Worth Reading

Wow. Pretty much all you could wish for in an overview of the ancient astronaut sub-genre of science fiction, which thrived in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.  Nathan Schneider’s detailed examination of the phenomenon, which often incorporates an element of technological apocalypse, includes discussion of the Hebrew Bible; Garrett P. Serviss’s Edison’s Conquest of Mars (1898); H.P. Lovecraft’s work; the artist Lita Albuquerque’s installations at the Pyramids of Giza; Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods (1968); Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970); Zecharia Sitchin’s The 12th Planet (1976) and his End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (2007); Robert Temple’s The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence for Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago (1976); the religious movement begun by Claude Vorilhon (aka Raël), which was “based on what he claimed alien visitors had told him;” Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos novels; and other fascinating bits and pieces.