Looking for sf novel about medieval society invaded by spacefarers

July 11, 2023 7:50 AM

I'm looking for a scifi novel I saw in an airport bookstore circa 2004. At the time I decided not to buy it, but now I want to find it. What I remember from the description on the back was a planet with a medieval society, and some prince was going on a journey from one city to another as part of his coronation or something, but it got interrupted by an invasion by another civilization from space.

Maybe the journey was one of escape because of the invasion. It might have been by a big name author like Greg Bear or David Brin, but reviewing their particular bibliographies I don't see anything that fits the bill.

posted by dunhamrc to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

Not quite what you remember, but perhaps The High Crusade? It's definitely a medieval society being invaded...
posted by Alensin at 7:56 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's a little later than 2004, since it was published in 2006, but possibly Mike Flynn's Eifelheim? No prince, but aliens in a medieval society.
posted by Torosaurus at 8:10 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: @Alensin that could be it, there was an edition published in 2003.

I asked Google Bard and it thinks it's Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge. I'm pretty sure the medieval society was humanoid, and that I had already read Fire Upon the Deep by then.
posted by dunhamrc at 8:36 AM on July 11, 2023

Plot sounds similar to Raymond Feist's Magician, although the invaders arrive via portals instead of space craft (and are also human but from another world). It's popular enough that it would have been likely to find at an airport bookstore at that time.
posted by ewok_academy at 8:51 AM on July 11, 2023

I also wondered about A Fire Upon the Deep, but this is sort of a theme for Vernor Vinge. It's older than 2004, but maybe Tatja Grimm's World?
posted by pullayup at 8:59 AM on July 11, 2023

Lacking a full-on invasion but mediaeval culture with scifi injection by a big-name author could be Inversions - Iain M. Banks ?
posted by protorp at 9:04 AM on July 11, 2023

Your title made me think of King David's Spaceship but I can't imagine that being stocked in a 21st century airport concession.
posted by Rash at 9:11 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

The plot sounds very similar to that of Krull where a royal wedding is interupted.
posted by Eddie Mars at 9:42 AM on July 11, 2023

This does sound a bit like Matter by Iain M. Banks, although that wasn't published till early 2008.
posted by Chairboy at 9:51 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

Deepness in the Sky is the Vernor Vinge book that your description brings to my mind. In one thread of that book Pham Nuwen's life is followed from his origins as the unfavored child of a medieval nobleman to the founder of an interstellar civilization.

It's a distant to prequel to Fire Upon the Deep.
posted by Horkus at 10:06 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

It sounds a bit like 'Hard to be a God', not sure that would turn up in an airport bookshop.
posted by biffa at 11:05 AM on July 11, 2023

Response by poster: ChatGPT suggested A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park, but that was published in 2005, then The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
posted by dunhamrc at 1:32 PM on July 11, 2023

From my admittedly foggy memory of The Snow Queen, there are two parts of the society that trade off on who leads as the planet has some kind of physical uniqueness that make it difficult to visit from space at times. One group is more technical and spacefaring, while the other are maybe the original people from the planet. The book starts with a woman traveling from one part of the planet to the other for the coronation. I don't remember if there is an invasion that happens in the backhalf though.
posted by past unusual at 3:03 PM on July 11, 2023