The Oceans of the Morning Star

The second book in the Space Trilogy, Perelandra starts off by following Lewis, who is now a character in his own book. At the end of the first book, Lewis and Ransom corresponded about Ransom’s fantastic voyage to Malacandra, and now Ransom has asked Lewis to come spend the weekend with him to talk “business.” Lewis has difficulty in approaching Ransom’s house, on a long walk from the train station. He later finds out that this was due to the negative force applied by the Tellurian Eldila that follow the evil Oyarsa of Thulcandra. Once he reaches Ransom, Lewis encounters a faint band of light in the entry room of Ransom’s cabin. This turns out to be Oyarsa of Malacandra, visiting Earth to take Ransom to the planet Venus, or Perelandra, in order to save the planet from a great threat. Lewis wonders why the great Eldila would choose Ransom of all people for this task, and is told that it is because Ransom is the only man fluent in the language of the greater solar system, spoken on both Malacandra and Perelandra.

Once he arrives on Perelandra, Ransom finds it to be an ocean planet whose only land mass consists of floating islands in the form of flat growths of seaweed. He soon meets an inhabitant of Perelandra, a green woman who looks human in every other respect. She is the only person on the whole of the planet, save her male counterpart, and she is completely innocent, with no grasp of evil. She informs Ransom that she is the queen and mother of the world, and that there are no laws governing Perelandra except for one imposed by Maleldil: no one is permitted to stay the night on the single piece of solid land on the planet. After a few days, Ransom realizes he is not the only Thulcandrian on the planet. His old enemy, Dr. Weston, has used his spaceship to travel to Perelandra, this time to advance not human life, but life itself. He calls upon the combined forces of God and the Devil, eventually claiming that he is both, and falls into demonic possession. The possessed Weston proceeds to enter into conversation with the Queen Mother of Perelandra in an attempt to convince her to sleep on the fixed land, thus breaking Maleldil’s commandment. This scenario represents the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden with one major difference: Ransom. A religious man, Ransom sees the gravity of the situation and does his diplomatic best to discourage the green lady from giving in.

Unable to do so, Ransom decides to destroy the body of Weston in order to remove the Devil’s vehicle from Perelandra and preserve the planet’s innocence. After a long and intense battle, ranging across the ocean and underground, Ransom succeeds. He eventually makes his way back to the solid land where he finds the King and Queen reunited and with a full understanding of what almost happened to their world. They also are aware that Ransom saved them from this fate. The Oyerasu (plural) of both Malacandra and Perelandra are there as well, and give Ransom their gratitude and their blessing. The two Eldila also impart their spiritual knowledge to Ransom, giving him a more complete understanding of his faith than any other Thulcandrian trapped behind the barrier of Earth’s silence. He returns from Perelandra a changed man, and ready to confront the challenges he will encounter when he meets the evil Eldila on Earth.