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Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

Caution: Vague Spoilers Ahead

I don't really think that I can do this book justice in my review. I thought that it was brilliant. I know that I have seen the movie long ago, and remember the big reveal at the end and Charlton yelling about damning everyone all to hell, but I don't remember much more than that. I'll have to watch the movie again.

I really loved the subtle cautionary tale running throughout the story. Maybe it's just my feminist liberal bleeding heart whisper More...

8 comments like (10 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Brad rated it:

The original Planet of the Apes novel is a seriously clunky story. It is bookended by a kooky couple in space who find a message in a bottle <spoiler>psst ... they turn out to be Chimps</spoiler>, Ulysse Mérou stands in as a more pedantic Taylor who gets to knock up Nova before they with their child, and the Ape society is more developed, which makes it less effective in creating that Planet of the Apes vibe.

If it weren't for the movie with its killer Rod Serling script a More...

7 comments like (11 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2009

Simon rated it:

This imaginative story of cosmic origins is well worth reading - even if, like me, you're familiar with the original Planet of the Apes movies, TV series, and the 2001 Tim Burton production. The 36 chapters of the full edition are short, and Boulle's writing is light enough to introduce philosophical arguments and advance the story without getting hung up on them. In 250 pages, Planet of the Apes tells stories of astronauts who discover love and friendship in a stubborn but pacifistic world. I t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

Corrie rated it:

It's a quick and easy read and quite the ripping yarn. Our human hero, Ulysse, is an appealing and compassionate intellectual, no "damn dirty apes" outcries here. Our chimp protangonists, Zira and Cornelious, are good natured but not hopelessly romantacized "good guys". They are only human after all... you know what I mean. Aspects of the book show up in the assorted movies but no theatrical version stays true to the intentions of the book which questions our ideas of intell More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Robert rated it:

It is always interesting to read a novel after becoming familiar with the filmed version. I saw the Planet of the Apes movie when it first came out. I was a teenager and went with my mother. I have seen it several times since then. I saw the remake which was interesting but different from the original movie.
The novel is very different. The tone is the slightly formal tone of an educated Frenchman. The character is a journalist. The premise remains the same. It was hard not to keep the image More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Ensiform rated it:

An astronaut --- a Frenchman named Ulysse Merou, it turns out, not Charleton Heston --- is marooned on a planet where the humans are mute animals, and the apes have evolved into a sentient and verbal race. Ulysse’s appearance, of course, threatens to overturn the conservative, orangutan-dictated dogmatic order of things: what secret origins lie buried in the past of this planet? Well, it’s not quite the classic film’s twist ending, but as I now see, the remake was fairly faithful to the origin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

Christine rated it:

The release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie inspired me to read this book. I went ahead and read the spoiler, and the plot actually sounded decent. So I started to read all the movie spoilers out there and got curious to read the book.

The movies (even the old Charlton Heston one) deviates pretty far from the book. In the book, Ulysses is the only human who actually speaks "Earth" language. I guess that would've made a pretty boring movie. I don't even think Charl More...

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Aug 15, 2011

Valerie added it

I went through a period in my teens when I went back to read the originals of things I'd seen in the few movies I saw, and of tv shows.

I hadn't gotten very far in this one before I realized that I should have gone further back. This book is basically an urban retelling of 'Gulliver in The Land of The Houyhnhnms'.

Even more than the horses in the Gulliver tale, the apes in this book bear little or no resemblance to real apes. It doesn't really help to say that in the mo More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 03, 2011

James rated it:

The book by Peter Boulle is quite different in many respects to the resultant films and TV series – The Planet of the Apes!

If you've seen the film (and who hasn't?) then you know the story of Charlton Heston's crew, crashing on a planet run by apes and through various adventures finds at the end [Spoiler for the two or three who have not seen the film yet] that the planet he has crashed on is actually the planet Earth and the apes arose after a mighty atomic war!

Book's The More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2011

Jacobmartin rated it:

I read this, the original novel of Planet of the Apes, in a single day.

What did I think of it? Here goes:

This is a vastly different interpretation of the story than what that Charlton Heston movie makes it out to be, and at the very least the book cover does NOT spoil the ending like the DVD cover of the movie does.

And the best part? THE MOVIE DOESN'T EVEN NEARLY SPOIL THE BOOK IN ANY WAY!

That's right. The ending to this one is completely different More...

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Sep 25, 2011

Williwaw rated it:

This is a short, enjoyable book. One can easily read it within a day or two. It's not a masterpiece, and I don't think Pierre Boulle intended it to be anything more than clever, lighthearted entertainment. I think he pulled it off quite well.

There are similarities to the famous Charlton Heston film, and there are differences, too. (I should interject here that I have not seen the remake; although I did see the recent "Rise of the Planet of the Apes.")

It More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Henry rated it:

A couple Jinn and Phyllis, while taking a soothing vacation in Space , in the year A.D. 2500 , come upon an object outside their spaceship.Curious the pair retreats it.A message in a bottle is found! The manuscript is in the language of Earth,French !Jinn having been educated there, can read the papers.Written by Ulysse Merou and telling of an expedition from our world to the giant star Betelgeuse, 300 light years from Earth.The object is to explore planets suspected of orbiting that st More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Erica rated it:

A very easy and enjoyable read. What is now a well known, if not overdone storyline, perhaps because of the films, must have been very original at the time. Does make one consider what is an appropriate way to treat animals. Is believing that they do not understand enough to justify treating them with a lack of dignity?

Not quite like the original film, but more like the sequel where the apes go to modern earth, become celebrities then are turned on through fear and ignorance.
More...

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Sep 07, 2011

Graham rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Oct 14, 2011

Grey Liliy rated it:

My only previous experience with the Planet of the Apes series of movies, was the Tim Burton release - which I'm now surprised to realize followed the book fairly closely. I'll have to watch it again to double check. XD

Over all, I enjoyed the book, even though I tend to despise anything written in first person, but here it worked well enough with the tale being told in a letter surrounded by a third person book end.

I particularly enjoyed the relationship play between Ulys More...

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Jan 27, 2010

IceJewel rated it:

This book is a total work of fiction but very unbelievable! After reading a few pages, I thought it would be better for me if I keep my logical and practical brain apart from me and simply enjoy the book.

The story takes place in far future where a young couple is spending their holiday traveling in space in a ship. Well, a different kind of ship which is sort of a sphere with all the latest technologies installed in it. In the space they see an object floating. When they catch hold o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

gina rated it:

I read the original Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle on the heels of seeing the new movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. (Loved it, by the way.)

It's tough to write about a book that has been made into a movie that is iconic in popular culture. Certainly nobody expects the book and the movie to be the same, and of course in this case, there were lots of differences. But honestly, it's really hard to get the images of Charleton Heston and Kim Hunter out of your head when you're More...

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Jul 30, 2010

Kristal rated it:

A group of space travelers embark on a journey from Earth to a distant sun. Upon reaching their destination they find four plants circling this sun and decided to land on one of them. They were greeted with what looked to be the same environment as Earth. But things were not what they seemed. Things were horribly wrong....

I'm sure everyone knows the jest of this book. I know it from the movie. One of my all-time favorites. So I was quite surprised to find a few key things different i More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Deborah rated it:

This is a wry satire of the human race and its potential for self-destruction. In this case, it is not war, but the arrogance of species and a natural tendency to laziness that leads to despair. Two great puzzles have inspired the text: the archaeological search for the roots of civilization and the scientific search for the nature of humanity. Here, the evolutionary tables are turned as the apes take their turn in the chain of ascendancy. The scientific establishment takes a hit, being classed More...

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Jan 31, 2012

Liam rated it:

A great idea that's executed plainly, and one of the rare instances where the original novel suffers drastically by comparison to its film adaption. Perhaps it's the bad after-effects of a translation, or maybe it's the narrator's scientific background, but I found the tone of this novel to be dull in its pedantry. The dialogue is sparse, and some of the situations in the book are a tad unrealistic; for instance, when Ulysse Mérou is imprisoned by a race of intelligent apes, they refuse to diffe More...

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Sep 05, 2011

Casey rated it:

Enjoyed this overall, especially as a history lesson to see where the entire franchise started. There are both major and minor changes in between this and the film version, yet enough similarities that you can see where the book and the film line up.

Here, the story is fun though it doesn't age the greatest. The author also relies on a character that speaks in a wordy language outside his station. (In my opinion that is.) There are is a lot of wordy language at work here that isn More...

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Sep 09, 2011

Ahdom rated it:

I feel like when reading this book, like I am, in fact, the one trapped in the cage like a dumb animal. I am Ulysse Merou, who has to prove his intelligence to these apes. I don’t envision Costumed actors as apes, but rather, actual apes in their clothes and speaking in their own language. I wish I could see a movie done this way. (I love the other renditions, but I want a true adaptation) The sort of horse driven, and somewhat less advanced ape world in the movies was completely different in t More...

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Jul 09, 2011

Louise rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Feb 06, 2011

Andrew rated it:

As a huge fan of the original film, Planet of the Apes, I had always meant to get around to reading the novel. Finally, probably a good 35 years after first seeing the movie, I did it. The book actually differs substantially from the film, which made the read all the more interesting to me. Of course, the main thrust of the book-- that space travelers end up on a planet where apes speak and reign supreme, while humans are mute and act like animals-- remains in tact, but beyond that, the plot is More...

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Jul 23, 2011

David rated it:

The 1953 book by French author Pierre Boulle was the basis of two (and counting) film adaptations, of which I've seen and loved the 1968 classic version. Whenever I read a source book after seeing the movie, it's always pleasing when the book is not an exact duplicate of the plot. I won't say in what ways, but the book is quite a bit different than the film. The book focuses the reverse lens more sharply, showing our society in a funny but scathing way, by simply reversing the roles of men an More...

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Sep 14, 2011

Dylan rated it:

Wow.

I don't think anyone can talk about Planet of the Apes without immediately recalling the iconic movies and t.v. series, including me. I've always liked the original film, having seen it when I was young enough to ignore the campy aspects and focus on the story. With the recent release of the EXCELLENT Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I was finally inspired to read the novel that started it all.

I had no idea how much I would enjoy this book. Granted, at 272 pages it's More...

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Jun 19, 2011

Sam rated it:

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I really like how Pierre Boulle created a sort of parallel universe to ours. In the Planet of the Apes, it is the opposite as Earth. The planet Soror is inhabited by both humans and apes however the apes are the ones who rule the planet. Ulysses a scientist from earth is sent to soror along with his colleague professor Antelle. Upon arriving on the planet they realize things are very different from earth. First of all, the humans on Soror have a ve More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2011

Traci rated it:

When one thinks of Planet of the Apes what comes to mind is more than likely the apes. And if the image is one influenced by a movie seen that image might be campy or silly. But what haunted me after reading the book was the descriptions of the humans. These aren't pretty actors smeared in dirt to appear savage. These are animals that look like me and you. They cannot speak. They walk like apes. Fight like them. They are kept in cages and experimented on. I have read somewhere that this was writ More...

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Jan 10, 2012

Michael rated it:

Infinitely superior to the Tim Burton movie; in many ways better even than the Charlton Heston one. The novel's "twist" isn't as cool and I'm not on board with Boulle's assertion about why humanity was replaced by apes, but the book does a couple of things extremely well.

It delves much deeper into the astronaut's experience in captivity and comes up with some interesting observations, and it's also much better focused on the social issues it wants to address. Even better t More...

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Sep 20, 2011

Dennis rated it:

After watching the movie I wanted to read the book. I was not satisfied after reading this book. Usually film adaptations are not as good as the book but, this on the other hand was the other way around. I found the book not to be as interesting of a story. I honestly felt the plot was useless and their was no plot twist like the story I saw the film. The book is a good narrative and I feel like every page is significant to developing the story but, it wasn't realistic. It still a good sci More...

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