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C. S. Lewis: The Space Trilogy

Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, plus a brand new full-cast BBC adaptation of That Hideous Strength

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C. S. Lewis: The Space Trilogy

By: C.S. Lewis
Narrated by: Alex Jennings, full cast, Anneika Rose, Joel MacCormack, Oliver Hembrough
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About this listen

C.S. Lewis’s allegorical sci-fi trilogy about a philology professor’s adventures on Mars, Venus and Earth

Featuring a reluctant hero’s extraordinary journey through the cosmos, C. S. Lewis’s classic trilogy contains all the magic, invention, humour and big ideas of his Narnia novels. Thrilling, mystical and evocative, it mixes theology and mythology to tell the epic story of an interplanetary struggle between good and evil. This collection includes Alex Jennings’ unabridged readings of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, and a stunning full-cast adaptation of That Hideous Strength, starring Anneika Rose and Joel MacCormack.

Out of the Silent Planet – While out on a walk, Cambridge academic Dr Ransom calls at a mysterious house to take shelter, only to find himself captive on a spaceship headed for Malacandra – the red planet he knows as Mars. His intended fate is to be a human sacrifice, but he escapes, meets the various alien inhabitants – and learns how Earth, the ‘silent planet’, was corrupted and cut off from the rest of the Solar System...

Perelandra – Returned from Mars, Ransom is sent on a mission to the beautiful paradise planet of Perelandra, or Venus. There, he encounters floating islands, bubble trees and The Green Lady, an Eve figure tempted by Satan in the form of Ransom’s old enemy, Dr Weston. Forced into a desperate confrontation, can Ransom preserve the purity of this Eden-like world?

That Hideous Strength – Set in an exhausted Britain in the late 1940s, this ‘modern fairy tale for grown-ups’ warns of a world where technocrats are kings. The newly established National Institute for Coordinated Experiments seems to promise a bright future. But Jane is tormented by terrible nightmares about a severed head that speaks. She tries to talk to her husband Mark, but he is preoccupied with his work at the University. Then Mark's college sell Bragdon Wood to NICE, and he is offered a job at the organisation. An ancient myth claims that Merlin is buried under the wood – could that be why NICE is so keen to own it?

Credits
Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis © 1938 CS Lewis Pte Ltd., Perelandra by CS Lewis ©1944 CS Lewis Pte Ltd., That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis © 1945 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

Out of the Silent Planet
Read by Alex Jennings
First broadcast BBC 7, 2-18 February 2004

Perelandra
Read by Alex Jennings
First broadcast BBC 7, 14 February-9 March 2005

That Hideous Strength
Jane – Anneika Rose
Mark – Joel MacCormack
Curry/Ransom – Oliver Hembrough
Feverstone/Briers – Simon Armstrong
Hardcastle – Jane Slavin
Mrs Dimble – Siobhan Redmond
Grace – Jane Gurnett
Wither – Matthew Bulgo
Frost/Hingest – David Menkin
Alcasan/Taxi Driver – Kiren Kebaili-Dwyer
Merlin – Ifan Huw Dafydd
Dramatised by Melissa Murray
Production co-ordinators: Lindsay Rees and Eleri Sydney McAuliffe
Sound design by Catherine Robinson and Nigel Lewis
Directed by John Norton and Emma Harding
A BBC Audio Wales production
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 26 January – 2 February 2025

© 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

 Classics Science Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant
Dramatized version of the final book is truly terrible. I'll have to go analogue old school and read the bloody book!

Dramatized version of the final book is truly terrible...

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One of the most prescient works of CS Lewis, predicting most of what we’re currently experiencing under labour today, and unsurprisingly the bbc was tasked with dramatising the final and most important of the three books. They have condensed the very essence out of the book and made it a parody of itself. I almost feel like it’s purposefully misleading being that they are in the pay of globalist interests who would rather the public weren’t awakened to their machinations. Don’t bother, get the hard copy and read it rather.

Once again the BBC destroys something of importance

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An allegorical trio of stories designed to make you think about other perspectives and the spiritual dimension and reality of our life. Forged in the intelligent mind of Lewis, this isn’t his strongest narrative work and is clearly more about the arguments than the characterisation but it carries vitally important messages for us all to ponder and act on.

Intelligent and thought-provoking

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I have been looking forward to this since I first saw the announcement as I read these years ago and they have lived in my memory.

The first two books are outstandingly performed by Alex Jennings. He is a very adept voice actor, drawing the listener deep into the story. I’ll be listening to Out of the Silent Planet and Perlandra again and again.

But, oh, the third one … I really wish I could rate the three books in the trilogy separately.The dramatist really took liberties with the characters. Ransom and Merlin in particular, and to a large extent Jane, were so unlike the characters that CS Lewis wrote that they were almost unrecognisable. The tenor of the whole work was consequently radically changed. What a disappointment. If you haven’t read the book, you may enjoy this dramatisation. As for me, I’ll be hitting stop at the end of Perelandra when I listen again, and look for an alternative recording (narrated or dramatised) of That Hideous Strength.

Excellent, Excellent, Abysmal.

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In my opinion, Out of the Silent Planet is C S Lewis’s finest book. I first heard it serialized on the wireless in the BBC Sunday morning ‘God-slot’ in the 1950s. Something about it captured my imagination, and I have read it many times since. It has become a sort of ‘comfort book’ for me.

Lewis acknowledges H G Wells as the godfather of what we would now call the science fiction genre. In a brief note in the printed version of the book—not included in this audiobook—he says: “Certain slighting references to earlier stories of this type which will be found in the following pages have been put there for purely dramatic purposes. The author would be sorry if any reader supposed he was too stupid to have enjoyed Mr H G Wells’s fantasies, or too ungrateful to acknowledge his debt to them.” Nevertheless, and much as I am a great fan of Wells, Lewis far outclasses him in the quality of his writing, and his imagination in respect of the landscape he finds on ‘Malacandra’ and the creatures he finds dwelling there.

There is, in addition, the feeling that here is a book of great significance that can be enjoyed on a number of levels. Actually, I think it is rather clever—much cleverer, for example, than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with its Christian allegory disguised wafer thin. As A N Wilson says of it in his biography of Lewis, into Out of the Silent Planet is woven “…straight Christian theology. [but] The theology does not wage war on the story.”

This audio version is also from the BBC, originally broadcast in the early 2000s, and excellently narrated by Alex Jennings. As a bonus, each of the twelve half-hour episodes is bookended by the beginning of Bruckner’s fourth symphony—the Romantic—a perfect choice evoking mystery, introspection, and grandeur. All in all, a real treat.

Addendum added 20 September. The above review was originally posted on 29 March 2025. It appeared for the first time on the website just a few days ago… I cannot believe that there is anything in it remotely offensive in any way, so I am at a complete loss to understand the six-month hiatus.

Perelandra, the second story in this audiobook is equally as imaginative—if far longer—than Out of the Silent Planet, although some of the devotional material at the end is a little too long. There is plenty of Lewis’s philosophy on show here and the story is far more obviously Christian allegory than the first book albeit woven into an intriguing and interesting tale. Alex Jennings narrates excellently as before, and the chapters of this story are perfectly—and relevantly—bookended with excerpts from one of the Sea Interludes from Britten’s Peter Grimes.

The dramatized version of That Hideous Strength, which is the third part of this audiobook is frankly awful. As a piece of drama, it is ok of itself but has been so much hacked about, changed, and shortened, that its resemblance to Lewis’s book is barely more than in the name. Perhaps the BBC and Alex Jennings could be persuaded to produce an unabridged rendition of the third book also.

Despite the very disappointing dramatization, this audiobook gets five starts all round for the first two stories.

Quite perfect

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