The fictional planet home to the hrossa in C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet is Malacandra.
Out of the Silent Planet was published in 1938 and is the first novel in Lewis’s Space Trilogy. Its protagonist, Elwin Ransom, is abducted from Earth and taken to Malacandra, a planet that humans traditionally call Mars. There he encounters several intelligent species, including the hrossa, the séroni, and the pfifltriggi.
Lewis uses different names for Earth and Mars within the novel’s fictional cosmology. Earth is Thulcandra, often described as the “silent planet,” while Malacandra is a spiritually healthier world. The story therefore combines planetary adventure with theological and philosophical themes.
Malacandra is sometimes confused with Perelandra, the setting of the trilogy’s second book. Perelandra is the planet Lewis associates with Venus, while Malacandra is the Mars-like world visited in the opening novel.