C. S. Lewis

Who is more deserving of a posthumous induction as an honorary Alliterate than C.S. Lewis? One of the Inklings (with Tolkien, Williams, and Barfield), Lewis wrote numerous fantasy and science fiction novels that defined the genre. By inducting him, we hope the Lewis estate will see clear to let us continue writing books in the worlds he created. Here are our ideas:

In The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis establishes a bucolic, allegorical world peopled by Talking Beasts and ruled by the benevolent, all-knowing lion Aslan. At the end of the series, Aslan and his faithful withdraw into a barn that gives way to a limitless heaven. In our novels, Aslan’s heaven is all a delusion caused when the great lion is exposed to deadly radiation, which makes him bulk out into a huge killing machine. Japanese scientists replace his arms with turbo-cannons, and give him lava-breath, hoping to turn him against America, but the lion goes on a rampage, destroying Tokyo instead.

In Lewis’s “Space Trilogy,” Ransom stows away aboard a spaceship, reaching Mars and Venus and meeting Hyoi and the Lady, members of innocent races untouched by the Fall of Man. In our novels, when NASA sets up bases on Mars and Venus, exploiting the landscape, Hyoi and the Lady say enough is enough. They sneak into the bases, kill all the scientists but two, and make them come up with a super-powerful “world-killer” bomb, which they send to Earth. It’s up to Bruce Willis and the Fresh Prince to save us from the evil invaders.

In Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, an experienced demon writes to his young apprentice, providing advice on the best ways to lead humanity astray. In our novels, Satan gets fed up with all the letter writing and comes to Earth as a seven-hundred-foot-tall man with a squid for a head. Since he’s got all those tentacles, he rips off his human arms and jams the space shuttle launch towers in their place and goes around threatening to blast people unless they can “break all ten commandments in under ten seconds!”

And so, we honor the memory of C.S. Lewis, not only by inducting him in our august society, but also by continuing the literary vision he had.