by Michael Crichton
aka The 13th Warrior (1976)
Publisher: Avon
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It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices.
As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.
The book tells the story of an Arab ambassador Ibn Fadlan, as he traveled from Baghdad and hooked up with a bunch of Vikings trying to rid a land of a monstrous terror. Here Crichton forms a holy matrimony between facts and legends, as he seamlessly combines the accounts of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, a famous 10th-century Arab traveler, with the legend of Beowulf, the Viking warrior who fought against the unholy monsters. The history diverges into a “What if” story when Ibn Fadlan is forced to join warrior Buliwyf and his company’s quest to the north. Their mission? To protect the lands and defeat the deadly mist monsters.
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