Rating: 
Summary: 2nd best fiction ever written!
Review: This is my 2nd favorite fiction ever, right after Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. "Hideous" is brilliant because it combines a pragmatic look at evil people and diabolical conspiracies with a wit and humor that keeps me laughing on almost every page. And in classic Lewis style, interwoven everywhere are religious allegories and symbolism. This book is a treat, like a creamsicle on a summer afternoon. I was confused at the beginning since the story seems to suddenly break from the 1st two in the trilogy, both in storyline, and in the fact that there seems to be no science fiction in Hideous. But everything becomes clear later on, and the trilogy is truly continued. This may become known as the most undiscovered book of the 20th century, but it's a classic and a literary jewel.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Words, Clive, Too Many Words
Review: After reading or rereading the first two excellent books in C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy-- Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra -- it is almost impossible to keep from reading this book, its conclusion. Unfortunately, while the first two grow better with each rereading, this one grows more tedious. Mind you if you have never read it, do so. I am just suggesting that it is the weakest link. Lewis needs no praise and will not be diminished by any adverse criticism from me. He is intelligent, insightful, psychologically acute, imaginative, clever, urban, witty and literate, and everyone knows it. It is just that in this book he does it all a bit too much. This is the story of an impeding battle between the forces of good and evil. But what a cast of characters: archangelic beings, macrobes, a contraceptive subterranean lunar race, the Fisher King who is also Pendragon, a seeress of the House of Tudor, Merlin, magic out of Numinor the true West, a fortune inherited from an Indian Christian mystic, a Scottish skeptic, a menagerie of animals, earthly avatars of heavenly spirits, an institute the figurative and literal Head of which is a decapitated or rather decorporated mad scientist through which unearthly powers speak, and Withers the dithering deputy director who is so vague and obscurantist that one wonders how people in the evil institute (with the ironic acronymic name of NICE) even manage to put on their pants in the morning never mind engineer the extinction of the whole human race and the conquest of the entire universe. Add to all these of course the merely human elements of brutal police, ambitious and pretentious academics, narrow minded politicians and scientists. Lewis seems to want to pull it all together in one volume; he has everything here except moderation. And when the denouement comes, less than a handful of the evil are really in on it all, and almost none of the good forces are really needed. It is all very anticlimactic. There is a clever description of the politics of a small college, and a good recognition scene where Pendragon discovers himself to Merlin, and an initialllly enjoying citation of the maundering style of Withers (which CS seems to have so delighted in that he persisted in presenting it all through the text until it eventually becomes vastly annoying). Lots of insights too on every one of his favorite topics and pointed criticism on all his pet peeves, but do they all really need to be gathered here together? As in Perelandra this is an explicitly and essentially Christian book, possibly making the work of less appeal to readers who do not share that faith. And his attitude to the feminine, perhaps acceptable in his own day, is just too patronizing today. As I say, do read it, but it is by far the weakest of the three books.
Rating:
Summary: An twisting plot that keeps the pages turning.
Review: I truly loved That Hideous Strength. I have read both of it's prequels and I was not diasapointed by the final book. The plot kept me reading, the characters kept me interested, and the ending left me with a smile.
Rating: 
Summary: Strong start
Review: For the first half, at least, it is an absorbing look at the lure of power and the ever-unfolding "Inner Ring" (see that essay in the Weight of Glory compilation). Wither in particular is a chilling entity, one of the great characterizations. The novel lost me later on when it explained too much about Belbury, and then simultaneously confused me with the (far) less interesting goings on at St. Anne's. Here is a novel crying out to be excised and adapted into a great film, but alas, who is out there to film it? Speaking generally, Hollywood is unqualified to do anything but make a mess of it.
Rating:
Summary: Ultimate clash between cosmic forces of Good & Evil!
Review: In THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, C.S. Lewis concludes the epic battle for thesoul of mankind that he began in OUT of THE SILENT PLANET. Attentive readers of Lewis will recognize that this trilogy is a mythological exploration of the same themes he discussed in the cautionary essay, THE ABOLITION of MAN. By the end of THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, it should be apparent to all but the most naive reader that NICE has very little to do with SCIENCE and is, in fact, an occult circle of Black adepts quite willing to sell the soul of humanity into eternal, satanic enslavement. The Biblical image of the Tower of Babel... which Dostoyevsky also invoked in his "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" In Lewis' fable, the arrogance of the sorcerer/scientists of NICE provokes the very wrath of God.
Rating:
Summary: Both instruction and pleasure
Review: With integrity such a rare commodity these days, it is always a pleasure to read the works of C.S. Lewis. This is truly pleasant instrucion in honesty and reality, two subjects avoided by so many. Do read the three of these stories more than once. Like all good literature, you will find something new and valuable each time. I just bought my second set, having completely worn out the last one. I intend to wear these out as well.
Rating:
Summary: Five Hundred Stars
Review: The Space Trilogy of which "That Hideous Strength" is the final installment is spiritual adventure candy for the soul. This is the first novel other than the Screwtape Letters that CS Lewis let's his comic side out to play. In the end the real issue is how the self anointed elite hatch their plans as if they alone matter and will decide what is best for those who don't matter. Quaint setting and uproariously funny moments do not detract from the sinister longings of the inner circle. Despite very eloquent and persuasive analysis to the contrary, the State, and other power groupings will not "wither away" anymore now than in CS Lewis' time. In fact the tyrannical impulse is alive and well and strangely enough abetted increasingly by both political parties and the media. If you enjoyed this trilogy. Check out "Transfer-the end of the beginning by Jerry Furland. "Transfer" is the first book in a trilogy as well. And, like Lewis, Furland can tell tell a story.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed work of art
Review: The N.I.C.E. (Nat'l Inst. for Controlled Experiments) wants that part of Bracton College's land that is said to contain the body of Merlin. Mark Studdock is drawn into the N.I.C.E, whose temporary headquarters are elsewhere, even as his wife Jane sees at first hand the things the N.I.C.E is doing. The two follow different paths throughout the book, each on different sides without realizing it. And it turns out that Merlin never really died, and furthermore, really was buried at Bracton College....The plot is much more complex than that, but that's the skeleton, stripped completely of flesh so as not to give away any surprises. The characterizations are good--some great. Jane is good--Mark is much better; literature has seldom had such a likeable twerp. Feverstone, Curry, Dimble, Ivy, the tramp, are all good. (McPhee, criticised as being 'unidimensional' by a previous reviewer, is, ironically enough, based on a man Lewis knew well.) Some of the best parts of the book are those that describe the politicking that goes on at Bracton and at N.I.C.E, and amusing little comments are strewn regularly throughout the text. However, the same previous reviewer is right on the mark in saying that the change in Ransom is both disappointing and unexplained, and I personally find some of Lewis's remarks on men and women grating. Some are funny, as when Jane wonders when Mark will really be back, thinking, 'for when men say that they will be away two days they mean that that is the minimum, and they hope to be away a week.'The way Jane despises women who shop for a new hat to comfort themselves and then turns right around and does the same thing is good too. What grates is the author's placid assumption, not that masculinity is good, but that it is the highest good, and that good spiritual beings grow more masculine as they grow more spiritual and perfect. That sort of thing can be ignored, however, especially on the second time through, and it's a rare reader who won't want ot read this book again. And then again.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great 20th-century dystopias
Review: C.S. Lewis proves here that he could have been the century's greatest novelist, had he ever attempted anything outside of genre fiction. Brilliant social commentary, perfect character studies, and a litany of Lewis' pet peeves (everything from postmodernism, feminism and sociology to vivisection and clear-cutting) are only some of the reasons to read this book. It's also entertaining, though odd (and some of the fantasy elements don't mix well).
Rating:
Summary: It is a epilog of modern worries
Review: This book paints a vivid picture that reminds me of Mike Rose's "intelectual community". This picture only last a few chapters until we see the pompous old fools taken in by the NICE quite interesting. All in all a very good book!!!!
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