I discovered just the other day that C. S. Lewis abridged That Hideous Strength for publication as a mass market paperback in the United States in 1957. The new version was called The Tortured Planet and cost thirty-five cents. Having recently reread the first two books of Lewis's Space Trilogy -- Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra -- I had been planning to reread That Hideous Strength for the first time in many, many years. Two friends whose opinions I respect had diametrically oppos...