Perelandra
C. S. Lewis
 The story starts with the philologist Elwin Ransom, some years after his return from Mars at the end of Out of the Silent Planet, receiving a new mission from Oyarsa, the angelic ruler of Mars. After summoning Lewis, the first person narrator, to his country home, Ransom explains to Lewis that he (Ransom) is to travel to Perelandra (Venus), where is located a new Garden of Eden and a new Adam and Eve, to oppose the diabolically-possessed human physicist Professor Weston, who has been sent to corrupt the Eve figure. He is transported in a boxlike vessel seemingly made of ice, which contains only himself. He gets Lewis to blindfold him so the sunlight will not blind him once he travels beyond the earth's atmosphere. He does not wear any clothes on the journey as Oyarsa tells him clothes are unnecessary on Venus. He returns to Earth about a year later and is met by Lewis and another friend: the remainder of the story is told from Ransom's point of view, with Lewis acting as interlocutor and occasional commentator. Ransom arrives in Venus after a journey in which he is surrounded by bright colours; the box dissolves leaving Ransom on what appears to be an oceanic paradise. One day is about 23 Earth hours, in contrast to the (roughly) 24 and 25-hour days of Earth and Mars. The sky is golden and very bright but opaque. Hence the sun cannot be seen, and the night is pitch black with no stars visible. Strange, mythical creatures resembling small dragons roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts resemble islands, to the extent of having plant and animal life upon them; however, having no geologic foundations, they are in a constant state of motion. The planet's sole observable geological feature is a mountain called the Fixed Land. Ransom meets Tinidril, the Queen of the planet; a cheerful being who soon accepts him as a friend. Unlike the inhabitants of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, she resembles a human in physical appearance with the exception of her skin color, green; this is said to be the preferred form assumed by sentient creatures as a result of the manifestation of Maleldil, the second person of God, in human form. She and the King of the planet, who is largely unseen until the end, are the only human inhabitants and are the Eve and Adam of their world. They live on the floating raft-islands and are forbidden to sleep on the "Fixed Land". The rafts or floating islands are indeed Paradise, not only in the sense that they provide a pleasant and care-free life (until the arrival of Weston) but also in the sense that Ransom is for weeks and months naked in the presence of a beautiful naked woman without once lusting after her or being tempted to seduce her. The plot thickens when Professor Weston arrives in a spaceship and lands in a part of the ocean quite close to the Fixed Land. He at first announces that he is a reformed man, but appears to still be in search of power. He pledges allegiance to what he calls the "Life-Force", and subsequently shows signs of demonic possession. Weston finds the Queen and tries to tempt her into defying Maleldil's orders by spending a night on the Fixed Land. Ransom, perceiving this, believes that he must act as a counter-tempter. Well versed in the Bible and Christian theology, Ransom realises that if the pristine Queen, who has never heard of Evil, succumbs to Weston's arguments, the Fall of Man will be re-enacted on Perelandra. He struggles through day after day of lengthy arguments illustrating various approaches to temptation, but the demonic Weston shows super-human brilliance in debate (though when "off-duty" he displays moronic, asinine behaviour and small-minded viciousness) and moreover appears never to need sleep. With the demonic Weston on the verge of winning, the desperate Ransom hears in the night what he gradually realises is a Divine voice, commanding him to physically attack the Tempter. Ransom is reluctant, and debates with the divine (inner) voice for the entire duration of the night. A curious twist is introduced here; whereas the name "Ransom" is said to be derived from the title "Ranolf's Son", it can also refer to a reward given in exchange for a treasured life. Recalling this, and recalling that his God would (and has) sacrificed Himself in a similar situation, Ransom decides to confront the Tempter outright. Ransom attacks his opponent bare-handed, using only physical force. The Tempter, unable to withstand this despite his superior abilities of rhetoric, flees, whereupon Ransom chases him over the ocean, Weston fleeing and Ransom chasing on the backs of giant and friendly fish. During a fleeting truce, the 'real' Weston momentarily re-inhabits his body, and recounts his experience of Hell, wherein the damned soul is not consigned to pain or fire, as supposed by popular eschatology, but is absorbed into the Devil, losing all independent existence. While Ransom is distracted by his horror and his feelings of pity and compassion for Weston, the demon takes control of the body, surprises Ransom, and tries to drown him. The chase continues into a subterranean cavern, where Ransom seemingly kills Weston and, believing his quest to be over, searches for a route to the surface. Weston's body, horribly injured but still animated by the Devil, follows him. When they meet for the last time in another cavern, Ransom "hurls" at Weston's head a stone and consigns the body to volcanic flames. Returning to the planet's surface after a long travail through the caverns of Perelandra, Ransom recuperates from his injuries, all of which heal fully except for a bite on his heel which he sustained at some point in the battle; this bite continues bleeding for the rest of his time on Perelandra and is remains unhealed when he returns to earth. Ransom meets the King and Queen together with the Oyéresu of Mars and Venus, the latter of whom transfers its divinely ordained dominion over the planet to the King and Queen. All the characters celebrate the prevention of a second biblical "Fall" and the beginning of a utopian paradise in this new world. The story climaxes with Ransom's vision of the essential truth of life in the Solar System, and possibly of the nature of God: strongly paralleling the journeys of Dante in the Divine Comedy. His mission on Venus accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth in the same manner in which he made the outward journey; his new mission is to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.