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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book, Sep 11 2006
This is the third and final book in C.S. Lewis's amazing Space Trilogy. This book was written as a sequel to the immensely popular Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra but Lewis also wrote it so that the story can stand on its own. So if you haven't read the first, you can start here.
That Hideous Strength, unlike the first 2 books in this series, where Ransom leaves earth and fights evil in space and on other planets, the battle in this book takes place on earth.
Ransom must lead a group of faithful believers against National Institute for Coordinated Experiments or N.I.C.E., an organization that believes that Science can solve all of humanity's problems. He must battle the people in this organization, super aliens trying to invade and control earth and use its population against other planets and against God.
On top of all of that, Merlin has arisen from his long sleep and has arisen in Englandd's time of greatest need. But the question is, who will find him first - N.I.C.E. or Ransom and his team? The fate of the world, and possibly the universe, rests on this question.
Lewis called this story an adult's fairy-tale. It is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, and a book that will keep your attention as you raptly turn the pages to find out where Lewis will lead you.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Goodness Spiced with Pantheism for a Fiercer Ride, Jan 8 2009
Lewis, like his friend and fellow philologist Tolkien, dealt in the creation of realistic myth. This well paced novel culminates his Space Trilogy, commencing with Out of the Silent Planet and continuing with Perelandra, based on the theme of natural and beneficial order versus the illusion of unchecked, destructive "human progress."
While one may take objection to many of Lewis's ideas on religion - I myself do - the unseen world of the eldils, or angels - both good and bad - that he constructs is so grandiose and fascinating that I for one forgive him all offences.
The story opens quietly in a small English town, where a modern young woman - modern for 1945 that is - endures the frustrations of marriage to an underpaid fellow of a minor university. From this innocent beginning, the pair become entrapped by the machinery of a satanic group bent on world domination.
Step by step they are enticed into a satanic plan for world domination, yet, while the plot snares them with all the devilish menace that a reader could wish for, its grasp on their lives is achieved by everyday, believable manipulations: the threatened loss of employment, the flattery of recognition, the temptation of money, power and fame. Eventually the Satanists overreach themselves, and the novel culminates in an imaginative battle of good and evil, with both spiritual and brute physical forces on either side.
The writer George Orwell argues that the inevitable triumph of good over evil weakens the novel, but I don't agree. To me, its charm lies not in its ending but in the skill with which the story is told. It says much for this story, that though science has overtaken it during passage of half a century and more, its lives as though written today.
I particularly enjoy Lewis's construction of opposed hierarchies, and the subtlety with which both good and bad characters are drawn. But how remarkable it is that we are often drawn more to the bad characters! My favourite amongst these is Wither, an ancient villain, whose massive but crumbling intellect hides behind a façade of amiable vagueness as he schemes his way towards ultimate power.
Ending on this note, is it not strange and intriguing that a strong Christian apologist like professor Lewis should need to spice his calm beliefs with garnishes of magic, naturism and warlike demigods?
Graham Worthington, author, Wake of the Raven
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uneven characterizations, but a fairly good read., Oct 28 1999
I only recently discovered the Trilogy, never having been much of a Lewis fan, and read them in order. Each book has its charms, but I especially enjoyed the way That Hideous Strength built on the "circles" of the Bad Guys, both at Bracton college and later at Belbury. Mark Studdock, a person possessing neither distinction, character, nor a talent for evil, has lived his life - and ruined it thereby - in a search for admission to 'the inner circle,' and any circle will do. He learns that each concentric circle, in addition to being more exclusive as he supposed, is also more evil and more banal.The characterization of Stoddock is superb. Likewise the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Dimble and a few other minor characters. The book is almost worth reading just to gain the acquaintance of Mr. Bultitude. Others are far less engaging. MacPhee - one of the most unidimensional characters I have ever read - is a continual annoyance. The whole build-up with Merlin, only to have him turn out completely powerless until "possessed" by the eldils, makes no sense to me at all. And then he - what? Explodes? Couldn't anyone have done that? And why do God and the angels need an Arthurian wizard, anyway? But the biggest disappointment was Ransom himself. He went from being a lifelike, engaging fellow, in the first two books, to an idealized shadow. We never really learn how he goes from being a Cambridge don to a wealthy landowner and "the Pendragon." Who are these people who bequeath St. Anne's to him on the condition that he take the name "Fisher-King?" How did he become the Pendragon? No explanation. This was hard to accept from such a brilliant writer. But that's not to say the book is unworthy of attention. I expect to read it again, probably soon, and will probably get more insights from it the second time through. I believe much of the problem the Trilogy has with readers of my generation is that it is always classed as Science Fiction, which it certainly is not. People read it expecting familiar formulas, and don't know how to react when it turns out to be religious allegory. They should read more carefully. As with most of what he wrote, Lewis intended to illuminate more than to entertain.
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