arahman-atif

Science fiction is certainly a suitable medium for C.S. Lewis. He is able to combine his theological, philosphical and cultural explorations with a wondrous creativity which successfully provokes readers to deeper thoughts on the matters he raises and their relevance to their life and world. This certainly isn't a case of "if you like Lewis' Narnia books you'll like his Space Trilogy (of which this is the first). I like both, but many who love Narnia would be disappointed to find that the characters in 'Out of the Silent Planet' are certainly not endearing and hardly developed at all and it is far less plot driven -- in fact it feels like a cross between the fantasy-storytelling of Narnia and Lewis' scholarly,theological works. Long passages of this book are without dialogue entirely and filled with observation, description and cultural exploration. I found it utterly fascinating. At times it reminded me a little of a PC adventure game I played in the early 90's by LucasArts called "The Dig". And at other times it reminded me of certain passages from Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass". Admittedly, I haven't read a lot of science fiction, but when I read "Dune", I wasn't able to appreciate it very much -- in some ways the emphasis Dune places on cultural exploration was similar to Lewis' book, but Lewis was able to convey a sense of wonder, that I found to be almost completely absent from Herbert's world. I look forward to reading the following two books of the series.

2022-10-12 07:51