History Trivia / TheSpaceTrilogy

** [=MacPhee=], an Ulster rationalist and SarcasticDevotee from ''That Hideous Strength'', may have been a fictionalized version of Lewis' old tutor William Kirkpatrick. The author says that [=MacPhee=] is pretty much Kirkpatrick; right down to his phrasing.

** Also the [[VenusIsWet oceans of Perelandra]], back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Parelandra]]" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in[[note]]And Ransom, on his return to Earth from Perelandra and its climate after about a year, keeps asking his friends if they dont feel a bit chilly[[/note]], [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

* WriteWhatYouKnow: According to WordOfGod, the reason the villains in ''That Hideous Strength'' are university professors and administrators is not that Lewis thought college faculty were particularly prone to evil but "because my own is the the only profession I know well enough to write about."

** In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (In RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, an organisation which decides whether drugs are worth the cost for the NHS to buy or not. The unfortunately coincidental choice of acronym makes it easily demonized by American "death panel" anti-Obamacare propagandists, and people who are upset that it won't pay millions of pounds for drugs that might give end-state cancer patients a few more months of life.)

** Also the [[VenusIsWet oceans of Perelandra]], back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Parelandra]]" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in[[note]]And Ransom, on his return to Earth from Perelandra and its climate after about a year, keeps asking his friends if they dont feel.a bit chilly[[/note]], [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

** Also the [[VenusIsWet oceans of Perelandra]], back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Parelandra]]" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in, [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

** The stated goals of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement are starting to sound quite a bit like the secret goals of N.I.C.E.

* {{Defictionalization}}: In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (In RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, an organisation which decides whether drugs are worth the cost for the NHS to buy or not. The unfortunately coincidental choice of acronym makes it easily demonized by American "death panel" anti-Obamacare propagandists, and people who are upset that it won't pay millions of pounds for drugs that might give end-state cancer patients a few more months of life.)

* ScienceMarchesOn: The canals on Malacandra. Science had already questioned the existence of canals on Mars and Lewis was aware of this, [[ArtisticLicenseSpace but included the canals anyway]].

** Ransom is explicitly based on Creator/JRRTolkien -- he teaches the same subject at Cambridge that Tolkien taught at Oxford. (Although in the third book, he seems more like Creator/CharlesWilliams). Tolkien was on the record as saying that he didn't think it was a very close resemblance, although he did recognize some of his own ideas "Lewisified" in Ransom.

* ScienceMarchesOn: The canals on Malacandra. Science had already questioned the existence of canals on Mars and Lewis was aware of this, [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy but included the canals anyway]].

** Also the [[VenusIsWet oceans of Perelandra]], back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "Perelandra" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in, [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

** Also the oceans of Perelandra, back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "Perelandra" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in, [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: Weston's explanation that his ship operates by "exploiting the less observed properties of solar radiation" was meant as a HandWave by Creator/CSLewis, who was no scientist and said that the mechanics of space travel were not relevant to the story. Later on, he was amused to learn that spacecraft powered by solar radiation were indeed being developed.

** Also the oceans of Perelandra, back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "Parelandra" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in, [[{{Retcon}} but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story]].

** Also the oceans of Perelandra, back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead. One of the sorns in ''Out of the Silent Planet'' actually mentions that any being from "Parelandra" would logically find Mars too cold to survive in, but Lewis clearly changed his mind to make for a better story.

* ScienceMarchesOn: The canals on Malacandra. Science had already questioned the existence of canals on Mars and Lewis was aware of this, but included the canals anyway.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: According to WordOfGod, the reason the villains in ''That Hideous Strength'' are university professors and administrators is not that Lewis thought college faculty were particularly prone to evil but "because my own is the the only profession I know well enough to write about."

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''The Dark Tower'', a fragment story that got abandoned in favor of taking the sequels in a very different direction.

* {{Defictionalization}}: In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (In RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, an organisation which decides whether drugs are worth the cost for the NHS to buy or not. The unfortunately coincidental choice of acronym makes it easily demonised by American "death panel" anti-Obamacare propagandists, and people who are upset that it won't pay millions of pounds for drugs that might give end-state cancer patients a few more months of life.)

** Also the oceans of Perelandra, back before it was learned that the surface of Venus was a volcanic wasteland hot enough to melt lead.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''The Dark Tower''.

* AuthorAppeal: Based on some of his private letters, Lewis might be suspected of this in the case of Miss Hardcastle.
* CaptainErsatz:
** Weston and Devine are a darker version of Cavor and Bradford from Creator/HGWells' ''Literature/TheFirstMenInTheMoon''. Lewis himself was a fan of the novel.
** Ransom himself is explicitly based on Creator/JRRTolkien -- he teaches the same subject at Cambridge that Tolkien taught at Oxford. (Although in the third book, he seems more like Creator/CharlesWilliams). Tolkien was on the record as saying that he didn't think it was a very close resemblance, although he did recognize some of his own ideas "Lewisified" in Ransom.
** Horace Jules, the nominal director of NICE in ''That Hideous Strength,'' is a venomous caricature of H.G. Wells.
** [=MacPhee=], an Ulster rationalist and SarcasticDevotee from ''That Hideous Strength'', may have been a fictionalized version of Lewis' old tutor William Kirkpatrick. Or possibly an AuthorAvatar of Lewis himself, from his days as a skeptic.
*** WordOfGod is that [=MacPhee=] is pretty much Kirkpatrick; right down to his phrasing.

* ShoutOut: The [[TheSilmarillion Middle-Earth mythology]] is referenced in ''That Hideous Strength''--it's implied that KingArthur is of the line of "Numinor" (this was dozens of years before any of Tolkien's Middle-Earth material was published, so Lewis had never seen the proper spelling of "Numenor" by this point).
* TakeThat:
** H.G. Wells. Lewis was very much a fan of Wells' earlier fiction (he used the opening pages of the first book to essentially say that anyone who refuses to read ''War of the Worlds'' or ''The First Men in the Moon'' is being a snob), but was quite critical of the much more political and less well-remembered utopian novels Wells wrote later in life. (Elsewhere, Lewis compared Wells to Esau, saying that while Esau had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Wells had hocked his talent for a pot of message.) Hence, Horace Jules, the clueless pompous twit who is the figurehead Director of the NICE, looks and talks like a Wells parody.
** [=J.B.S. Haldane=], with whom Lewis carried on an open debate, is also targeted. Some of Weston's philosophy is almost word-for-word quotes of statements by Haldane. Haldane, in turn, wrote a rather scathing criticism of The Space Trilogy (which Lewis rebutted in the posthumously published essay "A Reply to Professor Haldane").

* {{Defictionalization}}: In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (Though in RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and its evil activities are largely confined to denying lifesaving drugs to the sick on the grounds that they would cost the government too much.)

** [=J.B.S. Haldane=], with whom Lewis carried on an open debate, is also targeted. Some of Weston's philosophy is almost word-for-word quotes of statements by Haldane. Haldane, in turn, wrote a rather scathing criticism of The Space Trilogy (which Lewis rebutted in the posthumously published essay "A Reply to Professor Haldane").

* AuthorAppeal: Based on some of his private letters, Lewis might be suspected of this in the case of Ms. Hardcastle.

** Weston and Devine are a darker version of Cavor and Bradford from Creator/HGWells' ''TheFirstMenInTheMoon''. Lewis himself was a fan of the novel.

* {{Defictionalization}}: In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''NineteenEightyFour''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (Though in RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and its evil activities are largely confined to denying lifesaving drugs to the sick on the grounds that they would cost the government too much.)

* TakeThat:

* CaptainErsatz: Weston and Devine are a darker version of Cavor and Bradford from H.G. Wells' ''The First Men in the Moon''. Lewis himself was a fan of the novel.
** Ransom himself is explicitly based on JRRTolkien -- he teaches the same subject at Cambridge that Tolkien taught at Oxford. (Although in the third book, he seems more like CharlesWilliams). Tolkien was on the record as saying that he didn't think it was a very close resemblance, although he did recognize some of his own ideas "Lewisified" in Ransom.

* {{Defictionalization}}: In keeping with the new British tendency to de-fictionalize literature critical of the local government (i.e. ''[=~1984~=]''), there now really IS a N.I.C.E., and the cynical see it heading in the PoliceState direction. (Though in RealLife it stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and its evil activities are largely confined to denying lifesaving drugs to the sick on the grounds that they would cost the government too much.)