Perelandra

Perelandra (by C.S. Lewis) is the second book in a set of three which begins with "Out of the Silent Planet", and concludes with "That Hideous Strength". I recommend all three, but Perelandra is the best.

The following excerpted comments are by Will Vaus:

Perelandra, like The Chronicles of Narnia, is based upon a supposal. What if there is intelligent life on other planets? And what if that intelligent life on one planet is unfallen? Will it remain so? What is essential to retaining Paradise? These are the questions Lewis seeks to answer through this novel.

Lewis once referred to his friend, Charles Williams', literary style as "clotted glory". The same could be said of Lewis's style in some of his books, especially That Hideous Strength, which owes a lot to the influence of Williams. But what Lewis does with the polyglot of influences in Perelandra is uniquely his own work. Who else has imagined with near perfection what temptation and a Fall averted might look like on another planet?

Leonard Bacon perhaps most succinctly summed up Lewis's achievement: "'Perelandra' is the result of the poetic imagination in full blast . . . The reader is taken into an Eden with the dew on it, where not unnaturally the only rational inhabitants are a thoroughly interesting Eve and perhaps the only endurable Adam in literature." (Quoted in C. S. Lewis: Companion & Guide, p. 229.) Most importantly, Perelandra was Lewis's favorite among his own books along with Till We Have Faces.