That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength is the final book in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and follows up on the battle between good and evil. While Out of the Silent Planet took place on Mars and Perelandra took place on Venus, this last episode takes place on our own planet, Earth. The books in the series can stand alone but they can form one larger story.

The first two chapters are more "real life" than the rest of the book but Lewis wants the reader not to base the book on these in his preface. As he says, a traditional fairy-tale always begins with hum-drum scenes and he wanted to show how his story affected ordinary life. The subtitle of this novel is A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups and that is what Lewis seeks to make.

One problem I had was that our favorite interplanetary hero, Dr. Elwin Ransom, was as much of a major character in this book, where he was the main character of the two stroies preceding it. This is probably one of my biggest pet-peeves in literature... Just as I have come to love a character and want to hear more about him, the author decides to set him to the side to follow characters that I have never met and I have to get to know this whole new set of characters. I understand why an author does this but it can put me off a book, just the same.

Ransom is in the book and he plays an important role but the main character of this book are Jane and Mark Studdock, a couple that have been married for about six months and who live in the college town of Edgestow. This town is gaining prominence in the area as the proposed site for a new organization called the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.). The N.I.C.E., though, is a cover for more sinister purposes, though different men at different levels of the organization seem to have different ideas of what that purpose is.

I enjoyed the story, though it was hard to follow at times. I enjoyed the first two books more, but this was a good ending to the stories on Dr. Ransom. Still, any who tend not to like conservative works may not enjoy Lewis' work. Lewis is telling a story with Christian backgrounds and ideas. It is not as obvious as the Narnia Chronicles but it is there. If you are willing to try this series, you will be well rewarded.

Rating: 4.0