C. S. Lewis: The Space Trilogy Audiobook By C.S. Lewis cover art

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 preserved 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

©2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P)2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.
Classics Science Fiction

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Re-Written by the N.I.C.E.

The Alex Jennings performance of Books 1 and 2 are good, maybe even better than the Ralph Cosham recordings of the same.

But the dramatizers of That Hideous Strength have seen fit to reivision and empower Jane in the typical reactionary way (CSL is deemed misogynistic these days). I saw that coming, and could forgive it if the writer had lifted a finger to preserve the beauty of the novel. Instead she leaned into the Sci Fi creepiness of the tale, which is suffocating without the beauty of the original book shining in the darkness. The production and acting are superb, which only makes the whole thing more nauseating. I hate to be so hard on someone's hard work, and I respect (while disagreeing with) the wish to empower Jane. But I wish these activist writers would just write their own stories.

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A+ for Alex Jennings. The Radio Drama is pretty good.

Alex Jennings is a very good narrator. I wish he'd done all three books, though.

Another review says that the That Hideous Strength radio dramatization changes Jane into a more modern or independent woman. I don't know if that's quite right. I think a careful reading of THS shows that this is close to Jane's character in the novel, as well. Jane in the novel develops from a modern woman who disbelieves in God to a still modern woman who has had many of her assumptions challenged. I won't go into too much detail, but in the radio adaptation, much of her character development is cut. It's dubious to speculate on the motives, though I'd guess almost every change from the book is made in the interest of fitting a 13-hour audiobook into an under 2-hour script. The nuances of Jane's beliefs are not thoroughly explored, and we're left to imagine most of the implications of her altered relationship with God and Mark.

The radio adaptation focuses on the return of Merlin as the throughline. In my view this is sensible. THS is a chaotic novel (I love it), but a radio drama can't afford that kind of chaos. many characters are cut or changed. Plot points are rearranged to fit the needs of the script. it works pretty well, all things considered. The idea of adapting it this way is daft, anyway. I think it's a fun time.

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