Book: Eaters of the Dead (Michael Crichton)

I bought this book quite sometimes ago, from either a flea market last year or from brasbasah complex. This is the third Michael Crichton's book that I read, after the State of Fear and the Sphere. Precisely, I took about 10 hours to read this 200+ pages novel, and finished them on 28th January.

The introduction of the book is quite interesting, or maybe to some people, boring. It is not exactly a novel out of the imagination of Crichton. It is just a re-write of the manuscript by Ibn Fadhlan, an Arab who travelled all the way to the land of the Northmen in the 10th century. It is fascinating, because it discussed about how the original manuscript is lost, how the manuscript is being translated to many languages, how they are being copied and recopied, and some contains more description than the others, how scholars argued about which is the correct interpretation stated in the original arabic texts (which is lost), and so on. Isn't it similar to the Bible? :)

Passing through the introduction, as I began to read the first chapters, I started to feel that I have known the story before. Yes, this book of 1970s was actually put on show by Holliwood in a movie: The 13th Warrior, featuring Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadhlan as the Arab.

The story started with the Arab having a carnal relationship with a rich merchant's beautiful, and as a result was sent by the Caliph to the North for Mission (to propagate Islam religion, for it was booming then in the 10th century). Along the way, he met the Northmen or the Vikings.

Incidentally, there was a disaster in the lands of the Vikings, and a messenger was sent to ask for this group of Viking warriors to go back to eliminate the evils called Wendols. A team of 13 people was selected, 12 warriors + the Arab, who knew not their tongues and cannot really communicate with them, and very much displeased with their food and how they treated their slavewomen so liberally and openly.

The cut the long story short, the Arab was able to communicate to them afterall, because one of the warriors knew a common language. They arrived in the troubled kingdom, saw headless corpses everywhere. People partying everynight and get themselves drunken, for they dare not face the evil lurks by night who killed people and carried off their heads.

It appears, that the evils, or Wendols as they are called are quite humanlike. They have bigger head, shorter posture, but stronger arms and legs. They liked to feast on human brains and thus the attacks on the Viking villages whenever the mists are there to cover their trails.

In the midst of their mission, they encountered and sought helps from the Dwarfs (Apparently Dwarfs was real in the 10th century). They won the battle, though only 4 of them survived including the Arab. The Arab, having promised the Leader of the Warriors to write down the accounts, produced this manuscript.

As a Post Discussion, the questions were raised by Crichton, who are the Wendols? many of the things written by Ibn Fadhlan are proven true and correct based on archaelogical discoveries. Even the locations or towns, the cultures described, etc. By implication, the mention of dwarfs and wendols must be true as well. It is decidedly thought that Wendols are in fact the Neanderthal man, who were thought to be extinct, but in fact, actually continued to live, perhaps up to the 10th century.

Overall, not an overly fantastic book to read, not much new philosophy, but it gives some insights about cross cultural missions to a certain extent. Read this book if you have time :)