Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
Long before The Chronicles of Narnia had come to the big screen, I had heard that Lewis was, in many respects, an author who promoted Christianity (the Catholic version, if I'm not mistaken), but I had never read any of his books.
While doing some research, I stumbled across this particular book which is the first of a trilogy and decided to give Lewis' science fiction story a whirl. I figured, what the hell (no pun intended). After all, it's only 157 pp long.
While the faith element is not 'preachy' in the least (a pleasant surprise, frankly), a reader won't have any trouble seeing the symbolism of the mystic spirituality and the good and evil present in the book and how it's representative of our supposedly 'fallen' world.
Considering the time it was written (1938), it's a fairly good story which is told pretty much the way an Englishman would tell this kind of story, although it's not quite as stiff and proper as H. G. Wells writing style (who's actually referred to by the main character). It's also unexpectedly (and possibly unintentionally) funny in later pages after Ransom (the main character) meets Oyarsa.
I will give one thing away. While most of the story takes place on another planet, the silent planet is Earth. I should also add that while this story is the first of a trilogy, the story stands all by itself.
Long before The Chronicles of Narnia had come to the big screen, I had heard that Lewis was, in many respects, an author who promoted Christianity (the Catholic version, if I'm not mistaken), but I had never read any of his books.
While doing some research, I stumbled across this particular book which is the first of a trilogy and decided to give Lewis' science fiction story a whirl. I figured, what the hell (no pun intended). After all, it's only 157 pp long.
While the faith element is not 'preachy' in the least (a pleasant surprise, frankly), a reader won't have any trouble seeing the symbolism of the mystic spirituality and the good and evil present in the book and how it's representative of our supposedly 'fallen' world.
Considering the time it was written (1938), it's a fairly good story which is told pretty much the way an Englishman would tell this kind of story, although it's not quite as stiff and proper as H. G. Wells writing style (who's actually referred to by the main character). It's also unexpectedly (and possibly unintentionally) funny in later pages after Ransom (the main character) meets Oyarsa.
I will give one thing away. While most of the story takes place on another planet, the silent planet is Earth. I should also add that while this story is the first of a trilogy, the story stands all by itself.
