Eifelheim and Rethinking the Black Death

by Kelson Vibber, 2009-12-20

I recently finished reading Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. It’s a science fiction novel written as historical fiction, following two parallel stories:

• In the present day, a historian is trying to figure out why a village wiped out in the Black Death was never resettled, while a physicist tries to work out a new cosmological theory.
• In 1348, the pastor of Oberhochwald unexpectedly makes first contact with shipwrecked aliens, who spend the next year stranded on Earth near the village.

=> My review of the book (4 of 5 stars)

The Black Death

As the book caught up to the arrival of the plague in the village, I found myself curious about the timeline of the pandemic. In looking it up, I found an article proposing that, based on descriptions of the symptoms and spread of the disease, it might have been a viral hemorrhagic fever like Ebola or Marburg (with a longer incubation period), and not the bubonic plague. It probably falls under the category of “extraordinary claims,” but it’s certainly an interesting idea!

=> On the trail of the Black Death

Update 2011

Since then, researchers have managed to extract bacterial DNA from the bones of Londoners who died when the plague reached the city in 1348, confirming that they were infected with a relative of the modern plague…and have reconstructed its genome.

=> NY Times: Hunting for a Mass Killer in Medieval Graveyards | NY Times: Scientists Solve Puzzle of Black Death’s DNA | Slashdot: Scientists Recover Black Death RNA From Exhumed Victims

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