Book Review - Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone

Next up for the month is a return to the Planet of the Apes. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the franchise. Even though it’s a somewhat solid franchise, I haven’t done much in looking at things outside the movies. I haven’t even watched the animated TV series and the live-action TV series yet. Before you ask, yes, they do exist. A few months ago, I was having a bit of an itch for some POTA stuff. I finally watched the latest movie (War for the Planet of the Apes). I also found out about today’s pick, Plant of the Apes: Tales from The Forbidden Zone.

This book was released last year by Titan Books. It contains 16 short stories from modern writers about the original POTA movies. There are even stories about both TV series. Most of them fill in things or give backstories to certain characters. The rest end up being “what-if” stories or just weird stories.  Dan Abnett, Kevin J. Anderson, Ty Templeton, Greg Cox, and Paul Kupperburg were just some of the writers in this collection. They were also the only ones I recognized from other works. Rich Handley and Jim Beard ended up being the editors to the collection.

Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone

Editors: Rich Handley and Jim Beard

Writers: Various

BRIEF BLURB: This collection of short stories look at the original Planet of the Apes movies and TV shows. Some include backstories, continuations of canceled shows, what-if stories, and stories that look at other types of apes.

SYNOPSIS

Since these are 16 stories, I’ll just give a quick description of each one.

• Unfired (Dan Abnett) – This looks at a group of mutants like the ones from Beneath the Planet of the Apes. They end up traveling to what was New York in order to deliver an ancient relic.
• More Than Human, Less Than Ape (Nancy A. Collins) – This looks at a younger Cornelius as he runs into a species of ape we never saw in the movies nor TV shows. It’s a good one.
• Blood Brothers (Will Murray) – This story continues the adventures of the astronauts from the Planet of the Apes TV series. Here, Virdon, Burke, and Galen (their chimp sidekick) run into a group of humans being led by an gorilla. Think Dances With Wolves, folks.
• The Pacing Place (Bob Mayer) – This is a what-if story that wonders what would have happened to Taylor and Nova if they found a place to call home and just lived life. It’s probably one of my favorites from the collection.
• Murderers’ Row (John Jackson Miller) – This story goes behind the scenes of Escape from the Planet of the Apes and looks at a TV executive who wanted to make Cornelius and Zira stars.
• Endangered Species (Greg Cox) – Set decades before the first film, this looks at a scientist who started to probe deeply into the habits of the primitive humans and gets into trouble for it. This one is another favorite.
• Dangerous Imaginings (Paul Kupperburg) – This is another what-if story where the Earth didn’t blow up at the end of the second movie. In it, a group of apes find technology and discover some forbidden knowledge.
• Of Monsters and Men (Kevin J. Anderson and Sam Knight) – This looks at a young Zaius as he leads an expedition into the Forbidden Zone. I’ll just say they find some weird stuff.
• The Unknown Ape (Andrew E.C. Gaska) – This is a weird one that crosses over characters from the animated series with ones from one of the movies. It’s an admittedly confusing one.
• Silenced (Jim Beard) – This interesting tale looks at the females of the POTA franchise.
• Who is this Man? What Sort of Devil is He? (Roger Greenberger) – This looks at General Urko from the POTA live-action TV show. While he recovers from wounds and deals with startling news, he brings up details about something from the TV show’s past.
• Stone Monkey (Greg Keyes) – This story looks at even more types of apes in a different part of the world. It revolves around an ape looking for immortality and the Monkey King… it makes more sense when you read it, okay?
• Milo’s Tale (Ty Templeton) – This story looks at Doctor Milo, the third chimp from Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and how he met Cornelius and Zira.
• Message in a Bottle (Dayton Ward) – This continues the story of the astronauts from the TV show. This time, they come across something that could get them home.
• The King is Dead-Long Live the King  (Rich Handley) – This takes place 20 years after the events of Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Caesar tries to make peace with the Mutants in the Forbidden City.
• Banana Republic (Jonathan Mayberry) – This final story shows an orangutan and a gorilla finding a secret from humanity’s past. They also wonder on how their own future could turn out.

OPINION

I thought that this was a nice collection of short stories. All of the writers were able to do stories that ranged from average to pretty good. While there has been a lot done to enhance the POTA universe over the years, this just adds more to it. We get stories that looked at what we knew from the original movies and TV side. We got backstories on favorites like Cornelius, Zaius, and the original Caesar.  I know this was probably a cool thing for fans of the TV shows to see. Both shows didn’t last long in the 70’s. This actually has me interested in seeing them especially the animated series.

We also got stories that went places that didn’t get touched by that stuff. For example, we only got to see three types of apes in movies and TV: gorilla, orangutan, and chimpanzee.  Here, we got a couple of stories that showed other types of apes and how they acted. It also showed that Ape City wasn’t the only place to harbor apes. The what-if, non-canon stories were also a nice treat. Those were probably the most interesting ones in the collection. The what-if story involving Taylor was definitely a good one.

I don’t have too many negatives about the collection as a whole. I don’t think I ran into a straight-up bad story in the bunch. I did run across some that were just okay, though. Even though each story is about 20-30 pages long, you did have a couple that did drag. I think I ran into this more in the middle of the collection since the first few stories and the last couple were pretty good. I also ran into a couple of admittedly “fan-fictiony” stories. “The Unknown Ape” is definitely one of them even though I enjoyed it. Other than those things, this was good.

In the end, this was a cool collection. If you’re a fan of the original POTA movies or just a POTA fan in general, check this out. Well, I got one more post left for the month. It’ll either be something from Asimov or Dick. You’ll know when I know. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there. Also, if you and your Nova are out in the desert and see weird stuff, just turn left. You might save the world that way.