By Pierre Boulle
At only 128 pages this is a fast moving story. Having seen the movies
many times all I knew going into this book was that the ending was different.The movie followed the book fairly closely. The biggest differences: the names of the astronauts; Taylor is Ulysses. The men on the planet destroy the space capsule and their clothes. Ulysses mates with Nova, she gives birth to a son who can speak and awakens in her the ability to learn to speak.
Other scientific apes (other than Dr. Zaius as in the movie) suspect that there was life before the apes ruled. Evidence is found that these people were intelligent homo sapiens.
Finally, and here is a big spoiler alert, at the end Ulysses, Nova and son Sirius escape in the astronauts orbiting space ship and fly at light speed back to Earth. Arriving Earth time some 700 years after leaving. They land at Orly in Paris. It looks as if nothing has changed. A car drives out to meet them. It's hard to see who's driving due to the glare of the sun. As the person gets out they see it is a gorilla!
Overall this isn't much of a PA story. It was quite enjoyable though. I liked reading a deeper explanation of the rise of apes on Soror. I would say this is one of the few instances where I like the movie more than the book. But that could be because I can't separate the entire movie series in my mind.
