What was the name of C.S. Lewis’s 1945 science-fiction novel about a battle for Earth?
Answer
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength was C.S. Lewis’s 1945 science-fiction novel about a battle for Earth.
The novel is the third book of Lewis’s Space Trilogy, following Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Unlike its predecessors, it is set mainly on Earth and combines academic satire, dystopian science fiction, and supernatural conflict. Its central setting is the fictional university town of Edgestow.
The plot follows Mark and Jane Studdock as they become entangled with competing forces. The organization NICE presents itself as a scientific and social improvement project, but its pursuit of control threatens human freedom and moral order. The novel also connects its earthly events with the cosmic conflict developed in the first two books.
Readers sometimes mistake That Hideous Strength for the trilogy’s second book because its Earth-based setting makes it feel separate from the planetary adventures. It is nevertheless the concluding volume, published in 1945, and completes Lewis’s sequence about Ransom and the struggle against technocratic domination.