PLANET OF THE APES

The resilient, resourceful M. Boulle who is, in a sense, a general practitioner of the novel and handles many kinds well now takes a giant step into the future and into space, to a distant planet, Sorus, which is reached by Ulysse, a rench journalist, a physician, and a misanthropic professor. The first form of life they observe there is female- and beautiful, a young woman Nova whose vacant ves betray the fact that although she is physically perfect, she is void of intelligence. Before long they meet a master race, the apes, who have evolved a civilization tantamount to human. In a cage, where Ulysse is used for Pavlovian experimentation and behavioral observation, Ulysse can be and is reduced to a very ow level of life indeed, and only through the intervention of a she-ape, Zira, is temporarily reprieved.... Within the cadre of science fiction, this is satire where paradoxes and parallels converage. It can be read as either, and when it gets ight down to monkey business it is dismayingly entertaining.