A quick, fun and informative read.

I love the movie, so I thought I'd give the book a try. I never thought I'd say this - the movie is better. Or rather, the movie reproduced the book almost verbatim, but the writing was so dry I needed a month to finish it while the movie is... well, the movie - fun and over in less than two hours.

A fun riff on Beowulf, academic writing, archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, and textual criticism that also happens to be a rip-snorting adventure novel. Long review/appreciation at my blog here.

First read sometime way back in high school. Reread in July 2020. Listened to the audiobook narrated by Simon Vance, September 2021.

3.5 ⭐ Overall an interesting blend of fact and fabrication that retells the classic of Beowulf

Very well done if you understand Crichton's purpose...,

I think that the confusion with this book arises from the fact that people don't understand what Crichton accomplished. This is a retelling of Beowulf, in a first person, narrative, entertaining form.
The narrator, Ibn Fadlan, is an actual Muslim writer from the 10th century. The first 3 chapters of this book are actually from his original narrative. Crichton then moves from there in to the fictional portion, using Fadlan as a first hand observer of the events surrounding the Beowulf story.
Considering how dreadful Beowulf was (admittedly mainly due to barriers of time, language and perception of what is entertaining), Crichton has accomplished a very difficult task. He has rewritten a very long, very boring epic and made it concise, easy to digest and entertaining.

I hated Beowulf; I found it to be dreadful, boring and longwinded.

This is a wonderful retelling of the story. I highly recommend that any lover of historical fiction read this book.

If you are a fan of Crichton's more mainstream work (i.e. Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, etc.) you may want to read a few more reviews and see if you can find a snippet of this story online as it is completely different from his other works. The closest novel of Crichton's that I could compare this to would be Timeline and even that is a stretch because Timeline involved Sci-Fi type elements where this is strictly a narrative from the 10th century.

I heartily enjoyed this and was only put off by the ending which just ended. Seriously, be prepared because there is no ending. The book just stops and moves on with an appendix, a historical note and a bibliography. That was a bit annoying. I don't remember if Beowulf did the same.

Still, very well done, very entertaining and very good historical fiction.

A quick read perfect for summer.

The true account of Ibn Fadlan's meeting with the Vikings in 921AD, the earliest known eyewitness account of Viking life and society.

This is taken from secondary sources which quote his long gone manuscript.

I kept having to remind myself that this is a true story. The way he describes the sea monsters aka whales is quite fascinating. Seeing something we find so common though someone else's eyes is pretty cool.

The dwarf village and the high cultural status they had back then was also fascinating.

Then there is the attack of the Wendols or the Eaters of the Dead. I won't spoil it for you, dear reader. But its pretty damn good.

Oh and there is a movie based on this "The Thirteenth Warrior" with Antonio Banderas (sexy).
My favorite scene is how they depict him slowly learning the Viking language.

Quando Michael Crichton pensou em recontar o mito de Beowulf, quis fazê-lo através dos olhos de um estrangeiro que pudesse, com isenção, ser cronista de uma civilização bárbara nos costumes e na guerra. Escolheu, pois, a pessoa perfeita: Ibn Fadlan, diplomata árabe e personagem histórica, que empreendeu uma viagem aos Países do Norte, vindo do centro social e cultural que era a Bagdad do séc. X.

Michael Crichton foi beber dos registos que ainda hoje sobrevivem dos manuscritos onde Ibn Fadlan documentou a sua viagem, para imitar a sua forma de escrever e descrever tão peculiar, para nos apresentar este Mito Nórdico de uma forma incrivelmente natural. Foi como se eu, tal como o nosso narrador, visse com os meus próprios olhos, não só o reconto de uma lenda, mas também os hábitos dos Bárbaros do Norte, esse povo de grandes e assolapadas paixões.

Com amor pela guerra e sem medo da morte, os nossos guerreiros são levados a enfrentar um mal primordial, sendo o nosso cronista escolhido como décimo terceiro guerreiro. E apesar de não saber existir um lutador dentro de si, este já ficcionado Ibn Fadlan vai encontrar muitas outras razões que fazem um homem rico e importante na luta, na vida e na morte.

Genre: Mythology

A very unique way to write a story, Crichton uses a mix of actual historical documentation and personalised fiction to blend two classic stories together into his own work of hitorical fantasy.

This book overlaps the stories of Beowulf and the documented adventures of historical writer Ahmed ibn Fadlan and merges them into an original story written in the style of Ibn Fadlan's travelogue. 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 apply, which is that he got us all to read a readaption of Beowulf, 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.

I enjoyed the movie the '13th warrior' much better.

Книжката е ОК, но пренасянето ѝ на голям екран е просто фантастично - гледал съм филма сигурно десетина пъти, без да ми омръзне!

Awful. Don’t waste your time. Much despised gory violence. 0 of 10 stars!

За пореден път Крайтън ме изненада с богатото си въображение и неплиткотата на ума си.