Eerie. That's the best word to describe Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis creates a world that is in stark contrast to his Narnia. It is a strange and mysterious place, and like the protagonist, we soon discover how insignificant Earth is to the other intelligent inhabitants of the universe. The story would be regarded as science fantasy today, but it remains one of the best examples of classic science fiction. ( )

C. S. Lewis, who most of you will instantly associate with either children's fantasy or epistemology, wrote a trilogy (or arguably, 3 and some proper fraction) of science fiction stories. Staying true to his evangelizing form, this series is very, very allegorical. The initial novel came to be as the product of a challenge between Lewis and Tolkien. Lewis would write a space travel story, while Tolkien would write a Time Travel story (find fragments of it in The Lost Road and Other Tales).

The trilogy starts with the end. Not the end of the series, mind you: the end of Martian society. But let's back up...

Elwin Ransom, philology professor, when taking a hike, ends up the subject of a scientific experiment by two fellows, Weston and Devine. After being drugged to sleep, he finds himself aboard a space ship headed for Mars, or Malacandra.

It is here he meets a civilization nearing the end of its life, in contrast to Earth, which is somewhere in the middle. Ransom and his captors are caught in an endgame struggle between the three races of Mars.

Lewis is able to write science fiction that isn't overly preachy, like many Christian sci-fi writers. And this makes it a bit more enjoyable thean the rest. This book, like many of Lewis' fiction, is very allegorical, even to the point of character names, like Pilgrim's Progress Through Space, or something. Nevertheless, those familiar with Lewis' writing, or of other allegorical science fiction, may find Out of the Silent Planet a nice way to break up the quiet period between your last and next book. ( )

Dr. Ransom is a Cambridge philologist who inadvertently runs into two old classmates from his school days. He never really liked them and with good reason. He likes them even less when they drug and kidnap him and take him for a cruise across the universe in a spaceship. They end up on the planet of Malacandra where Ransom is to be sacrificed to one of the alien creatures. Lewis tells this story as though the reader is sitting across from him beside a roaring fire. He describes Ransom's journey and reactions to this foreign new world as oddly detached and strangely calm. Probably the most interesting part to the whole story is how Ransom relates to his new world. He almost takes to it better than his own. ( )

Beautifully imagined sci-fi novel by brilliant story teller. So good to read a fast and engaging book again! I am always intrigued by language and cross-cultural themes, and Lewis deals with those brilliantly in this story. (A bit more Fantasy than Sci-fi probably.) ( )

Out of the Silent Planet was interesting and very worth the read, I think. In it, our hero Ransom is kidnapped by a former classmate (Devine) working with a renowned physicist (Weston) after he stumbles over them at a remote country estate. They take him aboard their spaceship bound for a second trip to Mars to fulfill the potentially sinister demands of the Martians (or Malacandrans, since they call the planet Malacandra). The speculative science is quite imaginative--the descriptions of the spaceship and its operation, the reaches of space, life on another planet with a different gravity, the psychology of kinship and xenophobia when confronted with the other, and Martian geography based on the best available information and hypotheses of the day (first published in the 1930s). The critique of attitudes of superiority derived from technological advancement, the pursuit of knowledge and wealth, and desire for conquest and colonization is spot on and at times hilarious. The arrogant pretensions of the men of science who refuse to see Martian society as anything other than superstitious, backwards savages hearken to colonial attitudes in our own history. Ransom feels ashamed of our history and society and general lack of morality and tries to hide the dark side of humanity from Malacandrans. The religious themes build from the first hints in the descriptions of space as filled with unearthly (celestial!) radiance rather than a barren nothingness to a complex, peaceful society of several species guided by unseen messengers to the final denouement of the scientists and their vanquishing by powers they cannot perceive or credit. The final speeches of the supreme being on Malacandra point toward the sequels in the trilogy. The title of the book refers to Earth, known as the Silent Planet to the rest of the cosmos when its supernatural guide became "bent" and was ultimately exiled (along with its planet) from the celestial plane. Hence our lost, immoral society and history filled with atrocities. ( )