C.S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength was published in 1945.
That Hideous Strength is the third and final novel in Lewis’s Space Trilogy, following Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Unlike its predecessors, much of the story takes place on Earth. It follows Mark Studdock, a sociologist drawn toward the authoritarian National Institute of Coordinated Experiments, while Jane Studdock becomes involved with a resistance connected to the mysterious figure of Ransom.
The novel combines science fiction, social criticism, mythology, and Christian ideas. Its title comes from a medieval poem by David Lyndsay, and its themes include technological overreach, propaganda, institutional power, and the loss of human dignity.
Readers sometimes place the novel in 1944 because parts of the wartime context influenced its composition. The book itself was published in 1945, completing the trilogy that began in 1938.