136. (August 2024) Planet of the Apes, by Pierre Boulle — The Tabletop Roleplayers' Book Club

Planet of the Apes Question Swiftly

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:01:37 +0000

In his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, Brian Aldiss classifies this story as a piece of Swiftian fiction, characterized by it's 'bouleversements', meaning 'a turning over of the ball'. Aldiss compares it to parts of Gulliver's Travels, and to The Island of Doctor Moreau and Animal Farm, all of which are satires. What did this book have in common with these? What was different? Do you enjoy Swiftian satire? Can you think of any others?

Planet of the Apes Question The

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:06:09 +0000

The Book VS The Film – and here we're talking about the 1968 film starring Charlton Heston – but why stop there, let's also include the 1970's sequels – especially Escape From the Planet of the Apes. What struck you as most similar between book and film? What was most different? Did the film improve on the story? Did the film's ending alter the meaning of the book? Did the sequel films also draw from this book?

Planet of the Apes Question Of

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:04:49 +0000

What to make of Ulysse Mérou? His first name refers to Odysseus. A Mérou is a grouper fish. Odysseus the Grouper? What can it all mean?

Planet of the Apes Question A

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:59:16 +0000

The book opens with two characters, Jinn and Phyllis, finding a message in a bottle. We return to them at the end – had you forgotten about them? Did your perception of them change from the beginning to the end? What did you think of using these two as a framing device? Jinn and Phyllis learn about Ulysse from a message in a bottle in which Ulysse describes travelling with his family – when was the message written? Why was the story so unbelievable to them?

Planet of the Apes Questions Apes

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:11:07 +0000

Could you ape the themes in this book in a game at the table? How would you do it? Would the players be the humans, or the apes? Would you even use apes, or some other animal? Is Prax, for example, the Planet of the Tapirs? How many ways can you think of 'rolling the ball over'?

Planet of the Apes Question Planet

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:04:00 +0000

Brian Aldiss likens Planet of the Apes to a fairy tale, telling us that “a characteristic of the fairy tale is that it is unbelievable”. How soon did it become unbelievable? How do you feel about an unbelievable science fictional fairy tale? Is that the best kind?

Planet of the Apes Question Tilting

Apocryphal — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:02:50 +0000

Hey, do you remember that book by Blake Crouch called Recursion which didn't have any recursion? Let us now return to this idea of recursion. Is the Planet of the Apes a recursive story? How so, or how not? Do two reversals make a recursion?

About Pierre Boulle

RichardAbbott — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 11:11:23 +0000

Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French author. Born in Avignon, France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as a Catholic, although later in life he became an agnostic. He is best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963), that were both made into award-winning films.

Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour. He used these experiences in The Bridge over the River Kwai, about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film, named The Bridge on the River Kwai, by David Lean won seven Academy Awards (including Best Adapted Screenplay), and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two actual screenwriters had been blacklisted.

His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes, in which intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, developed into a media franchise spanning over 55 years that includes ten films, two television series, comic books and popular themed merchandise.

In 1963, following several other reasonably successful novels, Boulle published La planète des singes, translated in 1964 as Monkey Planet by Xan Fielding, and later re-issued as Planet of the Apes. With inspiration drawn from observing the wildlife from his years in the plantations in Malaya, the book was highly praised and given such reviews as this example from England's Guardian newspaper: "Classic science fiction ... full of suspense and satirical intelligence." In the year 2500, a group of astronauts, including journalist Ulysse Mérou, voyage to a planet in the star system of Betelgeuse. They land to discover a bizarre world where intelligent apes are the Master Race and humans are reduced to savages: caged in zoos, used in laboratory experiments and hunted for sport. The story focuses on Ulysse's capture, his struggle to survive, and the shattering climax as he returns to Earth and a horrific final discovery. The novel is also a wry parable on science, evolution, and the relationship between man and animal.

Cover blurb for Planet of the Apes

RichardAbbott — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 11:06:30 +0000

Read the classic, chilling dystopian novel that inspired one of the world's most iconic film franchises

'A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory' Los Angeles Times

In a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light, Ulysse, a journalist, sets off from Earth for the nearest solar system. There he finds Soror, a planet which resembles his own, but where humans behave like animals, and are hunted by a civilised race of primates.

Captured and sent to a research facility, Ulysse must convince the apes of their mutual origins. But such revelations will have always been greeted by prejudice and fear...

'A drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead' The Mirror