Planet Of The Apes

Author: Pierre Boulle

This is the novel that spawned a plethora of movies, almost all of them middling- to dismal. It's written by a Frenchman, and thus the only one on this list that doesn't originate from an Anglophone context. Language matters, because it frames thought, and this need to be taken into account in order to understand this book. It's full of grim and bitter irony; a parable about power of species over speciesâ€”a metaphor for power of culture over culture, and masters over slaves. In many ways it echoes Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, but with a completely different sensibility; once again, I submit, a consequence of the writer's cultural and linguistic context. Why it's at this place on the list: It's been enormously influentialâ€”despite its flaws; for to this reviewer the story appears contrived by a desire to make philosophical points and hold them up in your face, rather than doing it by focusing on its characters. The themeâ€”that apes not only supplant humans as the dominant species, but also that they are actually more intelligent and possibly more civilizedâ€”is a parallel to the notion that computers, robots, etc may end up doing the same. Still, the notion that a species that we've always regarded as inferiorâ€”despite the ooh-ing and ahh-ing over how cute and 'human-like' they are, and how they should be accorded 'human rights'â€”should turn the tables on us, possibly as a result of our own stupidity... that's possibly even more disturbing than the notion of super-human intelligence in robots. Ratings: Grimness: 4, Bizarreness: 3, Hope: 1, Fun-factor: 1.