Out Of The Silent Planet

“now that the very name "space" seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it 'dead'; he felt life pouring in at every moment.”

Overview

Dr. Ransom is a Cambridge academic who is kidnapped and taken to Mars so that he might be a sacrifice to the natives. His captors hope that this will satisfy the natives and allow them to plunder the planet will little fight. Things do not go as planned as Ransom gets separated from his captives on Mars and comes face to face with a native alien. This begins his journey on learning the language and the intention of the strange aliens.

Pros

Published in 1938 it is when Sci-Fi was still in it’s infancy. The prose of the story is rather enjoyable as Lewis describes space in an illuminating way.

Lewis puts a lot of emphasis on the alien language and goes into great detail describing it. Ransom is often having trouble translating certain words and Lewis uses this as an opportunity to try and provide commentary on war, peace, motives, etc. By having Ransom explain certain meanings of words to the natives it also allows Lewis to explain it to the reader.

A few deeper topics are touched on. The morality of evolution is criticized as the main antagonists equate morality with evolution. Lewis points how absurd this is and supplements his own christian morals in response.

Cons

It’s more of an allegory on christian values and the Sci-Fi elements are crudely used to set up the premise.

The villains are straw men that are set up to be knocked down. They are humans who are sophisticated enough to pilot a space craft but the motive for going to mars is so that they can plunder the planet of it’s gold. The villains are dumbed down in their interactions with the natives to the point where it is almost comical.

Ransom feels a bit snooty and it feels like you are being lectured at times. The natives are set up to be almost “perfect” in some moral sense and Ransom is constantly telling you how evil humans are.

Should You Read It?

It’s not a book I would go out and buy but if it appears for cheap than maybe give it a try. It’s an interesting read as you are seeing the author use Sci-Fi elements but not quite figuring out the best way to use them. Lewis seemed to use the elements to set up the premise but than discards them in favor of having his protagonist talk about language semantics instead.