PerelandraIn the first book of C.S. Lewis's legendary science fiction trilogy, Dr. Ransom is kidnapped and spirited by spaceship to the mysterious red planet of Malandra. He escapes and goes on the run, jeopardizing both his chances of ever returning to Earth and his very life. First published in 1943, this classic interplanetary fantasy continues to delight readers around the world. Written during the dark hours immediately before and during the Second World War, C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of which Out of the Silent Planet is the first volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus's The Plague and George Orwell's 1984 as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of the moral concerns. For the trilogy's central figure, C.S. Lewis created perhaps the most memorable character of his career, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom. Appropriately, Lewis modeled Dr. Ransom after his dear friend J.R.R. Tolkien, for in the scope of its imaginative achievement and the totality of its vision of not one but two imaginary worlds, the Space Trilogy is rivaled in this century only by Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Readers who fall in love with Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia as children, unfailingly cherish his Space Trilogy as adults; it, too, brings to life strange and magical realms in which epic battles are fought between the forces of light and those of darkness. But in the many layers of its allegory, and the sophistication and piercing brilliance of its insights into the human condition, it occupies a place among the English language's most extraordinary works for any age, and for all time. Out of the Silent Planet introduces Dr. Ransom and chronicles his abduction by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice via space ship to the planet Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Dr. Ransom escapes upon landing, though, and goes on the run, a stranger in a land that, like Jonathan Swift's Lilliput, is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. |
Contents
Section 1 | |
Section 2 | 19 |
Section 3 | 29 |
Section 4 | 40 |
Section 5 | 62 |
Section 6 | 74 |
Section 7 | 85 |
Section 8 | 93 |
Section 10 | 119 |
Section 11 | 128 |
Section 12 | 137 |
Section 13 | 147 |
Section 14 | 157 |
Section 15 | 167 |
Section 16 | 176 |
Section 9 | 107 |
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Common terms and phrases
answered appeared Arbol arms asked Ransom beasts beautiful became began birds Blessed breath C. S. Lewis centre coffin affair colour creature dark Deep Heaven earth eldila Elwin Ransom eyes face feel feet felt fish Fixed Land floating islands fruit green hands happened head hnau horror human kind King knew Lady light living looked Malacandra Maleldil Mars mean megalomania mind mountain mouth never night noise Old Solar older once Oyarsa Perelandra perhaps Piebald planet Professor Weston race realised remember rience rose round seemed seen sense shape side sight Silent Planet sleep slope speak spoke stood strange suddenly surface talking tell Tellurian Tellus thing thought Ransom Thulcandra Tinidril trees turned Un-man understand valley Venus voice wait walk waves Weston Weston's body whole wonder wood words وو