Review: The Return of the Gods by Erich von Däniken

With over 140 photographs, specially designed maps, models, and drawings, Von Däniken applies the same fact-filled analysis to Nazca that launched his 1968 Chariots of the Gods to continuous bestsellerdom. 

He reports on his many visits to the lost civilization of Nazca, an ancient, isolated settlement deep in the Peruvian desert. He analyzes aerial views and closeups of extraordinary markings that stretched across the land for miles, forming complex shapes and designs unnoticed from the ground but unmistakable from the air. 

How could primitive people have achieved such an amazing feat? Von Däniken concludes: Forget the theories about religious rituals, irrigation systems, and astrological calendars; these are creations of extraterrestrials. Impossible to explain or even envision from the ground, the mile-long "landing strip," the curious etchings of beasts, and the immense geometric designs and giant mandalas are simple to execute--if their creators could see them from the air.

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From my personal collection.

I picked up this audiobook edition free from Tantor audiobooks. All I can say is thankfully it was free!

The premise is just crazy and the author comes across as a complete nutjob.

After about the first chapter I just pretended that it was the science fiction it sounded like and it became much more enjoyable. Most of it was amusing, and the whole discussion of "alien abductee" rights being ignored by their alien abductors was just so darn funny I actually laughed out loud. By that point it had become almost a scene from Jose Chung's From Outer Space!

★★☆☆☆ = Just Okay