Malacandra is C.S. Lewis's fictional name for Mars in the Space Trilogy.
The name appears in Out of the Silent Planet, the trilogy’s first novel, published in 1938. Dr. Elwin Ransom is taken from Earth to Malacandra, where he encounters several intelligent species and learns that Earth is known as Thulcandra, the “silent planet.” The story combines interplanetary adventure with Lewis’s reflections on language, civilization, and spiritual disorder.
Lewis’s planetary names can be confusing because the trilogy changes familiar astronomical labels. Malacandra means Mars, while Perelandra means Venus and Thulcandra means Earth. The second and third novels are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and Ransom remains the central connecting character across the trilogy.