Popularity
Since the release of his first book The 12th Planet in 1976, now in its 45th printing, Zecharia Sitchin wrote seven other books as part of his Earth Chronicles series, as well as six other companion books, all of which are still in print as of 2010. Sitchin's books sold millions of copies worldwide and been published in more than 25 languages, as well as in braille. New York Times reporter Corey Kilgannon noted that despite academic dismissal of his work, Sitchin had "a devoted following of readers".
Critic Michael Heiser called Sitchin "arguably the most important proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis over the last several decades". Sitchin was a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, which in 2010 presented Sitchin with a lifetime achievement award. Gods of the New Millennium author Alan F. Alford admits he initially became "infatuated" with Sitchin's hypotheses but later became a critic of Sitchin's interpretations of myth.
According to some writers, Sitchin's ideas along with those of Erich von Däniken may have influenced the beliefs of the religious sect of Raëlism, and writer Mark Pilkington sees the mythology of Japan's Pana Wave religious group as rooted in Sitchins The 12th Planet and its sequels.
The 1994 movie Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich, and the 2009 video game The Conduit drew some conceptual inspiration from Sitchin's ideas, while screenwriter Roberto Orci says the villains of the film Cowboys & Aliens were inspired by Sitchin's conceptualization of the Anunnaki as gold-mining aliens.
Read more about this topic: Zecharia Sitchin
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)