Growing up, I read all of the Narnia books. I’d persuaded my parents to buy me the full set of 7 as a 12 year old and read from the first to the last. I loved those books. I already knew of the “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” but until I got the set I didn’t know that was the 2nd in the series. I remember the set taking up a huge space on my bedroom bookshelf. I also remember thinking of the author C S Lewis as someone who lived in the 1800’s. How wrong could I be. In the local second hand bookshop I found 3 books, all by C S Lewis, all in the Sci Fi section. I had to pick them up. Reading the cover of one, I found that CS Lewis only died in 1963 and wrote many other stories.
Onto this story, Out of the Silent Planet is about a man who is taken to a different planet in our solar system. There he meets intelligent beings and discovers lots of things. OK, that’s probably the worst review I’ve written in a long time (not that I’m assuming any have been any good!). The trouble is, this is a really good book that is really worth reading, and if I give away any little part it has a good chance of spoiling the story. I can tell you one thing though, I really like the way the whole aspect of launching a spaceship from Earth was neatly sidestepped. All the physics, all the pages of description there could have been, all made redundant by having our central character unconscious for the time of launch. Rootie Rating 5 out of 5.