Eaters of the Dead was allegedly written as the result of a bet.1 One of Crichton’s friends gave a lecture about why Beowulf was boring. Crichton disagreed, saying that it was just down to the presentation. If told in an exciting way, he argued, it would be a gripping, fascinating story which modern readers would enjoy. Eaters was the result.
It’s not one of Crichton’s most popular books: it certainly never had anywhere near the same level of success as Jurassic Park, Timeline, Congo or Rising Sun. Contemporary reviews were not kind to it, calling it "diverting but disappointing".
I have to admit, I hadn’t read it until recently. I’ve seen the 1999 film adaptation with Antonio Banderas, The 13th Warrior, many times, and I think it’s a fine movie, but like the book, it never enjoyed much commercial success, and lost over $40m at the box office.
I think Eaters deserves better. From a storytelling perspective, it’s masterfully done.
Crichton presents the story as the journal of an Arabic traveller, Ibn Fadlan. To make this work, he employs four narrative techniques. What’s really impressive is that it would be really easy to do them badly (and most writers do), but Crichton nails every one of them perfectly.
The introduction: he starts by presenting this as a real, authentic account. He adopts the persona of an academic researcher, and he talks about the finding of the manuscript, translation issues, and so on. Of course, this isn’t a new technique: writers have always employed the fiction of their story being true. But Crichton does it far better than most. He provides enough convincing (and verifiable) details of history, geography, and linguistics that you find yourself willing to suspend your disbelief.
Authentic journal content: something I hadn’t realized is that Ibn Fadlan was a real person. He really did embark on the trip that Crichton uses as his starting point, and he really did write a journal. And Crichton uses that shamelessly. He quotes extensively from Ibn Fadlan’s actual writings, which add to the feeling of authenticity and help us slide into his world. We can understand how he feels about the Rus and the Norse, and his mixture of disdain, disgust and admiration.
Footnotes and commentary: throughout the story, Crichton maintains his academic persona with little notes on the text. He talks about different translations of the text, and different interpretations of what Ibn Fadlan may have meat. He disputes some of the things Ibn Fadlan says, and points out inconsistencies in the story or ways in which modern scholarship contradicts him. On occasion, Crichton simply omits or paraphrases bits of the narrative, which serves to create a sense that there’s more background to the story that we’re not being told, but keeps the story moving by assuring us that we’re not missing anything important. As before, he mixes up the authentic and the fictional, which further blurs the boundary between the real world of Ibn Fadlan and Crichton’s story.
References: and then finally, Crichton quotes his sources. Most of them are genuine. Some aren’t. But he does it well enough that university libraries keep getting requests to see his fictitious manuscripts.
It’s also a wonderful story - after all, it is Beowulf! Crichton gets Ibn Fadlan’s style perfectly, and offers a fantastic new perspective on an old classic. I think it’s far and away his best work. (Sorry, Jurassic Park fans.)
What I’m taking away from this more than anything is the skillful blending of the different narrative voices: the writer and the storyteller. It’s the equivalent of all those 19th century stories that start with an explanation of how the author came to hear the story that they’re about to relate. (“We were trapped in an inn during a storm on our way to Paris, where we met this mysterious stranger who told me….” you know the type of thing I mean.)
Most of the time, those come across as clumsy, contrived, and unnecessary. Just tell the damn story, don’t try to make me believe that it’s real. But Eaters of the Dead works.
Rather like L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, but with a lot less impact on the world.