Out of the Silent Planet
1938 • 224 pages
Ratings76
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings76
Average rating3.8
The first book in Lewis's Space Trilogy, *Out of the Silent Planet* tells the story of Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist who likes to explore the English countryside on foot. Seeking out a place to stay the night, he ends up at the estate of a colleague who is away in London. However, the house is not empty. Ransom stumbles upon the plot of a megalomaniacal scientist and his collaborator, who just happens to be an old schoolmate of Ransom's. Drugged, kidnapped, and wisked away in the scientists rocket to the planet Malacandra where he is to serve as a human sacrifice, Dr. Ransom escapes into the strange Malacandran wilderness pursued by his kidnappers and abandoning his hopes of returning to Earth.
Ransom discovers that the inhabitants of Malacandra are not what his kidnappers believed them to be. In his adventures in the often strangely beautiful, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes surprisingly familiar Malacandra and its inhabitants, Ransom uncovers information about the larger universe and Earth's place that suggest he has as much to discover about his home planet as he does about the alien Malacandra.
Series
3 primary booksThe Space Trilogy is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 1938 with contributions by C. S. Lewis.
Reviews with the most likes.
WHAT
An anthropological account of a man visiting an alien planet. Learn about its flora, the native tribes custom's, how much they differ from us even in the way of thinking, and other textbook boring subjects.
ANALYSIS
This is not my kind of book. The prose is dry, the characters are not relevant. It is a novel where the “setting” is king, and I was not fond of its majesty.
Other reviewers point out that by the end of the book there is a message about mankind's flaws or something. I could struggle to get there, since its is a very short book. But I choose to spend my next two hours reading something else.
Read 2:40/ 5:50 46%
I don't read a lot of science fiction, but I'm starting to work my way through all of C.S. Lewis's fiction, which starts with this book. I really didn't think I was going to like it at all, as the first few chapters seem to be setting up a sinister plot, but once Ransom arrives on Malacandra, most of the book is actually just about his life on the planet, learning about the lives of the various beings that live there and describing the environment. The setting allows for exploration in the later chapters of the morality of humanity on Earth, as seen from the perspective of another planet. I enjoyed the world building and the allegory more than I was expecting to dislike the intrigue, but it's still not quite a favorite.
Interesting book. Always a cunning mind Lewis. Not his greatest in my opinion.
I love the otter aliens! I will say reading this really reminded me of just how different “classic” SF is from modern SF. It reminds me so much more ofStar Trek: a study of an alien population. Details of their language and culture. Realizations from the human protagonist that we, as humans, are flawed and need to do better.
In fact, Project Hail Mary, which I read recently followed a similar formula, which may be why I found it so refreshing? Either way, this was enjoyable, if simple, to read.
