4 ms·
Not a big Crichton fan (most of his books spend the first half explaining how smart everyone is, and the second half is always those smart people making terribl
by VonGuard 12y ago
Not a big Crichton fan (most of his books spend the first half explaining how smart everyone is, and the second half is always those smart people making terribly stupid decisions) BUT, Crichton did write Eaters of the Dead, a book that is about exactly what this article talks about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaters_of_the_Dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaters_of_the_Dead
The story follows a Muslim who is sent as an emissary to the Vikings, and all the craziness that follows. It was also a movie: the 13th Warrior. It's a great story, not terribly well executed. The culture clash is the most interesting part, particularly when the Muslim lead is asked to "draw words," because his people have a system of writing, and the Vikings don't.
I read somewhere the Crichton was basing this on some 10th century writings from some fellow who actually made this journey, but I can find no more references to it online....
- gadders 12y agoIt's based on the writings of Ibn Fahad, also posted by someone else below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan And I love the Eaters of the Dead. It's not high art, but I found it an enjoyable read (once you realise that most of the footnotes are fake).
- VonGuard 12y agoYeah, Crichton can be fun as long as you take him as pulp, not as some genius expert on the topics he writes about.
- gadders 12y agoI think a lot of his books consist of finding something people are anxious about (Japanese Takeover of America - Rising Sun; Sexual Harassment of Men - Disclosure; Prey - Nanotechnology; Westworld - Robots) and then write a book about it. Plus, he also did ER as well which was pretty entertaining.
- benihana 12y agoI recently re-read Jurassic Park, and he showed a lot of knowledge about complex systems. He details the events leading up to the collapse of the park's control systems, and the local rationality of actions characters take make perfect sense. The chapters were structured to either end on a cliffhanger, or stop right before some kind of action was bout to be taken, so it has a pulp feel to it. But the underlying themes and attention to detail made me think he's quite intelligent and insightful, and capable of writing in a way that people want to read.
- maxerickson 12y agoI was about 14 when I read it, I was so mad when I read the afterword, particularly: Under the circumstances, I should perhaps say explicitly that the references in this afterword are genuine. The rest of the novel, including its introduction, text, footnotes, and bibliography, should properly be viewed as fiction. It didn't lead me to invest any wasted effort or anything, but I had bought into the footnotes being truthful.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoAnd don't forget The Long Ships [1] which is another book about this period. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Ships http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Ships