I was going to say, "See my review of the 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' novels on Dogpatch Press," but it's still in DP's to-be-posted queue. It should be online soon. The 'War for the Planet of the Apes' novels are still in my to-be-read stack.
I do consider the 'Planet of the Apes' books -- the novelizations of the movie scripts and the authorized original novels -- to be furry literature.
The three latest Planet movies – Rise (2011), Dawn (2014), and War (2017) -- are designed as a single trilogy, and their paperback novels & novelizations are all controlled by Titan Books in London. What's more, Titan has gotten the rights to all the previous authorized novelizations – ‘Beneath’, ‘Escape’ etc. – from 1970 to 2001, and is republishing them as a four-volume “Planet of the Apes Omnibus” series. The first two are already out, and the next two are scheduled for this September and February 2018.
The early Planet paperback novelizations were written by several s-f authors towards the beginning of their careers; Jerry Pournelle, David Gerrold, William Rotsler, etc. “Omnibus” vol. 3 includes the almost-impossible-to-find “Lord of the Apes” by George Alec Effinger. Effinger got the job of novelizing the 1974-1975 “Planet of the Apes” TV series scripts for Award Books, a minor paperback publisher. He covered the TV episodes #1 to #9 in the first three books, then #10 to #12 in “Lord of the Apes” in September 1975. It was published, and Award Books had just begun to ship it out when the company declared bankruptcy. Most of the copies were unshipped and destroyed, but a few copies made it into the bookstores, so it became a cheap but almost impossible-to-get rarity. Now Titan Books has (or will in September) made it available again.
“Omnibus” vol. 4 will include the three ‘Return to the Planet of the Apes’ TV script novelizations by “William Arrow” – William Rotsler & Donald J. Pfeil. Bill Rotsler told me (we were both LASFS members) that he and Don Pfeil had gotten the job of novelizing the scripts of the cartoon TV series, animated by Depatie-Freleng. The TV series had been rushed into production so fast that its writers were given old ‘Rawhide’ scripts and told to rewrite them into ‘Return’ scripts. Rotsler & Pfeil were told to pick a single pseudonym for both of them, so they created “William Arrow”, the William from William Rotsler and the Arrow from Pfeil translated into English. They were supposed to alternate with Rotsler writing books #1 and #3 (scripts #1-#3 and #7-#9) and Pfeil writing books #2 and #4, but only books #1 to #3 were published – they were told to not to bother finishing #4 because the publisher (Ballantine) was cancelling the series due to poor sales.
I was preparing my annotated “An Anthropomorphic Bibliography” in 1994, and I couldn’t find the third ‘Return’ book anywhere. Bill Rotsler promised to loan me his file copy at the next week’s LASFS meeting, but we were told that he had just been rushed to a hospital for emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery. As soon as he got out, he phoned me and said that if I needed the book anytime soon, I’d have to come to his house to get it. He was in bed, and said that he’d been so cut & stitched from the surgery that he looked like a young Dr. Frankenstein’s earliest homework assignment.
I was going to say, "See my review of the 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' novels on Dogpatch Press," but it's still in DP's to-be-posted queue. It should be online soon. The 'War for the Planet of the Apes' novels are still in my to-be-read stack.
I do consider the 'Planet of the Apes' books -- the novelizations of the movie scripts and the authorized original novels -- to be furry literature.
The three latest Planet movies – Rise (2011), Dawn (2014), and War (2017) -- are designed as a single trilogy, and their paperback novels & novelizations are all controlled by Titan Books in London. What's more, Titan has gotten the rights to all the previous authorized novelizations – ‘Beneath’, ‘Escape’ etc. – from 1970 to 2001, and is republishing them as a four-volume “Planet of the Apes Omnibus” series. The first two are already out, and the next two are scheduled for this September and February 2018.
The early Planet paperback novelizations were written by several s-f authors towards the beginning of their careers; Jerry Pournelle, David Gerrold, William Rotsler, etc. “Omnibus” vol. 3 includes the almost-impossible-to-find “Lord of the Apes” by George Alec Effinger. Effinger got the job of novelizing the 1974-1975 “Planet of the Apes” TV series scripts for Award Books, a minor paperback publisher. He covered the TV episodes #1 to #9 in the first three books, then #10 to #12 in “Lord of the Apes” in September 1975. It was published, and Award Books had just begun to ship it out when the company declared bankruptcy. Most of the copies were unshipped and destroyed, but a few copies made it into the bookstores, so it became a cheap but almost impossible-to-get rarity. Now Titan Books has (or will in September) made it available again.
“Omnibus” vol. 4 will include the three ‘Return to the Planet of the Apes’ TV script novelizations by “William Arrow” – William Rotsler & Donald J. Pfeil. Bill Rotsler told me (we were both LASFS members) that he and Don Pfeil had gotten the job of novelizing the scripts of the cartoon TV series, animated by Depatie-Freleng. The TV series had been rushed into production so fast that its writers were given old ‘Rawhide’ scripts and told to rewrite them into ‘Return’ scripts. Rotsler & Pfeil were told to pick a single pseudonym for both of them, so they created “William Arrow”, the William from William Rotsler and the Arrow from Pfeil translated into English. They were supposed to alternate with Rotsler writing books #1 and #3 (scripts #1-#3 and #7-#9) and Pfeil writing books #2 and #4, but only books #1 to #3 were published – they were told to not to bother finishing #4 because the publisher (Ballantine) was cancelling the series due to poor sales.
I was preparing my annotated “An Anthropomorphic Bibliography” in 1994, and I couldn’t find the third ‘Return’ book anywhere. Bill Rotsler promised to loan me his file copy at the next week’s LASFS meeting, but we were told that he had just been rushed to a hospital for emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery. As soon as he got out, he phoned me and said that if I needed the book anytime soon, I’d have to come to his house to get it. He was in bed, and said that he’d been so cut & stitched from the surgery that he looked like a young Dr. Frankenstein’s earliest homework assignment.
Fred Patten