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by C.S. Lewis
From C.S. Lewis, the acclaimed author of The Chronicles of Narnia, comes the first book in the classic science fiction Space Trilogy following the resourceful Dr. Ransom as he is abducted and taken by spaceship to Mars.
Written during the dark hours immediately before and during World War II, C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of which Out of the Silent Planet is the first volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus's The Plague and George Orwell's 1984 as a timeless classic, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of its moral concerns.
While searching for a place to rest for the night, Dr. Elwin Ransom is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken to the red planet of Malacandra (Mars) as a human sacrifice for the alien creatures that live there. 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 magnificent and suspenseful tour de force in which epic battles are fought between the forces of light and those of darkness. It is the incredible beginning to C.S. Lewis's spectacular Space Trilogy, which also includes Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
"This book has real splendor, compelling moments, and a flowing narrative." —The New York Times
"If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels." —The New Yorker
"Lewis, perhaps more than any other twentieth-century writer, forced those who listened to him and read his works to come to terms with their own philosophical presuppositions." —Los Angeles Times
This information about Out of the Silent Planet (1) (The Space Trilogy) was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
C.S. Lewis was a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and Cambridge universities who wrote more than thirty books in his lifetime, including The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Visionary Christian, and The Space Trilogy (comprised of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength). He died in 1963.
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