to be partially patterned after his friend and fellow Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien, since Lewis is presented as novelizing Ransom's reminiscences in the epilogue of Out of the Silent Planet and is a character-narrator in the frame tale for Perelandra. In That Hideous Strength, Ransom--with his royal charisma and casual acceptance of the supernatural--appears more like Charles Williams (or some of the heroes in Williams's books). In Out of the Silent Planet it is suggested that "Ransom" is not the character's real name but merely an alias for a respectable professor whose reputation might suffer from his recounting such a journey to the planet Mars. In the following books, however, this is unaccountably dropped and it is made clear that Ransom is the character's true name. As befits a philologist, he provides an etymology: The name is a contraction of the Old English for "Ranolf's Son". This may be another allusion to Tolkien, a professor of Old English. However, the name "Ransom" holds a deeper meaning. In Perelandra, the voice of Maleldil (Jesus) tells Ransom, "'It is not for nothing that you are named Ransom'", and later adds, "'My name also is Ransom'". The Dark Tower An unfinished manuscript, published posthumously in 1977 and named The Dark Tower by Walter Hooper, its editor, features Elwin Ransom in a less central role as involved with an experiment that allows its participants to view on a special screen their own location in a parallel universe. Its authenticity was impeached by Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog in her criticism of Walter Hooper, but in 2003 Alastair Fowler established its authenticity when he wrote in the Yale Review that he saw Lewis writing the manuscript that would be subsequently published as The Dark Tower, heard him reading it and discussed it with him; he further stated that he gained the impression that the piece was an abandoned first attempt to write a sequel to Out of the Silent Planet. Setting Cosmology Ransom gets much information on cosmology from the Oyarsa (presiding angel) of Malacandra, or Mars. Maleldil, the son of the Old One, ruled the Field of Arbol (the Solar System). But then the Bent One (the Oyarsa of Earth, or Satan) rebelled against Maleldil and all the eldila (much as Morgoth rebelled against Eru and the other Valar in Tolkien's Silmarillion) of Deep Heaven (outer space). The Bent One was frustrated by