R. A. S.

In this, the final book in C.S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, That Hideous Strength concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom.

Picture respectful, responsible, obedient children who entertain themselves without television or video games, do their own homework, and have impeccable manners. A pie-in-the-sky fantasy? Not so, says family psychologist and best-selling author John Rosemond. Any parent who so desires can grow children who fit that description - happy, emotionally healthy children who honor their parents and their families with good behavior and do their best in school.

The story begins when two poets meet. Gabriel Syme is a poet of law. Lucian Gregory is a poetic anarchist. As the poets protest their respective philosophies, they strike a challenge. In the ruckus that ensues, the Central European Council of Anarchists elects Syme to the post of Thursday, one of their seven chief council positions. Undercover. On the run, Syme meets with Sunday, the head of the council, a man so outrageously mysterious that his antics confound both the law-abiding and the anarchist.

Tel, the blacksmith's son, was a Two until someone stole his father's tools, livelihood, and dignity. No longer able to live among the craftsmen on the second terrace of the city, Tel's family is consigned to work as day-laborer Threes in the squalor of the third terrace. Seeing his mother in poverty is hard enough, but seeing his father broken is too much for Tel to bear.

When the Huctans conscript Timothy into a secret army - and when a girl with a strange set of skills sets him free - an awkward young man gets the chance to become a hero. Throwing himself into the rebel cause, Timothy ignites years of pent-up frustration and futility in an obsessive drive to fight, spy, and deceive better than anyone else. Losing himself in the exhaustion of training and the danger of missions, he finds friendship with a Thane as fanatical as he is and wraps his new identity completely in service to the rebel Band.

Becoming a Thane - an elite rebel spy trained to deceive, manipulate, and kill - was Timothy’s life. Then, in a moment, he lost everything. Now Timothy fights for survival and revenge in the Huctan death rings. When his recklessness and skill take him all the way to the Huctan capitol, he finds himself enmeshed in a deadly game of lies and deception. While his brother leads a last rebellion in Botan, Timothy must rub shoulders with the Huctan princess, match wits with the man who betrayed his country, and navigate the plots and tests of loyalty that could decide the fate of his nation.