Out of the Silent Planet

Before listening to lectures on C.S. Lewis, I didn't realize that Lewis had ventured in to the science fiction genre. I had to try it out. It was not bad, but doesn't fit in to the typical science fiction world, either.

In the book, a professor stumbles across some other professors that have a backyard rocket. They kidnap him to take him to Mars where they think the martians will make him a sacrificial victim. However, once they get there, it turns out they are peaceful. Martians live in a world where different beings communicate together, and all interact with angel-like beings that live outside of time and space. They have little concept of the conflicts that we have on earth. The narrator gets to know them and become friends. The others, however, treat them as brutal natives. Eventually the earthlings are sent off the planet, and manage to make it back to the earth after a close call with the moon.