Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet is the first book in C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy.  It tells the story of an expedition to Mars made by two earthlings with along with person they kidnapped.  It starts a little bit slow, but overall is a good book.

Ransome, the protagonist of the book, begins the story on a walking tour of the countryside.  He agrees to help a mother find her child and while doing this meets an old friend, Weston.  Weston and his companion Devine kidnap Ransome and take him on their journey to the planet of Mars.  Their goal is to give Ransome as a sacrifice to the natives so that they can harvest lots of the plentiful gold on the planet.  They also desire to take over the planet for mankind (the Earthly variety) whom they believe should constantly move onward and outward crushing weaker civilizations as it spreads across the universe.

It turns out that the inhabitants of the planet are not savages but (obviously) Devine and Weston are.  Ransome escapes from his captors and spends most of the book living with the Hrossa (one of the intelligent species on the planet) and traveling.  The Hrossa are unable to understand concepts like war, stealing, and murder because they cannot fathom why someone would take the actions that would precipitate/necessitate these responses.

Ransome comes to realize that this planet has not fallen and is not fallen.  In fact most worlds/planets have not fallen:  the earth is unique in its darkness.  The god or Oyarsa of the planet asks Ransome about what has taken place on Earth because Earth has been out of communication with the rest of the solar system/universe for since its rebellion.  We are left with the impression that this is the opening salvo in some sort of galactic conflict that will be continued in the next two books of the series.

At the end of the book the three men from earth reunite and the details of each of their stories are told.  The Oyarsa will not kill anyone because they are not his subjects (he is the ruler of Mars), but he sends them from his planet [a perilous journey to return to Earth].  Weston and Devine will continue to work for evil.  Weston is the mastermind of the two and seems to be more of a worry for the future.  Ransome is asked to keep an eye on Weston in order to help thwart any future attempts he has to do evil.