Out of the Silent Planet

This was a really cool story, in my opinion!

I must admit, this is the first C. S. Lewis I've ever actually read... although I can remember [b:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe|100915|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)|C.S. Lewis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353029077s/100915.jpg|4790821] being read to me in my junior grades (1984 - 1987, or so). It was nice to experience that language again - the 1930s/1940s English, which was already long out of date when I was born. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've certainly never met anyone who actually talks like that.

It's a shame, though, because that's such a beautiful form of English. It's... softer, somehow. Less aggressive, less assuming.

In the early stages in the book, we meet the protagonist on Earth, and the author gives us a (rather flimsy and improbable, in my opinion - although it may have been perfectly plausible in 1938, I don't know) explanation for him to be in his situation. That part moves slowly and is a bit boring. But as soon as they boarded the "space-ship" (as Lewis calls it)... oh boy, it's unputdownable! The descriptions are amazing, the plot moves quickly, and, when I think about what we knew about space, the planets, and the Solar System back in 1938, it's surprisingly accurate.

If I wasn't a Christian, and I hadn't known that C. S. Lewis was himself a Christian, I would've probably just thought this was a cool space story (albeit a really well written one). But seeing as I am a Christian, and knowing that C. S. Lewis famously was a Christian, it's practically impossible not to see the symbolism. He was clearly an interesting man, with an interesting theology, and some interesting philosophies. Philosophies I could easily get behind.

Maybe saying that is too much of a spoiler, but if you're a Christian, you're probably going to want to read this book (and more of Lewis' fiction, I have no doubt). If you're not, but you're interested in Christianity, even just on an intellectual level, I'd say this is a great way to explore what different Christians believe.

Something that irks me about the ebook versions of many of these older books, books published before the advent of ebooks, is true of this one as well. It's full of typos and formatting issues, issues that can only be explained by OCR bugs when the original print book was scanned in and converted to an ebook. For example, a prominent race on the planet is known as the "hrossa", but this is often seen as "brossa" (clearly software mistaking an h for a b). Also, the use of em-dashes, which are really just hyphens in the edition I read, are inconsistent. Sometimes there are spaces before and after them. Other times, not. It's quite distracting.

I've mentioned this in reviews for other ebooks I've read as well, and it really just points to laziness and a lack of professionalism on the part of the publisher. Especially in a book as short as this - it would've taken nothing for something to buy a copy and give it a quick proof-read.

Click here to find out where you can get a copy of the ebook: books2read.com/u/3LKk1X