- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Voyager (15 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007117930
- ISBN-13: 978-0007117932
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 334,237 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
‘Thrilling.’ Sir Hugh Walpole
‘This book has real splendour, compelling moments and a flowing narrative.’ New York Times
‘Remarkable … a rare power of inventive imagination.’ Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
A special edition containing the first two novels in C.S. Lewis’s classic Cosmic Trilogy which tells the adventures of Dr Ransom who is kidnapped and transported to first Mars and then Venus.
Dr Ransom is a Cambridge academic who is captured whilst on a walking tour and forced into a spaceship by two men. With them he flies to Malacandra (Mars). There he escapes his two captors and discovers an amazing range of rational and spiritual creatures on the planet.
In the sequel, Ransom is sent by the Elida to Perelandra (Venus) to battle against evil incarnate and preserve a second Eden from the evil forces present in the possessed body of his enemy, Weston.
Through these works, Lewis explores issues of good and evil, and his remarkable and vividly imaginative descriptions of other worlds cements his place as a first-class author of science fiction adventure.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I, like most people I think, came to these stories having only ever read CS Lewis' children's fiction (namely the Narnia chronicles). This meant that it was quite a shock for me to read something like this which was so adult and yet so sensitive.
And that is, in my eyes, the real achievement of Out of the Silent Planet, and to some extent Perelandra. It keeps the same gloriously fantastical slant of his childrens books, but wraps this whimsy around a much darker core, and addresses some seriously weighty subjects - the nature of humanity, the nature of God, and the nature or morality.
This serious philosophical exploration (and it mostly certainly is philosophy) is simply held in a piece of fiction. You feel like you should have to spend time shredding away the layers of story around this philosophy, but in fact the opposite is true - the fiction leads you gently into the complex core of these novels, and then extricates you once more when you are done. It is a true masterwork of authorship.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Out of the Silent Planet' is the first of a trilogy of unique space novels depicting the intrigues of the evil 'bent one' and his servants, pitted against humanity and reality. The battleground is our solar system and our earth the home of Ransom, a run of the mill academic with a penchant for traditional moral values. These are tested; they mature and surprise us by their true worth.
Ransom meets the opportunist and the scientific idealist in what could be called a situation against all odds. Common sense, however, and a respect for that which he does not understand are his weapons; marvelously simple, yet too lowly for those driven by greed or the need to assert their scientific idealism on the rest of creation.
The true situation on Mars and ultimately that on the earth are revealed much to the annoyance of the evil one.
In 'Perelandra' Ransom discovers his true destiny in a situation strangely reminiscent of Eden and Calvary. Temptation arrives in all its might and no doubt Screwtape could learn a few things here.
C.S. Lewis' familiarity with the methods of the 'deceiver' is astounding.
Who are the great boogie-men we read about in these pages?
What drives and haunts them?
Why is man so tempted to surrender his humanity in favor of the next best utilitarian idealism - his birthright for a cup of soup?
Moral issues are at stake and these are as relevant today as they were sixty years ago.
Ransom meets the opportunist and the scientific idealist in what could be called a situation against all odds. Common sense, however, and a respect for that which he does not understand are his weapons; marvelously simple, yet too lowly for those driven by greed or the need to assert their scientific idealism on the rest of creation.
The true situation on Mars and ultimately that on the earth are revealed much to the annoyance of the evil one.
In 'Perelandra' Ransom discovers his true destiny in a situation strangely reminiscent of Eden and Calvary. Temptation arrives in all its might and no doubt Screwtape could learn a few things here.
C.S. Lewis' familiarity with the methods of the 'deceiver' is astounding.
Who are the great boogie-men we read about in these pages?
What drives and haunts them?
Why is man so tempted to surrender his humanity in favor of the next best utilitarian idealism - his birthright for a cup of soup?
Moral issues are at stake and these are as relevant today as they were sixty years ago.
C.S. Lewis would no doubt be delighted to know that steel spheres and glass windows will just not do in space.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I devoured the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, read and enjoyed the Screwtape Letters and had high expectations of this novel. However, both times I have tried to read this novel (as a teenager & again in late twenties) I have given up about half way through, disappointed.
The Lewis "magic" didn't work for me here. Though the novel has its points (notably the Ransome character, modelled on Lewis himself), I found myself losing interest. It doesn't quite convince, even allowing for inevitably creaky science (not a stumbling block for this reader).
It feels like a very early attempt at fiction by a writer getting to grips with his craft (which it was - Lewis's friend Tolkien was working on a very early draft of the Simarilion at the same time). A curiosity interesting because of the better things which followed from the author.
I haven't read the other two parts of this trilogy, so this review is inevitably limited, but my advice is to stick to Lewis's other works.
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