JESUS CHRIST, HEIR TO THE ASTRONAUTS by Gerhard R. Steinhäuser

I was staying at the Marriott

With Jesus and John Wayne

I was waiting for a chariot

They were waiting for a train

My ride's here ... though it's more of a metaphysical passage, more Morning of the Magicians than Chariots of the Gods?, and even though Steinhäuser's book postdates von Daniken, he's much more in tune with the esoteric authors like Pauwels, Bergier, and others that Erich was ripping off. In fact, reading through this volume, one is reminded of just how shabby, how lazy, how slapdash von Daniken's work was in comparison to his predecessors. For better of for worse, writers like Steinhäuser make you work for it!

Steinhäuser starts off with the basic question, was God an astronaut? We get the usual ancient art and architecture, the electric Ark of the Covenant, the "white" god Quetzalcoatl, and so on. But he goes a step further ... could it be that all of our major religions are outright massive cons, not simply garbled interpretations of gods from outer space but deliberate frauds perpetuated by priestly PR men simply borrowing aspects of the true alien visitors? Was Jesus simply a dime-a-dozen would-be prophet with the good (posthumous) luck of Peter and Paul shoring up his legacy with borrowed themes? 

It's the idea behind Christian/pagan/esoteric syncretism, but cast out further: Von Daniken used his science fiction gloss to try to shore up the Bible, while Steinhäuser aims to shred it to bits - though his introduction denies antagonism, saying the Churches are doing a good enough job of discrediting themselves!

Churches and temples are our own feeble attempt to replicate the wormhole gates that enabled the gods to travel across the universe without even needing spaceships - ritual doorways and gateways and arches are the key here, in Steinhäuser's view.

Steinhäuser tracks other potential alien influence through the ages and around the globe, asserting on page 123 that "the nearer the subsequent religious centres (e.g. in Egypt, Asia Minor, China and South America) were to the former "residences" of the gods, the clearer and more distinct is their tradition; the further away they were, and the less frequently they had contact with the gods (e.g. in northern Europe and North America) the more obscure and unintelligible are their traditions." 

One might also wonder if he simply has better access to sources to mine for those areas "closer" to the gods ...

Part of Steinhäuser's bibliography

Steinhäuser (1920-1989) wrote a handful of Ancient Astronaut texts, though this appears to be the only one ever translated into English.

Hardcover edition

I was staying at the Westin

I was playing to a draw

When in walked Charlton Heston

With the Tablets of the Law

He said "It's still the greatest story,"

I said, "Man, I'd like to stay

But I'm bound for glory,

I'm on my way."

My ride's here ... This title was translated into English by Susanne Flatauer and is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Coronet Books, 1976 (original pub. 1973)

THE WAVE by Christopher Hyde

What's worse than a tsunami? Try a nuclear tsunami! Actually, despite the fantastically flash cover art, THE WAVE isn't a tsunami at all, but a gigantic dam break wave surging down the Columbia River. And what's in its path but the aging Hanford Nuclear Waste site, which in this story is home to a brand spanking new breeder reactor - purely a fictional construct, thank goodness. The failure point is the Mica Dam in British Columbia, "one of the largest earthfill dams in the world" ... and different characters in this story fill us in on all the dangers this kind of dam construction entails, and all the corrupt/incompetent politicking that went on to get the Columbia River Treaty passed way back in 1961, which outlined Canada and the USA's hydroelectric responsibilities on said river. Author Christopher Hyde present a sadly all-too plausible disaster scenario in the best '70s thriller style, in line with the early work of Michael Chrichton. As the cover blurb says, THE WAVE isn't just fiction, it's tomorrow headlines!

Hyde does his best work around the circumstances of the creeping disaster, both physical and political. We get a crash course on the Vajont Dam disaster of 1963, which claimed over 2,000 souls in Italy, and the aforementioned outline on the political scene leading to the Mica Dam's construction. Meanwhile, simple passages on a single pebble rolling down hill or ripples lapping at the dam become sublime, loaded with the quiet threat of what we know to come. Hyde does less well with the requisite '70s thriller conspiracy elements, with clumsy references to the conspirators' membership in Skull and Bones, and the need to find "an Oswald" as a patsy to take care of our nosy protagonists. He still manages a paranoid atmosphere, but some of the skulduggery feels like filler on the way to the main event. And woo boy, once that water starts rolling ...

On our side of the pond, Playboy Paperbacks put out this attractive edition in 1981.

Spoilers (of a sort): the radioactive wave doesn't make it to the ocean, sparing us a precursor to the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011. But there's plenty of delicious destruction along the way, with floods and firestorms and a nuclear hostage situation. Half the fun of any random disaster thriller is learning about a brand new subject and all the horrible ways it can go wrong. A good thriller author takes us under their wing for a time, selling us on these awful visions. Hyde acquits himself well in that respect, even with some narrative speed bumps. A fake transcript of congressional hearings after the disaster is a penultimate dollop of verisimilitude, followed by a stinger of the conspiracy taking out its own trash, another realistic touch.

3/4

Coronet Books, 1982 (original pub. 1979)