Malacandra is the fictional planet where C.S. Lewis sets Out of the Silent Planet. Published in 1938, the novel is the first volume of his Space Trilogy and presents Malacandra as the name its inhabitants use for Mars.
The protagonist, Elwin Ransom, is kidnapped from Earth and transported to Malacandra. Lewis uses the journey to explore language, culture, morality, and humanity’s place in the universe. Ransom’s training as a philologist allows him to communicate with the planet’s intelligent species.
The novel’s English title reflects Earth’s isolation from the wider inhabited cosmos. “The silent planet” is Earth, which has become spiritually and morally cut off from other worlds. Lewis combines planetary adventure with theological and philosophical ideas rather than writing a conventional technological space opera.
Malacandra should not be confused with Perelandra, the Venus-like world in the second novel. Narnia is a separate fantasy universe, while Glome is the setting of Till We Have Faces.