mystery. Fans will appreciate both eras as Tom and Sharon struggle with evidence that makes no sense unless you were there. Michael Flynn provides one of the year's most intelligent entertaining tales with this superb winner.