I have to say that Clive Staples Lewis is probably one of the greatest Christian philosophers and writers of the past century. While there were people who were very good at articulating the redemptive love of Jesus, C.S. Lewis seems to top them all by making it so simple and yet so profound at the same time. Lewis himself never came to Christ easily and ended up facing a combination of grace and the intellectual prowess of his peers, including one J.R.R. Tolkien.
While he wrote some great non-fiction, I have to say that I think the best book he has written was the third and book in his “Space Trilogy” entitled That Hideous Strength. The first two books are well worth reading, but they deal with a totally different concept. In fact, the term “Space Trilogy” is probably misleading as the final book doesn’t happen in space at all. Indeed, the only similarity between this book and the first two is that it has the same characters. Unfortunately, the main character of the previous two books, Elwin Ransom, takes a back seat to the majority of the plot. This is probably by design because there really isn’t any more growth that Ransom can go through. He sort of becomes this kind of Old Testament prophet character.
The novel instead focuses on two characters, a husband and a wife. Oddly enough, we never really have scene where the two of them are together. There are some minor mentions of the two being together, but no dialogue, just third person summaries. Really, it’s just one character recalling what the other was doing. This is was intentional on Lewis’ part who wanted to convey to us the schism that both characters were facing in their marriage. Oh, I forgot to mention that their names are Mark and Jane.
Mark’s role is to introduce us to the evil characters in this book. He is admitted into the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments, or NICE for short, which is really a group controlled by the Macrobes, or evil forces that have enthralled mankind. They are the demons or fallen angels, that are moving to fully control man. The NICE is their latest attempt. Of course, most of the people in the NICE don’t know about this and geniunely believe that they are doing humanity a favor. I won’t go into too much depth, but the overall plan becomes fairly obvious as you read the book.
Jane’s role is to introduce the good side. They are the people who operate in St. Agnes where people have basically gone into hiding from the NICE. Elwin Ransom heads the group, though he is in frequent conservation with the eldila of other worlds. These beings are basically the angels who serve God and oppose Satan, who is ruling Earth. The rest of the group seems to be rather dull, except for McPhee, who acts as the skeptic to the group offering rational alternatives as to what’s going on. Ransom himself doesn’t play a significant role in the book until toward the end, although we do get a kind of resolution as to his ultimate fate.
This book is one of my favorite fiction books out there. While the writing isn’t the best, I think it provides the best example of what we’re up against when it comes to evil. The NICE organization in the novel really represent a group of well-meaning people who seek to better humanity at whatever cost they deem necessary. Unfortunately, that includes human experimentation and ultimately much worse. It blends the dystopian vision with the supernatural evil of Christianity perfectly, in my opinion.
I recommend that everyone read this book, but first read the first two books to gain some context, as while this book can stand on it’s own as a story, there are things that are referred to in the previous books. Don’t worry, though, as these books are much shorter than the last one and don’t involve a very complicated plot in comparison to That Hideous Strength.