By Michael Avallone / Jerry Pournelle

Titan Books, out now

The original novelisations of the first two Ape sequels…

Chances are if you were British and came to the Planet of the Apes saga as a result of the original screening of the TV series on ITV, the only possibility of finding out what happened in the big screen movies was via copies of the novelisations of the four sequels that could be quite easily found in second-hand bookshops. (We’re talking 1974-5 here – no internet, no VHS, no regular screenings of the films on TV.) The black-backgrounded Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the smaller format Escape (with its picture of the ape family on the cover) were my way into the Apes universe. As far as I was concerned, this is what happened… so seeing the original movies came as something of a shock.

Without wanting to spoil the reverse effect for those coming to these versions having seen every frame of the movies countless times and knowing all the different variants, these have some quite noticeable differences – more in Avallone’s Beneath, it should be acknowledged. I won’t go as far as a relative of Avallone on Amazon does (“I believe this is the finest novelization ever written. It stands alone as a great sci-fi novel, and doesn’t suffer from Charlton Heston’s obvious boredom, or the movie’s lackluster direction, effects and grating musical score”) but it is an enjoyable read – and has what I believe is the originally-intended ending intact. Pournelle’s novel fleshes out a number of the side characters and gives a clearer idea of the reception that the ape-o-nauts receive when they arrive in “our” time.

In an era when you simply didn’t get a chance to revisit a movie until it turned up on TV, novelisations were a lifeline – and these two are highly enjoyable examples… and thanks to Titan for bringing them back (and saving me thumbing through my now very old originals!).

Verdict: Slightly alternate takes on two of the key entries in the Ape saga. 7/10

Paul Simpson