I didn't think I could get any more excited to see Dawn, but Greg Keyes' prequel novel just ratcheted up my anticipation. A gripping read with a tension that grows and grows as San Francisco spirals out of control with the spread of the 'Simian Flu'. The book successfully spits the book in three; a cast of characters dealing with outbreak of the flu, while a team tries to capture the apes in the forest. The pandemic and the collapse of the city is quite the page turner, a disaster that keeps getting worse and worse, and as the reader you hope for the best for the cast of characters. When a crazed religious sect known as Alpha/Omega rears its head, the novel takes some really scary turns. The sections in the forest offers a relief to the tension of the global breakdown, its characters isolated for most of the book. Two ape experts; Malakai skilled in poaching them, and Clancy, a primate specialist seem a pair destined to be enemies, but how they come to work together is one of the best parts of the novel. Their characters stand out, especially Malakai, a former African child solider with a hardened back story that in most novels would prepare for him for anything; but not here. The struggle of the apes to survive is quite involving, with Keyes capturing deftly the outsider views of the apes as they try to understand the chaos around them in the human world, as well as surviving attempts to capture them. The biggest plus coming out of this novel is the complete back-story to Dreyfus, played by Gary Oldman in the movie. A man of real conscious, running as a mayoral candidate when the outbreak occurs, the reader feels great sympathy for him as his city starts to crumble around him. For fans of the newer Apes movies, this book is essential reading and one that, like me, you probably won't be able to put down till you're done. ( )

a gripping read. very entertaining short novel that gives an insight into some of the ape characters and the genesis of humanity's retrovirus downfall. one the one hand you have Caesar leading the apes to a new life in the Muir Woods, struggling to survive in unfamiliar territory and one the other we can see society tear itself apart on the the human side, as the virus gets down to some serious work with Dreyfus desperately trying to be a beacon of hope for his city, in a world spiralling into war and anarchy. ( )