Beyond the Silent Planet

A Cambridge philologist kidnapped and taken to Mars discovers that the planet he thought was hostile is inhabited by wise peoples… and that Earth is the only silent planet in the solar system. Lewis's first science-fiction novel, born from a bet with Tolkien.

Elwin Ransom, a philology professor, goes hiking alone in the English countryside. He knocks on the door of an isolated house and encounters two unsavory men: Weston, a physicist obsessed with the survival of the human species, and Devine, a former schoolmate drawn by gold. Drugged, Ransom wakes up aboard a spaceship en route to Malacandra, the name the inhabitants give to Mars. His captors intend to deliver him as a sacrifice to the natives. As soon as he lands, he escapes. Thus begins an exploration journey: Ransom learns the language of the hrossa, fish-like beings who are poets, meets the séroni, scholars of the high plateaus, and the pfifltriggi, artisans of the depths. He gradually understands that the three peoples live in peace under the authority of a being of light, the Oyarsa, and that Earth, Thulcandra, is "the silent planet": cut off from the rest of the heavens since its own guardian rebelled. The novel culminates in a hearing where Weston, summoned to explain himself, reveals how empty his dream of space conquest is.

• Original title — Out of the Silent Planet
• First publication — 1938
• Genre — Science-fiction novel
• First English edition — The Bodley Head, London, 1938
• Availability in bookstores — Out of print in new since 2024; easily found secondhand and in libraries.
• Reading level — Easy — from age 13-14
• For whom — Excellent first Lewis book for a teenager or an adult leaving Narnia and loving adventure. Short and gripping, it can be read in two evenings. Read it before the next two.
• Year — 1938

Going further

• Le Silence de la Terre

[{title, publisher, year, translator?, note?, source?}]

• Le Silence de la Terre — 1952 — Marguerite Faguer — first French translation; publisher not indicated by the BnF record
• Le Silence de la Terre; Voyage à Vénus; Cette hideuse puissance — Club du livre d'anticipation (Opta) — Paris — 1967 — Marguerite Faguer (for this novel) — the trilogy in one volume, introduction by Sam Moskowitz
• Le Silence de la Terre — Retz — Paris — 1975 — Marguerite Faguer — illustrations by Christian Broutin
• Le Silence de la Terre — Oswald (Néo) — Paris — 1981 — Marguerite Faguer
• La Trilogie cosmique — L'Âge d'Homme — Lausanne — 1997 — Maurice Le Péchoux — the three novels in one volume
• Au-delà de la planète silencieuse — Gallimard, Folio SF no. 301 — 2008 — Maurice Le Péchoux

Themes

• Fear of the unknown turned on its head: the "monster" is a neighbor.
• Critique of scientism and imperialism (Weston wants to colonize space at all costs).
• A living and ordered cosmos, opposed to the "empty and dark" space of modern science fiction.
• Language and translation: the hero is a philologist, like Tolkien.
• The Fall: one planet has refused the order of the heavens.

Trivia

• Out of the Silent Planet
• Le Silence de la Terre
• Science-fiction novel
• Fiction

A Cambridge philologist kidnapped and taken to Mars discovers that the planet he thought was hostile is inhabited by wise peoples… and that Earth is the only silent planet in the solar system. Lewis's first science-fiction novel, born from a bet with Tolkien.

Quick facts