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Life on the Silent Planet
Essays on Christian Living from C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy
Thulcandra is the world we do not know.
Years before he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis published another fantastical fiction series: the Ransom Trilogy. Yet these three novels –
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
, and
That Hideous Strength
– have never enjoyed the same widespread popularity as Narnia or any of Lewis’s apologetical works, whether in mainstream culture or among Christians.
However, as the twenty-first century unfolds, readers are rediscovering the Ransom Trilogy as a vital and prophetic work for our cultural moment.
Life on the Silent Planet
is a groundreaking collection of essays, bringing together an accomplished group of scholars and writers to discover and apply the insights of these novels to Christian living, particularly focussing on the unique vices and challenges of modernity. Fraught topics such as gender, contraception, bureaucracy, and transhumanism, often overlooked or shied away from in contemporary Christian teaching, were diagnosed and anticipated by Lewis with startling clarity in the 1930s and 40s. This volume seeks to bring these insights, woven into the rich imaginative world of the Ransom Trilogy, to bear upon the realities of the Christian life, enabling Christians to think deeply, live faithfully, and tune themselves again to the music of what Lewis called “the Great Dance” of creation.
Publication Details
- Publisher: Davenant Press
- ISBN: 978-1-949716-25-2
- Publication Date: november 14, 2024
- Editor: Rhys Laverty
- Price: $44.95
Endorsements
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“For years, careful readers have come to rely on the thoughtful excellence of anything under the Davenant imprint; Life on the Silent Planet only adds to that well-deserved reputation. As editor and contributor Rhys Laverty intriguingly suggests, Lewis’s foray into science fiction offers more than a flight of fantasy; the contributions to this critical collection of essays make clear in many ways that C. S. Lewis’s prescient and prophetic voice still speaks, all the more in our age. Its compelling combination of established experts such as Michael Ward and Holly Ordway alongside wise and emerging voices commends the deeply engaging Life on the Silent Planet to anyone who would think more clearly about the Ransom Trilogy and about Lewis himself.”
— Andrew Lazo, Co-editor, Mere Christians: Inspiring Encounters with C.S. Lewis
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“What sets this book apart is the way it provides thoughtful application of Lewis’s ideas to the Christian life while at the same time accessing the very best of Lewis scholarship. This is no mean achievement, and the result is a book I’ve been longing for: substantial insight into the Christian life grounded in a serious and nuanced understanding of Lewis’s work. I devoured it, and I will return to it again and again. This book is a gift to thoughtful Christians. “
— Diana Pavlac Glyer, Azusa Pacific University and co-editor of A Compass for Deep Heaven: Navigating the C.S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy
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“As our world is ever more confused about gender and drinks more deeply from the well of AI and transhumanism, C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy become more and more prescient. This is a fascinating collection of insightful, readable essays from experts who have thought long and hard about what a silent planet needs to hear loud and clear.”
— James Cary, Sitcom writer, co-host of Cooper & Cary Have Words , author of The Sacred Art of Joking and The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer
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“It is a joy to see Lewis’s prophetic Ransom Trilogy receiving the heightened attention and reflection it has always deserved in such an excellent volume. If Lewis’s books open up the beauties of creation and the heavens for readers with eyes to see, the authors’ insights here open up the trilogy itself for the deeper appreciation and understanding of fresh readers and longstanding admirers alike.”
— Philip Bunn, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Covenant College
More Endorsements (5)
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“This book opened up the Ransom Trilogy to me like no other. With a section of essays on each book in the trilogy, the authors provide new insights on almost every page, especially Lewis’s ideas on masculinity, femininity, and marriage, which our world desperately needs to heed, but also Lewis on pleasure, the Un-Man, Merlin, Bragdon Wood, the Law of Nature, the Pendragon, and many others. If you read only one book on Lewis this year, read this one.”
— Joel Heck, Concordia Lutheran Seminary
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“If there remains an undiscovered country of Lewis’s writings, for many it is the world of his Ransom Trilogy. Life on the Silent Planet provides readers with a collection of helpful roadmaps and knowledgeable traveling companions. Lewis fans—both novice and experienced—will find valuable insights, useful background information, and clear applications to their own lives and times.”
— Devin Brown, Professor of English, Asbury University and author of A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis
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“With the passing of the years Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy proves itself to be more profound and prescient than even his most devoted readers had guessed. Perhaps, in time, it will be prized even more than the Chronicles of Narnia, or his apologetics. This is a marvelous collection of essays on the trilogy, several of them written by friends. I’ll return to this book many times in the coming years. Read it and you will too.”
— C.R. Wiley, Author of In the House of Tom Bombadil and The Household and the War for the Cosmos
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In short, these folks have made as good a case for renewed interest in the Ransom books as could have been made. The world will be a better place to the extent that they succeed.”
— Donald T. Williams, Professor Emeritus, Toccoa Falls College
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“Joe Rigney says that the book club, in which an invested community reads sections aloud and shares comments along the way, is the best method for teaching C.S. Lewis. This collection of essays comes as close as it can to providing the book club experience in text as an array of Lewis enthusiasts come together to provide different angles of insight into Lewis’s underappreciated Ransom series. Each of the contributors plays a significant role in calling us out of the “space” of the modern age and into the substance of the heavens. With this substance, we too are called to be substantial in our engagement with the present and with our aims for the future.”
— Andrew Snyder, Host of the Mythic Mind Podcast
