Death of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska

Several years ago, I read Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, the first-ever original novel set in the continuity of the original Planet of the Apes films. I felt like it functioned as a novelization of the original film, the only one not to ever receive one.

Death of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska

Published: 2018
Read: April 2026

Seven years after Conspiracy, author Andrew Gaska wrote a sequel, Death of the Planet of the Apes. Even though the second POTA film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, did receive a novelization, Death reads like a novelization of it much as Conspiracy did of the first film. And just like Conspiracy folded in details from the later films and explained continuity discrepancies between them, so too does Death bring in a lot of details from the later films and explain discrepancies between them. Specifically, we learn how Milo was able to rebuild the Liberty 1 ship from the first movie (as we found out in the third movie), and why he and Cornelius and Zira were aboard it in spacesuits (the third movie implies they were trying to get away from the destruction of Earth, but there was no reason they would know about this). It explains what happened to Cornelius and Zira's nephew, who was in the first movie but not the second, it explains when they got married, it explains why Doctor Zaius was more sympathetic in the second movie than the first, it explains how Cornelius didn't know how humanity used to be capable of speech in the first movie but by the third knows the true history of the apes. And there's still more things it explains that I noticed, and I'm sure even more beyond those that I didn't!

Beyond that... what's it about? is it any good? 

One of the weird things about the second movie is that it opens by showing you what Charlton Heston's Taylor is up to, and then he buggers off only to reappear at the climax of the movie—because Heston was not really that interested in doing the movie. The lead character for most of the second movie is the Temu Charlton Heston, Brent. Gaska very much cuts down Brent's scenes, but provides lots of Taylor—both what he is doing during the events of the movie, and giving us copious amount of backstory, from Taylor's days as a World War II fighter pilot up up through becoming an ANSA astronaut and his selection for the crew of Liberty 1. There was probably a bit too much of all of this, to be honest; I don't know that any Planet of the Apes novel really needs to be over 400 pages long! I think something tighter could have better highlighted the thread of Taylor's developing nihilism, which is intended to lead up to the decision he makes at the end of the film. It might also have made more clear the parallels between the societies of twentieth-century Earth and ape civilization: I think Gaska was going for commentary on the dangers of nationalism (the new ruler of Ape City proposes building an expensive border wall), but I also felt the thread wasn't as clear as it might be.

Overall, other than getting kind of bored at the length, I enjoyed it. It's not high art but it scratches the itch I want from a POTA tie-in. I found some interviews from Gaska where he talks about Conspiracy and Death as the first two books of a planned six-book sequence... but we're now at eight years since Death with no sign of book three, so I suppose that will never eventuate. I'm guessing each book would have been a side story to a film, so the next book would have retold the events of Escape from the Planet of the Apes, presumably folding in the stuff about ANSA and Earth history revealed in this volume and Conspiracy. Would the sixth have thus taken events beyond Conquest, completing the time loop leading into the original film? I guess we will never know.

Review: Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska

Hardcover, 269 pages
Published 2011
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2019

Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska
story by Andrew E.C. Gaska, Rich Handley, Christian Berntsen, and Erik Matthews

Periodically I read a Planet of the Apes book because, hey, why not? The original films have a kitschy charm and nihilistic streak that makes them endure. My most recent perambulations bring me to Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, the first original novel set during the continuity of the 1968-73 films. The book is kind of a novelization of the first film, the only one of the five to never be novelized (publishers just reissued Pierre Boulle's original novel with a film tie-in cover instead), and kind of a sidequel to it, as it mostly focuses on minor characters from the first film, and characters who were introduced in later ones.

The main human character is Landon, one of the not-Charlton Heston astronauts from the original film; Conspiracy reveals that he had a much more involved adventure on the planet of the apes than one might have guessed based on the film. It's kind of neat to see the early scenes of the original retold from his viewpoint. Taylor is kind of an asshole when he's not the protagonist. There are also lots of flashbacks that fill in Landon's pre-Liberty 1 life, especially a space mission he undertook a few years earlier along with Maryann Stewart, the female astronaut who dies in suspended animation in the film's opening. To be honest, I struggled to care about him at times; the present-day stuff was interesting, but the flashbacks ultimately came off as pretty pointless.

The main ape characters are Galen, a veterinarian who briefly appeared in the original film, and Milo, a scientist who was introduced in the third film as a close friend of Cornelius and Zira who'd we never heard of before. Galen experiments on Landon, while Milo uses information from Landon to recover the Liberty 1 from beneath the water, setting up and explaining one of the particularly contrived aspects of the third film. To be honest, this is one of those tie-ins where it feels like its whole purpose is not telling a story, but sewing up holes. It does a good job of sewing up holes (I liked the explanation for why the Liberty 1 crashed to begin with, or why someone would even send a rescue mission after a ship that seemingly couldn't return), but Gaska's own story isn't always particularly compelling.

The book is graphic novel-sized (I think it was published by a comic book publisher) and profusely illustrated by some greats of the sf/comics world like Andrew Probert, Dave Dorman, and Thomas Scioli, which was really neat. Worth reading if you've thought a lot about inconsistencies in the Planet of the Apes films (which I have), but maybe not if you just want to read a great story.