What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1938 science-fiction novel about Ransom’s first space voyage?

Out of the Silent Planet is C.S. Lewis’s 1938 novel about Ransom’s first space voyage.

Out of the Silent Planet introduced Elwin Ransom, a Cambridge philologist who is abducted and taken to Mars, called Malacandra by its inhabitants. The novel combines planetary adventure with philosophical and theological questions about language, colonialism, intelligent life, and humanity’s moral condition.

It is the first volume of Lewis’s Space Trilogy. The next books are Perelandra, published in 1943, and That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. Although the trilogy shares characters and themes, each novel has a distinct setting and narrative structure.

The title refers to Earth, which the inhabitants of Malacandra call Thulcandra, the “silent planet.” Readers sometimes confuse this opening novel with Perelandra because both involve Ransom traveling beyond Earth. However, Ransom’s first interplanetary journey occurs in Out of the Silent Planet, making it the trilogy’s starting point.