Prose of the Apes: Guiding the Planet on Its Next Titanic Adventures

By Rich Handley

As a writer and editor, I've taken on a lot of gigs during the course of my career that I haven't found particularly engaging. These have ranged from writing articles about bathroom furnishings and school board meetings to editing medical reports for insurance companies to proofreading… wait for it… phone books. (I kid you not. It was my first publishing job, back in the early 1990s. As you can imagine, I'd rather live in the Forbidden Zone—without Nova—than do that again.)

But I've also had a number of assignments that I could really sink my teeth into. Recently, I signed a contract for just such a project.

Those who know me are well aware that I'm a major Planet of the Apes fan going back to the days of The 4:30 Movie in the 1970s, when I discovered the apes on my parents' 13-inch black-and-white TV. I've remained an avid aficionado ever since, not only of the films and TV shows, but also of the comics, novels and other aspects of the franchise. I've also had the fun of writing, co-editing, or contributing to five books on the subject to date.

Well, you can now make that six. Much to my continued disbelief, Titan Books' Steve Saffel and 20th Century Fox have hired me and fellow author Jim Beard to co-edit a licensed Planet of the Apes short-fiction anthology, due out in early 2017. The book will feature 16 tales based on the classic films and live-action television show, and will be released during the lead-up to the next movie, War for the Planet of the Apes, hitting theaters in July of that year. I don't know which one I'm more excited about—the film or the book.

OK, I can't lie. It's obviously the book. But the film is only about a millimeter behind it at the finish line.

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