That Hideous Strength on City of Man Podcast

The last installment of our City of Man series on CS Lewis’s Space Trilogy has arrived! Well, sort of—after discussing Out of the Silent Planet and its sequel, Perelandra, longish but single-part episodes, host Coyle Neal, fellow guest David Grubbs, and I found that That Hideous Strength proved so long and so rich that our discussion had to be split into two parts. Join us as we talk about the strange final chapter of Lewis’s already unusual science fiction trilogy.

How strange is it? In a series that so far has mostly involved interplanetary journeys, alien life, and a dash of the supernatural, That Hideous Strength features an evil government laboratory and think-tank trying to establish communication with demons, an amiable house-trained bear, a hyper-rational Ulsterman, a literal talking head, an unusual number of college faculty meetings for a sci-fi novel, a lot of sex stuff, and way, way more than one fatal animal mauling.

Also, Merlin is in it.

Tune in to Part I to hear us discuss all this and more, including the novel’s context in Lewis’s life and body of work, some of the themes and concerns Lewis develops from the previous books, the elements new to this third volume of the trilogy, and just what Coyle thinks pets are good for.

We had a great time talking about That Hideous Strength, and I hope you enjoy this first chunk of our discussion of this strange but rewarding novel. I listened to it while cooking dinner this evening and enjoyed every minute. You can look forward to Part II soon.

If you’re just now tuning in, you can catch up on our discussion by listening to our previous episodes on Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. In the meantime, you can listen to City of Man Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting platforms, or to this particular episode of the show via the embedded Stitcher player in this post. Thanks for listening! Hope y’all enjoy.