Book Review | C.S Lewis Space Trilogy
Faith, Fiction and the Future
The author C.S. Lewis I adore because when I was growing up, I read the Narnia Chronicles. This captivated my imagination and took me away from my monotonous schoolwork. As I got older, I found his more religious works and read Mere Christianity and A Greif Observed. They were good, but didn’t captivate me and I had graduated from fairytales. Last year, I found that he wrote a sci fi series; that’s my favorite flavor of fantasy! I didn’t look at any reviews, I picked up my kindle, bought all three and jumped into them!
Well, curiosity killed the cat, and I’m not sure if satisfaction brought it back. Why not explore with me the good, the bad and the ugly of the Space Trilogy.
“Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.” - C. S. Lewis
Let’s set the scene before delving into the review. By the time the series came out CS Lewis had done a lot. He served in WW1, studied at Oxford, became an English professor and become a Christian; in that loose order. The reason I bring up his faith is because he injects it into almost everything he created; and this series is no exception.
CS Lewis was alive when Rocket technology was taking off (I do not apologize for the pun). In WW1, which CS Lewis served in, rockets were not primarily used. But, research into Rocket technology continued, further refined and was used in WW2 and in warfare now (2025).
CS Lewis, seeing these rapid advancements in technology and warfare, this series was him expressing concern of the pattern of man’s destruction on our home planet.
The Good
The Space Trilogy’s a good adventure story with the CS Lewis staples; scholars, schools and tea. He disperses throughout his arguments cheering for and explaining the Christian faith. The set up, characters, description and ideas are clear and delivered deliciously. And you get a taste of the more scholarly English language and through that, an opportunity to expand your vocabulary. It is a showcase on how well C.S. Lewis communicates his ideas through storytelling.
Within the books he expresses his speculation of sentient alien species being ‘better’ than humanity; peaceful and harmonious with each other and the planet. The difference in human vs alien technology for space travel. And the influence outside our planet to persuade humans towards either prosperity or destruction.
A few of my friends told me to “just read the last one and you’ll be fine” Well, I read all three and I actually think that Prelandra is my favorite one out of the lot. It’s not confined to earth so the imagination of CS Lewis’ is allowed to run rampant on a new and strange planet.
What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument1 - C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man
The Bad
The trilogy is a challenge to read because, at its heart, this is Christian theology in space. As I mentioned before, you can expand your vocabulary. But remember that the language CS Lewis uses is older, scholarly English and can be challenging to digest. There were times where I had to put the book down, reflect on what I read, then re-read the paragraph or sometimes, chapter to focus on what was happening or what allegory was being conveyed. I could envision the settings, alien or character situation. Then, you are confronted with C.S Lewis’ deeper-than-mine Christian theology coming out of the pages. It’s like you’re trying to stay steady on a Bosu ball (both feet) while different kinds of balls are being thrown you; some of them a sporting ball like tennis, soccer or rugby balls, others, a crumbly cake pop.
C.S Lewis gives us three books to ingest his religious theology set in space. The first is slow, the second picks up the pace, though not by much, and the third book connects the dots.
The Ugly
This book is classified as Sci fi, but, there is no way a modern reader can enjoy the sci-fi aspect of the books.
I read these books and was underwhelmed. For example, in Book one, Ransom and the fella’s are travelling through space. The ship is hodgepodge, the journey takes time and they’re going to a strange planet. And they arrive at…Mars. Just Mars - why so close? I had to set the book down and reflect to try and imagine what it was like in the time of this book’s publishing to realize that this was the expanse – imagining going to Mars was the craze. Admittedly, Mars is quite a bit off, 225 million km or 140 million miles and currently humanity is still looking to get there. But for the modern reader, if you’re going to explore space, why are we stuck inside our Solar System? Let’s go to one of the two planets around Proxima Centurai, wouldn’t that be better?
Our eyes have been marred by time – The first book, Out of the Silent Planet was published in 1938. Things in the series were new and exciting; space ships, strange planets and languages. But, we have already been exposed to those things; and they have been expanded on to be bigger and crazier. I think of films like Alien and Star Wars. TV Shows like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and 3rd Rock from the Sun. And games like Dead Space and Warhammer 40K. Reading this series was unexciting and no surprises, well maybe one: see the last chapter of That Hideous Strength2.
“You can make anything by writing.”
Fin
If you are a CS Lewis fan, this might interest you for his writing style and theology in his works. If you’re looking for a succinct look into CS Lewis’ concerns on the rapid advancement of Rocket Technology and space exploration, I recommend reading his essay Religion and Rocketry.
If you’re a sci fi fan, this series might bore you as it did me. I mean I made it through, but it was a slog.
If you’re curious about the history of science fiction writing, this would be a source to go to. Seeing where science fiction’s ideas and influence started to expanding to where we are at now.
This series is a product of it’s time from a concerned writer. Asking if there is life out there, what will they be like and will man be their friend or foe. Will the other outer alien beings influence humanity towards forces of good or evil, all set within C.S. Lewis’ Christian theology.
https://sojo.net/articles/keeping-force/time-cs-lewis-predicted-future
https://mrbultitudesmusings.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/that-hideous-strength-chapter-seventeen-last-venus-at-st-annes/
Very well written article. Peaked my curiosity about C.S. Lewis. Would like to have read some examples of infusing his Christian beliefs into the writing. Enjoyed the descriptive, colorful and playful writing in this article.