Book Review: Out of The Silent Planet - Lewis C.S

When a professor and his friend traveled out into the space to another planet called Malacandra, they met creatures called Sorns. Also, they saw some natural substances which they intended to take back to earth but there is a price... The Sorns requested them to bring someone from planet earth before they can take those substances which they need. They traveled back to earth to find someone...


Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist went on a walking tour and covered over two miles. Tired, thirsty and hungry, he needed a place to rest but couldn’t find one. When he finally saw a place to rest, it turned out to something else! The poor doctor found himself in the midst of two scientists who, unknowingly to him, have evil plot – to abduct and take him out of the planet earth.

They gave him water which he drank graciously... then he woke up and only to find himself in a spaceship on a journey of out of the planet earth... The adventure begins... The battle for survival... Ransom has to obey the law of nature – eat, or be eaten!

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Up to the time I read this book, my perception about the outer space is full of horror. I have always believed that what is called ‘space’ will be full of total darkness. But this book has been able to give me a new ideology of what space really is – at least from the author’s view (or based on the observation of the said Dr. Ransom).

Apart from that, it also accounts for the possibilities of life in other planets, the tendency (according to the book) of relationship and communication between and among the planets.
Another thing that baffles me is the role of religion in the existence and creation of planets. According to the book, the each planet is just an element inside the world. And each planet has a life span.
In addition, the book also narrate the morphology of living creatures and adaptation to life on the planet in which a creature may find itself. Then also, how one creature becomes alien to another creature.


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According to the postscript, it is an original story of man’s leap into space and what he finds there. The postscript also indicated that this story is a true-life story and it has been published in form of fiction (this is because, it will be difficult for people to believe – reason: the person involved got sick for several months after the journey and couldn’t recall whether it was hallucination due to his sickness or not; and also, he felt that if he himself half-believed in the authenticity of the event, it will not be easy for readers or the world at large to believe. However, his doubt was cleared when he received a letter from the Lewis asking him for his opinion as a philologist on the origin of the Latinized word ‘Oyarses‘.

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The book may present a great deal of difficulties to average readers as it contains ambiguous description of things that are not easy to describe - the author tried to described them anyway. And I am pretty sure it was an extremely difficult task for the author.

The book was first published in 1938. It was republished in 1952. Reprinted in 1955, 1956 and 1960.
My Rating: 4 stars.