Of This and Other Worlds

My order was completed in no time and the book was in better condition than they prepared me for. I am very pleased with the seller and the book!

Oh my! This is a treasure. Included: Short stories written by Lewis, an unfinished myth narrative, some literary criticism, commentary on his own stories (Narnia and the Space Trilogy!) as well as some of his favorites (Wind in the Willows, The Treasure Seekers, The Hobbit) and a transcipt of a discussion of sci-fi with two colleagues. The transcript alone is priceless, both for its content and its humor (unintended at times?).

Just like C.S. Lewis, this book has a great amount of character, style, and content. This is both a critical work, and a writer's work, and only Lewis could do both equally well in the same work.In this work, which contains a good mix of various topics, Lewis details the importance of 'Story' and describes the stories that have been his favorites. He details how an author should write for children, what elements are necessary in children's stories, and what does not work.Lewis also discusses Science Fiction - a chapter which happens to be my favorite. Here, Lewis describes several works from Wells, Clarke, Haldane, etc. and details what he liked, disliked, or misunderstood about the works. He describes what seems to work in the science fiction/fantasy genre - e.g. complex human personalities (which definitely worked in Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'), etc.This is a very nice collection of essays. The work can be well received from both writers and critics, and especially readers. Moreover, as many Christians will sometimes read only the works on or about Christianity that Lewis has written, this work will demonstrate a whole different side to Lewis that perhaps many of his Christian readers are unaware.

"Of Other Worlds" has nine essays, three short stories, and part of a novel by Lewis. I would like to comment here on one of Lewis's best stories which is included in this collection, it's called "The Shoddy Lands". The story begins with a former pupil, Durward, coming to see his old professor at Oxford with fiance, Peggy, in tow. During the conversation the professor looks at Peggy and finds himself suddenly in a different world. In this world most things are blurry or shoddy and only a few things are distinct. The women's shops, some men's faces, and women's clothing are seen distinctly. He discovers a giant idealized version of Peggy in a swim suit which she then takes off and admiringly looks at her own body in a mirror. He hears knocking and two voices coming from outside the shoddy world. One voice sounds like Durward, and upon hearing the other his bones turned to water. This voice said "Child, child, child let me in before the night comes". The old professor returns to the room and is drunk with sheer delight at being back in the real world. For just a few seconds he has been allowed into Peggy's mind, to see her world as it exists for her. This is a tale not only about Peggy's limited self centered world , but about the shoddy world we all experience in a mind un-mediated by a higher reference. I definitely recommend this collection of essays and stories by Lewis.

This slender grab bag (long and short essays, a recorded conversation about science fiction with Brian Aldiss and Kingsley Amis, three brief science fiction stories, fragments of a scarcely started novel) centers on the writing and reading of stories. The gems of the collection are "On Stories", which explores the relationship between "story" and "plot" and would be valuable reading for the many authors whose fictions serve up immiscible blobs of action and characterization and "atmosphere", and "On Science Fiction", which skillfully analyzes the merits and defects of the several subspecies of fantastic literature. The latter essay includes the best single sentence of advice to writers that I have ever read: "Whatever in a work of art is not used, is doing harm."Enlightening is "On Criticism", an (unfortunately unfinished) tour of book reviewers' bad habits. "A Reply to Professor Haldane" (also unfinished), defending the "Perelandra" trilogy against the criticisms of a Marxist scientist, is both an enjoyable polemic and a precis of the sociopolitical argument developed at length in "The Abolition of Man".The other nonfiction pieces are slighter, though not without interest. The short stories are minor efforts. The scraps of a novel, set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, were written when Lewis' health was failing; in his younger days, they might have eventuated in an equal to "Till We Have Faces", but that promise is quite faint.This is far from the best of Lewis, but enough of it is very good to justify the modest price.