Just finished this and was wondering if anyone know how much of this is based on historical fact. Was there really an Arab who wrote this stuff down somewhere, and Crichton just made up a story from that or was it all fiction?

Also, you gotta love the end

It was entirely fictional. A very interesting story, and I thought it was too bad the movie seemed to butcher the book.
The writing style combined with the Arab journalling who he saw and met reminded me of Marco Polo's "Description of the World."

I've also been told the book is based on Beowolf, but I've never read that.

If its all fiction, crichton does a really good job. He puts footnotes about language that dont really have much to do with the story to make it look authentic.

At least in my edition, there's an entire section where Crichton indicates that it is clearly fiction in the afterword. All those footnotes are accurate, though!

I think the most interesting passages of the book were those dealing with cultural/anthropological issues. How the vikings lived, etc. The movie did as well as it could to incorporate those elements while still "paying the bills" with big action scenes.

Same in mine. The story is fictional, but the customs, and the ways of life are accurate.

The absolute best thing about Crichton is the way he treats his fiction as if it was non-fiction... makes his stories much more compelling somehow.

I hate the way the movie TOTALLY changed the creatures into something more human than what they were in the book.

Versimilitude. Great Word. Look it up.

Anyway, it is definitely based on Beowulf. And I'm not sure if the writer he cites is fictional. Most of the book is clearly fictional, but the idea of an Islamic scholar or any Arab going out and doing something like that is not- there are Arab "ethnographies" of the Vikings and such, and I think the name he used may be real. I just don't remember what he called the guy.. Ibn something I'm sure.

Don't blame the movie
 

I know it's a Book Talk forum. But Michael Crichton took the directorial reins and re-shot sizable chunks of the movie (after some sort of displeasure with McTiernans work). And I still like it.

I still liked the movie a lot.

Too bad Tony Shaloub didn't play Ibn...

This was a great book and the movie was pretty good as well.

Ibn Fadlan was a real person, but Chrichton's story is very much fictional. Check out this site for Fadlan's story
http://www.vikinganswerlady.org/ibn_fdln.htm#Risala
and look around the site for more info.
Eaters of the Dead is my favorite Chrichton book. The comparison of the cultures is great and something that would be difficult to capture in a movie. I was dissapointed in the movie for this reason but I shouldn't have had ny hopes up so high. We all know the book will be better than the movie.
By the way, Chrichton's Timeline is obviously action-oriented and should translate easily to the screen easily in the movie being made.