OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

Alice Foster

C. S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet

Sean Wilson

A book about the cosmos, which is deeper and thicker than "space". Perhaps a rewarding read for those with a well-developed mind's eye, which regrettably, I have not.

The first book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which continues with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom. Here, that estimable man is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice, and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Once on the planet, however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. First published in 1943, Out of the Silent Planet remains a mysterious and suspenseful tour de force.

Brittany Jenkins

The only downside to this book is that it ended.

Out of the silent planet

A bad case of wrong mood, wrong time. I probably should have just DNF’d early on. Having read this already once before, I was pretty bored and pushing through. I really liked this book the first time I read it, but I was ready to move on to other things so it felt like it dragged on. Sigh, guess I should have listened to that part of me that knew I was just wasting my time with a book I wasn’t enjoying. Not to mention I threw off my stats when I accidentally deleted all my reading history for the book when trying to switch the editions and had to fix it best I could manually 😅. This reread was just overall a disaster 😂

Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet's treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come from the Earth. This is the first novel in CS Lewis' classic sci-fi trilogy.

Reinier Terblanche

I can't believe I've never come across this book before. Sure, I've heard about it here and there but I've never been seriously encouraged to read it by anyone until recently. Which is crazy because it's the best science fiction novel I've ever read. I came across a beautiful blue copy of the Space Trilogy published by HarperCollins in a local Christian bookstore. I had a gift voucher in hand and decided to get myself a copy. I'm done with the first book and can't wait to get into the next one! Lewis's good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, said he was "enthralled" by this series. Could it receive higher praise?

Todd Luallen

Lewis is absolutely amazing. He has a way of writing about common concepts in a completely unique way. In Narnia he writes about the Gospel through allegory. In Screwtape he flips the spiritual battle narrative on its head. And in this book he writes about space, life, form, morality, and society, with a novel (alien) perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed this and will continue the series.

Rick Dobrowolski

It took me a bit to get into this book. The Narnia books are more immediately engaging. However, the philosophical discussions going on towards the end of the book make the whole time spent reading it worthwhile. 

The book will take you only a couple of days to read. Enjoy CS Lewis' toying with the English language and transporting you into a new world.

Callie Anna

I loved this book! Everything about it is wonderful!

Celeste Richardson

How many times have I started this book only to flounder within the first chapter or two? Honestly, too many to count. This trilogy is one of the very few things written by C.S. Lewis that I have never read. He’s one of my favorite authors of all time, so I want to read everything in his canon. But there is just something about this tiny book that has defeated me time and time again. Seriously, it’s less than two hundred pages. I have read some gigantic books, so something this teensy should not be able to best me. 

However, I have finally, finally, vanquished it from my TBR shelf. It proved to be just as difficult as I feared, but it was also rewarding. Lewis’s writing style in this series just feels so bizarre to me for some reason. It doesn’t feel like him, at least at first. If I was to pick up a coverless copy of this book and have no idea who penned it, I would insist that it was some lost work penned by H.G. Wells. The style and tone and word choices all screamed Wells to me. 

Once I finally got past the cognitive dissonance and accepted that Lewis had indeed written this book, I began to appreciate the story itself. There is so much philosophical and theological depth that it is sometimes hard to keep your mind afloat as you read, but it is so worth the work put into reading it, in my opinion. Imagine if there were actually other planets in our solar system that were populated by other intelligent races. Now, imagine that all of these planets except one were governed by angelic beings following the orders of a divine Creator. And then, imagine if that one ungoverned planet, called by others “the silent planet,” was ours. There were so many fascinating premises laid out in this short book, some of which I expect to mull over for months to come.

While the philosophical aspects were the standout elements for me, Lewis also did a wonderful job on his creation of alien races and landscapes. The pictures he painted of the different peoples residing elsewhere in the solar system were detailed and crystal clear and easy to visualize. This is something I have struggled with in the past when reading science fiction, but it was never a struggle here. I could easily see this alien world and how it must look to the first humans stepping onto its surface. 

While I enjoyed the book, I did struggle with the prose periodically. It felt far more antiquated than I expected from Lewis, but I feel like that was part of the point. There were times when I almost felt like this was assigned reading for a college course instead of being simply a novel to read and enjoy. I also feel that it is a book that will be more enjoyable with each rereading. It undoubtedly is a book worth reading; just make sure you’re in the mood for something very academic before picking it up.

Meredith Boster

Not my favorite work of Lewis'. 
This book was surprisingly not to my taste. I have read this several times now, and each time I dive in, it is quite hard to get past the first few chapters. The IMAGERY in this book is out of this world, but I don't want to be reminded about how the trees look every five seconds haha. The names of all of the different species are hard to remember as well, but that's probably just my fault :). I did enjoy this book, just not as much as I thought I would. I would recommend this to anyone with a lot of time on their hands haha.

Donald

Fun book strangely riddled with printing errors (lots of misplaced inverted commas &c.).

Max Bodach

first book of Lewis's space trilogy, very good even if heavyhanded

Simon Elliott Stegall

Not as profound as the subsequent books in this trilogy, but still a first-order sci-fi book back from the heyday of sci-fi. Great world building, awesome alien races. Lays a groundwork for the incandescent mythology of the next two books.

Muna N

This book was very enthralling and bewitching, and it reminded me of C. S. Lewis' beautiful, one of a kind writing style. Throughout the whole story all I wanted was to be there in the story with the characters.

Jeni Enjaian

A review from my old blog...

(a review of the whole trilogy)

I am not much of a science fiction aficionado but I gave these books by C. S. Lewis a try because I love the Chronicles of Narnia so much.

I didn't really like these books. I never really got into them. the plot of all three of them while connected in some ways really had nothing to do with each other and really didn't seem all that connected within the books themselves.

I did enjoy the books but the plot took such a turn that often I really didn't understand the story. I guess I'm still not much for science fiction and found myself very disappointed especially when comparing those books to Chronicles of Narnia which I absolutely love.

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

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