Elwin Ransom visits Malacandra in C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet.
Malacandra is Lewis’s name for the planet more commonly known as Mars. In the novel, Ransom is abducted and transported there, where he encounters several intelligent species and begins to understand that Earth is viewed as a morally damaged world. Lewis uses the planet to widen the story beyond a conventional space adventure.
The book’s terminology can cause confusion because Lewis gives both Earth and Mars distinctive names. Earth is called Thulcandra, while Malacandra is Mars. Perelandra, the title of the second Space Trilogy novel, is another planet entirely and is not Ransom’s destination in the first book.