THE SPACE TRILOGY - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra & That Hideous Strength

The famous "Space Trilogy" of C.S Lewis deals with what he saw as the dehumanizing trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J.R.R. Tolkien about these trends. Lewis's main character Elwin Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact to which Tolkien alludes in his letters. The second novel, Perelandra, depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt Eve. The story can be seen as an account of what might have happened if the terrestrial Adam had defeated the serpent and avoided the Fall of Man, with Ransom intervening in the novel to "ransom" the new Adam and Eve from the deceptions of the enemy. The third novel, That Hideous Strength, develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values, embodied in Arthurian legend. Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic and lay theologian. He is best known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy