Perelandra is C.S. Lewis’s 1943 science-fiction novel and the second book of his Space Trilogy.
The story returns to Dr. Elwin Ransom, who travels to the planet Perelandra. In Lewis’s fictional cosmology, the planet is also associated with Venus. Ransom becomes involved in a moral and spiritual conflict that echoes the temptation narrative in Genesis while remaining distinct in its setting and characters.
Out of the Silent Planet, published in 1938, is the trilogy’s first volume. That Hideous Strength, published in 1945, concludes the sequence and returns much of the action to Earth. The novels share characters and themes but are not conventional space-operas centered on technology.
The title Perelandra identifies both the novel and its principal world. It should not be confused with Malacandra, the Mars-like setting of the opening book, or Thulcandra, Lewis’s name for Earth in the trilogy.