The Return of the Pendragon

The third and final book in the Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength is a departure from the style and settings of the other books. The familiar Ransom, while playing a major part, is absent from much of the story. Instead, the main character is a Bracton College academic named Mark Studdock. Studdock and other progressive members of the college are in a campaign to interest the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (NICE) in conducting some of its groundbreaking and ethically unpopular experiments in a piece of woods owned by the college. Managed by friends of the late Professor Weston, NICE is secretly influenced by the dark Oyarsa of Thulcandra. Run by the decapitated head of an executed murderer, kept alive by complex and suspicious science, the Head of NICE is a mouthpiece for the dark Eldila.

Mark Studdock wants to make a good impression with what he sees as an organization full of opportunity, and he is rewarded with a job writing positive propaganda. His wife, Jane, finds herself on the opposite side of the fence when, after discovering her talent of foreseeing future events in her dreams, she finds herself working with a group called Logress who are the only people fully aware of NICE’s true motivation. The Director of the Logress is none other than the philologist Dr. Ransom. Jane’s abilities are also the reason that Mark has done so well in the NICE. The organization wishes to utilize her powers for their own ends.

NICE, under the direction of the Head, plans on separating the human mind from the biological body that they feel is only there as a vessel for the mind to reach maturity. The NICE also have more mystic goals. Arthurian Legend also seems to play a role in the battle between the Thulcandrian Eldila and those of the rest of Deep Heaven. The Head of NICE is intent upon resurrecting Merlin, whose body is believed to lie in the woods owned by Bracton College, in order to add his magic to the NICE’s technology. That is not all of the legend of Arthur that comes into play, however. The once unlikely scholarly hero Ransom finds himself filling the role of the resurrected sprit of the Pendragon, uplifted to this spiritual level by the revelations he experienced on Perelandra. Finally routing the NICE’s plan by converting Mark Studdock to the cause of Logress and resurrecting Merlin themselves, Ransom and his group of the followers of Maleldil end the battle between the Silent Planet and the rest of the solar system and bring peace to Thulcandra.