Other editions of book Out of the Silent Planet: Space Trilogy #1

The first novel in C.S. Lewis's classic sci-fi trilogy which tells the adventure of Dr Ransom who is kidnapped and transported to Mars In the first novel of C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as 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 'silent planet' -- Earth -- whose tragic story is known throughout the universe!

Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel from Lewis's Space Trilogy, (also called the Space Trilogy,the Cosmic Trilogy and the Ransom Trilogy,) considered to be his chief contribution to the science-fiction genre. A planetary romance with elements of medieval mythology, the trilogy concerns Dr. Ransom, a linguist who, like Christ, is offered as a ransom for mankind. On a walking tour of the English countryside, Ransom falls in with some slightly shady characters from his old University and wakes up suddenly to find himself naked in a metal ball in the middle of the light-filled heavens. He learns that he is on his way to a world called Malacandra by its natives, who also call our world Thulcandra...the Silent Planet. The Malacandrans see planets as having a tutelary spirit: those of the other planets are good and accessible, but that of Earth is fallen and twisted.

"Having already earned a reputation as a formidable literary scholar, C. S. Lewis scandalized his fellow Oxford dons in 1938 when he published a fantasy novel, Out of the Silent Planet...Lewis hoped that taking his readers on a voyage to another world would give them another perspective on this one." In the opening pages of the story, we meet Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist on a solitary walking tour. The real adventure begins when Ransom is drugged by a former schoolmate. Awakening in an eerie metal chamber, he realizes he is traveling in space and fears for his own sanity as he contemplates the idea of traveling so far from earth into the dark vastness that separates the worlds. But when he looks out the window, Ransom is not appalled but rather awed by the splendid scene spread before his eyes.

In the first novel of C.S. Lewis’s classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as 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 ‘silent planet’ – Earth – whose tragic story is known throughout the universe… Clive Staples Lewis was a novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist. Born in Belfast, Ireland, he held academic positions at both Oxford University (Magdalen College) and Cambridge University (Magdalene College). He is best known both for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.