Which C.S. Lewis book is a science-fiction novel set partly on the planet Malacandra?

Out of the Silent Planet is the C.S. Lewis science-fiction novel set partly on Malacandra.

Published in 1938, Out of the Silent Planet is the first book of Lewis’s Space Trilogy. Its protagonist, Dr. Elwin Ransom, is kidnapped and taken aboard a spacecraft to Malacandra, a planet that humans call Mars. There he encounters intelligent species and learns that Earth has a troubled reputation beyond its own atmosphere.

Lewis wrote the novel partly in response to the space fiction of his era. He wanted to imagine a universe in which other worlds were not simply locations for conquest or adventure. The story combines planetary romance, Christian cosmology, linguistic discovery, and criticism of human imperialism.

Malacandra is not the same setting as Perelandra, the planet visited in the trilogy’s second book. That novel appeared in 1943, while Out of the Silent Planet introduced Ransom and the trilogy’s distinctive cosmic setting.