Death of the Planet of the Apes

As a POTA superFan, I really enjoyed this novel perhaps even more than Mr. Gaska’s previous work, Conspiracy on the Planet of the Apes. While both are fun reads, the lower price point and paperback format really helped this time around.

The novel does a great job of filling in the gaps in the original series - Where did Taylor & Nova rise off to? When did Cornelius & Zira get married? He also fleshes out the backstories of Taylor, Brent, and other characters quite well. He even incorporates an idea the producers of the films toyed with, but didn’t utilize - I won’t spoil it here.

I’d love it if he were able to finish the series with side stories for Escape, Conquest, and Battle. Keep writing!

This novel is supposed to be the bridge between the 1968 POTA movie and its first sequel Beneath the POTA. Andrew E. C. Gaska has managed to turn what should have been a fairly straightforward action-adventure-sci-fi story (just like the movies that inspired it) into a sludgy mishmash of wilted word salad, containing eight or nine meandering plot lines, seven or eight of which have absolutely nothing to do with his task at hand. Nothing.

If you’ve seen Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (which, if you’ve purchased this book, you no doubt already have) you KNOW how the story ends. This zig-zagging, confused, puffed up and padded novel offers not a single idea that enhances the plots of those films. In fact, it only distracts the reader from, and dilutes the core idea of, what could have been a very compelling narrative.

DEATH OF THE PLANET OF THE APES isn't a sequel to BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, nor is it a prequel. Rather it's a "coquel," if you will, a novel that takes place simultaneous with the events of BENEATH. The making of BENEATH, of course, was hampered because of the insistence by Charlton Heston, who had starred in the original PLANET OF THE APES, that he only wanted to appear in the first scene (later amended to the first and last scenes) of BENEATH, and that his character had to be killed off. Working within those constraint, and with a reduced budget, screenwriter Paul Dehn came up with what one reviewer called "the most batsh*t insane G-rated movie of all time."

So, Andrew E.C. Gaska had his work cut out for him in writing this book -- trying to produce a first-rate novel based on what most fans would agree is the worst or second-worst of the original five films -- by telling us the unseen story of Taylor's time during BENEATH's action.

Of course, uncontemplated at the time Dehn was scripting BENEATH was the notion that there'd be a third APES film, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, but Gaska also sets up that movie here by recounting all the things that must have been going on involving Doctors Milo, Zira, and Cornelius related to the salvaging of Taylor's ship.

As if that wasn't enough to tackle, Gaska ALSO takes as canon deleted scenes from PLANET (such as Nova's pregnancy) and ESCAPE (the pre-credits-sequence filmed but and never shown of the ape-o-nauts aboard a reconfigured version of Taylor's cockpit); the makeup test of the proposed ape-human hybrid child John Chambers designed; both the live-action and animated APES TV series; and even the faux ANSA documentary newsreel footage from the recent Blu-ray re-releases of the classic films. And, as a cherry on top, for those who've read Gaska's previous Apes novel, CONSPIRACY OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, he even wraps up loose ends from that.

No conundrum is too small to escape Gaska's attention: why the chronometer in Taylor's ship read 3978 in the original film but 3955 in ESCAPE, why the spacesuits fit the ape-o-nauts, and more. His solutions are clever and as plausible as one could possibly get, given the circumstances. Every character rings true, and we enjoy encounters we could only have dreamed of before, such as George Taylor interacting with Otto Hasslein. DEATH OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is a tour de force, and I loved it.

I Loved this book. I hope he writes more books on the movies and I wish he would write a book on the tv series telling how the astronauts get home as Galen told on the telefilms on tv and what happened to Galen. I would love for Mr. Gaska to tell more on how the apes took over and started speaking between Conquest and Battle and how Ceaser turned over rule to the lawgiver. I hope they keep writing more apes stories.

Go Ape!

Great story, real page Turner. Flew through it. Can't wait for the next book. Apes rule

A lifelong POTA fan's dream come true! Mr. Gaska brilliantly fills in the gaps in the stories of familiar characters, and brings in new characters, to tell the in-between details that many of us have wondered & pondered in our own minds. His writings accomplish this with masterful detail, in the way that he ties in characters from the original 5 films, the TV series, and the cartoon TV series (I even saw nods to the new films). I will never watch these the same as I had before, for now I know the rest of the story! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Andrew Gaska!!!!!

I love the Planet of the Apes and I love this book!

Great book must have for any POTA fan.

This book is all over the place. A little disorganized, too many stories going on at once (there are like 6 or 7 that switch every 15-20 pages or so) and scenes lifted straight from the movies. The transitions between chapters can be kind of jarring at times in an attempt to create suspense. Read this if you're a diehard fan of Apes and just read everything anyway. Otherwise, there is no point to reading this as Taylor's not up to anything particularly interesting between the original Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes films and neither are any of the other 10 characters.