Who wrote the science-fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet?

C.S. Lewis wrote the science-fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet. Published in 1938, it is the first book of his Space Trilogy, also known as the Ransom Trilogy.

The novel follows philologist Elwin Ransom after he is abducted and taken to Malacandra, the planet commonly identified with Mars. Lewis uses the story to explore language, morality, colonialism, and the possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Out of the Silent Planet was written partly as a response to what Lewis regarded as spiritually and morally troubling trends in contemporary science fiction. His friend J.R.R. Tolkien helped inspire his renewed interest in imaginative fiction, and the two writers discussed the genre extensively.

Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, but not this novel. Charles Williams and George MacDonald influenced Lewis in other ways, yet Out of the Silent Planet is specifically Lewis’s work.