Well it might have been. I gazed at the tall stern-looking woman and supposed I could detect a family resemblance. I had never thought about the likelihood of Bucky Buckland having parents, but if he must, this woman seemed as probable as any. If nothing else, it made it plain just where Bucky had inherited his propensity for causing trouble. Mrs Buckland, like her son, seemed to like being at the centre of things and her determined look said plainly that she was ready to meet head-on any trouble that might come her way.

Pierre Boule was a mediocre writer whose books were made famous by great movies. First there was what he called The Bridge Over the River Kwai, from which David Lean made his masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai.   Now, I’ve written both titles in full so that you might notice the subtle but important change in the title. Doesn’t seem to make any difference, you think? Purest pedantry, you might wonder? Then why did Lean do it? Try saying them by turns out loud and you’ll see—there is no doubt that the movie title has more impact.
    Now this might have been too trivial to mention, had it not happened to Boule a second time. This time, his rather shoddy science fiction fantasy Monkey Planet got filmed as The Planet of the Apes and this time the added power of the new title is all too plain. And, sadly, all this nitpicking about titles reflects right through both books. Boule has the ideas, but just wasn’t quite a good enough writer to make the most of them. Really, his writing is rather drab, too much so to blame the translation, and the concept that apes have out-evolved humans is worked convincingly enough but it is just a little bit unsurprising. Interestingly, they chose a very different surprise ending for the film, capturing the same effect by different means, since the book’s trick could never have worked visually.
    Neither book sells much these days—they never really did—but both videos are usually out when you ask for them at your local video store.