Quest of the Golden Ape

by Adam Chase

How could this man awaken with no past—no childhood—no recollection except of a vague world of terror from which his mother cried out for vengeance and the slaughter of his own people stood as a monument of infamy?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

110 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 29, 2002

About the author

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Reviews

[Craig]

This is a fairly standard sword & planet type of adventure of an Earthman being magically transported to a counter-Earth. It has Burroughs-like imagery, kind of cardboard characters, and a few neat twists that are fun but unremarkable. If I'd listened to it and been asked to guess an author, I would have said Lin Carter or possibly Otis Adelbart Kline. The pacing is odd, with a rushed ending suggesting the authors ran out of room or motivation and decided to tie it all up. The titular golden apes don't have a whole lot to do with the story. The real mystery is who the authors actually were. The novel was serialized in the January through March issues of the genre digest magazine Amazing Stories, which was edited by Paul W. Fairman, in 1957 with the authors listed as Adam Chase and Ivar Jorgenson, two pseudonyms used by many of the authors of the time. A hardbound edition was published in 1959 by Avalon Press, with just the Adam Chase name on it. The version I listened to from LibriVox is bylined Randall Garrett, and it's had other printings as by Garrett. However, Robert Silverberg has stated that it was started by Paul W. Fairman and finished by Stephen Marlowe, who was much better known under his pen name Milton Lesser. According to ISFDB, other sources have attributed it to Lesser and Garrett. Perhaps all three of them worked on it...only the golden apes know for sure, and they're not talking.

[Jerry]

Older science fiction stories are known for having weird names of places and peoples, but this one seems to be taking earth names and literally modifying them by one letter, sometimes even a partly opposite letter.

This planet on the other side of the sun from Earth, for example, is Tarth. It is inhabited by Abarians from Abaria (Arabians from Arabia?) and Utalians. If Earth has Italians, why wouldn’t opposite-Earth have You-talians?

It’s possible that AD&D took the Utalian race and turned them into the Skulk, a race of coward chameleons very similar to the Utalians.

That aside, this is a nice, standard adventure story containing a nice amount of weird ideas. It also turns the normal sword & planet trope, of an Earthman being transported to another planet, on its head; in this book, the Tarthian is transported to Earth and the Earthmen in the story quickly disappear into the background.

[Hayden]

3/4 of the way through, I was questioning the mediocre reviews of this book. Then the story sped to a speed that was nearly impossible to follow. From the weak explanation of connected time continuums to the lack of emotion in a character resurrection, the story races to the finish as if the author had a deadline to meet which didn't allow enough time to properly draw out the climax and resolution.

[Curtis Hempler]

This was originally published as a serial in one of the 1950's pulp magazines. It's interesting as an example of the genre, but it isn't the most enjoyable story by today's standards. The story is a fairly shallow adventure, with some interesting concepts thrown in.

[Keith Kavanagh]

liked a lot of the ideas, absolute shiter of an ending

[Michael]

Mhhmm...yeah, I can see why Mr Garrett wrote this one under a pseudonym. It moved along at a good clip, but owed quite a lot to Burroughs's John carter series. My biggest complaint is probably that it got most interesting at the end with the appearance of the Golden Apes, then it was over.

[Kyle Dougherty]

The story seemed to progress at an ever-increasing speed, linearly if not exponentially!
I enjoyed the setup, but the protagonist seemed largely useless, and the world was very difficult to visualize. Still enjoyed it, but it could have been much better.

[Summer]

John Carter of Mars clone that hasn't aged terribly well. The writing isn't bad, but the dialogue is a tad cringy and sexism abounds. Typical of the era, but mildly entertaining little lost world story.

[Mark]

Old fashioned sci fi / fantasy. Similar to the John Carter stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but not nearly as well developed.

[David Brzezinski]

Typical "lost world" sci-fi/adventure. nothing really all that extraordinary about this book.