Out of the Silent Planet

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Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis

Cleo invited people to join her in a 3-month reading project of C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, and I happily signed up.  September was Out of the Silent Planet.

A linguistics professor, Ransom, is on a walking holiday when he runs into an old schoolmate, now working for an eminent scientist.  They promptly kidnap Ransom, put him in a homemade spaceship, and take him to the planet Malacandra, where they plan to give him over to the inhabitants as a sort of tribute.  Ransom escapes to the wilds of Malacandra, but how to survive in an alien environment?  He doesn't even know which planet he's on....

If you haven't read the Space Trilogy, I don't want to spoil it.  It's a strange set of books and Lewis plays around a lot with mixing science fiction (or, as he called it, scientifiction, which I don't even know how to pronounce) with his beloved subject matter of the medieval view of the universe.  I rather suspect that no one else has done that before or since!

I am too much of a Lewis fan to really be able to critique this properly.  I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to October's title, Perelandra.




Comments

  1. LoryOctober 3, 2014 at 2:25 PM

    I love that top cover! What edition is that? I have the wacky cheap paperback sci-fi versions you show below. I'm hoping the Folio Society will do an edition at some point. I also hope to join in the Lewis re-read someday but this month is too busy with preparations for Witch Week. Enjoy Perelandra!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanOctober 3, 2014 at 2:40 PM

    That claims to be the first edition, so presumably it was the dust cover. Excellent isn't it? :) I also have the wacky covers below. That last one makes no sense whatsoever.

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