So here's the thing about this book. It is in places very interesting, the aliens are well conceptualized, the medieval setting is fully researched, there are some complex characters, and the notion of describing an alien encounter using the philosophical concepts and world view of the fourteenth century Scholastics is clever and pretty well executed. But there's almost no narrative pacing at all. So if you are looking for interesting ideas and historical color and so on, you might like this, but if you are seeking a page turner of a plot this book is going to leave you stone cold.
Oddly it reads to me like a short story. A 320 page long short story. There's something about the way its structured that feels like short form fiction rather than like a novel. Even though its got a lot of pages. I have to think more about why it feels that way but there's something about it.