Pseudo-Authoritative

This book is unintentionally annoying. Erich von Däniken has obviously bought his own hype - name-dropping his "foundation", bragging about other alternate-history writers/researchers begging for his considered opinion, and generally taking on the air of an arrogant "I-know-what-all-of-these-other-idiots-don't" attitude that wasn't present in his first books.
Rather than asking questions and presenting contrarian evidence, the author asserts a worldview and dares readers to defy him. That would be fine, but some of those posits border on the straight-up ludicrous & include demonstrably false data points that he presents with no evidence (No, sir, the scriptural 'Book of Enoch' is not stored somewhere in the Great Pyramid, for example). His rants against organized religion in the midst of his argument are just bizarre.
This author is an impressive curator of controversial/alternative Archeology/History, an effective communicator, and a deep thinker - but his know-it-all pedagogy in this book is nonsensical. He sounds like a lecturer who has no idea what he's talking about but pretends that he does.

As to presentation: Reader David Stifel is distinctly below-average. Don't get me wrong, his diction, cadence, pacing, and tone are professional - he's an effective narrator dedicated to his craft and clearly interested in what he's reading - but his nasal reading timbre, often borderline shrill emphasis, and occasional overenunciation make the recording oddly annoying at times.

In toto, 'War of the Gods' is a disappointing read. It was a relatively entertaining distraction for a couple of quiet afternoons as a 'Plus' selection, but the 3.5/10-star book was poorly delivered and frankly insulting to my intelligence. It's not worth a Credit if they ask for one. Von Däniken's earlier books are more contemplative and much more thought-provoking. Stick with those.

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