Rating: 
Summary: the finest sci-fi series ever written
Review: Some (including, I understand, a recent amazon.com poll) rate Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as the finest series of novels in history; the consensus among those who prefer science fiction to fantasy would nominate Herbert's Dune books. My candidate is Sitchin. You will learn infinitely more from any chapter in these books than in everything Tolkien ever wrote combined; and while the first Dune book is great, the sequels are mediocre and break no new ground. Breaking new ground is Sitchin's middle name. His narrative style is bewitching; he ingeniously presents his works in a linear, essay-like format, but each chapter in the serial clearly further expands and develops the plot, always in unexpected new directions. Like every good sci-fi writer, he knows how to disguise the holes in his science (such as the fact that nothing resembling humanoid life could possible exist on a planet with an orbit that would take it so far from the sun's light, if not heat) by anticipating the reader's questions, and then defusing them with glib explanations that avoid the real issues. This maintains the suspension of disbelief so necessary to good fiction, especially in this genre. And I, for one, have no problem with his marketing these books as "fact"; they contain no more speculation that the kinds of "responsible" stuff the university types publish, and, like Carlos Castaneda's great works, the painted covers and context clues clearly indicate that these are works of the imagination. Sitchin, in fact, may have a literary imagination equal to any man alive.
Rating: 
Summary: THE MOST COMPLETE THEORY EVER PRESENTED
Review: Zecharia Sitchin presents the most academically comprehensive, most scientifically believable, most bizzare theorum on our human evolution and intergalactic origins imaginable. The 12th Planet ranks as the best I have ever read on the subject.Mr Sitchin's theory is that our human species was an evolutionary jumpstart advancing our expected progression by a million years. This jumpstart was the result of the crossing of ancestral primates with intergalactic travelers some 300,000 years ago. Rather than biblical mythology, Sitchin tells us that the Garden of Eden, the Flood, the extreme longevities of biblical heroes are all real events. Mr Sitchin provides the greatest level of comfort I have ever felt with Darwin's evolution -- which is to say Darwin had it almost correct until he tried to fit homo sapiens into the same mold of environmental and sexual selection as all other taxa. Most fascinating is Sitchin's postulate that humanity has existed only for 300,000 years, as opposed to the conventional wisdom of either linear or punctuated progression from something that crawled out of the oceans millions of years ago. This postulate, based on his scholarly interprestations of the most ancient hieroglyphs he penned years before current biochemistry substantiated exactly the same timetable of between 220,000 and 270,000 years ago. His theory that we are a genetic cross between resident primates and interstellar "gods" predated our current and rapidly magnifying ability to clone within species, which is undoubtedly the precursor to our being able to genetically cross disparate species. And Mr Sitchin presents all of this truly out-of-the-box thinking with rheems of scholarly evidence. ANYONE who has ever been interested in evolution must attempt this book with an open mind. (Darwin's original theorums are no longer taken seriously by any serious evolutionist, having been replaced with "punctuated equilibria" without any explanation as to what causes the punctuations.) Anyone who has a keen interest in the origins of biblical thought and other pre-diluvium stories, should likewise attempt this book with an open mind. If you can't approach Sitchin's ideas with an open mind because your are too wed to your beliefs, save your money -- buy something more traditional. I would have given it 5 stars instead of 4, but my conservative self wants to hold back a little something, just in case.
Rating:
Summary: Human beings are not duff!
Review: Do you know? because we do very duff things, most of the time does not mean to think that the human beings are duff! I have not read the book,nor have I had any contact with Z.Sitchin's work.A friend of mine gave me a brief chronological list of man's achievements, extracted from Z.Sitchin's book which has led me to read the revievs on this page. And I said to myself ooh! this is another Von Daniken character, who does not believe in man's wisdom, or his genious, and tries to find it elsewhere. And, as it has been most fashionable lately, more often than not the address to go is out of this world! You go a few light years in that direction and turn left, that's where the superior beings are...because we cannot travel that far they come and visit us. But I value very highly the ability to create fictious works as much as the factual ones. As, this approach has often been the stepping stone for our more advanced and valuable achievements; we call progress.
Rating:
Summary: Another Angle To The Origin Of Humans
Review: Zecharia Sitchin is a firm proponent of the possibility that extra-terrestrials visited Earth, and were the beings that created impressive mega-structures, like the Pyramids and Machu Picchu, genetically modified apes into humans, and gave rise to our idea of gods. Although his beliefs seem far-fetched, he puts his arguments forward with supporting evidence. If you're expecting him to be a religious fanatic in this book, you would be wrong.
I have read some of the other books in Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series: books like The Lost Realms, and Genesis Revisited. If you want an introduction into his school of thought, The 12th Planet covers a lot of ground, and basically has his main arguments. Sitchin expands on his basic ideas, as described in the above paragraph, with more supporting evidence, in his other Earth Chronicles books. Hence, if you think The 12th Planet is an interesting read, and wish to go deeper, you could then go on to his other books.
In The 12th Planet, Sitchin maintains an objective view of evidence to support his case most of the time, although I felt that sometimes the evidence he uses to support his arguments can be tenuous.
He quotes from the Bible, Sumerian archives, Chinese archives, South American archives, archaeological finds, present day articles on space exploration, and many other sources, showing that he has done extensive research on the topic. A reader might have seen all the evidence without any bells ringing in his head. Weaving a thread through all these sources allows the reader to step back and see the big picture. Sitchin then proceeds to put forward believable hypotheses.
The thought that superior beings were on Earth, and created humans is a gripping one, and Sitchin maintains an interesting read by peppering his hypotheses with evidence. You will sit back, and wonder why you have not thought of things his way before. He does not treat the book as a fantasy book, and takes his audience to be intelligent beings who will scrutinise his book.
Overall, this book gives a new angle of tying the issues of the origin of humans, presence of extra-terrestrial beings, presence of impressive mega-structures that ancient humans should not have been able to build without our present day technology at least, and passages in the Bible that are echoed in other archives and anecdotes around the world. It is a good mix of the mystic and the facts.
The unfortunate thing is that people living now would not be able to corroborate Sitchin's hypotheses because the next time the Annunaki's planet mentioned in Sitchin's book orbits close to Earth, it would be approximately A.D. 3500.
Rating:
Summary: The final answer?
Review: This book is the first of many written by Sitchin on the subject. The 12th Planet tells you when and how the Gods first arrived and wherefrom. I find it to be very convincing and should be a must for everyone interested in teology and the origins of human kind. I also highly recommend the rest of the books by Sitchin together with books by Erik Von Daniken and the book "Our Cosmic Ancestors" by Maurice Chatelain, if you really want to dig into the subject. However, if you are afraid of the possible truth, stay far away from these authors!
Rating:
Summary: Scholarly Evidence, At Last.
Review: Sitchin is really the first scientist to write about ancient aliens in a serious and scholarly way. I personaly believe his theory is correct, because I've done the research first hand. This series is a breath of fresh air after digging through more sensationalist and speculative works. His writing can be a bit dry at times, but only because he backs up every single conclusion that he draws on. In one book when he talks about the highest mountains on the Siani penninsula, he actually recounts step-by-step how he came to choose the specific mountain he thinks is Mt. Ararat. It wasn't exciting reading every possible conclusion, but it was worth it. It is so rare to find an author that repects the reader so much, giving the reader the chance to make up his or her own mind. Most importantly, his research is immaculate and he proves it every step of the way. This is the only worthwhile way to consider these theories. And in my opinion, no one should make up their mind about the subject until they read this series.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't be duped
Review: Do sumerain tablets exist? Sure they do. Do we know how to translate them? The author thinks he does. Does the author give any explanation as to why "they" came here? Vaguely. He doesn't explain how a planet outside the orbit of Pluto is capable of supporting life as we know it. That far out into the solar system the sun would be a speck in the sky, not to mention that it would be tremendously freezing. Thus, this book has a major flaw in it. Don't waste your time or money.
Rating: 
Summary: No easy read. Is it true?
Review: There are books that ring true - Marciniak, Stibal...then there are those who ring false...gerard the borower,and those that ring with questions and starr the complicated. This book took a lot of effort. Life need not be such hard work. Life needs to be oly peace and love. Give peace a chance.
Rating:
Summary: Where was Nibiru 100BC?
Review: Sitchin's books are always a pleasure to read with the author's engaging style and bold assertions, but the most obvious hole in his theory is that there is NO evidence of any cataclysm or upheaval in 100BC when Nibiru was supposed to have passed the earth according to the author's own chronology. He claims it comes by every 3600 years and that it caused the great upheavals and the end of the last ice age in about 10 000 BC. Also, he makes stupid statements about linguistic affinity and does not work like a scientist here. It is easy enough to find similarities between a language in Eurasia and one in the Americas, but one must put this in context, in a broader taxonomy (classification structure). There are similarities between Sumerian and Nostratic (Eurasiatic) the parent family of Indo-European and many others, and also (other)similarities between Sumerian and Dene-Caucasic. For these, I recommend the work of professional linguists like Alan Bomhard, Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen. Sitchin takes many liberties but at least he does it in an entertaining way.
Rating:
Summary: Twelve, a divine number
Review: It took billions of years before the first humanoid appeared on Earth but from that humble beginning, it just took man some thousands years to triple his brain size and travel to moon. How that can be possible that for millions and millions of years the only tool that the humanoids were using was stone but then suddenly in a very short time and just in the span of a few thousand years he suddenly and unexpectedly started to make intelligent machines? Why the science cannot explain this oddity that instead of taking another billion years before man reaches to what it is now, it just took man thirty five thousand years to go where no man has gone before. The first truly manlike (Advanced Australopithecus) existed in Africa some 2,000,000 years ago and it took another million years to produce Homo erectus and another 900,000 when the first primitive man appeared (Neanderthal man). Then suddenly and inexplicably, some 35,000 years ago a new race of Men, Homo sapiens appeared as it from nowhere, and swept Neanderthal man from the face of Earth. If science is still looking for answers to explain these questions and the missing link that supposedly connects the Homo erectus to Homo sapiens (the thinking man), the Sumerians (Arians) had all these answers since more than six thousand years ago. Their explanations about how our solar system (they knew the exact number of planets, their moons and their circulation around the Sun) was created, not only fit all the pieces together but it even goes further and explains with detail in scientific terms, how man was created by Gods (ancient astronauts) using cloning and genetic science. Mr. Sitchin goes out of his way to be very scientific and occurred in this book and from the first paragraph, you know that you are not dealing with an x-file writer but a serious researcher that would not leave a stone un-turn to exposes the truth. He takes you step by step through the history of man and his civilization, with lavish illustration, maps, diagrams, and photographs which would shock you and shakes your previous believes about this subject matter. In the 12th planet, Sitchin very convincingly creates a bridge between myth and science without causing them to overlap or distort each other. I loved and enjoyed reading this book so much that I have ordered the complete "the Earth Chronicles" series which 12th planet is the first. I am truly looking forward to read the rest of this series.
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