Space Trilogy Books (Study Guide): That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet, the Dark Tower, Perelandra

This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet, the Dark Tower, Perelandra. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: That Hideous Strength (subtitled "A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups") is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra (a.k.a. Voyage to Venus) and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom. Yet, unlike the principal events of those two novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than in space or on other planets in the solar system. The novel was heavily influenced by the writing of Lewis's friend Charles Williams and is markedly dystopian in style. In the book's preface Lewis acknowledges the science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon and his work: "Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention that he can well afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow." The title is taken from a poem written by David Lyndsay in 1555,, also known as The Monarche. The couplet in question,, refers to the Tower of Babel. The story is set in England of the mid 1940s ("vaguely after the war"), in the small university town of Edgestow, centered around a young university don Mark Studdock, a fellow of Bracton College at the (fictional) University of Edgestow, and his wife Jane (nee Tudor), who is working on her graduate degree in poetry. The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments ("N.I.C.E."), a scientific and social planning agency, furtively pursues its program of the exploitation of nature and the annihilation of humanity. The Institute is secretly inspired and directed by fallen eldila, whom they refer to as "macrobes."..More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=205004