Rating: 
Summary: The Lost Realms
Review: Although I have difficulty with some of the pat answers Mr. Sitchin gives in this book, I think that it has the most solid scholarship I've seen in any of his writings to date. I would also recomend Micheal Cremo's "Forbiden Archeolgoy."
Rating:
Summary: Great reading
Review: Here Sitchin links MesoAmerica with the Annunaki. This book keeps the reader very interested.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but Unconvincing
Review: I love all Sitchin's books but I am very cautious about his theories, since he's made very unscientific claims about languages before and he is suspiciously quiet about the later history of his postulated "12th" planet Nibiru that supposedly caused the end of the last ice age and is supposed to come close to the earth every 3600 years. According to his chronology, Nibiru should have passed the earth in 100BC, but there is no historical record of any such thing, nor is there evidence of geological upheavals at that time. None of the info in this book is origibal either, I have seen it all before in the work of Robert Bauva, Erich von Daniken and many others. But still an entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: From Sumer over Africa to America
Review: In this volume Sitchin compares Mesopotamia, Egypt and ancient American civilizations an comes to conclusion, that gods have visited America also. The reason for visit was simple - they have found precious metals like gold and copper, but they have also found tin, which has to be extracted from ores and gives hard bronze when mixed with copper. The sophisticated channels cut in the rocks were part of ore washing system. The resemblance of stories, buildings and myths suggests that behind names like Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan and Viracocha stand the same deities we know from the first three volumes. The most impressive thing is that Americans didn't knew and use metals (except gold, of course), yet archaeologists have found stone blocks dressed and connected with bronze claps. And bronze must be obtained through a metallurgical process, which was surely not known nor to Mayas, Incas or Aztecs. Who needed tin from lake Titicaca? The answer is obvious.
Rating: 
Summary: An understanding of the Americas deep history.
Review: Sitchin's expertise is in the linguistics of Sumer and the Middle
East. Yet in LOST REALMS he displays an unusual grasp of ancient
archaeology in the Americas. However, he fails to substanially advance
his case that extraterrestrial intervention planted the seeds of
Earth's civilizations.
Rating:
Summary: Takes the New out of New World
Review: The Lost Realms is one of the most speculative and interesting books in Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series. The ruins and structures of Egypt and the Near East have been wondered at and studied for centuries, and there is a veritable wealth of information from Near Eastern papyri, stelae, monuments, and similar artifacts. The ruins of Mesoamerica have largely been rediscovered only in the past couple of hundred years; indeed, unknown wonders surely remain hidden by South America's dense jungles. The immensely important records and artifacts of New World societies such as the Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations were for the most part lost and destroyed at the hands of greedy Spanish conquistadors, and further site degradation has resulted from the pilfering of ancient stones by recent natives of the area for use in the construction of their own buildings. Thus, the earliest history of the lower Americas remains frustratingly impossible to understand. We are left with giant edifices with significant similarities to Near Eastern constructions in size, orientation, and purpose, many of them seemingly containing very advanced structures built for unknown purposes. Even the age of the artifacts is hotly debated, with many scientists refusing to believe scientific findings point back to as early as 2000 B.C. Sitchin's arguments fit very nicely with the history of Sumeria, Egypt, and the Near East that he laid out in his earlier books. Basically, he argues that the Americas were exploited by the gods for the production of gold and other metals such as tin, which the Andean mountains in particular hold in abundance. Metals were refined here and shipped back to the Near Eastern lands long before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue. Sitchin believes that the Olmecs, of which very little is known besides what has been gleaned from the artifacts they left behind, particularly in the form of large stone blocks representing men of obvious African descent, did indeed come from Africa very early on--in fact, it was the Egyptian god Thoth who brought his followers here when he was displaced by Marduk. While the Olmecs mysteriously disappeared, other societies were formed by white gods and giants from across the sea. The traditions of the diverse Indian groups all shared a common mythology, including the story of a Great Flood; they also possessed amazing arts, technologies, and sciences (particularly astronomy) very similar to those of Sumeria and Egypt. The inadequacy of artifacts in the Americas necessarily hinder any scientist studying their earliest histories, but Sitchin constructs a remarkably compelling timeline in which the story of Mesoamerica fits very neatly into the history he has gleaned of the Annunaki and their relationships with mankind in its earliest days. Even if Sitchin were dead wrong on everything he suggests, this book would still be worth reading just for the information about the amazing ancient cities and monuments built in the lower Americas that are only now emerging from their jungle tombs. The Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs are more mysterious than the Near Eastern cultures, and the suggestion that men traveled from the Old World and Africa centuries before Columbus is as compelling as it is fascinating. The illustrations in this book are sometimes rather grainy and hard to examine closely, but the images they convey, such as that of the giant stone heads left by the Olmecs, do much to enhance Sitchin's theories. This is thought-provoking, educational, stimulating material.
Rating:
Summary: Takes the New out of New World
Review: The Lost Realms is one of the most speculative and interesting books in Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series. The ruins and structures of Egypt and the Near East have been wondered at and studied for centuries, and there is a veritable wealth of information from Near Eastern papyri, stelae, monuments, and similar artifacts. The ruins of Mesoamerica have largely been rediscovered only in the past couple of hundred years; indeed, unknown wonders surely remain hidden by South America's dense jungles. The immensely important records and artifacts of New World societies such as the Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations were for the most part lost and destroyed at the hands of greedy Spanish conquistadors, and further site degradation has resulted from the pilfering of ancient stones by recent natives of the area for use in the construction of their own buildings. Thus, the earliest history of the lower Americas remains frustratingly impossible to understand. We are left with giant edifices with significant similarities to Near Eastern constructions in size, orientation, and purpose, many of them seemingly containing very advanced structures built for unknown purposes. Even the age of the artifacts is hotly debated, with many scientists refusing to believe scientific findings point back to as early as 2000 B.C. Sitchin's arguments fit very nicely with the history of Sumeria, Egypt, and the Near East that he laid out in his earlier books. Basically, he argues that the Americas were exploited by the gods for the production of gold and other metals such as tin, which the Andean mountains in particular hold in abundance. Metals were refined here and shipped back to the Near Eastern lands long before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue. Sitchin believes that the Olmecs, of which very little is known besides what has been gleaned from the artifacts they left behind, particularly in the form of large stone blocks representing men of obvious African descent, did indeed come from Africa very early on--in fact, it was the Egyptian god Thoth who brought his followers here when he was displaced by Marduk. While the Olmecs mysteriously disappeared, other societies were formed by white gods and giants from across the sea. The traditions of the diverse Indian groups all shared a common mythology, including the story of a Great Flood; they also possessed amazing arts, technologies, and sciences (particularly astronomy) very similar to those of Sumeria and Egypt. The inadequacy of artifacts in the Americas necessarily hinder any scientist studying their earliest histories, but Sitchin constructs a remarkably compelling timeline in which the story of Mesoamerica fits very neatly into the history he has gleaned of the Annunaki and their relationships with mankind in its earliest days. Even if Sitchin were dead wrong on everything he suggests, this book would still be worth reading just for the information about the amazing ancient cities and monuments built in the lower Americas that are only now emerging from their jungle tombs. The Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs are more mysterious than the Near Eastern cultures, and the suggestion that men traveled from the Old World and Africa centuries before Columbus is as compelling as it is fascinating. The illustrations in this book are sometimes rather grainy and hard to examine closely, but the images they convey, such as that of the giant stone heads left by the Olmecs, do much to enhance Sitchin's theories. This is thought-provoking, educational, stimulating material.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic journey trough time, space and other dimensions
Review: This book must be read with an open mind. You must allow your mind to travel at the speed of Mr Sitching staggering theories. He does not try to prove anything, but all the clues and evidences he finds, makes you reach really astounding conclusions. I was compelled to ask myrself many times while reading this book:what if it's true? My ancestors come from South America, and more specifically, from the High Andes of Ecuador (Riobamba, the capital of Chimborazo province), so I think I felt a little more impressed than a regular reader. But I am not saying that no one else will find this book just amazing as well as informative.
Rating:
Summary: A great book to take to Cancun!
Review: This is a great book to take with you if you are going to vacation in Cancun. It's a quick read and then you can go off to Tulum or see the great pyramid or any of the 80 or so sites and judge for yourself. Even if you only accept the dates of 800 years ago, stand there and tell yourself that people built these cities bare handed without the use of any technology! If there is a down side to these books (12th Planet et al) it is that the points tend to be made over and over. You can either accept what is said with an open mind or not. Even if the assertions are not true they're fun to read. It often reminds me of episodes of the old Dr. Who program (remember the Cyber Men?) I have always enjoyed reading these books and then checking out the evidence for myself. The pictoglyphs of the pre-native americans are very interesting as well. Maybe we'll all live to see the answer.....
Rating:
Summary: I bought copies for friends
Review: This was the first of Sitchen's books that I read, and I immediately bought the rest of The Earth Chronicles and read them all. While I do not agree with all of Sitchen's interpretations of the historical information presented, I now know that my North American Euro-centric education about world history is mostly garbage. We are taught in grammer and secondary school that if the white Europeans didn't do something or discover something, it just didn't happen. Well, we are wrong. I am a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., and consider myself to be a skeptic. But I am a widely read skeptic. Sitchen's book The Lost Realms has opened new doors for the study of history for me. Buy the book and read it. You will never think the same about our history again.
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