Eifelheim

While there was a lot of research went into this story covering both 14th century medieval Europe and theoretical quantum physics, there were too many quotes and references to these subjects that went far beyond the everyday reader's comprehension (at least this reader's comprehension). Dialogue in various languages, including German, French and Latin without translation is very frustrating. Also, this reader found the overwhelming number of characters hard to keep up with and often became lost trying to remember who in the story was who, especially after the aliens were given human names. On the positive side, the story of a damaged craft from another world and the interaction between the alien passengers and the human population of a small 14th century village steeped in ancient Catholic religious beliefs was interesting. The smaller interspersed parts of the story dealing with the interactions between the husband-and-wife scientific partners, one looking into the mystery behind the history of the village decimated by the black plague and never resettled and the other researching new theories within quantum physics was less interesting (less comprehendible).