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Summary: Just to set the record straight...
Review: Right, quite clearly - the first 3 chapters of this book are based on a 10th century manuscript.The rest is wholly fictional. Ibn Fadlan observed and commented on Scandinavian merchants on the Volga. He didn't go anywhere with them, fight anything, or meet Neanderthals. Even if you know nothing of Ibn Fadlan, Crichton himself is quite clear on this point.
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Summary: Shameless in his blending of fact and fiction?
Review: A fascinating read but I'm a stickler when it comes to seperating fact from fiction. I still don't know where the author draws that line. The style of writing (sometimes painfully detailed scientific footnotes) would lead you to believe this is a meticulously researched scientific document and if I wasn't told otherwise I'd still believe it. Crichton gets 5 stars for gluing me to a book for a day or two but should be ashamed of himself for blurring something as important as historical fact.
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Summary: Not what you might expect..
Review: I'll admit, I liked this book better when I first read it in 9th grade. But I picked it up and read it again after seeing the movie adaptation and I was surprised how well it holds up (it's been 6 years). If you're expecting a Crichton book like most of the others, forget this one. This isn't a modern adventure with the usual kind of writing. If you can get used to the primitive writing style (it's supposed to be an ancient journal, after all), it's a really entertaining story. There's a lot of sex and nonstop violence, true, but it isn't gratuitous. It's simply part of the story and it's portrayed as an honest part of life as the Vikings saw it. It's a refreshing change from the sanitized, sterile drivel that fills most of the bestseller lists. If you want some good escapist reading, and you can have the stomach for it, this book is worth checking out.
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Summary: Is Vahalla any more improbable than "heaven"?
Review: What I think is great about this book is that Crichton ties the history so well together with the story that he wrote, which is why so many people discuss "is this a true story, or fiction".? It is neither, it is both, it is a mix. But the incredible thing is that he achieves exactly what he was hoping to attain, which is that he got us all to read a readaption of Beowolf, and now all of us, whether we liked to book or not, know a lot more about the Viking and the ancient Arab cultures than we did before we read it. And what is really brilliant is that he did it through the premise that the Arabs had a written language, whereas the Vikings did not. Therefore, whereas Viking sagas were passed on verbally, and hence could be changed by the person telling the story, this particular story was put in writing, assuring that it was passed down unchanged. By the way, as a woman of Norwegian blood living in Italy, I recognized some of my Viking traits in Crichton's descriptions of the Vikings - and so did my Italian husband! My compliments to Michael Crichton. From Sci Fi to ER to novels with a historical base, you never let us down.
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Summary: Great book...
Review: Read when first published back in the 1970's...When I first read it the author claimed that the story was true and found among old texts. The plot has changed some and but is still a great read...
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely disappointing
Review: I have generally enjoyed all of Crichton's novels, but this one was awful. The characters were dull and they were not developed well. The story never really went anywhere. It's a good thing the book was short, otherwise I never would have bothered finishing it. I don't like giving only one star because I have a lot of respect for the author and I've really enjoyed his other works, but it just doesn't deserve any better.
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Summary: I am Antonio Banderas!
Review: I am Antonio Banderas! Go read about me as I travel to Norway to team up with some Norse dudes and fight guys in bear suits. As a hispanic arab poet, I chop wood while satisfying the Norse women. Livin' la vida loca!
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Summary: Crichton Disappoints
Review: I had only read one M. Crichton book before, Rising Sun, and I had loved that book. So going into this I had high expectations and I was severely disappointed. I realize that he was trying to piece together actual documented events and that must be very difficult, but I found the overall work to be poorly developed and lacking in substance despite the copious footnotes.
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Summary: Both True and Fictional
Review: Contrary to what has been said by many of the reviewers here, this book is in fact based on a real manuscript by the Arab traveller ibn Fadlan in the tenth century who made his way from the Caliphate to the shores of the Volga to treat with the Bulgar kingdom which was then ensconced there (apparently to entice the Bulgars away from their Khazar overlords who were then enemies of the Arab empire). This ambassador of the Caliph faithfully recorded much of what he saw among the barbarians, including encounters with the Oghuz Turks and the Norsemen who were then frequent travellers along the rivers of what would one day become Russia. (In fact some thinking has it that the Norse, in the guise of "Rus" -- eytemology unclear -- actually gave their name, along with their ruling princes, to Russia since the first major Russian state, Kievan Rus, was ruled by princes of viking heritage, with the help of second and third generation viking adventurers serving them as mercenaries.) But Crichton's book is not just a reprint of ibn Fadlan's manuscript (which is available, in English, in various scholarly tomes). Crichton enlarged upon the tale he found and appended an apparently fictional second half which takes ibn Fadlan north, in the company of his new-found Norse comrades, to the viking lands, there to face a shadowy menace of unknown origins. In this second half, Crichton blended historical speculation with the Beowulf tale in Old English (the chief of the viking crew which inducts ibn Fadlan is called "Buliwyf") to suggest an ending to ibn Fadlan's adventures which surely never happened. But it's done quite nicely, hard to tell where the real tale ends and the author's fictional enterprise begins, and it keeps you reading right to the final moments. It's not a particularly stirring tale, rather dry in fact, but it's thought provoking and well-paced and a wonderfully interesting way to do an historical novel. Am looking forward to the movie, THE THIRTEENTH WARRIOR (named after the reason the vikings insist on bringing their fastidious Arab guest along for the ride), to see how it was done. The tale is simple enough for this sort of treatment so it should make a bang-up film for those of us into adventure and the viking thing. By the way, there are a whole slew of good books out there for those into vikings and historical adventure, including THE GOLDEN WARRIOR by Hope Muntz (about Harold and William and the struggle for the English throne in the mid-eleventh century), ERIC BRIGHTEYES by H. Rider Haggard, STYRBIORN THE STRONG by E. R. Eddison, and THE LONG SHIPS by Frans Bengtsson. And, if you're still game for more, there's even one that I did, THE KING OF VINLAND'S SAGA, a tale of the Norsemen in North America circa AD 1050. -- Stuart W. Mirsky
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Summary: Excellent, excellent, excellent...!
Review: The originality that brought this book about is inspiring. It is historical and yet fantastic, molded from the epic poem of Beowulf in a "what if" situation that is entirely captivating. It is told through the chronicles of Ibn Fadlan in a 1st person perspective that, surprisingly, makes it even more thrilling. I loved the book, it's one of my all-time favorites, and I am looking forward to the movie, which I have not yet seen. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it's even remotely as engrossing as the novel...!
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