1992, Ballantine Books, paperback

Released on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 at N/A in Send By Mail, Traded with another Bookcrosser Controlled Releases.

Off to fellow BCer Karschtl in Vienna.
Ab zu BCer Karschtl in Wien.

War ebenfalls in dem kleinen Crichton-Goodie-Päckchen.
Auch hier habe ich erst vor kurzem gelesen, dass Crichton die Vorlage zum Film "Der 13. Krieger" geschrieben hat. Der Titel des Buches hört sich etwas 'grausamer' an.
Ich bin einmal mehr überrascht, in wie viele verschiedene Genres Crichton sich auszukennen scheint. Medizin, Justiz, alle erdenklichen Arten von Naturwissenschaften, Computertechnik, Elektronik, Geschichte. Dieser Roman hier beschäftigt sich mit unserer sehr "frühen" Geschichte vor mehr als 1000 Jahren.

from Amazon:
Michael Crichton takes the listener on a one-thousand-year-old journey in his adventure novel Eaters Of The Dead. This remarkable true story originated from actual journal entries of an Arab man who traveled with a group of Vikings throughout northern Europe. In 922 A.D, Ibn Fadlan, a devout Muslim, left his home in Baghdad on a mission to the King of Saqaliba. During his journey, he meets various groups of "barbarians" who have poor hygiene and gorge themselves on food, alcohol and sex. For Fadlan, his new traveling companions are a far stretch from society in the sophisticated "City of Peace." The conservative and slightly critical man describes the Vikings as "tall as palm trees with florid and ruddy complexions." Fadlan is astonished by their lustful aggression and their apathy towards death. He witnesses everything from group orgies to violent funeral ceremonies. Despite the language and cultural barriers, Ibn Fadlan is welcomed into the clan. The leader of the group, Buliwyf (who can communicate in Latin) takes Fadlan under his wing.
Without warning, the chieftain is ordered to haul his warriors back to Scandinavia to save his people from the "monsters of the mist." Ibn Fadlan follows the clan and must rise to the occasion in the battle of his life.

PS: Buliwulf hört sich ja verdammt nach Beowulf an, der Held des ältesten literarischen Textes in englischer Sprache das heute noch existiert. Auch er war ein skandinavischer Krieger, lebte allerdings bereits im 6. Jahrhundert. Vielleicht hat Crichton seine Romangestalt dennoch daran angelehnt, wäre ja mal sehr interessant das herauszufinden.

My Review:

First of all I have to say that I was right about my guess regarding the link between Beowulf and Buliwyf. Chrichton indeed wrote this book as the "predecessor" of the more poetic text of "Beowulf". In the prologue he claims that the whole book is a translation of a manuscript written by the Arab Ibn Fadlan written more than 1000 years ago. Thus the style is more like a travel account than a novel, and also sounds old-fashioned.
However, in the afterword Crichton reveals that although there exists a manuscript of a certain man called Ibd Fadlan, the novel is mainly ficticious.

The book is a simple adventure story, warriors setting out to kill the threatening beast. Not the thing I would normally read, I guess I read it only because I like Crichton so much. I have to admit that he did a great job in pretending this is a 1000 year old travel account, a good exercise in style. I found it also very interesting that 1000 years ago Baghdad was the "City of Peace" where the most civilized people lived whereas todays Europe was inhabited by rather barbaric tribes.

RELEASE NOTES:

Wird zur Ladies Night, Thema "Filmbücher", mitgenommen.

got this from ladies night bc meetup at oh pot, oh pot! on friday june 17th

RELEASE NOTES:

i'm taking this to bookcrossings ladies' night at oh pot, oh pot! this evening.

As I've really enjoyed "Prey" and "Timeline" a lot, I had to take this book home too.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

on the shelves of the OBCZ in the No-Smoking-room

waiting patiently for a new reader :-)

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

OBCZ Café Einstein - am shelf

If you are new to BookCrossing and find this book... Welcome! Enjoy the book, the site and the BookCrossing community of book lovers.
You can join Bookcrossing, which is free -- or you can remain anonymous. Either way, I hope you make a journal entry for this book letting us know where it is now.
Feel free to read and keep this book, or to pass it on to a friend or even set it back out “into the wild“ for someone else to find like you did.
Thanks and enjoy the book,
CafeEinstein

Taken today from the OBCZ shelf. One of my favourite authors, I did not discover this book on the shelf before!

Wow - I really am woundering, why I have not read this book before. In fact, I just read the first 3 chapters (about 50 pages) of the book and the plot really was familiar to me, but I just could not rememer why...

... until I read on the back of the book, that this book was also published as "the 13th warrior", which I read already years ago. And I really was disappointed, because it had far too little plot for my taste and far too much discribing (the reason why I do not like most Stephen King books). It was so boring, I was waiting all the time for a turn in the story, which makes it really interesting. I am not much into history.

I am a great fan of other books of this author, like "Lost World", "Jurassic Park" and "Airframe", but I completely disliked this one. Hopefully there will be lots of other readers liking this book.

This book was released next to the cementry "Leopoldau", where all the statues / stones for soldiers who died in WW II are located at a bench. This is a theme release - as the other titel of the book is "The 13th warrior", as which it is also known as a movie.


Liebe Finderin, lieber Finder!

Ich wünsche dir viel Spaß mit diesem Buch. Schön, dass du es bis hierher geschafft hast. Es wäre toll, wenn du einen kurzen Eintrag machen würdest, in dem du beschreibst, wie das Buch zu dir gekommen ist, wie es dir gefallen hat, und was du nach dem Lesen damit machen möchtest. Das geht alles kostenlos und anonym (wenn du willst, auch ohne Registrierung).
Wenn du deutschsprachige Hilfe brauchst, findest du diese unter: www.bookcrossing.at.tf

Danke für ein Lebenszeichen dieses Buches.


Dear finder,
thank you for visiting this webpage. Please leave a quick note how the book came into your life and what you plan to do next with the book. It's ok if you want to keep it or pass it on to friends or family. Leaving a journal entry is free, spam-free and you can remain totally anonymus if you wish (you need no registration to make entries only). Thank you!