Ape and Essence

A successor to his Brave New World (1932) here is again a new world if one that is considerably more unlovely, the world of radio-activity where only a few have survived the "consumation of technological progress". Based on a scenario script of the now-dead poet-hermit Tallis, this is a prose-verse projection screened before an audience of baboon bobby-soxers who incant the latest hit tune-triumph- "Love's the very essence...Give me, give me detumescence"....Before them appears the spectacle of Hollywood under the reign of Belial, where almost all are deformed by gamma rays, and in a frantic race for survival with synthetic glanders, they produce to propitiate their god. To this land, from New Zealand, comes the sex-shy, scholarly scientist, Dr. Poole, whose horror is followed by his seduction at the hands of Loola with whom, ultimately, he escapes...Perhaps the Huxley name will carry this to a certain market, but for the average normal readers, this form of satire at its most explicit may well prove distasteful. (Kirkus Reviews)