This is the final book of C. S. Lewis’s acclaimed Cosmic (or Ransom) Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. A classic work of fantasy as much for the wonder of its storytelling as for its insights into the human condition, the trilogy stages an epic battle between forces of light and darkness across a canvas of other worlds.

In That Hideous Strength, the brave philologist Dr. Ransom (modeled after Lewis’s friend J.R.R. Tolkien) finds himself in a world of superior alien beings and scientific experiments run amok. There is a rumor that the powerful wizard Merlin has returned to the world of the living, and a sinister technocratic organization plans to use his power in their plot to "recondition" society. Ransom’s fight for moral wisdom in a brave new universe dominated by science is a quest filled with intrigue and suspense.

CLIVE STAPLES LEWIS (1898–1963) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and was educated at Oxford. From 1955 to 1963 he was professor of medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge. His prolific published works include influential literary criticism, classic science fiction and fantasy, and a number of exceptional theological books.