Which C.S. Lewis novel tells the story of the planet Malacandra?

Out of the Silent Planet is the C.S. Lewis novel that tells the story of the planet Malacandra.

Published in 1938, the book follows philologist Elwin Ransom after he is abducted from Earth and taken to Malacandra, a planet known to Earth as Mars. The novel combines space travel, linguistic discovery, theology, and moral speculation rather than treating extraterrestrial life only as a source of danger.

Out of the Silent Planet is the first book in Lewis’s Space Trilogy. Its sequels are Perelandra, published in 1943, and That Hideous Strength, published in 1945. Lewis used the trilogy to explore how humanity’s ambitions, scientific power, and spiritual condition might appear beyond Earth.

The title’s “silent planet” is Earth, which Malacandrian characters call Thulcandra. Readers sometimes confuse Malacandra with Perelandra, the setting of the second novel, but the two are separate worlds in Lewis’s fictional cosmic setting.