Ransom is a middle-aged professor of philology from Cambridge College. In this book Ransom is drugged by Weston and Devine and taken aboard Ransom's secret space-ship to Mars, called by the inhabitants Malacandra. They take Ransom there to offer him as a human sacrifice. Shortly after arriving on the planet Ransom flees from one species, the sorn, only to meet another, the hrossa. The hrossa accept him into their village. Ransom later meets their leader, after learning the common language of the planet, and the leader sends him and his companions home.
