Eaters of the Dead | Michael Crichton

Eaters of the Dead | Michael Crichton | Top shelf work from a top shelf writer

books:

Eaters of the Dead

	Eaters of the Dead Michael Crichton Avon, 2006 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 303 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Exciting!

Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors, and this was one of the last of his books that I read. This is an exciting page-turner as the Muslim Ibn Fadlan gets carried off with a group of Vikings. His adventures with the Vikings are so interesting and exciting that I hated for the book to end. It's not a long book, but it's packed with enough adventure and action for two books.

The cultural differences between the Vikings and the Muslim Ibn Fadlan are great, but the two sides manage to tolerate the other and to work together to face the threat of the wendol, a mysterious people who may be remnants of the Neanderthals who supposedly vanished tens of thousands of years ago.

Crichton tells a fascinating story, and I highly recommend "Eaters of the Dead."

for more information click here

Top shelf work from a top shelf writer

Ibn Fadlan is a diplomat, not a warrior. His mission was to represent his people and make contact with other civilizations on their behalf. But it became so much more.
Fadlan finds himself among the Northmen (aka, the Vikings), a rustic group of behemoths whose customs and way of life are as repulsive as they are odd. But, far away, their people have become plagued by a violent horde of barbarians whose behavior transcends humanity. So, twelve of the brave Northmen warriors are selected to journey to the besieged village and relieve them of this demonic threat. To Fadlan's surprise, he is also chosen. He becomes the 13th warrior and, despite his objections, joins the men on their journey.

When they arrive, the greeting is robust even though some look at them with suspicion and this plays out as an inner conflict amidst the villagers and their leaders despite the looming threat from the barbarians. Then, the mist arrives, and so does the first attack. Most of the warriors survive, some with physical scars, others with mental ones. They endure a second attack and when their numbers continue to dwindle it becomes clear that an offensive strike is necessary. Fadlan's own words describe the showdown in a way that would challenge today's most proficient adventure writers.

I can't deny the historical intrigue of this book, taken from the actual journal writings of Fadlan himself. Michael Crichton's best talents are his in-depth research of his topic and his ability to know when to step back and allow the story to tell itself. This book is where both talents shine. This is Fadlan's story in his own words and Crichton does a masterful job of guiding the reader by interjecting timely footnotes along the way. In fact, the story was so good it became a major motion picture that, in all honesty, didn't do the book justice. Even though violent conflict played a major role in the tale, the narrative was not dominated with its descriptions. Instead, more time was devoted to the mystique of the Northmen, the vast cultural differences between them and the narrator and the underlying dynamic that drove the conflict in which they found themselves immersed. It was a refreshing reprieve from today's typical explosions-and-death action/adventure tale.

Crichton is one of this generation's best, and Eaters of the Dead is one of his top-shelf works.

for more information click here

It's Okay

This book is okay. I learned about Viking culture from this book. The author obviously did a lot of research.

But I didn't like the story that much, maybe because I don't really like medieval-based novels or sword-fights. But it was exciting enough to keep me till the end, so I'll give this book 3 stars.

Average book with little too it

I like a lot of Michael Crichton's books (at least before he became such a potty mouth) (my favorites are Jurassic Park and Sphere) so I figured I would give one of his older books a try. This book was easy to read and somewhat entertaining.

What Michael Crichton does in this book is basically take the story of Bewolf and make it a readable condenced version. He takes a historical figure (writer at least) Ibl Fadlam (excuse the spelling) and does a "make believe" that he was there and seeing this story unfold through an outsiders eye. He does a pretty good job with this and it's kind of interesting.

However, once I finished I felt that this book was just a pretty basic horror story about monsters attacking villagers who go seek help from "heroes" where a large number of the heroes die but with a lot of courage and yada yada yada they eventually rid the world/village of these evil "easters of the dead". In the meantime the heroes have lots of sex with slave girls and drink a lot of beer. There really isn't much else to this book.

I would recomend getting this book from the library, it's readily available and short and there really is no need to read this book more than once.

for more information click here

half good, half lame

My biggest problem with this book is that you can tell which parts are invented and which parts are from the actual manuscript. Vikings who speak latin? Not too sure about that one, even if they were great travelers. Dwarves and other mythical creatures. Not too sure those were in the original manuscript either. Whenever there is plot (and not very good plot at that) you can assume that it is Crichton inventing and embellishing. That which sounds factual and documentary you can assume was the actual eyewitness. I think Crichton wanted to take his stab at writing fantasy, and I don't think he did that well. All that being said, it is still interesting to read what excerpts there are from the primary document. A lot of us come from these people, so it is important to see what they were like.

for more information click here