The Apes of Wrath

by Richard Klaw (Editor), Aesop (Contributor), James P. Blaylock (Contributor)

From the jungles of Tarzan to outer space and beyond, the apes in these remarkable tales boldly go where humans dare not. Provocative and fantastical, this clever anthology delves into the cultural fascination with—and dread of—humanity's simian cousins. In "Evil Robot Monkey," a disgruntled chimp receives an implant that makes him more cunning than his cohort and humans alike; and a murder mystery unravels with the discovery of a hair that does not appear quite human in the classic Poe tale, "Murders in the Rue Morgue." Merging steampunk with slapstick, "The Ape-Box Affair" has a not-so-ordinary orangutan landing on Earth in a spherical flying ship—where he is promptly mistaken for an alien; and Joe R. Lansdale has King Kong setting a terrible example with booze and Barbie dolls in "Godzilla's Twelve-Step Program." Intertwining beloved classics with inventive new writings, this collection explores the lighter and darker sides of these furry primates and holds a mirror to man's deepest anxieties and desires.


Foreword by Rupert Wyatt, director of Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Introduction by Richard Klaw, editor

Fiction
"Tarzan's First Love" by Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Quidquid volueris" by Gustave Flaubert
"A Report to an Academy" by Franz Kafka
"Her Furry Face" by Leigh Kennedy
"Evil Robot Monkey" by Mary Robinette Kowal
"Godzilla's 12 Step Program" by Joe R. Lansdale
"Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe
"The Maze of Maâl Dweb" by Clark Ashton Smith
"Deviation From A Theme" by Steven Utley
"Dr. Hudson's Secret Gorilla" by Howard Waldrop
"The Cult of the White Ape" by Hugh B. Cave
"The Apes and the Two Travelers" by Aesop
“After King Kong Fell” by Philip Jose Farmer
"The Ape Box Affair" by James Blaylock
"Faded Roses" by Karen Joy Fowler
"Red Shadows" by Robert E. Howard

Nonfiction
"The Four-Color Ape" by Scott Cupp
"Apes in Literature" by Jess Nevins
"Gorilla of Your Dreams: A Brief History of Simian Cinema" by Rick Klaw
"The Men in the Monkey Suit" by Mark Finn

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Thriller

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

See also other books written by author as Rick Klaw

FROM Weird Business, 1995

Richard Klaw has previously adapted Joe R. Lansdale and Dan Lowry's "Pilots" for System Shock (Tuscany Press). He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and her two cats.

Reviews

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must make a small confession: I'm not an ape person. I like 'em just fine, and they're interesting and all, but left to my own devices, it's cephalopods all the way. Still, I have numerous friends (I can think of nine off the top of my head) who are Monkey Boys through and through. The question is, can this anthology satisfy the Monkey Boys out there while still entertaining those of us not quite so close to the topic?

The answer is a resounding “yes!”

From James P. Blaylock's steampunk-flavored romp of an opening to Karen Joy Fowler's bittersweet conclusion, The Apes of Wrath is a joyride, a roller-coaster that makes you shriek, makes you laugh, and, like those old funhouse mirrors of Ray Bradbury, shows you things about yourself that you might not be all that happy to see.

All of the stories here appear with their original attitudes intact, which can be difficult to read. As Rupert Wyatt points out in his foreword, part of our historical fascination with apes is how close they are to us: how familiar the gestures; how recognizable the expressions.

Apes have been used as a stand-in for many things through the years, including some of our less enlightened attitudes towards members of our own species. But I think that it's important that we look at these attitudes, even if we now (rightly) decry those attitudes. How can we chart a path to better understanding and behavior if we can't clearly see where we've been?

Some of my favorite stories are Blaylock's Victorian slapstick “The Ape-Box Affair,” Pat Murphy's devastating story of a little girl's consciousness transplanted to a chimpanzee “Rachel in Love,” Howard Waldrop's monster-movie saturated “Dr. Hudson's Secret Gorilla,” and Joe R. Lansdale's profane and hilarious tale of monsters in recovery “Godzilla's Twelve-step Program.”

I also love the non-fiction essays giving us the history of apes in literature, in comics, and on film. A little context is a beautiful thing.

I am a sucker for a good anthology. Show me an interesting theme, unfamiliar stories and authors nestled up against old favorites, and a good flow from one story to the next and I'm in love. The Apes of Wrath by Rick Klaw manages all of that and manages to be darn pretty to look at, too.

(This review originally appeared on RevolutionSF.com)

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great anthology of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories, as well as three essays, all about apes and, I must say, there is not a weak story in the book. There is, however, an amazing variety of authors, styles, moods, etc. There are stories that one would expect to find in such an anthology, such as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Red Shadows" by Robert E. Howard, but these are always worth rereading. There is also a fable by Aesop, a story by Franz Kafka as well as selections by authors well known in the SF/fantasy/horror genres such as Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Howard Waldrop, Joe R. Lansdale, Philip Jose Farmer and others. And I must mention "Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy, which is one of the most moving stories I have read in any genre and a prime example of just how good and how deep science fiction can be. Highly recommended!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were a few authors I was familiar with in this collection of short stories like, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Phillip Jose Farmer, Robert E. Howard, and Franz Kafka. The stories I liked best was Edgar Rice Burrough's “ Tarzan in Love”, Philip Jose Farmer's “After Kong Fell”, Robert E. Howard's “Red Shadows”, Pat Murphy’s “ Rachel In Love”, and Joe R. Lansdale’s “Godzilla’s Twelve Step Program”.
All in all this was a pretty good selection of stories and some of the essays that talked about the Ape in literature and movies were interesting.

[Cherry Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent anthology. The stories are all good, yet varied enough to be quite thrilling despite maintaining a central theme. I have to admit that I am much more a fan of short stories than I am of apes, but I was not disappointed. My favorite was "Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy, an exquisite peek into love and the sad the sad life of a laboratory animal.

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

" A brief note on the difference between apes and monkeys: while both are primates, apes do not have tails. Apes also tend to be larger and have bigger brains. Gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, Gibbons, and even humans are classified as apes, while baboons, marmosettes, and macaques are monkeys."

The Ape-Box Affair, 4 🌟
Cute story involving an orangutan who was meant to be sent into the atmosphere, but only landed back in London.

Evil Robot Monkey, 4 🌟
Humans mess with a monkey, planting a device in his head to make him more intelligent. But he's caught between 2 worlds: not smart enough to be a human, but too smart to be with the animals.

Apes in Literature, 3 🌟
The author's essay on [the title] yielded a couple of suggestions for my To Read list.

Tarzan's First Love, 4 🌟
Tarzan and teeka grew up together among the apes, but one day, Tarzan looks at Teeka and realizes he's in love.

Rachel in Love, 4 🌟
A bittersweet story, about a little bonobo whose human Foster father Transmits the brain waves of his dead teenage daughter into her brain. Her Foster father has a heart attack and dies one morning, and she's left on her own. When police come to take away his body, she is transported to a primate research lab, where she finds out the horrors that humans inflict upon animals. It has a happy ending though.

Her Furry Face, 3 🌟
A teacher in a primate school, working with a female orangutan, falls in love with her, ruins his marriage, and loses his job. A really sad story.

Red Shadows, 3 🌟
"... All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul."

The Maze of Maâl Dweb, 3 🌟
"... It has been, as you know, My caprice to eternalize the frail beauty of women. Athlé, like the others before her, has explored my ingenious maze, and has looked into that mirror whose sudden radiance turns the flesh to a stone fairer than marble and no less enduring… also, as you know, it has been my whim to turn men into beasts with the copious fluid of certain artificial flowers, so that their outer semblance should conform more strictly to their inner nature."

After King Kong Fell, 3 🌟
The "true story" of King Kong narrated by someone who was there.

Deviation From a Theme, 3 🌟
Even galaxy creators can be clumsy.

Godzilla's 12-step Program, 3 🌟
Godzilla tries to give up rampaging by going on a 12 step program.

The Men in the Monkey Suit, 3 🌟
Gives the history of humans playing gorillas in the movies in Hollywood.

Dr. Hudson's Secret Gorilla, 3 🌟
A man's body dies in a car accident, but a mad scientist saves his brain and transplant sit into the body of a gorilla.

Faded Roses, 4 🌟
A sad story, with a shocking ending.

[Collin Mickle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course I picked this book up. Could you resist it? The concept feels like a Mad Lib, or the kind of thing the Duke Brothers from Trading Places would come up with if they were publishers instead of ... (um ... uh ... I wanna say commodities traders? Anyway.)

A collection of short stories whose common thread is apes? With contributions by Gustave Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka and others? And all presented in a quite straight-faced way, interspersed with little 10-page scholarly monographs about, e.g., "apes in cinema" and the like? Yeah, no way am I walking away from all that on the library shelf.

The very good news is that the book isn't some goofy stunt. (Well, isn't *just* some goofy stunt.) The stories are all quite good -- honors to Pat Murphy's "Rachel in Love" and Mary Robinette Kowal's "Evil Robot Monkey" -- and the variety of styles and topics makes the 360-page length a breeze. Highly recommended for all primate readers.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of SF ape stories from throughout history, along with a number of essays on apes as portrayed in literature and film. Interesting stuff. Pretty sure this was intended to fit in with the Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie. If so, well done. I liked the collection overall, although some did not age well from their original publication. I think my favorite was Lansdale's "Godzilla's Twelve-Step Program." YMMV.

[Charl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating collection of essays and stories all featuring apes.

[Matevž · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my style of reading

[Stina Leicht · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's obvious that there's some great stuff in the anthology. There are stories I thought were great and some that I didn't care for so much. All in all, a great collection if you're into ape stories. Having read it, I think I now understand why there are so few female voices included in the anthology.

[Mike Wigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

True story, I only got this book because I dreamt of the title one night. Never knew such a book existed. Some pretty good stories. Seems like quite a bit of interest in human/primate, uh, sexual congress. Personally can't see the attraction.