This book – together with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, shown in later posts – constitute a trilogy and should be read together, in the order given here. They are a prime example of Lewis’s “extraordinarily significant fiction.”

Out of the Silent Planet is the incredibly credible story of Professor Ransom who, in the middle of a hiking holiday, gets kidnapped and flown to Mars in a domestically produced spaceship. There he escapes and goes on the run, endangering his life and his chances of ever returning to Earth. Lewis, who knew a great deal more than he ever directly said, weaves into this science fiction fabric some of the most profound (and in our age almost entirely neglected) truth of the real spiritual history and present condition of the planet Earth (the silent planet)  and its immediate neighbors.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet