Escape to Tomorrow

Planet of the Apes TV Series #2

by George Alec Effinger

"Savages, they're nothing but savages!"
"They must be caught and punished!"
"They must be taught their place!"
"They must be obliterated like the plague!"

So began the reign of terror. Humans, already enslaved, were now to be exterminated. The Dragoons, a band of vicious apes, swore to drive the humans from their land, burn their huts, murder their children, and imprison the last sorry survivors in the Forbidden Zone.

Only Galen, Virdon and Burke stood between the doomed humans and their terrible fate. Only they could expose the Dragoons and their dangerous secret. Only they could keep the apes from destroying an entire race and every remnant of their dead civilization.

But in this desert of brutality, small flames of reason and kindness still flickered. An ape doctor and a frightened blind female become the unwitting aides of human salvation....

Contains the novellizations of the episodes "The Surgeon" based on the teleplay by Barry Oringer, and, "The Deception" based on the teleplay by Anthony Lawrence and Joe Ruby and Ken Spears.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Tv

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Effinger wrote four books that were adaptations of the television series Planet of the Apes, which was based on the original 1968-1973 series of movies, which in turn had been based on the Pierre Boulle novel from 1963. The TV series only ran for fourteen episodes at the end of 1974 and was not particularly well received. Each of his books adapted two of the scripts of the show. He did a good job of adapting the stories, and managed to establish some continuity between them. He obviously didn't spend as much time and energy on them as he did on his original work, and he also was in very poor health while writing them. Nonetheless, he still produced entertaining prose, threw in occasional lines and bits that enhanced the televised versions, and managed to tell an interesting series of stories.

[Valerie]

The original book by Pierre Boulle was basically a recasting of Gulliver in the Land of the Houyhnhnms. Through various incarnations, it's undergone changes in various directions. The tv series was a more humane (you should pardon the expression), sustainable version, in which the space/time traveling astronauts and their chimpanzee friend are trying to equalize the relationship between humans and nonhuman apes.

Part of the problem, as with (for example) the Tarzan books, is that the writers have very little experience or knowledge of actual apes, so their presentations of the anthropomorphized apes too easily falls into caricature.

There're two of these novelizations (which I have, but there seem to be more), and there's one story in one of them that's not (so far as I can tell) in the original tv series: "The Good Seed". It may've been written by Effinger (see corrected info in the entry for the first volume, Man The Fugitive), or it may have been planned, but not filmed--or my copy of the tv series is not complete.

I've recently added the 1st book in this series of novelizations, so I'll add the table of contents, the acknowledgements for this volume now.

Dedication: "For Milkwood, Trout, and Fish, my best friends among the non-hominoid {sic--humans are hominoids] chordates"

CONTENTS

I The Surgeon ('based on a teleplay by Barry Oringer'--I have a copy of the televised version)

The concept of blood types should not have fallen out of the medical record. The blood types among nonhuman apes are the same as those of humans. There's some evidence that the medical establishment in this period is trying to bootstrap itself back to parity of medicine in human-ruled times--and struggling because they're trying to do so without historical records, and trying to do so much faster than the original research, against the backcurrant of conservative professions. They are making progress--substantial progress, given the forces they're hindered by.

The surgeon in question is a female chimpanzee. I don't remember much about tone of voice, but from the reading, I'd say that she's also subject to pretty hampering sexual harassment.


II The Deception--In a rural area, a (highly illegal) secret group carries out ethnic cleansing against humans--trying to spur a general pogrom. The Klan-like group takes advantage of general prejudice--but they also practice framing of humans for things one of their leaders has done (specifically a murder of the leader's brother). The wayfaring trio of Burke, Virdon, and Galen, come into the area where this unlawful abuse is taking place--a place where the humans once lived, centuries ago. They're forced to cozen the dead chimp's daughter, who is blind--pretending to be all chimps.

The evidence of the framing and of the identities of the clandestine 'vigilante' group become critical to the case--and the gorilla sheriff is a 'by the book' type, who has been trying to collect this information for some time--and who is definitely NOT complicit in the actions of the secret society.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novelizations of two episodes from the TV series: "The Surgeon" and "The Deception."

The first one begins when Virdon takes a bullet wound. Galen then has to convince an old girlfriend--a doctor--to treat a human. Later, Galen and Burke have to break into Dr. Zaius' home to steal a book on human anatomy to guide the doctor in removing the bullet.

"The Deception" has the three friends stumbling onto a situation reminicent of the Klu Klux Klan. Apes wearing masks are driving out local human, burning homes and sometimes killing the humans. Virdon, Burke and Galen (who all suffer from Chronic Hero Syndrome) naturally decide to put a stop to it, which involves Galen going undercover and Burke inadvertantly getting a blind lady chimp--who thinks Burke is an ape--to fall in love with him.

As was typical of the series, the plots lean heavily into melodrama, but occasional bits of action keep the pace from slowing down too much. Galen and Burke's heist of the medical book in the first story was particularly fun.

[Robert Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

A standardly written adaptation of two episodes of the TV series. "The Surgeon" is another of the same type of plot where the humans wind up, with their amazing astronaut training, teaching the apes, in this case a doctor, new things about their profession ie. how to blood type donors and to do transfusions. Nothing new or interesting and pretty much the same plot of the two stories in the first book. I felt "The Deception" was much better. Still a quick standard adaptation without much added character to the filmed episode, which I looked up and watched after finishing this book, but there was some. Mostly because the book allowed us to get inside the heads of Sestus and his daughter Fauna.

[Mike Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up in a Little Free Library. Good allegory on racism and a quick read with the fast moving story. I might need to read the series now...