Sunday, December 7, 2008

Out of the Silent Planet

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Title: Out of the Silent Planet
Author: C.S. Lewis
Pages: 180
Yearly Count b: 90

The story of a dude named Ransom ( I know, Ransom!?!) who hap haphazardly wanders himself into a science experiment of sorts to another planet. He arrives there in a comatose state, having been drugged and brought there for reasons he doesn't know. It is a science fiction book written in the 40s. If when you see the name C.S Lewis you think Chronicles of Narnia and about white witches and dark dungeons and wardrobes, think again. Out of the Silent Planet is not fantasy or anything close, it is all science and fiction :)

In truth it wasn't my fave, but it wasn't horrid either. C.S. stunned me with his writing, he is insanely good. Even if at times he is what I would consider wordy, his words are beautiful even when I have no idea what he is saying! I may have read it to fast and it may be my fault, but it seemed too descriptive for me. It was written when saga descriptions were all the fashion, so that my be part of the deal, but they just didn't keep my attention that well. I had a hard time following from one type of alien creature to the next, and figuring out who Lewis was talking about. I also kept holding out for the symbolism, and really there is some but it is not even a tad as blatant as that in The Chronicles of Narnia.

My overall feelings on this book? It was decent, but I think if you could love it much more than I did. I love reality, what can I say?

This was my first attempt at science fiction and since I have never been a science person I figure I am not going to be into science fiction...is that true? Is that how it works? If you are interested in science do you love science fiction? It seems like it would be somewhat correlated at least. Maybe not.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Believe it or not, I used to know a Ransom. Great guy...he was a WWII vet. Maybe it was a popular name back then?

Anonymous said...

Science fiction i dnt know... i can't remember reading sci-fi.. so i wil have to tell u once i have done it :)

Ransom .. lol

Jeane said...

I tried to read this years ago and just couldn't finish it. I got all confused about the different characters and what exactly was going on. I wonder if the story improves in the other two of this series? But I've never found out.

And I love his Narnia books!

Teresa said...

I'm not much of a science person either, but I enjoy a lot of science fiction books. I love Lewis's space trilogy, but this is the weakest in the series, IMHO. When I first read the series, Perelandra was my favorite (and, yes, the symbolism in it is much more blatant). Having read the series at least three times now, I've come around to liking the last book, That Hideous Strength, the most. It's more of a dystopian novel than a science fiction one.

(And Til We Have Faces is my favorite Lewis novel. I think it's his most accomplished work.)

MySharonAnne said...

I'm not into science at all and I am a HUGE science fiction fan.

Anonymous said...

I love Lewis's space trilogy! I'm not a huge science fiction fan (actually, I'm not sure if I've read other sci fi yet; it kind of scares me). I think this trilogy is way better than Narnia, though that could just be because it's not written for children.

Ladytink_534 said...

I'm not really big on science fiction although I do love fantasy lol.

Corinne said...

Yeah, I didn't love this. And I really like science fiction, this was hard for me. A bit too abstract or something, I don't know.

Anonymous said...

You might enjoy Perelandra the next in the series, a bit more. I think that was my favourite (though, it's been a while).

You don't have to enjoy hard science to enjoy science fiction! I think that it might enhance your enjoyment of some of it, particularly of classic texts (Asimov, Heinlein, etc.) but largely it's not necessary. If you're interested in reading some not-so-sciency scifi, I'd recommend checking out Elizabeth Moon's Vatta series (starts with Trading in Danger).