First Published: 1938

Rating: Excellent

"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."

It's confession time again: I've never read The Chronicles of Narnia. Any of them. In fact, to date the only works by C. S. Lewis that I've read are The Screwtape Letters and Out of the Silent Planet, and the former was so long ago that I have only a vague remembrance of the plot. Out of the Silent Planet, though? It's now among my favorite novels.

The main character, Dr. Ransom, is a philologist on a walking tour of the English countryside. Before long he's been whisked away to Mars, kidnapped by an old school chum and a physicist who want to give him over to some dangerous looking Martians. Ransom manages to escape his human captors, but Mars--or Malacandra, as its inhabitants call it--is full of the strange and unknown. Which turns out to be neither so strange nor so unknown as our hero thought.

Lewis references the works of both John Milton and H. G. Wells during the story, and you can see the influence of both writers in Out of the Silent Planet. The prose of the novel is, in many instances, simply gorgeous, and rather quoteable:

And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back--if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these ARE that day?

Out of the Silent Planet is reminiscent of Wells' work in the calm, scientific manner in which the fantastic is often relayed. I'm amazed at the imagination with which Lewis portrays space travel--some of his imaginings seem more like predictions at this point.

The Wellsian influence is strongest, though, in what I think are the best parts of the story--Ransom's struggles with and realizations of what it means to be human. Lewis picks up on the social commentary where Wells left off, and while it may border on heavy-handed now and then, it's great fun to read in the context of the races Lewis dreams up and their interactions with one another.

And another great thing about Out of the Silent Planet--it's a soaring story in under 200 pages. Plus, it's the first book in what's known as the Space trilogy--I'm currently waiting for my copy of the second novel, Perelandra, to arrive from PaperBackSwap.com , and after that I imagine that soon I'll be reading That Hideous Strength to close out the trio. 

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