Out of the Silent Planet

Product Description <br/>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.<br/> Review <br/>Science-fiction novel by C.S. Lewis, published in 1938. The novel, the first of a trilogy, is in part a retelling of the Christ story. It is an account of the voyage of Ransom, a linguist, to the planet Malacandra (Mars), where he learns that Thulcandra (Earth) is called the silent planet because there has been no communication from it in years. The spiritual being in charge of the latter, having been corrupted, has essentially cut Thulcandra off from the other planets. Ransom is ultimately sent back to Thulcandra with the two earthlings who had kidnapped him and brought him to Malacandra. The novel gives voice to Lewis' concerns about the secularization of society and argues that a return to traditional religious belief is the only means of salvation. --<br/><br/> From AudioFile <br/>This is the first of Lewis's Space Trilogy. The others are PERELANDRA and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. Geoffrey Howard, who also reads Lewis's better known work, MERE CHRISTIANITY, offers an Oxbridge accent, which would have been the accent of Lewis, a professor at both of those universities. Howard's tenor voice never stumbles with Lewis's formal syntax or the invented alien language of the inhabitants of Malacandra (Mars). The story, which is influenced by the fiction of H.G. Wells, has deeper meaning but is also compelling on its own. M.L.C. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine--<br/>Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine<br/> About the Author <br/>Clive Staples Lewis, moralist and novelist, was born in 1898 in Belfast and educated at Malvern and University College, Oxford. He was appointed Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge in 1954. `Jack' Lewis is best known for his literary criticism, religious and ethical works, science fiction, and most notably for his Narnia chronicles for children. He died in 1963.<br/> Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. <br/><br/><br/>Chapter I<br/><br/><br/>The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut-tree into the middle of the road. A violent yellow sunset was pouring through a rift in the clouds to westward, but straight ahead over the hills the sky was the colour of dark slate. Every tree and blade of grass was dripping, and the road shone like a river. The Pedestrian wasted no time on the landscape but set out at once with the determined stride of a good walker who has lately realised that he will have to walk farther than he intended. That, indeed, was his situation. If he had chosen to look back, which he did not, he could have seen the spire of Much Nadderby, and, seeing it, might have uttered a malediction on the inhospitable little hotel which, though obviously empty, had refused him a bed. The place had changed hands since he last went for a walking-tour in these parts. The kindly old landlord on whom he had reckoned had been repl