Pablo Wegesend
LIS 605
Dr. Donna Blair-Mundy
Extra-credit
Analysis of “Fooling LC: Michael Crichton and ‘Eaters of the Dead’”
This journal article was about the mistaken classification of Michael Crichton’s novel
“Eaters of the Dead” as non-fiction by the Library of Congress.
Michael Crichton is a well-known author of fiction novels with scientific themes. His
novels included “Jurassic Park”, “Andromeda Strain”, “Terminal Man”, and “Binary”. However,
at the time when “Eaters of the Dead” was published (1976), Crichton was moderately known as
an author, but didn’t yet achieve the fame that would come later.
The “Eaters of the Dead” was written about the travels of an emissary from Baghdad who
traveled up north to the Viking’s territory. That emissary, named Ahmad ibn Fadlan, was a real
person. His travel to the Viking’s territory did happen in real life. However, the book “Eaters of
the Dead” was meant to be historical fiction.
So why did the Library of Congress cataloguers assumed that the “Eaters of the Dead”
was a non-fiction book? Possible reasons included the subtitle calling itself a “manuscript”, the
writing style of the introduction giving the historical background of the story, and the using of
citations at the end of the book (with a mix of real and fake sources) as well as list of reference
works.
Citation:
Lonergan, David. 1998. "Fooling LC: Michael Crichton and 'Eaters of the Dead'." Behavioral & Social
Sciences Librarian 16, no. 2: 63-72. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost
(accessed April 8, 2013).