Rating: 
Summary: Crichton's best!
Review: Eaters of the Dead was a book good enough to be made into a movie. A wonderful story of adventure. It reminds me a little of The Fellowship of the Ring. However, this is based on a very old manuscript(16th Century) but is said to be true! If it is, the story is even more incredible.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: The book 10 times better than the movie!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: Save yourself. The pacing is wretched. The names are hard to follow, too
Rating:
Summary: How versatile can a man be?
Review: Mr. Crichton has in this book shown how adaptive he can be. He deliberately adopts a different style in this book than in the others that I have read and he pulls it off excellently. The idea of writing a story that is originally an actual historical document is impressive in it's originality. The idea of using that psuedo-document as a link to a mythological legend is also impressive. The style was somewhat dry to read, and the fight with the dragon was perhaps the most mundane I have ever encountered, but overall the book was very well done. My chief complaint is that he did not spend enough time developing the Eaters into more than a caricature of Neanderthals, but he did write this book over two decades ago. The battle scenes were not very exciting in the modern sense of the reader/viewer, but were exciting that he had kept to the writing style to which he had committed when writing this story. Over all, read it. And if you can read it before you see it.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Disappionting
Review: I remember back in 8th grade when I bought Eaters of the Dead and was so excited to read it, I could barely wait to finish the book I was currently reading. Boy, should I have waited. I'm re-writing some of my reviews of old books that I've read, and I decided to start with this: the only novel I have ever given a one star to. Eaters of the Dead offers nothing I thought it would, the action is chessy and not convincing. The characters in the novel are dull and confusing, as is the entire novel. I really didn't get the battles or journeys to battle the Wendol. And they weren't anything special on top of that. Too bad, Eaters of the Dead could have really been something.
Rating:
Summary: Eaters of the Dead
Review: Jimmy
PCC English
Period 3 In "Eaters of the Dead," by Michael Crichton, there were many interesting events.
The book starts by having a representative for the Caliph of Bagdad comes and observes
the Vikings in Scandinavia. The representative name is Ahmad ibn-Fadlan and this story is
base on what he wrote in his journal about the northsmen. Ahmad goes into a Viking
camp where there leader has just died and his predecessor Buliwyf decide to allow Ahmad
to stay and observe. Then something happens and the king Rothgar send his son to tell
Buliwyf that he is needed if the far country. Ahmad is chosen as one of the thirteen
warriors that will travel to this far of land and fight. Once in the land of Rothgar, Buliwyf
and his men are treated to a feast, but then that night the mist rolls in and the eaters of the
dead attack Rothgars hall where Buliwyf and his men detour there attack. A while later
Buliwyf decides to go and attack the eaters of the dead but find that they have left there
homes to go to the thunder caves. This is were Buliwyf and his men defeat the eater of the
dead once and for all. Michael Crichton does a lot of things well in this book, such as the way he is able
to have a story going on and add facts about the Vikings custom and ways of life. This
was very interesting because you were getting more than just a story out of it, you gain
knowledge. Having more knowledge about how Vikings live helps to build to the theme
buy knowing what they were afraid of or what they valued. Because this story is base on
a journal of a man, it is very will done in the fact that it never starts to be like a research
book. a thing that could have been better were the foot notes. These often were long and
confusing by the time you were finished reading it you forgot what you had read. The
author could have shorten them up and made them more straight forward. The theme is
clear, it is to learn more about the Vikings and not to look at them as barbarians but as
different kinds of people. This is shown at the end of the book when Ahmad is saddened
when leaving the Vikings and, instead of calling them uncivilized as he does in the
begining of the book, he realizes that they are as civilized as the Arabs, if not more.
Overall this book had a very clear theme and every thing related to that.
Rating:
Summary: Beowulf "Demythologized"
Review: Crichton sets out to do the impossible, to recapture the truth behind the Beowulf legend in the form of a fiction narrative. He accomplishes his purpose by introducing an historical figure (Ibn Faladan) into the story as narrator. A real life Arab joins forces with a mythological Viking to do battle against the hypothetical prototypes of legendary monsters. How's that again? Oddly enough, the story works. Not quite as well as it could have, but the plot sweeps you along to Beowulf's foreordained glorious death. Contrary to his source, Crichton makes Beowulf one of the Rus (the Viking invaders of Dark Ages Russia). He has to do this to get Beowulf together with Ibn Faladan, who traveled in Russia a century or two after Beowulf's death. You can't really complain about Crichton's disrespect for his sources. After all, this IS a work of fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Great storytelling -- a must read
Review: First half of book - I find Michael Crichton's The 13th Warrior to be an informative and entertaining book. There are several features that make the book enjoyable. The first feature is the introduction. The introduction provides us with valuable information about the history of the story. We are provided with a brief listing of its translations as well as background information about the original author, Ibn Fadlan, and those whom he wrote about, the Northmen a.k.a. the Vikings. The second helpful feature is Crichton's use of footnotes. The footnotes help the reader to understand problematic vocabulary and also provide historical context. The third feature that strengthens the book is Crichton's careful editing of the Fraus-Dolus translation. Crichton tells us that he removed unnecessary or rambling lines from the text, and adapted the sentence structure to that of modern English. Such editing makes the story more easily understood and enjoyed. The final feature, which I think adds the most to the story, is the incredible storytelling of Ibn Fadlan. Fadlan does a concise yet complete job of portraying nearly every aspect of daily life in all of the cultures that he encounters. In addition, he compares and contrasts each culture to his own, in an effort to learn and appreciate as much as possible about those he interacts with. Fadlan describes people, places, and events in an unbiased, serious, and detailed tone which allows the reader to form his own opinion about the story. The introduction, the footnotes, Crichton's editing, and Fadlan's masterful storytelling make The 13th Warrior informative and engaging.
Second half of book - I enjoyed the second half of The 13th Warrior. In this part of the book we learn more about the Northmen culture through Ibn Fadlan's discussions with his translator Herger. These discussions are particularly informative because Ibn compares his own culture with the Northmen culture, so the reader is able to get a real sense of exactly how Ibn felt. Ibn does an excellent job of dissecting the Northmen's way of life as he sees it. He puts the reader in the shoes of the Northmen as well as himself in various stages of the story so we view certain situations from several points of view. The one aspect of this book that I enjoy and appreciate the most is Ibn's relentless pursuit of unbiased and accurate reporting. Throughout the story he reminds the reader that he viewed events first hand (i.e. "I saw with my own eyes..."), and almost constantly uses the word "verily" which means "in truth" or "in fact." It seems as if Ibn knows that his writings will be read and studied for many years to come. In conclusion, it comes as little surprise that Ibn's work has become so celebrated.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better
Review: It's an easy read--findished it in two days. Good story that just seemed to plod along. Very liitle action and adventure but the "history" which served as the backdrop of the story helped to speed the pace up a bit. Overall, it's not the worst book by Crichton but is no where near his best book--"The Lost World."
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, See the Movie, too.
Review: I enjoyed the movie so much that I wanted to read the book. I was not disappointed.
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