Most Popular Books by Pierre Boulle

The original novel that inspired the films! First published more than fifty years ago, Pierre Boulle’s chilling novel launched one of the greatest science fiction sagas in motion picture history. In the not-too-distant future, three astronauts land on what appears to be a planet just like Earth, with lush forests, a temperate climate, and breathable air. But while it appears to be a paradise, nothing is what it seems. They soon discover the terrifying truth: On this world humans are savage beasts, and apes rule as their civilized masters. In an ironic novel of nonstop action and breathless intrigue, one man struggles to unlock the secret of a terrifying civilization, all the while wondering: Will he become the savior of the human race, or the final witness to its damnation? In a shocking climax that rivals that of the original movie, Boulle delivers the answer in a masterpiece of adventure, satire, and suspense.

One of the finest war novels ever written, it tells the story of three POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma-Siam railway.

1942: Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. Pitted against the warden, Colonel Saito, Nicholson will nevertheless, out of a distorted sense of duty, aid his enemy. While on the outside, as the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which will be the first casualty: his patriotism or his pride.

Tells of the race to the moon. The story begins as the rocket experts work at Peenemunde; it continues as the German defeat scatters the scientists to America, to Russia, to France, to Japan.

Like the mythological Icarus, the president of a sometime- in-the-future France falls victim to the lure of the sun, plunging to his death in an airplane he has piloted over the massive solar energy plant that had become his failed dream.

Military operations in the primitive Asian jungle are complicated by the presence of an unknown source privy to every movement.

A giant whale becomes the pet and mascot of the British armada and is recommended for a medal of bravery and finally the Victoria Cross.