Customer Reviews

The Gods Were Astronauts: Evidence of the True Identities of the Old 'Gods'

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This review is for the audio version, purchased at Audible.

While Erich von Daniken's material is EXCELLENT and definitely worthy of 5 stars, the narrator was so bad (IMO) that I am having a hard time finishing this one. It may just be a personal idiosyncrasy, but I think this narrator does a great job of making the material seem BORING, with his antiquated non-expressive reading and phony-sounding radio-announcer voice... makes my ears gloss over after just a few minutes and leaves my mind wandering. It reminds of the most boring of educational films I saw in school as a kid... like the ones from the 1950s... awful!

I am going to buy the Kindle version (I hope there is a Kindle version!) of this book and read it myself, as I know the content is fascinating - I just can't stomach the narration. Wish I could give this book the 5 stars that the book deserves, but with this narrator, I just can't.

The other Erich von Danikon audio-book (Twilight of the Gods) that I purchased at the same time as this one is EXCELLENT (as is the narrator) and I do plan on purchasing at least one more (probably more) of this author's audio-books - but will definitely listen to the samples first to make sure the narrator is good!

This book seems to be a collection of scattered thoughts that have only a small thread of commonality, and it's not all about ancient astronauts.

Von Daniken begins by describing his own concept of what "God" is, namely an infallible, timeless, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual being. He then points out some of the inconsistencies of the Old Testament that contradict this concept, and concludes that the Biblical God can't be the real deal. All this has been covered before by others, though he doesn't get into the specifics of god comparisons that authors like Sitchin have done.

Chapter two deals with apparitions and miracles associated with Mary, the Mother of God. He says that any theologian worth his PhD knows Jesus wasn't God, therefore there's no Mother of God, therefore these miracles must be caused by someone else. He suggests that perhaps there's an extraterrestrial power at work doing this stuff. Uh huh... OK, Erich.

By now you're half way through the book (there's only 4 chapters), and nothing's been said about gods from space.

Chapter three talks about the religion and archetecture of the country of Myanmar (Burma). It seems their temples all look like golden spaceships or something. (Yawn)

The last chapter is the meat of the book, where he writes about the gods of ancient India, and the tremendous volumes of stories that exist in their literature. Flying craft the size of cities, celestial battles and outrageous weapons of the gods. That's what I bought the book for, but I'm not sure it was worth the price.

Throughout this book, Von Daniken gets on his soap box and preaches about how the scientific, religious, and media communities squash any free thinking that falls outside the mainstream. The Vatican lies about what they know (really?), Archeologists hide anything that could counter conventional thought, etc, etc. Yes, we know this. But (sorry, Mr. Von Daniken), nobody who reads this book will ever be able to change that.

Von Däniken has an interesting theory about the ancient gods. It is a theory worth reading and thinking about. No one knows what the true is; maybe the Bible is right, maybe von Däniken, maybe.....

Sure the book is rather aimless for three quarters of the pages. Every single book you read in life can't be a work of art or 100 % entertainment. This book is a work of obscure passion but passion none-the-less. Erich is honest in his work. He never makes claims or statements that he can't back up. He presents the facts in ways that are at worst "unlikely" and at best " technically plausible". The bottom line on any of his work I think is how badly do you want to believe? If you are open minded, he can generally present a case for his beliefs that you can intellectually consider. If you require scientific proof along the way, don't waste your time. It's not really science nor meant to be. It's not really about religion except for in relation to his personal views of God. I have a soft spot for all his works because I grew up reading them. Very heady stuff for a kid :)

I read this trash-book here in Brazil.This book is so bad, that I didn't finished it.This book is absurd, ridiculous and senseless.Please, don't waste your money and time, reading this trash-book.