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The Space Trilogy
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Everybody and their dog knows about Narnia, and has probably read it.note Admit it: depending on at what age that was, considering the plot, a lot of people even read it to their dog. They also probably know about the likes of Mere Christianity or The Screwtape Letters. But if you ask them whether they realized that C. S. Lewis wrote science fiction, they'll look at you like you're from another planet. The Space Trilogy is the unofficial name of his series of Planetary Romance and Fantasy novels, mixing space travel with Medieval cosmology and Christian theology.The trilogy chronicles the adventures of Dr. Elwin Ransom, an Oxbridge philologist who finds himself caught up in a space-travel experiment that turns out to be part of a cosmic battle between good and evil spiritual forces. Each volume is a stand-alone story, although they have a shared continuity and an elaborate universe. Out of the Silent Planet: Ransom is kidnapped by a pair of evil scientists whose spaceship transports them to the world of Malacandra (Mars). There Ransom encounters the sapient creatures native to the planet, as well as Energy Beings called Eldila and an angelic spiritual ruler called Oyarsa. Perelandra: Ransom is transported by the Eldila on a Mission from God to the Edenic planet Perelandra (Venus), where he finds it's his job to try to prevent that world's Adam and Eve Plot from resulting in the same Fall that it did on our world. That Hideous Strength: Back on Earth, in a Genre Shift, a young woman named Jane Studdock seeks Ransom's advice about a series of troubling premonitions that seem to involve her husband Mark. She discovers that her visions are connected to an organization of transhumanist scientists called the N.I.C.E., which is planning to work with diabolical spiritual powers to bring about the end of the world.There is also an unfinished novel titled The Dark Tower (not to be confused with the Stephen King series of the same name) originally intended as a sequel to Out Of The Silent Planet, and abandoned in favor of Perelandra. The plot, in which Ransom was only a secondary character, involved an Alternate Universe rather than space travel. Walter Hooper, the executor of Lewis' literary estate, published the fragment posthumously. The scholar Kathryn Lindskoog challenged the authenticity of The Dark Tower, and accused Hooper of forging it—though this seems to be the minority view among scholars of Lewis. | |
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A Form You Are Comfortable With | |
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A Form You Are Comfortable With: In Perelandra Malacandra and Perelandra make three attempts at this. The first attempt is sensory overload, the second is dull, but the third works. | |
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Solar System Neighbors | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_1195fbb6 | comment |
Solar System Neighbors: A number of planets are inhabited. The Earth is cut off from them because of they are tainted by sin. The other worlds inhabitants are Human Aliens. | |
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Darker and Edgier | |
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Darker and Edgier: Perelandra has a considerably darker plot than Out of the Silent Planet, with more at stake. That Hideous Strength is even darker. | |
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Wizards from Outer Space | |
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Wizards from Outer Space: Mars is run by the War God who Mars and Tyr are based on, Venus has an Underworld crawling with monsters, and the astronaut who visited both becomes the successor to King Arthur before hunting down the last practitioner of Atlantean magic. If it's unclear, Lewis' love for Classical Mythology and English folklore is not at all segregated from his love for H. G. Wells. | |
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No Biochemical Barriers | |
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No Biochemical Barriers: Everything seems to be edible on both Malacandra and Perelandra. It may be a subtle implication that Earth having poisonous vegetation is one result of its occupation by evil eldila. | |
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Energy Beings | |
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Energy Beings: The eldila are essentially Christian angels, and some of them (the ones associated with a specific planet) are also the basis for the Olympian pantheon. They are imperceptible energy beings whose forms exist on a radically different wavelength than ours — for them, gaseous matter doesn't exist, and liquids and solids are gaseous, so the planets of the Solar system are just clouds. To them, light itself is the water through which they swim, and the Sun is their wellspring. "Visiting" a planet means moving into one of those moving clouds and then keeping pace with its orbit to maintain the appearance of standing still, while using some sort of projection to interact with wispy, ephemeral creatures they cannot fully see (i.e.: us). | |
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Crapsack World | |
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Crapsack World: Sulva, aka the Moon. The part of it that faces towards us, and thus is part of our Fallen world, is a transhumanist dystopia. The other half is apparently pretty wonderful, but if the villains are to be believed it shrinks every year as it loses ground against a genocidal enemy. Apparently, a major sign of the end will be its shattering. | |
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Ironic Name | |
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Ironic Name: The hedonistic and corruptible Devine is notably far from being divine. As there is a legitimate old English alternative spelling of the name Davis as "Device" every other science fiction author finds highly amusing; it's quite possible that Lewis is joining in the fun, and the character's name is actually "Davin". The irony is still funny, though. The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments is not very "nice" at all. | |
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Puny Earthlings | |
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Puny Earthlings: Men are the only species in the solar system who don't have regular contact with the eldila, the invisible species that keep order and justice. Ransom doesn't understand this until he wonders if the eldila are the gods, fae, or ghosts dismissed on Earth as mere mythology. | |
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Faster-Than-Light Travel | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_2af7961 | comment |
Faster-Than-Light Travel: The sorns of Mars explain how the Oyarsa is invisible and untouchable by saying that their "bodies" are swift as light and made of something like light. To them, photons are calm waters and solid things are as thin as clouds, all of which they see with some substance so much faster than light that physical beings absolutely cannot detect it. What's moving faster-than-light in That Hideous Strength isn't any type of ship, but the raw energy coming off Perelandra, the Oyarsa of Venus. In her the most powerful force of the universe is put off more than in any human imitation of it, for she is Charity itself and projects love in those around with more speed and force than the Sun ever could with its photons. | |
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Messiah Creep | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_2c5a1cee | comment |
Messiah Creep: In the first book, Ransom is a kind of Joe Everyman having very-personal adventures on Mars. In the second book, he is tasked with saving the entire world of Perelandra from the influence of cosmic forces of evil. By the third book, he has become the Pendragon, leader of the new Round Table, suffers for the sins of the Earth, regains man's legendary authority over the animals, and leaves for another world, vowing to one day return and save humanity. | |
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Barefoot Sage | |
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Barefoot Sage: Merlin. | |
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Starfish Aliens | |
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Starfish Aliens: The eldila do not exist in space as humans do, so that they need to consciously match the speed of the Earth as it rotates on its axis and revolves around itself. They also manifest as completely different beings depending on how "far" they are from you, so they can look like the nightmare about the apocalypse one minute and then appear as a circle of eyeballs just by "moving" slightly. When you live in the space between the planets, weird stuff like that happens to you. | |
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Humans Are Flawed | |
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Humans Are Flawed: Humans are the only intelligent species in the Solar System to be "bent", i.e. capable of evil. This doesn't mean that humans are universally puppy-kicking-bad, but in spite of our technology we don't have anything in particular to offer to the other people of the Solar System. They're all quite happy with their lives, and do not lie to, cheat, or murder each other. Residents of Malacandra have the occasional "bent" individual, but these are few and far between because the planet's Oyarsa — the angelic ruler — is still good. On Earth, not only are the people bent; the reason for this is that the Oyarsa (called the Black Achron) is as well, so evil is unchecked. | |
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Kick the Dog | |
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Kick the Dog: The Un-Man, in its spare time, tortures small animals For the Evulz. The N.I.C.E. vivisects any animal it gets its hands on, as preparation for the day when they finally get to vivisect humans. | |
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Two of Your Earth Minutes | |
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Two of Your Earth Minutes: Every reference an eldil makes to space and time is qualified with assurances that they themselves, being inter-dimensional light monsters and all, don't understand reality in the way earthlings do. | |
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Fantastic Religious Weirdness | |
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Fantastic Religious Weirdness: Ransom's Christianity has to get real nuanced real fast thanks to his world-changing experiences through space. Out of the Silent Planet: The Roman gods, identified with demons so often to give demons that name, turn out to be good aliens protecting the Solar System. This knowledge leads Ransom to appreciate the old pagans if not approving of their worship. Perelandra: The most significant challenge space-faring offers to Ransom's faith is the sheer size of the everything that is. Alien races only occupy the smallest fraction of the thinnest layer of a much deeper and darker rock. Its only when he explores the underground of Venus that he discovers there's a beauty and honor to even places without humanity, and reasons they might exist to honor God. That Hideous Strength suggest that there were once good sorcerers, ones like the legendary figure of Merlin, despite the biblical condemnation of such magic. The confusion is addressed by the Director when he compares it to the Old Testament practice of polygamy, in that both were once tolerable and over time have slowly become less acceptable. | |
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Always Chaotic Evil | |
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Always Chaotic Evil: Out of the Silent Planet: Ransom assumes the sorns are exclusively malicious tricksters after being chased through a forest. It turns out that none of the sorn are evil and the ones who chased Ransom only wanted to introduce him to the Oyarsa. Perelandra: At some point, any creature can become so disfigured by pleasure-seeking and egotism that they might as well be a walking corpse. The Un-man is the greatest illustration of this, as an alien inhabiting the body of a Satanist. Ransom recognizes in the Un-man's smile such a sincere, untainted evil that he believes the Un-man must ignore goodness, and all being like him, "to the point of annihilation." | |
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No Biological Sex | |
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No Biological Sex: In these books' universe, the Oyeresu are sexless, as one would expect from incorporeal spirits that predate the concept of biology itself, but they are not genderless. The Oyarsa of Perelandra (Venus) is feminine, and the Oyarsu of Malacandra (Mars) and Viritrilbia (Mercury) are masculine. | |
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Our Angels Are Different | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_4977559e | comment |
Our Angels Are Different: Angels are a "military caste" of an alien species that neither breathes nor breeds. They act as guardians over humanity from evil members of this species, although the books never show an actual angel. Instead, the books show us other sub-sets and species of spirits serving God like the six Oyerésu and the solar eldila. These aliens are often compared to pagan gods, but Lewis describes them with angelic images from Ezekiel and St. John that are often forgotten today. | |
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Scenery Porn | |
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Scenery Porn: In Out of the Silent Planet, during the long journeys across the alien and beautiful surface of Mars, and all the time in Perelandra, especially the mountain towards the end. | |
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Most Writers Are Writers | |
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Most Writers Are Writers: It's certainly no accident that Oxbridge don C. S. Lewis made his main character an academic philologist, and most of the other characters are scholars or writers of various stripes.note Word of God is that Ransom is based on Lewis's friend the philologist J. R. R. Tolkien, strongly enough that Tolkien himself spotted the resemblance. | |
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| The Space Trilogy / int_4eaa9b84 | type |
Author Tract | |
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Author Tract: The novels are as much philosophical exercises as they are stories. Again, par for the course when reading Lewis. Out Of The Silent Planet is a fictionalized version of Lewis' essay "Religion and Rocketry", describing how extraterrestrial life could be reconciled with Christian theology. It is also a deconstruction of the colonial ideals often found in sci-fi of the time through the "judgement scene," where Weston has to attempt to justify his worldview to an angel that doesn't speak his language. He needs to resort to the interpretive services of Ransom, who can only convey his speech very simplistically, and who is not necessarily sympathetic to many of his opinions. The obvious point is that, stripped of rhetorical flourish, many of Weston's seemingly high-minded ideals start to sound almost barbaric. Perelandra transplants the Garden of Eden to Venus, and raises the question of why the Forbidden Fruit was forbidden in the first place. That Hideous Strength is a fictionalized version of Lewis' The Abolition Of Man, arguing against Philosophical Naturalism masquerading as Scientific Progress. | |
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Interspecies Friendship | |
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Interspecies Friendship: In Out of the Silent Planet, Ransom befriends Hyoi the hross. In That Hideous Strength, friendship between she-cat and bear (rather normal ones) is shown. | |
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Evilutionary Biologist | |
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The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments is not very "nice" at all. | |
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Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp" | |
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Even the nickname Tinidril gives the protagonist on Perelandra — Piebald — is meaningful: a Perelandrian piebald is a creature almost exactly like a spotted sheep, so he's nicknamed "sheep". See the above about the meaning of "Ransom" for two possible meanings of this; as Maleldil is both the Good Shepherd (making the name stress that the protagonist is His charge) and the Lamb of God (leading to yet another comparison like "ransom"). | |
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Angelic Abomination | |
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Angelic Abomination: The eldila are rather unsettling and bizarre angels (or at least comrades of the angels), even the good ones. Their very presence causes men to feel the speed and angle of the Earth hurtling through space, and if they choose to manifest more clearly to people, they may take forms of great horror or absurdity through ignorance of what men find aesthetically pleasing. | |
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Lunarians | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_5d90c8e | comment |
Atlanteans turns to be an ancient species of Lunarians who went extinct in a mad attempt at transhumanism. Interestingly, these lunar aliens also appear to have inspired not just ancient myths, but the legends of "Numinor" that would be made famous in The Lord of the Rings. | |
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No Such Thing as Space Jesus | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_60f40963 | comment |
No Such Thing as Space Jesus: Inverted. This is C.S. Lewis, after all. The whole series is pretty much about Space Jesus. | |
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Author Avatar | |
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Author Avatar: C.S. Lewis appears as the close friend and ghost-writer of the trilogy's hero, Ransom. In the second book, he fights a lunar demon and helps Ransom get abducted to Venus. | |
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Direct Line to the Author | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_6a3c49f | comment |
Direct Line to the Author: The first two-thirds the Ransom novels are based on the premise that Lewis is the ghostwriter for the "real" Doctor Ransom, whose name has been changed but whose bizarre interplanetary adventures are true. (In real Real Life, Ransom was based on Lewis's good friend J. R. R. Tolkien.) Out of the Silent Planet even ends with a chapter explaining how the Lewis came to learn of the story from Ransom, and why they decided to publish the story in the guise of fiction: to avoid reprisals from the Real Life counterparts of the villains, and because the events were simply too outrageous to be believed if they were published as nonfiction. This is then followed by a letter from Ransom pointing out all the details of the adventure that Lewis got wrong or were simply too esoteric to convey in writing. The next novel, Perelandra continues with the Agent Hypothesis in the text, but includes a preface stating that all the human characters are fictitious and non-allegorical. The final novel, That Hideous Strength, drops all pretense, and in fact events in the book flatly contradict actual then-current political history. | |
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Uncanny Valley | |
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Uncanny Valley: Described in-universe. Ransom is initially horrified by the appearance of the séroni, because they're very elongated humanoids. The other two species of hnau on Malacandra resemble animals, so Ransom is able to accept them much sooner. He decides that thinking of the hrossa as anthropomorphic animals is a lot less unsettling than thinking of them as animalistic men. Subverted with the Queen of Perelandra. After he first sees her at a distance, Ransom briefly wonders if she's merely an animal that happens to look humanoid, a thought which disturbs him greatly. He soon finds out she's fully sapient. The "UnMan" looks human, but his behavior and mannerisms are just enough off to creep Ransom the hell out. | |
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Meaningful Name | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_6bda9a30 | comment |
Meaningful Name: The protagonist: Ransom, whom Maleldil compares to Himself, as He is "the ransom of the world". An interesting twist: Ransom, being a linguist, knows that his name isn't actually related to the word "ransom" — but it still seems to be no accident that it is his name — and it is never stated but still obvious that Maleldil knows (and ultimately controls) every linguistic sound shift on every world ever. The protagonist's first name "Elwin" means "elf-friend" in Anglo-Saxon. Considering how much of Tolkien’s writings in the Inklings affected the Space Trilogy. At one point in-universe it's noted that "Elwin" means "eldil-friend", implying that, like his surname, his given name is no coincidence either. Even the nickname Tinidril gives the protagonist on Perelandra — Piebald — is meaningful: a Perelandrian piebald is a creature almost exactly like a spotted sheep, so he's nicknamed "sheep". See the above about the meaning of "Ransom" for two possible meanings of this; as Maleldil is both the Good Shepherd (making the name stress that the protagonist is His charge) and the Lamb of God (leading to yet another comparison like "ransom"). If that were still not enough, in the third book he changes his last name from Ransom to Fisher-King. What with all the Arthurian stuff going on in that book and him being the "keeper" and director of what makes the good side good is quite on the nose. Not to mention his leg is hurt, too. And the tiny little land of Logres he rules over as the Pendragon not only gives off the impression of being much more alive and well than the rest of the setting; it's also the only place not affected by the grey fog of depression that settles everywhere else when the villains cut down Bragdon Wood. Everyone else: Don't forget Frost and Wither, whose names reflect the effects of the N.I.C.E.'s psychological training and exposure to dark eldila on their personalities. Frost's mind was made cold, hard, and sharp, like ice. Wither, on the other hand, just sort of "withered" away. There's also Dr. Winter and Devine's title is Lord Feverstone. Pretty much everyone at N.I.C.E. has a name that suggest the failure, absence or corruption of organic life. By contrast, many of the people of Logres have botanical names — Dr. Grace Ironwood, Ivy Maggs, Camilla Denniston, ... but it has no deeper significance. "Hardcastle" is possibly meant as another one. In any case, it's a fitting coincidence (being written decades before him) that her nickname "Fairy" sounds a lot like Stalin's infamous Head of Secret Police Beria — and she acts the part, too. Including not only her methods, but apparently also the serial rape of female prisoners. The good side's prodigal who is duped by false promises into joining the NICE has the given name "Mark", and is a mark for the NICE's scam. Places: The third book's title "that hideous strength" is taken from an old poem, means "that abominable fortress", and refers to the biblical Tower of Babel. The book is about the construction of the NICE at Bracton — which apart from all the other parallels is hit with the curse of babel at the end. | |
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Fisher King | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_6c51e9e1 | comment |
If that were still not enough, in the third book he changes his last name from Ransom to Fisher-King. What with all the Arthurian stuff going on in that book and him being the "keeper" and director of what makes the good side good is quite on the nose. Not to mention his leg is hurt, too. And the tiny little land of Logres he rules over as the Pendragon not only gives off the impression of being much more alive and well than the rest of the setting; it's also the only place not affected by the grey fog of depression that settles everywhere else when the villains cut down Bragdon Wood. | |
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Fictionary | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_6fc2ca79 | comment |
Fictionary: The Old Solar tongue. | |
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Hell on Earth | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_754004a9 | comment |
Hell on Earth: Earth is known as the Silent Planet because it has been cut off from the Solar System and taken over by malevolent, multi-dimensional beings. Ransom is astonished to learn this, only to figure that Jesus says something like this when referring to the Devil as "the prince of this world." The Devil is very much real, and has been responsible for cutting humanity from the original language, eternal life, and the love of Maleldil the Young. | |
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Shared Universe | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_7fd142ef | comment |
Shared Universe: That Hideous Strength suggests that the series is set in the same continuity as The Lord of the Rings — Numinor/Númenor is part of the mythology, and at one point the world is referred to as "Middle Earth". | |
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Alien Non-Interference Clause | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_867f9f5c | comment |
Alien Non-Interference Clause: The celestial hosts stay outside Earth's atmosphere, because it's the claimed and conquered property of a darker kind of angel. At least until that darker angel sends two of his minions (and one hostage) outside the Moon's orbit, freeing the celestial hosts to react to this incursion. | |
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Eldritch Abomination | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_8774fb47 | comment |
Eldritch Abomination: Even meeting the good Energy Beings can be unsettling, but the evil ones certainly count. The fact is even pointed out that meeting a good Eldil is even worse than meeting a bad one. When faced with evil, one can still hope for the good to save you — what do you do when a good Eldil is still terrifying? | |
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Conlang | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_8a1bb4eb | comment |
Conlang: The Space Trilogy has Old Solar, the interplanetary language spoken throughout the Solar System, which was completely constructed from scratch for the first book. There are two reason why it no longer exists on Earth (Thulcandra): firstly, because Thulcandra is "bent", i.e., corrupt and cut off from Maleldil, and secondly, because of the Tower of Babel. | |
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Space Cold War | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_8a943fe3 | comment |
Space Cold War: The rest of the planets of the Solar System and the good eldila that steward them have wanted to liberate Earth from demons for a long time, but strict codes of conduct have kept them from doing so. They can only fight the demons through human proxies, mostly for fear of their great powers assuring the mutual destruction of the Solar System. This is why they send Ransom to fight the Devil on Venus in book 2 and empower Merlin to destroy N.I.C.E. in book 3. | |
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Deconstruction | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_8ae880f7 | comment |
Deconstruction: Lewis deconstructs various popular human fears as found in science fiction. For instance, the notion that aliens — particularly aliens stronger and smarter than us — must necessarily have natures antithetical to and hostile towards human beings. In point of fact, each alien species is more similar to humankind than they are different — even the Energy Beings, who are the most different and powerful by far, love humans more than humans love each other. If there are legions of fallen eldila who plague humanity, it's simply because they choose not to live in peace with us. | |
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Apocalypse How | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_91e894b4 | comment |
Apocalypse How: Thanks to the injuries dealt by the Bent One, Malacandra suffered a Class 1 (killing most multicellular life outside the handramits) that is slowly inching towards a Class 6 (complete extinction of all life on the planet), and Sulva caught a Class 0 (with the "light side" of the moon being wiped almost clean of all life, populated by hideously corrupt transhumans who are waging a genocidal war against the inhabitants of the "dark side" and winning) that will eventually end in the destruction of all organic life on the planet. Then, in the last days, reinforcements from Perelandra will blow Sulva apart in a Class X, marking the beginning of the end of the long siege of the Earth. | |
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| The Space Trilogy / int_9b06e314 | type |
Greater-Scope Villain | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_9b06e314 | comment |
Greater-Scope Villain: Thulcandra, the Oyarsa of Earth, aka Satan. They are behind various evil machinations in the plot, such as trying to stop the Author Avatar in the frame story of Perelandra from visiting Ransom, and sending the Un-Man to Venus, but due to their identity as, well, Satan, they are never met or fought directly. | |
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Homage | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_a1a1491e | comment |
Homage: Over in the DC Universe, the Martian word for "Mars" is "Ma'aleca'andra" as an homage to this trilogy. | |
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Love Goddess | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_a36e5a46 | comment |
What's moving faster-than-light in That Hideous Strength isn't any type of ship, but the raw energy coming off Perelandra, the Oyarsa of Venus. In her the most powerful force of the universe is put off more than in any human imitation of it, for she is Charity itself and projects love in those around with more speed and force than the Sun ever could with its photons. | |
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Due to the Dead | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_a679184b | comment |
Due to the Dead: In Perelandra, Ransom carves a memorial to Weston in Old Solar (albeit with Roman letters). | |
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Only Known by Their Nickname | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_a7850fbf | comment |
Only Known by Their Nickname: Ransom in the first book. This was retconned in the remaining two books to be his actual name. | |
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Planetary Romance | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_a7ae714 | comment |
Planetary Romance: Described by the author as such in the page quote. | |
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For the Evulz | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_adfd3165 | comment |
The Un-Man, in its spare time, tortures small animals For the Evulz. | |
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Space People | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_aec13030 | comment |
Space People: The eldils live in the space between the worlds, watching the Great Dance of the universe with their multi-dimensional vision. There are only eight eldils known to live on planets, and although they are implied to have some servants with them, Perelandra makes clear that they only manifest on planets for the sake of their inhabitants and don't belong to said planets. | |
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Space Police | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_af4ca2bf | comment |
Space Police: Each of the Solar System's seven planets is assigned an Oyarsa, an incorporeal intelligence that prevents and punishes evil. | |
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Heaven Above | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_b0ac233d | comment |
Heaven Above: Ransom finds the old myth about the gods dwelling in the heavens to be quite true literally and figuratively. His first trip through space teaches him that the planets are only disturbances in a great sea of light and life; his second trip is facilitated by the collective of invisible consciousnesses that dwell in the Deep Heavens and guide all planetary affairs according to the will of their king on Jupiter. | |
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Alien Geometries | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_b3bdf232 | comment |
Alien Geometries: In Perelandra, the mere presence of an eldil may cause one to see the world as slanted on an axis as part of their multi-dimensional perception leaks into the human mind. It is this trait that likely leads to Ransom seeing one of their kind as an endless wave of sinister heptagons flying through darkness. Ironically, on Earth. The N.I.C.E. attempts to break Mark Studdock's mind by placing him in a room whose every proportion is off just enough to be noticeable but not enough to be obvious. | |
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Take That! | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_b53077b3 | comment |
Take That!: H. G. Wells. Lewis was very much a fan of Wells' earlier fiction (he used the opening pages of the first book to essentially say that anyone who refuses to read War of the Worlds or The First Men in the Moon is being a snob), but was quite critical of the much more political and less well-remembered utopian novels Wells wrote later in life (elsewhere, Lewis compared Wells to Esau, saying that while Esau had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Wells had hocked his talent for a pot of message). Hence, Horace Jules, the clueless pompous twit who is the figurehead Director of the NICE, looks and talks like a Wells parody. J.B.S. Haldane, with whom Lewis carried on an open debate, is also targeted. Some of Weston's philosophy is almost word-for-word quotes of statements by Haldane. Haldane, in turn, wrote a rather scathing criticism of The Space Trilogy (which Lewis replied to in the posthumously published essay "A Reply to Professor Haldane"). Last and First Men gets hit, especially the way it portrays colonizing Mars. Notably, Professor Weston is an outspoken proponent of this idea, and it's deliberately contrasted with the Malacandrans, who choose to die with their planet despite having the technology to cross space and colonize Earth. | |
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If Jesus, Then Aliens | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_b6ca8bd | comment |
If Jesus, Then Aliens: Explored in many ways. Both Jesus and aliens appear, but belief in the two is not necessarily linked. Aliens simply exist, and the protagonist meets them on social grounds — he knows aliens exist and doesn't need to "believe" in them. That said, he does also meet actual angels, so he doesn't actually need to believe in Jesus, either. Then, in the second book, although Ransom doesn't actually meet God face to face, the two do have a mental chat; which starts out like a series of sudden inspirations, goes over something more like a religious experience, and finally ends in something almost like a telephone conversation (with ultimately even the occasional image thrown in) as the "connection" gradually gets better and better. | |
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| The Space Trilogy / int_b8dde2 | type |
Evil Overlord | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_b8dde2 | comment |
Evil Overlord: From Perelandra on, the Bent One is referred to as the Dark Lord of Earth. He rules not by force, but through turning the hearts of men away from their original goodness and towards self-love so extreme it becomes hatred. With the armies of invisible eldila serving him, the minds of Earth must be extremely dedicated to avoid being dominated by the armies of the Black Archon. | |
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Detonation Moon | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_bb18e3c9 | comment |
Detonation Moon: It's reiterated throughout the series that the solar war between Maleldil the Young and the black Archon will begin with the gods serving Maleldil destroying the Moon and the transhuman perversions the Archon created there. | |
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Cunning Linguist | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_c4942576 | comment |
Cunning Linguist: Ransom is an academic philologist by profession, and as such he's able to pick up the local planetary language very quickly and even extrapolate its linguistic history backward to learn Old Solar. This is also how he makes First Contact with the Hross, as he hears one vocalizing and realizes it is in fact a sentient being because it has a language (Ransom was modeled after Lewis's philologist friend and colleague, none other than J. R. R. Tolkien). | |
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Shout-Out | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_c75df49a | comment |
Shout-Out: Númenor gets mentioned several times in That Hideous Strength, based apparently on some discussions that Lewis had with Tolkien (Lewis apparently never saw a manuscript, since he invariably spells it "Numinor"). Lewis also acknowledges his indebtedness to Sci-Fi works such as The First Men in the Moon and A Voyage to Arcturus. Not to mention the Adam and Eve Plot of Perelandra. Meta-example: Iron Maiden has a song called "Out of the Silent Planet". Though named after the book, the song was influenced more by the movie Forbidden Planet. Still, both works features a planet with a cosmic horror causing great destruction ("The Monster from the Id" for Forbidden Planet, and the "Bent One" in the Space Trilogy). Similarly, Progressive Rock band King's X has an album named Out of the Silent Planet. | |
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Forbidden Fruit | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_d2cd18c0 | comment |
Perelandra transplants the Garden of Eden to Venus, and raises the question of why the Forbidden Fruit was forbidden in the first place. | |
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Red Herring | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_dbca2c99 | comment |
By contrast, many of the people of Logres have botanical names — Dr. Grace Ironwood, Ivy Maggs, Camilla Denniston, ... but it has no deeper significance. | |
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Progressive Rock | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_e139c90b | comment |
Similarly, Progressive Rock band King's X has an album named Out of the Silent Planet. | |
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Bizarre Alien Sexes | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_e1836adf | comment |
Bizarre Alien Sexes: In a bizarre case overlapping with No Biological Sex, there are apparently seven genders in this fantasy universe, two of which correspond both to the human sexes and to the genders of the Oyeresu controlling Mercury, Venus, and Mars. The rulers of those three planets have genders, but also have No Biological Sex. When the Oyeresu of Jupiter and Saturn show up, their genders are neither masculine or feminine, which contributes to their already-formidable case of You Cannot Grasp the True Form. | |
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Our Gods Are Different | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_e1ecdac3 | comment |
Our Gods Are Different: The gods are in truth incorporeal Reality Warpers serving under the invisible Evil Overlord of Earth, with each of his servants being a counterpart to The Good Kings of the other planets in the Solar System. Men encountered these corrupted powers over the centuries and created their mythologies (Roman, Norse, and Egyptian in particular) around them, never knowing these are only shadows of the true gods (Oyerésu in Old Solar) who continue to serve their Creator with love. What Lewis has done here is combined the Christian tradition that gods are just white-washed devils with his view that all religions at least hint towards the Truth, however poorly. | |
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You Cannot Grasp the True Form | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_e5e07b2d | comment |
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Eldila, being angels, are like this to humans, although apparently Hrossa and Sorns can see them just fine. Most of the time they just look like a vague shimmer of light; other attempts have produced wheels rolling on distant hills, a painful impact of colors (described as being like the "true sensation" of being hit in the eye by a rock), and (most successfully) a pair of otherworldly humanoids. | |
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| The Space Trilogy / int_ea8168f | type |
Crossover Cosmology | |
| The Space Trilogy / int_ea8168f | comment |
Crossover Cosmology: The Classical gods show up as subordinates to the Abrahamic one, and all live on their own planets in our solar system. The third book gets into the dynamics of it: Merlin knows full well about God/Maleldil's existence, but when he was alive worshiping pagan gods (and practicing magic) it was apparently more acceptable, and he is still permitted to do both of these things in modern times without being an Evil Sorcerer. | |
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National Geographic Nudity | |
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National Geographic Nudity: The Perelandrians, in keeping with the Adam and Eve Plot. | |
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Earth Drift | |
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Earth Drift: Outside of all the aliens, the history of Earth is basically the same as any Christian would expect, angels and demons included. That Hideous Strength delves straight into fantasy and mythology by confirming that the pagan gods all existed, Merlin was a true wizard who began a millennia-long legacy of Arthurian successors, and that a transhumanist conspiracy controlled the course of post-war Britain only to be covered up by the media. | |
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Humans Need Aliens | |
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Humans Need Aliens: Humans are so bent by Greed, Pride, and misdirected love that their only hope for goodness is the interplanetary eldila and their master healing their minds from beyond. Thankfully, the Oyarsa hints that rescue mission may have already begun in secret. | |
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Human Aliens | |
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Human Aliens: Since God became human at one point, every sapient race that develops/is created (Pr. Lewis actually argued that there's no need to draw a distinction between the two in other works) from that point in time onward will now, unfortunately, look exactly like humans (although if we were to take this train of thought to its logical conclusion, it would mean not only that all individual humans should have the same facial structure as Jesus, but also that all sapient races who developed before that point should be Human Aliens as well, since Pr. Lewis was well aware that Christian Theology holds God to be Atemporal). | |
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Science Is Bad | |
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Science Is Bad: Some critics accused Lewis of arguing this, but Word of God clarifies that the villains are actually people who use the guise of science to promote inhuman philosophies. Notably, in That Hideous Strength the "real" scientist Hingest joined the N.I.C.E. because he believed it had something to do with science, and resigned and got murdered for it as soon as he found it out it didn't. And in both books he appears in, Weston's tremendous scientific genius is always held in esteem. It is his barbaric philosophies that are attacked. | |
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Alien Fair Folk | |
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Alien Fair Folk: Through his journeys, Ransom comes to realize that mythical figures of Earth are really just shadows and memories of creatures that really exist throughout the Solar System. The tall and gangly sorns bring ogres, ghouls, ghosts, and bogeys to mind when Ransom escapes from them. As soon as he befriends one of them, he sees much more of the titans and angels in them. The pfifltriggi of Mars are short craftsmen that have a deep love for gold-mining, earning them a comparison to the dwarves. The void-dwelling eldils are truly the angels of the Bible, the gods of Roman myth, and the fey of Arthurian legend. The evolutionary ancestors of the Queen of Perelandra are bioluminescent mermaids. The giant insects that gnaw at the ground beneath Perelandra (Venus) are mistaken for devils at first, but Ransom comes to realize they are more like the monsters of the Greek Underworld or cryptids. It helps him understand that odd element of pagan worship and the vastness of Maleldil's creation to know that there's more than evil wandering through the dark. Atlanteans turns to be an ancient species of Lunarians who went extinct in a mad attempt at transhumanism. Interestingly, these lunar aliens also appear to have inspired not just ancient myths, but the legends of "Numinor" that would be made famous in The Lord of the Rings. | |
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Evil Cannot Comprehend Good | |
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Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Played straight with both Professor Weston and the Belbury people, in their assessments of which Christians are most dangerous to them — they peg those most "efficient" and similar to themselves as ones to look out for, and completely neglect the humble doctor Dimble, the only one who actually has the information they need. | |
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Evil Is Petty | |
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Evil Is Petty: In Out of the Silent Planet, while Weston and Devine are both evil, Weston is a deconstruction of the Well-Intentioned Extremist who justifies his evil actions as necessary for the survival of the human race. Devine is only there for the gold; and Oyarsa describes him as a "broken" man whose only motivation is greed. As Lord Feverstone in That Hideous Strength he's aware of the true nature of the NICE, but isn't interested in the supernatural aspects, his only motivation being personal power. The Un-man in Perelandra is capable of making very eloquent arguments to tempt his subject towards evil; but when he's unable to do anything more profoundly evil, he spends his time torturing small animals and playing childish pranks on Ransom. His most frequent pastime is standing by Ransom as he tries to sleep and repeating his name ad infinitum until Ransom responds. Then he starts again. Oyarsa actually remarks in the first book that if it were up to him he would honestly attempt to cure Weston, but would simply destroy Devine, as any humanity in him died a long time ago. | |
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The Space Trilogy |
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