Saturday Dad Reads Week of May 2

Welcome to this week’s edition! Here’s what we’ve got lined up

• 📕 This week’s selection: Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

• 🧑‍🦰 Author Bio: Michael Crichton

• 💣️ Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Viking metal - Amon Amarth

• 🚚 This week’s Dad Rant: Amazon Drivers

Summary

In 910, the Arab ambassador Ibn Fadlan was tasked with being a diplomatic envoy to the Bulgars and to bridge a divide between the Muslim Middle East and Eastern Europe. He never fulfilled his original mission. Rather, he falls in with a group of Norsemen, better known to us as Vikings, and journeys with them far from the confines of the the Middle East and Eastern Europe into the Norse homeland of northwestern Europe. Along the way Ibn Fadlan recounts his travels giving a profound look into the ways and means of Viking culture and an early ethnography; a truly groundbreaking and unique journey for his time. Along the way, he will encounter political intrigue, sail the North Sea and discover what strikes fear into the hearts of the most blood-thirsty and battle-hardened Viking warriors.

📕 Review (Contains Spoilers)

There have been 2 times in my life where I felt really foolish relative to historical sources. The first was in an Islamic history class where I mistakenly put a photo of the founder of a historical movement in a presentation and received a prompt dressing-down from my professor because photography hadn’t been invented at the time the movement started.

Fast forward a few decades when I’m reading this book. Michael Crichton had me. He really did. He had me believing that I was actually reading the primary source (albeit with annotations) travelogue of an Islamic envoy in the 900s. Well played, sir!

However, the hints were there all along. The narrator, Ibn Fadlan, consistently states: “All of this is true, for I saw it with my own eyes.” That should’ve been a dead giveaway right there. Anyone who has to assure you as to the veracity of their claims should almost immediately be placed under suspicion. Nevertheless, he had me hooked, thinking the whole thing to be a work of non-fiction and then all of a sudden, Ibn Fadlan and his Viking companions begin their talk of interacting with dwarves casting magic weapons while living in the thunder caves.

Despite my own foolishness and once I came down from having been had, it was very easy to appreciate what Michael Crichton has done with this book. Taking inspiration from a boring experience while reading Beowulf, Crichton created a story where the lines between fact and fiction are incredibly blurred.

There are scenes of great suspense such as when Ibn Fadlan and his party reach Jutland, only to find the town destroyed. When thinking about asking what happened, Fadlan is told: “Don’t ask, you’ll soon see,” and finds that his companions have a distinct fear of the mists surrounding the town and what might lurk within it. He also notices there are no walls protecting the town from the sea. The walls only protect from the landward side of the town.

More importantly, Crichton creates moments throughout the book that are profound and makes the reader grapple with the realities of the 10th century world. For example, the Vikings ask Ibn Fadlan if he can “draw sounds,” capturing their skepticism with is ability to write versus their spoken language. While at sea, Ibn Fadlan is fascinated by a group of sea monsters (most likely a pod whales), but one wonders at what that experience was like for someone from a landlocked region of the world. Perhaps most importantly, in the writing of Ibn Fadlan, Crichton forces us to overtly and subconsciously reckon with the reliability of sources and translations from events in the past. Case in point, being duped myself into thinking I was reading an actual manuscript.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. It was a quick read that, given a free weekend, you could start on Friday night and finish by Sunday afternoon. Additionally, Simon Vance does a fantastic narration on the Audible version.

Saturday Dad Score: ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ - You’re going to want to give yourself a few hours of alone time. Fill that bad boy up 4 times and buckle up.

🧑‍🦰 Author Spotlight: Michael Crichton

💣️ Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Viking Metal

🚚 This Week’s Dad Rant: Amazon Delivery Drivers

I’ll keep this one fairly short and simple this week. I’ve never had a probably with delivery drivers. Outside of ordering something and having it delivered by UPS or Fed Ex, my only complaint would be that I’m not paying someone to do something I’m perfectly capable of doing myself (I’ll drive 20-30 minutes to pick up my pizza before I order delivery). However, with the exponential growth of Amazon in the post-pandemic world, their ubiquitous staff of delivery drivers had begun to draw my ire.

To begin, I can’t stand the look of the new delivery vans. They look like they belong in the pages of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. That mental image conjures a scary connection. In Brave New World, the way to cure all your ailments and make yourself feel better was to “pop a soma.” In our world we’re more apt to say, “Order something nice for yourself. Amazon will make it better.”

Secondly, and most importantly, the drivers of these monstrosities have little to no regard for the conventions of local traffic laws. I understand that they have to meet a quota and rapid delivery speed has everything to do with Amazon’s business model. But at what cost? Case in point, every day I travel a moderately to very busy stretch of a four lane road that winds its way through the outskirts of Pittsburgh. In this stretch of road, there is no on street parking for good reason. Recently, on a drive home, I noticed all of the cars in front of me slam on their brakes and begin to go out around another vehicle that just happened to be an Amazon van. The driver had stopped completely and suddenly in the midst of 2 lanes of traffic moving at 45 miles per hour to run out of his van to leave a package at the doorstep of a house. Meanwhile, the turn off to a side street with abundant parking was a mere yards away. On the other hand, I’ve had the experience of coming down a side street only to have my path forward blocked by an Amazon van while the driver ran up and down the sidewalk trying to find the right house to drop the package at (I also use the term “drop” loosely here; it was more of an underhand toss).

In the end, everyone needs to make a living and these drivers are just doing their job to take care of themselves and their families. I get it. But at the same time, let’s be smart people. No job is worth driving around a weird van while compromising your safety.

Saturday Dad’s Top 5: coming soon!