Review also posted on my blog! :)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this book. Really my only experience with Lewis’ work has been with The Chronicles of Narnia, and it wasn’t until my sister let me have this book that I even knew he wrote science fiction. Like all of Lewis’ writings, though, Out of the Silent Planet definitely has some important messages that the story is trying to put across.

The main message I gathered from the story was one that I think is really important to hear nowadays, and that is how science can be used as an excuse to exploit places and peoples. Without spoiling too much, this book definitely cautions about colonizing other planets simply for the sake of making sure humanity continues on. I was reminded a lot about the common argument against colonizing Mars – that we need to fix our own planet’s problems before going and ruining another one. Besides that, this book also had some good messages about xenophobia, as well as learning to live knowing that death is just a part of life, and not something to be scared of.

What I liked most about this book was Lewis’ world-building and the aliens he created. Malacandra is really quite fantastically described, down to the very color of the dirt and rocks. Although, you can tell what decade this was written in, because I honestly kept imagining some wacky, technicolor planet from Star Trek. But I don’t mean that as a slight to this book, because I genuinely enjoyed the creativity Lewis used in imagining up this place. It really emphasized that Ransom was not on earth – enabling us to feel the isolation and loss that he was feeling. The aliens were really cleverly thought up, and unlike any other aliens I’ve seen in a sci-fi story. Just reading about them and what happens when Ransom meets them makes the story worth reading for that reason alone. I also really loved that this was not your typical alien story, where the aliens immediately want to kill the human without any reason or explanation given.

I did find the book to be somewhat slow in parts… despite the fact that it was only about 160 pages. Some of the descriptions – while I enjoyed them – became repetitive or overly-long in segments. I also felt that Ransom’s captors were kind of boring. They didn’t get much development, and they didn’t have much of a role. It felt like they were just there for the necessity of having a villain, or giving a reason for Ransom to have made it to the planet. And I had so many questions about them… like how did they manage to create a spaceship capable of interstellar travel in 1950s/60s England?

In the end, I would recommend this book, because I think it’s an interesting and unique science fiction story. It definitely hast that 1960s sci-fi feel, which, if you’re a fan of Star Trek like I am, you’d probably really enjoy it. I also think the messages behind the story are really worthwhile. As for the second book, I will probably pick that one up and finish off the series! ( )

Out of the Silent Planet is a science fiction novel about a trip to Mars by a writer who had no interest in planetary science or in the technologies that might enable us to make the trip. Lewis can be forgiven for thinking Mars might have a breathable atmosphere and that Venus might have a tropical climate—but he could have known that Mars was likely to be cold and dry.
It would be easy to imagine his friend Tolkien’s Hobbits roaming through a landscape like this: “He began to work his way southward along the narrow, broken ground between wood and mountain. Great spurs of the mountains had to be crossed every few moments. … After about half an hour he came to a stream. Here he went a few paces into the forest, cut himself an ample supply of the ground weed, and sat down beside the water’s edge for lunch.” (Chapter 14}
Lewis’s vision of Mars owes more to the 19th-century vision of H. G. Wells than to 20th-century science. His story also owes something to the travel adventures and utopian satire of Swift, Defoe, and Butler. As in his later Narnia books, he comes close to outright allegory—his characters have suggestive names like Ransom and Devine, and some of his Martians resemble angels. Ransom tells the Martians that our world is corrupt and that we are “a bent race” intent on bringing evil to wherever we go. And here is a spoiler: the Martians do the right thing by kicking us off the planet.
This one has not aged well. ( )

Reason read: been on my list of NPR 100 SFF books to read.
Published 1938, Lewis was challenged to write a space travel book by Tolkien. The book is a story of man out on a walk in England who is captured, drugged, and taken to a planet to be a sacrifice to the inhabitants of that planet. Lewis was influenced by Wells, Tolkein, Milton and others when he wrote it and he used science fiction to present his philosophy and his theology. At first I felt like this was quite simplistic but that would not be an accurate summation.
The characters are of three types. Each has its role and does not interfere with the others this is a planet in harmony. The two men who kidnapped ransom are evil. Humans are evil. The two men are space Nazis. Westin believes in getting rid of the inferior. He believes life is the greatest good and he would sacrifice humans or creation for the good of life. Devine on the other hand is greedy. The aliens and the descriptions that Lewis creates are pre Lovecraftian. The science fiction elements; gravity, theory of relativity. There is a sense of Narnia, Paradise Lost, and it is antithesis to Well's works. Reportedly the first of the trilogy is not as good as the second book so I will have to keep that one on my radar. Rating 4.2 ( )

This was a re-read of something read so long ago I'd forgotten everything about it. The plot is quite simple: Ransom, a college professor and philologist is on a walking tour when he is kidnapped and taken to Malacandra (Mars) by a rogue scientist and a money grabbing crook whom he disliked when they were at school together. His two captors have separate agendas: the scientist has a monomanical plan to colonise Mars for the benefit of humanity, wiping out the sentient species (there are at least three) already there but using the dying planet as a springboard to take the human race out into the galaxy, whereas the other man is greedy for the gold which is easily found in rivers on Mars. They have been asked by one of the races on the planet to bring someone for what they imagine will be human sacrifice, but it transpires that their poor understanding of the various languages spoken on Malacandra and their own unpleasant natures have totally misinterpreted the request. Ransom, believing his life to be in danger, escapes and it is his subsequent encounters with the sentient races which is the main focus of the story.

Making allowances for the author's lack of a scientific background, even the science of the day - I think any belief in 'canals' and such on Mars was well past its sell-by date when this was first published - this is an interesting and philosophical tale. I liked the contrast of the three different intelligent races with which Ransom interacts and the descriptions of the Martian ecology.

One thing I did recall from reading this series was that Lewis appears to have had a very anti-science attitude and to have stereotyped all scientists as amoral and lacking in any ethics. His own religious bias is no doubt responsible. The scene where Ransom interprets the scientist's ranting about his agenda is particularly telling. So overall I would rate this at 4 stars. ( )

This didn't begin to get interesting until about halfway through, and even then, I wasn't terribly invested. Quite frankly, I expected something more fascinating from C.S. Lewis.

Very unfortunately, there is quite a bit of profanity, including God's name used as a curse word.

However, the last several chapters turned things around and now I'm looking forward (albeit nervously) to reading the next book in the series. ( )