Nightfall

I have been looking for a copy of this out-of-print book forever. It is one of my all-time favorites. I enjoy all the stories: "Nightfall" is of course very good but many of the others are just as intriguing to me. Definitely worth picking up if you can find it.

Asimov wrote many books but this was the first sci-fi and you've gotta see how it all began. He got better as time went on but he was married to a psychoanalyst and the two of them wrote fascinating books about "robots".

I normally don't bother with reviews, but Silverberg's expansion of Asimov's short story masterpiece was so abominable I must let those who are planning to read it know what is in store for them.

The message of this book was, in a nutshell, the only way to save humanity from itself is by allowing a manipulative religious dictator to rule, while slowly letting "enlightened" thinking to seep into the government.

There is no "enlightened" thinking when government is forcing you to be civilized. Civilization occurs when individuals choose to be civilized.

If only the expanded version of this story had truly been written by an "enlightened" thinker. Instead, it is the same old un-evolved tribalism.

What a disappointment.

The basic premise of the story was poor. Where did these people come from, living in this strange solar system? The occluding "Planet X" just happened to be blue in color? The sight of the stars made them go crazy? This entire story was ridiculous. I kept reading through to the end, hoping there would be some twist. There was not. Ever. What a waste of my time. It is a shame that Mr Asimov's good name is associated with this book.

I love Robert Sylverberg books, but this one did not made the cut. For starters how did these people know about stars and star maps if there was really no night at all. They had day light 24/7 with 4 Suns. We dont see any stars during the day with one sun alone, and they had 4 Suns! It does not make sence for an evolving civilization to experience day light nonstop, and for their people to know about star maps and astrology. When I read that It kind of blew off the story, what could have been an excellent work of science fiction was blown from the start.

Isaac Asimov always had original and fascinating concepts for his stories, but sometimes at the expense of characterization. Asimov's short story of the same name is a classic and has even been adapted into a movie, although not a good movie. In fact, as brilliant as Asimov's stories and ideas are, they have never been successfully adapted to the screen. With this novel, one of the other grand masters of SF, Robert Silverberg fleshes out both the story and the characters to create a tale you can't put down. Even if you are completely familiar with the short story and basically know how this ends, this is an enthralling story.

Slight spoilers follow.

The concept is simple but unique; a world with so many suns that for the most part, their various epochs rarely encounter darkness and don't understand the concept. In fact, having constant illumination is so ingrained into their society that someone get's the idea to build an amusement park ride that does nothing but take its passengers into total darkness. It is literally a dark ride. The unintended consequences are that several of the passengers go mad. Little do they know that soon, the planet will experience a rare eclipse that will plunge them all into darkness, and throw their society into chaos. One scientist tries to get the word out that nightfall is coming, but is muted by the religious and political institutions.

Two gods of SF - it's like seeing Zeus and Odin out playing golf together.

On the whole, it starts very well and continues almost as well. More or less chance encounters between astrophysicists (such as they are in this world), an archaeologist, and a psychologist seem catalyzed by a news reporter. And, much to the surprise of each, their findings support each other. Even more to their chagrin, their science points the same way as dire (and very specific) predictions of a secretive doomsday cult.Tension builds well toward the climax (hardly a spoiler), then it becomes a post-apocalyptic Mad Max run to chase rumored attempts at rebuilding civilization. But, the doomsday cult is there, too ...

I felt that this built well and had a generally good story arc. The end was not what I expected or was happy to see - idealism ground thin by realism - and the boy-girl thing seems a bit pasted on. Well, there have been worse, and 85% was a strong story. (Heinlein seemed to poop out around 60 or 70% in his later work, and he was in the same class of writer.) I'm glad I've read it, but might not repeat the experience.

-- wiredweird

On August 21, 2017, I traveled to Madras, Oregon, to observe a total solar eclipse. The two hours of partiality were exciting. But the two minutes of totality were otherworldly. It was one of the most odd, unexpected things I’ve seen. The darkness and coolness in the middle of the day. The 360 degrees of orange-red sunset-like skies at the horizon. Viewing Venus at 10 o’clock in the morning. And that solar corona! Those odd gray streaks emanated and wrapping around the dark disc of the moon! It is truly an event that every human should experience once in their life. I can’t wait for my next one!

Well, Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall describes a world that has such an otherworldly sight once every two millennia. And instead of lasting for two minutes, it lasts for a day. On Nightfall’s world, there are six suns such that the sky is always bright, and every 2049 years the suns align to bring the darkness of night. This is a story about science, but really, it’s about society and the timescale of civilization. How do we prepare? How do we react?

In our world where climate change in an imminent threat, but much of society denies what our scientists tell us, there are so many prescient lessons in this novel. This is the best type of science fiction: compelling, scientifically fascinating, and providing lessons about society.

Asimov's short story "Nightfall" is one of the best, if not the best, science fiction short stories ever written. To say the novelization of this story, as well as of several other Asimov short stories, is disappointing would be an exaggeration. I can't give an honest review of this book for those who have not read the short story, but if you have read the short story, Do Not Buy this book. It's a waste of time and a desecration of a brilliant piece of short fiction.

One last point: I can imagine good novels developed out of short stories. But the power of this short story comes, to a large extent, from it's compact nature. The best writer in the history of science fiction or literature, for that matter, could not improve upon the story by expanding it.

As I'm making my way through sci-fi canon, I've finally read Nightfall and I loved it. The idea of world that never experienced darkness and thus saw their place in the universe was fascinating. The whole book is an interesting thought experiment. That being said, I felt like the beginning dragged a bit as did the latter third. Turns out it's because the middle section is based on one of Asimov's most famous short stories (which I did not know). I had a little trouble believing that this seemingly somewhat advanced species completely lost their minds as a result of a few hours of darkness (and I totally get that they're an analog for us). The twist ending was interesting but also a bit of a downer when you realize the true role of religion in their society and as it is an analog of our own society, what it means to us. Still a vivid portrait of the end of a society and a fascinating read, even if the characters are a little one dimensional.

Isaac Asimov wrote the short novel Nightfall in 1941, when he was just beginning to make a name for himself in the world of science fiction. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall one of the 15 best science-fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards, and thus it was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964. Since then, in collaboration with Asimov, Robert Silverberg (a prolific and highly awarded sci-fi author 15 years younger than Asimov, and Editor of the cited anthology) expanded the novelette into a full-blown novel bearing the same title, which was first published in 1990. The currently available paperback version of that novel is the subject of this review.

Herewith is a brief summary of the plot, drawn loosely from the Wikipedia entry that describes the story; names of the celestial bodies are as used in the 1990 novel:

The planet Kalgash is located in a stellar system containing six suns, the largest being Onos, a main sequence star similar to Earth’s sun. Dovim, a red dwarf; and two white dwarf binary pairs orbit around Onos, positioned such that they keep all of Kalgash continuously illuminated. There is never “night” anywhere on the planet. A group of scientists make a series of intertwining discoveries: A psychologist researches the insanity-inducing effects of prolonged exposure to darkness. An archaeologist finds evidence of multiple cyclical collapses of civilization that have occurred about every 2000 years. An astronomer discovers irregularities in the orbit of Kalgash around Onos. Astronomers eventually determine that the cause of the orbital deviation is a celestial body that orbits Kalgash, but is invisible due to the light of the six suns. Astronomers conclude that once every 2049 years, when only the red dwarf Dovim is visible in the sky, it is eclipsed by the newly discovered orbiting body (Kalgash II), resulting in the civilization’s first-ever nightfall. When the predicted eclipse occurs, scientists are stunned not by the total darkness that they expect, but by the sight of millions of hitherto invisible stars beyond the six-star system, Never having seen other stars, the inhabitants of Kalgash had come to believe that their six-star system comprised the entirety of the universe. In one insanity-causing epiphany, everyone gazing at the revealed night sky realizes that that Kalgash is not alone in the universe. The population goes mad, and civilization collapses.

It is tempting to deride both Asimov’s original work and the decision of sci-fi writers in 1968 to vote Nightfall into an honored place in the pantheon of early science fiction, on the grounds that the original novel does not accurately reflect the state of scientific knowledge in 1941. However, as a friend who is a noted astronomer and author has pointed out to me, it’s worthwhile to take into account the early state of Asimov’s career at the time he wrote Nightfall, before he had become closely tied to the “hard science fiction” school, which seeks consistency with known scientific principles. We also need to take into account the state of computational analysis of celestial mechanics in 1941, as well as in 1968 (the award year) and in 1990, when the expanded novel was published. My iPhone, for example, has five more computing power than a 1985-era Cray Supercomputer. Complex n-body simulations are easy to run on today’s computers, but were inaccessible for laymen even in 1990 when Silverberg wrote the newer version of Nightfall.

Nonetheless, when I read the 1990 version of the novel recently (having read Asimov’s original half a century earlier), I was disappointed by its lack of scientific fidelity. My anticlimax is not based on arcane orbital computations. Rather, the novel fails by straying outside the constraints of Isaac Newton’s 300-year-old Universal Law of Gravitation, as well as by ignoring the theoretical model that was widely accepted in 1941 describing how planets and moons are formed.

First, although the novel’s “Theory of Universal Gravitation” (equivalent to Newton’s Law) is deeply woven into the fabric of the story, the Theory/Law is inconsistently applied. Kalgash II is discovered through analysis of its gravitational perturbation of Kalgash I’s orbit. Thus, the Theory of Gravitation is shown to apply to Kalgash I. But — by all available evidence — it does not apply to Kalgash II. The orbit of Kalgash II, even though it has a major axis five times larger than the orbit of Neptune, is unaffected by any of the six suns that comprise the Kalgash solar system. Kalgash II sails serenely past those suns on a completely stable and precise orbit with a period of 2049 years plus some undefined but exact number of days, hours and minutes. It repeatedly appears in the Kalgash sky precisely when only the red dwarf Dovim is visible, and exactly at the place where it will eclipse Dovim. Isn’t that remarkable? This occurs repeatedly even though the orbit of Kalgash I is unquestionably perturbed by its companion and by the six suns. Such an outcome requires that all the accumulated perturbations in the orbits of Kalgash I exactly offset those of Kalgash II, orbital cycle after orbital cycle. How likely is that? Mathematically, the probability (p) can be expressed as p ≈ 0.

At least equally improbably, Kalgash II is described in the novel has having about the same mass as Kalgash I (which is unlikely in and of itself for a moon), yet (as we know from the 9-to-14 hour duration of the eclipse) it must have seven times the diameter of Kalgash I. It can only be a gas giant planet, about 90% of the diameter of our solar system’s Saturn. Can we reasonably postulate Saturn as a moon of Earth? No. The “solar nebular disk model” or “nebular hypothesis” was widely accepted by 1941 as the established mode for formation of solar systems; one of its ramifications is that inner planets form as rocky bodies and outer planets form as gas giants. Under that model, a gas giant moon could not possibly form as a satellite of a rocky planet in the inner solar system, because gas giants can accrete only in the more outer and cooler regions of any solar system.

So, might Kalgash II have been formed elsewhere and been captured by Kalgash I? It might be a gas giant from the outer solar system whose orbit was perturbed by the six suns, akin to Triton’s capture by Neptune. Alternatively, it might be a gas giant planet that was gravitationally ejected from some other stellar system in a near-collision between two stars, on a path such that it was captured by the gravity well of Kalgash I and fell into orbit around it. That’s theoretically possible, and the moon’s highly elongated orbit lends itself to such an interpretation.
But the question must be asked, “Could either such gas giant be captured by Kalgash I?”

Answer: “Exceedingly unlikely.”

In either scenario, the gravity well of Onos would overwhelm the gravity well of Kalgash I, and Kalgash II would fall into orbit around Onos, not around the planet. You don’t need a powerful computer to figure that out. Just ask two questions: “How many comets or asteroids orbit around Earth?” Answer: maybe one. (Ref: NASA) And, “How many around the sun?” Answer: about 730,000, depending on what you count, and when. (The count grows by about five per day.) (Ref: Minor Planets Center.)

I will set aside the issue of whether the six-sun system that illuminates the skies of Kalgash I is feasible and stable, on the grounds that computational power available even in 1990 was insufficient to answer that question. (I will note, however, that an impressive analysis of the hypothetical Kalgash system, published in 2014 by astronomers Smaran Deshmukh (Bonn University) and Jayant Murthy (Indian Institute of Astrophysics) as a tribute to Asimov, concluded that while the described system might be stable for a few hundred years, it would not likely maintain its configuration for the 14-millennia-plus time frame relevant to the plot. They did not attempt to analyze orbital perturbations of Kalgash II.)

A separate assault on scientific credibility occurs near the beginning of Silverberg’s version of the story. At an archaeological site far removed from any cities, a massive desert sandstorm rips a giant gash “like a terrible wound” top to bottom through the center of a “middling sized” hill, revealing seven to nine layers of previously unknown civilizations, built one atop the other after a calamity destroys each prior civilization by fire. Setting aside the hyperventilating language, can the reader conceive of a wind storm that could slash a huge cut through a “hard-baked, tight packed dark stratum” while not even knocking down nearby archaeologists’ tents? I can’t. Could a sandstorm that spans from horizon to horizon somehow focus all its physical energy into a single area perhaps 100 yards wide and gouge out such an “erratic zigzagging strip” from the hill? No. That’s not the way sandstorms behave. This is a clumsy deus ex machina gimmick that Silverberg devised to advance the plot. It is unfortunate because the same literary progress could easily have been achieved by the novel’s characters using a technique that Kalgashian archaeologists used elsewhere on the site — an exploratory trench. There was no need to invoke “god from the machine.”
Now, I will turn from discussion of the novel’s scientific improbabilities to its literary flaws, which are numerous. Perhaps he most egregious is the highly unscientific behavior of every scientist (except one) described in the novel. Take, for example, Beenay 25, the astronomer who discovers the anomaly in the orbit of Kalgash I. His immediate and only assumption — supported with anguished hand-wringing by his professional colleagues for 40 pages early in the novel — is that the Theory of Universal Gravitation itself is flawed. A gaggle of professional astronomers never seriously considers the possibility that the orbital anomaly might be caused by another celestial body within their solar system. Indeed, such a notion is specifically contemplated and rejected by the novel’s characters — a laughable fantasy compared to “an invisible giant who pushes planets around according to his whims, or a huge dragon whose breath deflects Kalgash from its proper path.”

That is not the way real scientists think or behave. When Earthly astronomers realized in 1821 that the orbit of the planet Uranus did not match predicted parameters, nobody panicked and questioned the validity of Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. Instead, astronomers in Britain and France independently tackled the arduous pre-computer-era computation of the potential mass and orbit of the perturbing body.
[Historical side note: French mathematician-astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier produced a solid calculation in June of 1846. His Paris astronomy colleagues were yawningly uninterested in testing his theory. After almost four months of frustration, he sent his data in a letter to the head of the Berlin Observatory. With characteristic German efficiency, the Berlin astronomer undertook a search of the sky the very same night he received Le Verrier’s letter; he found the new planet (Neptune) within an hour, less than one degree from its predicted location. “The planet whose place you have computed really exists,” he wrote back to Le Verrier. The French could have gotten all the credit if they hadn’t been distracted by sipping their digestifs or discussing the scandal of novelist Victor Hugo’s recent affair with the married woman Léonie d’Aunet.]

Irrational behavior by Kalgashian scientists is not an isolated problem in the narrative. The length of this review does not permit a complete discussion, but throughout both the original novelette and its expanded version, the main characters behave in ways that are not credible. Their conversations are stilted and awkward. They react emotionally when no emotion is called for (example: reputational fear by the lead archaeologist as the huge sand storm approaches the dig she supervises, expecting damage to exposed ruins), and unemotionally when it is. Allegedly rational individuals behave quixotically with no valid explanation of their motives (example: a psychology professor submits himself to a potentially insanity-causing exposure to darkness, rather than analyzing the impact of same on thousands of people who have already voluntarily experienced it in an amusement park ride). All this nonsense occurs before the insanity-causing eclipse.

The novel offers an almost endless supply of implausible description. After the cataclysmic Nightfall, two individuals who survive the post-eclipse chaos, when facing threats, seem astonishingly unaware that they have been toting weapons around for days. First, on page 223, after a woman is sexually attacked: “Suddenly Siffera remembered the club that she had picked up somewhere during the night at the Observatory building. She was still holding it, loosely dangling in her hand.” After being attacked, she recalls her weapon and bops her assailant over the head with it, killing him. He seems to have been unaware that she is armed. Second, on page 264, after a man spends a long time trying fruitlessly to get through a locked house door: “He realized, then, that he was carrying a hatchet.” This happens three days after he picked it up inside the Observatory on the night of the eclipse. Really? These characters have been wandering for days around wrecked cities and burning forests, encountering murderous madmen, but in a time of dire need they don’t remember that they are carrying weapons? Silverberg’s eye for observing authentic detail seems to have gone completely blind.

Lastly, Silverberg never makes up his mind whether the post-eclipse global insanity is caused by “The Stars” or by “The Darkness.” At different points in the last third of the novel, both are invoked almost alternately as the origin. Either the sky was terribly dark during eclipse totality, or it was a bright sea of stars. It can’t be both. Which was it? From the text, you can’t tell.

Fortunately, help is available. When the red dwarf Dovim is eclipsed, the night sky is described as being filled with stars of a number and magnitude far greater than we see from Earth. The Kalgash system apparently exists near the center of a globular cluster. Fortunately, a computer simulation is available, depicting how the night sky might look from a planet orbiting a star near the center of 47 Tucanae, a globular cluster located 16,700 light-years from Earth. That cluster packs 570,000 stars into an expanse of space 120 light-years across. The simulation was originally presented as the cover story of the July 2014 issue of Astronomy Magazine, which says that such a sky would be 20 times brighter than Earth’s night sky with a full moon. To answer the question whether the eclipse of Dovim would have produced “The Darkness” or “The Stars.” we can refer to images from that article, several of which are available online at the Gizmodo web site for non-subscribers to the magazine.) “The Stars”? Yes. “The Darkness”? No. Alas, consistency was not a Silverberg virtue in this work.

In sum, from a literary viewpoint, the 1990 version of Nightfall strikes me as a tedious second-rate sci-fi pot-boiler. Silverberg wrote some good science fiction novels, but Nightfall isn’t one of them. I also wish that Silverberg and/or Asimov (who edited and endorsed the expanded story) had repaired some of the scientific flaws in the original version, which by 1990 should have been recognizable to both authors. However, the problems embedded in Asimov’s original story are teleported through space and time intact into the more recent version, in the best sci-fi tradition. Overall, Asimov’s original story may or may not be worthy of the accolade it received in 1968; the later version clearly falls short of the “hard science fiction” standard to which Asimov had pledged fealty long before 1990.

I apologize for not providing links to the references cited, but the store doesn't allow URLs in reviews, except to other the store pages.

 

This book has an interesting premise -- about a planet where there is always some sort of light source and, therefore, the population has never experienced true darkness. The premise is intriguing and the first few times its discussed among the characters, you are okay with it. The entire middle of the book, however, is repetition after repetition. I started skimming pages - something I never do in a book -- and finally in the last section, the story changed some and it became somewhat interesting again. If it had not been for the rehashing of the core premise among character after character in a large portion of the book, I would have liked it much better. Much of the story is interesting. If the repetitious parts were cut out and the book were half as long as a result, it would get 4 stars instead of 3 stars from me.

Coletânea de contos fantásticos, e díspares, ainda não publicados em coletâneas anteriores, e prefaciados pelo próprio Isaac Asimov, explicando aspectos das estórias.
Normalmente, acho que um conto deve se sustentar sozinho, sem a necessidade de maiores explicações. Mas, posso dizer que algumas dessas introduções são mais interessantes que as próprias estórias.
Alguns contos são sci-fi pura, toques de fantasia, pitadas de mistério e romance. Tramas instigantes, teorias filosóficas, credibilidade e humor. Todos fluindo e tornando-se vivas, de forma natural.
Um "must read" para qualquer fã de ficção científica - Asimov nunca desaponta!
Entre as outras estórias, destaco:
* Manchas verdes - uma verdadeira pulp fiction (para quem não sabe, são estórias publicadas em revistas de papel barato de polpa de madeira, e vendidas em bancas de jornais), onde todas as formas de vida fazem parte de um único organismo.
* O homem em cultura - depois do lançamento da bomba atômica de 1945, a ficção científica tornou-se respeitável, pois seus escritores não eram mais sonhadores, com um de seus temas recorrentes, agora parte permanente das manchetes dos jornais.
* Por uma boa causa - nesta estória aparece um "visor de livros". Seria o nosso querido Kindle? Na trama, os extraterrestres diaboli tinham exatamente a mesma aparência do personagem hawkinsiano Harg Tholan, do conto: A anfitriã.
* E se... - "Você pode obter uma idéia de qualquer coisa, desde que esteja disposto a pensar com afinco por muito tempo". Isaac Asimov - provocado por sua esposa, durante uma viagem de trem.
* Fura-greve - tem como tema, uma casta social como os intocáveis na Índia, que lidam com cadáveres.
* Ponha o pino A no furo B - escrito em 20 minutos, durante uma entrevista a um programa de televisão.
* O feiticeiro moderno - beira a fantasia, com sua poção do amor ou princípio amatogênico cortical.
* Segregacionista - escrito por encomenda de um laboratório farmacêutico, me remete, mais uma vez, ao livro Gênesis, de Bernard Beckett. Beckett, embora único, não é o primeiro escritor a dramatizar esta questão, e Genesis paga tributo a seus antecessores, como neste conto de Isaac Asimov. Inquietante e poético, ingênuo e previsível, visionário e aterrador - em gênesis, questões filosóficas eternas chocam-se com o avanço tecnológico. E o significado de ser humano, recebe novas luzes, que nos fazem pensar: "Será a alma mais que a soma de suas partes?" - Douglas Hofstadter.
Vamos, agora, falar do conto que deu título a este livro: O cair da noite (Nightfall).
Escrito quando Asimov tinha, apenas, 21 anos, em 1941, traz à luz questões sobre o que acontece quando as profecias falham e o mundo não acaba. Nightfall tem sido aclamado como o melhor conto de ficção científica de todos os tempos.
Kalgash é um planeta com seis sóis de luminosidade perpétua, onde a escuridão não existe. O povo não consegue nem mesmo formir sem uma pequena luz á cabeceira.
Seus cientistas descobrem que um eclipse conjunto de todos os sóis, que ocorre a cada 2049 anos, é iminente, e que a sociedade será levada à loucura e ao caos apocalíptico, por conta da escuridão que tomará o planeta.
A população do planeta está despreparada para essa escuridão, apesar dos avisos dos cientistas e dos religiosos resistentes à destruição de seus dogmas.
Há, inclusive, um parque temático onde um dos "rides" The Tunnel, acontece durante 15 minutos de escuridão completa. O fascínio do medo do escuro é suportável quando faz parte de uma brincadeira. Porém, quando é de verdade, a mente não resiste e se transforma num trauma psicológico que leva à loucura. Algumas das pessoas que experimentaram o brinquedo, ficaram loucas e morreram logo depois.
O brinquedo é interditado, mas a escuridão está vindo...
A trama descreve os eventos que levam a essa descoberta e os destinos dos personagens principais, ao seguir do apocalipse cíclico, sob os pontos de vista de um jornalista, um astrônomo, um arqueólogo, um psicólogo e um fanático religioso.
São descobertas ruínas de cidades construídas sobre outras, e outras, destruídas pelo vandalismo louco que ocorre após o aterrorizante eclipse e sua conseqüente escuridão. É a teoria de Asimov sobre o universo cíclico, que parte das cinzas para uma nova civilização, a cada grupo de séculos.
O texto é sucinto e perturbador, porém, sua novelização, mais adiante, com a parceria de Robert Silverberg, descreve e caracteriza melhor os personagens, e detalha os acontecimentos pós eclipse.
Enfim, me parece uma parábola sobre a luta da religião contra a ciência, da razão contra o espiritual, e da necessidade de se juntarem forças de cooperação e respeito, em prol de benefícios de toda a humanidade.
Apesar de O cair da noite ser baseada numa citação de Emerson, que eu amo, não é a minha favorita nesta coletânea. Minha estória favorita é: A anfitriã, que foi escrita 4 meses antes de seu filho David nascer. Nessa estória aparece, pela primeira vez, o hawkinsiano Harg Tholan, com suas 4 pernas. Como tema, a infecção parasitária no Planeta Terra, que vem acontecendo desde os tempos bíblicos, no jardim do Éden, com a serpente símbolo da expulsão do homem do paraíso, e sua conseqüente e inevitável morte.

This books contains 20 stories. Only two of them I didn't care for. One was a story about a name that kept showing up in the main character's daily wanderings (frankly, I just didn't get the ending) and the other is the book's namesake. If there was going to be total darkness why couldn't the beings in the story just turn on the lights/use artificial light? Most everything else I liked or really liked. Anyhow, with twenty stories you're bound to find some to your liking and Asimov is generally fast and easy to read. Great for commuting or some easy bedtime reading.

The book from the start was predictable, however, it was the journey to the finish that kept me turning pages long after I should have turned off the light and gone to sleep. The characters are engaging and the coming disaster looming in the distance threatens to overwhelm them all.

While I did very much enjoy this book, there were certain things that pulled me out of the reading, things that didn't seem to fit the culture of the planet. For instance, everyone sleeps with a `godlight' (nightlight) in their room. In a world that never has darkness, why don't they simply build homes with skylights or windows in the bedrooms? It would seem only natural... I'm sure they had homes before electricity, and on a planet where darkness is feared, the architecture would tend toward an open sort with lots of natural light so that there is no danger of darkness in any room.

There was another moment in the book like that when in a meeting curtains were drawn over a room in which the main characters were meeting to discuss the impending doom. The character, while drawing the curtains, reflected that the heavy curtains had never been drawn, not in all his forty-some-odd years at the university meeting-room in which they met. Why, then, would people with such an aversion to darkness make and install curtains that would never be used, that even the thought of using would be distasteful?

It was little things here and there, things I would think a decent editor would notice and omit or request to be changed before publishing, that seemed to clash with the book that made it less enjoyable.

I found myself wishing for a sequel at the end, the book did seem to end too soon, but I can see that the future that is left a the end of this book would encompass an entire lengthy novel, and so it has to end somewhere. Despite the reservations above, this book was an excellent read, one I'm sure any sci-fi fan, or fans of speculative fiction, would enjoy highly.

To start with, I thought the original 1941 short story was simply fascinating. People experiencing a world-wide event that had never occurred before in their entire history, trying to prepare for it and being horrified as it actually occurs. The end is an absolutely masterful span of writing, ever-increasing suspense and dark madness as a mob descends, ending so abruptly, it's almost certainly the reason the story is so popular.

This novel includes that short story as most of the middle third of the book, and provides an interesting contrast between novels and short stories in general. This has been expanded and a whole backstory and extension developed. Much of it seems to be the ideas that went into the original story, finally put on paper and explored more thoroughly.

The characters are what drive this story, much more than in the original. The pacing is slow and drawn out, letting them discover, ponder, agonize, reflect, and discuss. Much of the mundane could have been left out, though it helps to drive home a sense of how un-alien the people are, and the prose could have been tightened up. Still, the only truly jarring parts were the long flashbacks stitched into the beginning of the middle.

Although the plot has a definite "fluffed-out" feel, the masterful writing style of Asimov, especially combined with Silverberg, always keeps it from becoming stale. He also manages to paint a very convincing picture of the new post-apocalyptic world, full of fire and distrust and petty warlords and above all, ever-increasing despair and loss. By the end, the heros' failure is absolute, and even the twist (but not so surprising) ending can't eliminate the sense that the survivors are doomed. That kind of emotional response is rare in science fiction.

I kind of liked it. I don't think it's nearly as rereadable as the short story, because nearly all of the forward motion hinges on the original section, but the character interaction and explorations of the old culture and the new provide a passtime for an afternoon.

Nightfall is a novel about what would happen to a people who have never experienced night once the sun goes down. Asimov came up with the idea of a planet in a 5 sun system. There are almost always 2 or 3 suns in the sky. On rare occasions, there is one sun in the sky, but never are there 0 sun in the sky. However, unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the planet (since it is never night and they do not see stars), the solar system also contains another planet the rotation of which causes an eclipse once in a great while. The eclipse just happens to always occur on a day in which only one sun in the sky. Therefore, during the eclipse, the planet experiences night.
Asimov wrote a short story about this planet and Silverberg and Asimov extended it to a full-length novel. I loved the novel and later found the short story and thought that was extremely well-done too.
In the novel, a group of scientists discover that the eclipse and the nightfall are imminent just at the same time as archeologists discover that societies have risen and fallen on the planet at regular intervals. The only other people who believe night is coming are the priests of a religion with whom the scientists do not get along. Thus, society is unprepared for nightfall despite the warnings of the scientists and the priests. Devastation follows during night as well as during the eternal day following the night.
Asimov and Silverberg do a compelling job setting up the discovery that night is coming. Their description of the actual eclipse and the reaction to it is truly fantastic. I also enjoyed (although a little bit less so) the description of the shambles of society after the day dawned again and, again, a little bit less, the rest of the story, although the characters have been written so well by this point that you really care what happens to them. The end could have been handled a lot better. The book ends abruptly, and, I think, in an unlikely way.
However, the ending is nothing that should stop you from reading this extremely well-done book about a truly creative idea.

The original short story version of Asimov's "Nightfall" is on everyone's short list of true "classics," and with good reason. (Myself, I've always linked it mentally with Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God"; in one, the stars come in, in the other, the stars go out. . . .) Anyway, there are two ways of converting a short story to a novel: You can treat the short story as a single episode in a longer narrative, which generally requires only minimal rewrite. That's the most common method and the author usually had the novel percolating in his mind all along. The other way is to treat the beginning, middle, and end of the short story as the beginning, middle, and end of the longer work. That's much more difficult. What Asimov and Silverberg have done here is kind of a mix of the two methods, and I wasn't at all sure at first that it was going to work out, but it did -- most of the time. The premise, of course, is that there's a world lit by six suns of varying sizes and magnitudes, so that the sky is never really dark. One element of evolution on that world, therefore, is that people (who are human, for the convenience of narration) naturally fear the dark. Even the intelligent and strong-willed can be driven at least temporarily insane by several hours of the complete absence of light. But another result of that world's situation is that astronomy has grown very slowly and scientists have no idea of the existence of other suns . . . and they just happen to be located inside an enormous star cluster. There are various naive attitudes among supposedly sophisticated adults, various questions the authors leave unanswered, but this is, by and large, a diverting afternoon's entertainment.

Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, is set on a planet that has six suns and perpetual daylight. The plot revolves around an unlikely event: an eclipse that shrouds the world in darkness for several hours. The main characters in the story are all scientists, and they are able to predict the arrival of the eclipse, but not its results. Because people on this world have lived with sunlight for their entire lives, the darkness inflicts severe psychological trauma on the population. The book is divided into thirds, with the first section showing the discovery of the eclipse, the second section is set on the night of the eclipse, and the third shows what happens afterwards.
This is a fairly short novel, just over 300 pages, and the authors' writing is quite good. I think that Asimov does a better job with the characters and dialogue in Nightfall than he did in most of his other novels. Also, there isn't much time wasted on long descriptions or on lecturing about the novel's themes, so the novel keeps moving at a good pace. I would have liked it if a little less time was dedicated to the character's personal lives, especially since some of their actions during and after the eclipse seem a little bit absurd. Overall, the book's strongest component is the originality of the concept. The idea of a world where darkness is a catastrophe is so different from the repetitive and predictable plots of so many other SF novels that I found Nightfall hard to put down, even when reading it for the second time.
Some people have complained that the authors' attitude towards religion is insulting, but I disagree. I don't think that they intended to bash all religions. They were, rather criticizing fanatiscism and cult-like behavior. And while some people might not agree with Asimov's rigid insistance on following science and logic at all costs, that shouldn't prevent anyone from enjoying the book as a good work of science fiction.

This book expands the original short story "Nightfall" written by Asimov many years ago. Just about every science fiction aficionado agrees that the original story, based on an Emerson quotation, is one of the classics of the genre. The basic premise is a superb leap of the imagination. Picture a planet which is part of a six-sun system. The respective orbits of the planet and the six suns are so defined, that one or more of the suns is always in the sky over any part of the planet. As a result, the people of the planet have only the faintest conception of what the absence of light i.e. darkness can be. With no dark night sky, they have no idea of other stars in the universe (forget radio astronomy as an inconvenient abstraction!). As far as they know, they are the masters of the universe. Now picture an unexpected total eclipse, at a time when only one sun is in the sky: a strange and frightening darkness covers the land, and the night sky now reveals millions of stars looking down on the stunned populace. How does a society deal with so drastic a blow to its fundamental picture of itself? In sheer imagination, in boldness, in vision, this story has few equals. The skillful blending of a religious doomsday cult and its interweave with a psychologist and baffled yet striving physical scientists brings out the roles of superstition and rationalism in society. I still remember the awe that gripped me when I first read this story more than a decade ago. This collaborative book builds upon the story and introduces some interesting ideas. The use of archaeology to derive the cyclical history of the plant is both imaginative and educative. The longer book format also allows the author to develop the characters more fully than in the short story. The weakness of the book however is the ending; to be fair, the cataclysmic end portrayed in the short story cannot possibly be improved upon. All the book does is stretch out the period of rebirth, adding interesting human vignettes along the way. I withhold one star for this reason. Do not miss this book, but do try to read the short story of the same name that started it all.

There are fascinating things about this novel: a civilization dependant upon the sun, so fixated upon it that they will go crazy without it; and a cultist religious group that is demeaned throughout, yet turns out to be vital for sheer survival. It will cause the reader to reflect about values, religion, civilization, and science. There are also troubling things about the novel - could a race, anything akin to our own, really break down so completely due to sheer darkness? Could madness be so widespread and rapid? Also - is it really plausible that a religious group, so demeaned throughout the book, should ultimately be championed for survival at the end? Readers will have to evaluate for themselves. For my part, I found this book interesting, fascinating even - but there are aspects I also didn't think were too plausible. In spite of that very mixed review, I think it is an engaging novel which makes for good conversation about the values of science and religion to civilization.

Like Fahrenheit 451, Asimov tells a very believable story about a people coming into knowledge -- but with terrible consequences. Unlike Fahrenheit 451, however, Asimov tells not of the continuous evolution of a people, but of a cyclic rise and downfall. Or, rather, Nightfall.
Kalgash is an Earth-like planet in all but one respect: it is surrounded by six suns which in turn provide illumination so that the planet is never in darkness. Most of the time there are at least three suns in sky; but on extraordinary days there can be as many as five. The residents know darkness only as a fearful presence that lurks in caves, and they never subject themselves to it, even sleeping with a sort of nightlight during the duskiest parts of the day.
However, evidence exists that every 2049 years there is a total eclipse, enshrouding every part of the planet in complete darkness for several hours. This evidence is murky and incomplete, having just been turned up by an archaeologist and held by religious fanatics since the last eclipse. However, records indicate that the time of the eclipse approaches within the year, and astronomers begin to see the signs that there is something else lurking in their sunny universe that they had been previously unaware of, which spells mankind's insanity and destruction.

A retelling by Asimov and Silverberg of the former's Golden Age short story. Asimov created a society on a planet framed by six suns where it is perpetually day. The people have evolved to need sunlight to thrive and even short periods of emersion in darkness can test their sanity.

Every 2049 years another unseen planet causes an eclipse on a day when only one sun faces one of the planet's Hemisperes putting each time zone in debilitating darkness for 9 hours. Chaos results and the world ends.

In the story Scientists find that their theories of physical science are totally wrong and that the apocalyptic teachings of a religious sect are based on fact. The resistance of fellow scientists to the destruction of their scientific dogmas and of the scientists themselves to work with the Religious leaders(and vice versa) to prepare for the coming disaster provides the conflict in the story.

All in all I found it to be a parable for the struggle between Science and Religion(even in cases where adherance to certain scientific "truths" can be considered a religion) and state a case for both sides to cooperate and respect the ideas of the other.

On a distant planet, a world illuminated by multiple suns basks peacefully in continuous, nurturing light. The society is human, and the technology is similar to our own circa. 1950. When the novel begins, a new funhouse ride opens that promises a trip through a straight, level tunnel in complete darkness. Elsewhere, an archeologist makes a disturbing discovery, and a physicist runs some calculations he knows to be right, but should not be. Although the setting is alien, the characters of this world are human and their many trials and tribulations purposely mirror our own. For all its fantastic elements and unique storyline, "Nightfall" is a study of the modern human condition, with insights very much meant for the Earthborn reader.
At one point, a psychologist asks a colleague if he sleeps with a "godlight" (their equivilent of a mere night light) in the bedroom. The colleague replies "of course", and when the psychologist asks him to turn it off or remove the "godlight", it is an alien and unfathomable idea. "Nightfall" is about the fragility of the human mind, its stubborness toward accepting change, and its inability to overcome monumental change in the face of a sudden epoch thrust upon mankind's collective psyche. The novel touches upon many aspects of this, with moments of scientic and religious backlash reminiscent of Galileo, and deeper delvings into the human mind and how, even in an enlightened age, the most primitive instincts can compel the strongest actions and reactions.
Although the third act of the novel is not as tightly written, "Nightfall" remains an engrossing work of science fiction by one of the great masters of the genre, Isaac Asimov, in turn ably assisted by notable contemporary Robert Silverberg. Recommended for all science fiction fans and for any curious readers with a background/interest in psychology or sociology.

I was expecting a little more from these "greats" of science fiction. I'm impressed that they attempted to write about a truly alien world with no reference to Earth-humans; this is not something which is frequently attempted in science fiction. The interplay between the academics is very amusing, and the exploration of religion vs. a more scientific or pragmatic worldview in the first part is tantalizing. But this is basically totally dropped in the second part of the book. It's an interesting hard-science problem, but this book is totally lacking in the social science department. In the first part of the book, the characters are rich and textured and well-developed; in the second part they are mostly two-dimensional and boring. And this is very odd, because there are all sorts of internal thought monologues that give insight into the characters in the second part, but it's mostly very stereotypical and cliche. "She was glad to give herself up to this man", "Here was a real challenge for him", "They could have a voice in shaping the new world together", et cetera. (Those are paraphrases, by the way, not exact quotes.)
The hardcore fan of either author will probably find this to be a worthwhile purchase for the sake of completion. For the average fan, it may not be more than a mildly interesting adventure story - your mileage may vary. If you don't like loose ends, this novel may infuriate you.

What prevents me from giving this book two stars is the fascinating idea behind it. The authors ask us to imagine a planet constantly lit up by six suns. Imagine then the turmoil that the inhabitants of this planet would face if they encounter even a few hours of darkness.
I picked up "Nightfall" because of this central premise, and the first section (describing the findings and attitudes of four scientists and a religious cult towards the coming disaster) was quite interesting. However, things went steeply downhill from the second section. The characters went flat before they could be sufficiently developed. And the continued demonisation of the cult (called the Apostles of Flame) was hard to understand given that they were the first to sound the alarm over the impending Darkness.
It is easy to see that the Apostles of Flame are a thinly veiled metanym for all religion, and the authors (along with the lead characters) relentlessly attack it as a hoax, even when clues to the contrary start arising in the plot. We are not given a chance to get a balancing view from any other character or the tiresome omniscient narrator. For a refreshing contrast, take a look at the beautiful myths constructed by Ursula K. Le Guin in "The Left Hand of Darkness" as a guide to her planet's belief system.
The comparison with Le Guin arises naturally because she is known for writing books that present us with an intimate look at a world in some fundamental way different from ours: androgynous in "The Left Hand of Darkness" and anarchic in "The Dispossessed". I was hoping that, in presenting to us a world that is perpetually flooded with light, Asimov and Silverberg would do an equally good job. I must say that I was disappointed.

Once again, Isaac Asimov has proved to me that he is amazing. His stories have everything that I want from science fiction: intriguing plotlines, philosophical relevance, interesting ideas, believability - even humour. I read this book quickly; most of the stories are incredible although there are a few which didn't quite hit the mark with me. I got this book secondhand for the title story, Nightfall, which is quite well known. The only problem is that this book is out-of-print; however, I would recommend any Asimov you can get your hands on.

There are twenty stories in the book in all. I found "Nightfall" itself a bit overrated. After hearing so much about how mindblowing it was, I found it rather predictable, although compared to most other science-fiction fairly decent (the story is also based on a quote from Emerson, whom I am completely in love with). I loved almost all of the stories; although I have some comments to make about some of them. In particularly, I loved "Hostess", "In A Good Cause-" (although I disagreed with the political implications), and "What is This Thing Called Love?" (nothing is funnier than making fun of Playboy). But really, they are all great. Isaac Asimov makes my day. Several times over.

I read Fantastic Voyage in the late 90s when I was a teenager for a high school book report. While I enjoyed the novel at that time, I look back on the experience as a simple joy for s straight forward plot with a simple, yet original idea. Likewise, these short stories provide the same simple pleasure- short and simple. While I do love short story collection in general, the collection in Nightfall feelS oh so dated (originally published 1941-1967).

The story length is terribly different from the 1941-1951 (average of 30 pages each) to 1952-1967 (average of 10 pages each). I'm leaning towards the idea that he sold his name in his later stores as more and more publications wanted to cash-in on his fame as opposed to his previous stories when he was writing for pleasure and for the advancement of the science fiction genre.

Nightfall - 3/5 - Six sun sunset approaches; cultish fever abounds. 33 pages

Green Patches - 4/5 - Benevolent parasitic alien hitchhikes earthbound. 15 pages

Hostess - 4/5 - Alien logic meets police logic; all fails. 38 pages

Breeds There a Man? - 5/5 - Genius avoids ingenuity and pushes the barrier. 35 pages

C-Chute - 3/5 - Imprisoned humans attempt overpowering alien captors. 35 pages

In a Good Cause - 4/5 - Revolutionary pushes change, seeks alien truth. 24 pages

What If - 2/5 - Asimov's only and last romance story. 13 pages

Sally - 4/5 - Intelligent car farm up rises against aggressive buyout. 18 pages

Flies - 2/5 - Flies plague one man because of odor or curse? 7 pages

Nobody Here But - 4/5 - Self awaked computer fools makers. 11 pages

It's Such a Beautiful Day - 3/5 - Boy loves nature; mom freaks. 22 pages

Strikebreaker - 3/5 - Social untouchable strikes; breaker steps in. 13 pages

Insert Knob A in Hole B - 3/5 - A solution with the same problem. 2 pages

The Up-to-Date Sorcerer - 2/5 - Love potion forces awkward love. 14 pages

Unto the Fourth Generation - 2/5 - Lefkowitz isn't such a common name. 8 pages

What is This Thing Called Love? - 4/5 - Darned unpredictable humans! 13 pages

The Machine That Won the War - 4/5 - So much for technology! 6 pages

My Son, the Physicist - 2/5 - Converse with Pluto, duh! 4 pages

Eyes Do More Than See - 4/5 - Energy beings intuit former material selves. 4 pages

Segregationist - 3/5 - Will that be plastic or metal today, sir? 6 pages

Asimov talks here about how Nightfall the story began to make him known, and how before this book came out he had not included it in a collection due to frequent anthology appearances.

He also talks in some detail about each entry's publication.

Later on he writes more than once about writing in a humorous style.

This collection only a 3.23 average.

Nightfall and Other Stories : Nightfall - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Green Patches - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Hostess - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Breeds There a Man? - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : The C-Chute - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : In a Good Cause-- - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : What If - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Sally - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Flies - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Nobody Here But-- - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Its Such a Beautiful Day - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Strikebreaker - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Insert Knob A in Hole B - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : The Up-to-Date Sorcerer - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Unto the Fourth Generation - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : What Is This Thing Called Love? - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : The Machine That Won the War - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : My Son the Physicist! - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Eyes Do More Than See - Isaac Asimov
Nightfall and Other Stories : Segregationist - Isaac Asimov

Media and religion struggle with science. Still.

4 out of 5

Lack of grouping relief.

3 out of 5

Doctor, Doctor, can't give them the news, we're full of mind parasites that kill them fools.

4 out of 5

Doctor, Doctor, can't give them the news, we're full of mind parasites that kill them fools.

3 out of 5

Mental giant experiment.

3 out of 5

Jumping into space escape is a gas.

3.5 out of 5

Diaboli political protest.

3.5 out of 5

Marriage party possibilities.

3 out of 5

Robocar protection.

4 out of 5

Beelzebub bloke.

3.5 out of 5

Junior stopping galoot.

3.5 out of 5

Mekkano instructions.

3 out of 5

Outcast negotiator.

3 out of 5

Hard to RTFM.

3 out of 5

Endocrinology attraction.

3 out of 5

Ancestral spelling.

2.5 out of 5

Flying saucer guys not norg men.

4 out of 5

Coin flip strategy.

3 out of 5

Female communication strategy advice.

3 out of 5

Art does Matter.

3 out of 5

Metallo wannabes.

3 out of 5

3.5 out of 5

The classic title story of this collection of short fiction, Nightfall, was voted the best science fiction short story of all-time. It is a classic of the field, and a masterpiece of atmosphere. Anyone who calls theirself a science fiction fan and has not read it is merely posing. This book, for most readers, then, is worth picking up for that story alone. That said, despite its classic status, the rest of this collection, though it does have its moments, does not reach the high standards set by the title story. Other winners include the classic and oft-anthologized It's Such A Beautiful Day and the rendering and chilling "Breeds There A Man...?" There are other stories of quality in this book, but, unfortunately, they are not among Asimov's best. Like his contemporary Grand Master, Arthur C. Clarke, as Asimov got further and further into his writing career, though his novels remained excellent, his short stories began to falter: many of them seem infected with an over-eager attempt at cleverness. While this often makes for some amusing stories (Strikebreaker, What If..., What Is This Thing Called Love?), it does not often make for classics. Thus, while this collection is certainly good - and the title story is an absolute must-read - it is not Asimov's best short story collection (try Nine Tomorrows or one of the Robot anthologies for that.) If you are a die-hard Asimov fan, I recommend picking this up; however, if you are a casual reader, or new to the good Doctor, or perhaps just want to read Nightfall, then I suggest you pick up a more wide-ranging collection such as The Complete Stories.

This book reads like a much older story than it really is, first seeing publication in 1990, just a few years before Asimov's death. Perhaps that's because it is based on a much older short story of Asimov's, perhaps that's because his collaborator, Robert Silverberg, really managed to capture the Master's old-fashioned writing style. No matter -- none of this should be construed as a criticism of the book -- no, instead, take it as praise.
The lonely planet Kalgash roams the heavens in orbit around six suns, resulting in the odd situation of perpetual daylight all over the globe. No one on Kalgash has ever seen nightfall, even has any concept of what "night" is, and darkness, one of the most primal fears of even our own half-and-half world, is enough to drive a person mad if exposed to it for too long.
Slowly, groups of scientists across Kalgash begin to conclude, through evidence both anthropological, mathematical and astronomical, that Kalgash has a satellite of its own that it never sees, and that satellite lines up just properly with the suns every 2049 years to create a total eclipse, plunging the planet into darkness for hours. The cataclysm will most certainly be enough to drive everyone mad, and the world as they know it will end.
The book is kind of hard to classify -- not a thriller, not a mystery, not really hard science fiction and not completely a post-apocalyptic tale, but it's still very good. Silverberg assimilates Asimov's style well and you can't tell that you're reading the work of two separate authors, which to me is the mark of a successful collaboration.
The book does get a bit tiresome at points as characters begin to "hypothetically" debate how life would evolve on some impossible world that was in darkness a whole half of its day, but those segments fortunately never last very long and don't detract too much from the story itself.
All in all, a good, solid sci-fi tale that Asimov readers will most certainly enjoy.

Asimov is a premier sci-fi writer and this is one of his classical books. Very creative for its time as it was written back in the early 50's when Asimov was starting out and a virtual unknown. Without giving anything away I didn't find the ending very satisfying but all in all an excellent book. I also thought the movie Pitch Black (with Vin Diesel) might have been partially based on this book as there are some similarities but other than the basic premise this was not the case.

This expansion of Asimov's famous short story is well-written, thought-provoking because of the aliens in this story being human and their planetary society having great similarity to our own. Yes, the ending is abrupt and somewhat disconcerting but this is a minor point. A major point to me, a non-scientist, is the rather obvious implausibility of the overriding element which, without giving too much away. relates to its irreconcilability with human sleep. All in all if you like Asimov (and Silverberg whom I like too) it is well worth reading-you won't be wasting your time.

Nightfall is science-fiction novel situated on an alien planet, Kalgash, which orbits amongst six suns. Throughout its history, Kalgash's entire surface has been illuminated by a combination of one or more suns. Most of its inhabitants have never been inside a dark area, even sleeping with the light on.

The novel is an interesting take on the clash between science and religion, and their relative merits in the face of a global, unprecedented challenge to civilization. It also looks at how fragile civilization, and human psyche, can be against the inevitable gyrations of an indifferent universe. An interesting read for a fan of Asimov, though not as great as some of his other works, and concerning sociology and psychology more than hard science fiction.

Since time immemorial, a group called the Apostles of Flame has claimed that the gods would one day punish the world of Kalgash for its sins by sending "stars" to burn the world down. Most view them as a fringe group but, as the novel opens, a group of scientists discovers that every 2049 years, a large moon completes its orbit around Kalgash just when only one sun is visible, blocking out all light. The archaeological record shows that, with the suns gone for several hours and stars visible for the first time, madness strikes, with Kalgashians setting fires to everything in sight to create light. The scientists realize that, although there may not be any gods, the apostles are in a way correct, and there is very little time before their prophecy comes true, exactly 2049 years since the last eclipse.

Unable to warn the world in time to stave off the anarchy that inevitably descends on the world when the eclipse takes place, the two scientist-protagonists set off across a burned, apocalyptic landscape to try to stop the Apostles from uniting the world under their own religious rule. On the way, as they encounter various insane factions who are the remnants of a once-great civilization, they are forced to reevaluate their attitude towards the Apostles and, ultimately, determine how to engage once at last they come to face to face with the group's leader.

A well-written science fiction commentary on the basic differences of perspective that both divide and relate the analytically intellectual approach to human problem solving as opposed to the more herd-like, emotionally based, follow-the-prophet, group-think way. In the end, however, the differences between these perspectives in the real-world requirement to somehow survive a cataclysmic natural-world crisis evens the score between those who would adapt and those who might go down with their own belief system stubbornly held.

This book is worth reading--for the ideas and themes if not for the story. I've read other Asimov works (The Foundation Trilogy is one of my favorite series of all time), but this one seemed stretched thin, possibly because it was co-authored.
The first third of this book, up until Nightfall, is chilling and thrilling. The second half wanders, and though I don't want to give anything away, has a very anticlimactic ending. After finishing it, I felt the last section 'Daybreak" could have been left off almost completely and the novel would have actually benefitted.
Some of the ideas in the novel should have been further developed, while others, especially a quasi-romance subplot, made the story drag in places.
To sum things up, the first half or so is excellent, true to Asimov-form. The second half is boring, disappointing, and un-Asimov. For a 5 star start and a 1 star finish, I give 3 stars. I would be interested to know who wrote which parts of this book.

The 300 pages of this novel are fantastic. The authors started with a brilliant idea - what would happen to a world that never saw night if the sun should set?
In the world of this novel, the world orbits six suns (luckily you never have to examine the astronomy of this, it would be ludicrous) which means a sun always shines in the sky. Because of this, the inhabitants of the world have a great fear of darkness - an amusement park ride consisting of nothing more than a boatride in darkness causes some of its riders to go insane.
When a group of scientists piece some clues together, showing that there will be a period of darkness, an eclipse on a day when only one sun crosses the sky, they try to warn society. But they fail and the world begins falling apart - so does the novel.
The tightly bound writing collapses. A brilliant beginning is followed by such a sub par ending that I cannot recommend this novel higher than two stars.

Any idiot can tell you that this expanded novel form of the original short story bears too close a resemblance to Walter Miller's work "A Canticle for Leibowitz;" your dutiful critic feels himself that this is probably a fair representation. Nightfall's trouble is that while the original work is an incalculably important contribution to the genre, the basic form of the story is that of a "hard" sci-fi problem story with a flawed premise - and the problem is aggravated by the use of familiar technology and concepts with too little thought toward the evolution of epistemology in a fantastical, even magical world.

The other terrible problem with the book concerns the telling of this extraordinary story. Asimov's trademark unornamented style is not an issue, and anyone can have a guess at how Silverberg's contribution helped flesh out the story. The problem is simply that explaining something once isn't enough. The reader is forced to suffer through multiple variations on the same explanations. You're halfway through the book and the characters are wasting time re-explaining basic issues to their colleagues. You'd think somebody would have mimeographed a sheet to distribute.

More disturbing is the tendency to completely skip pivotal issues of character development. The book promised to explain the history of various characters, especially the reporter Theremon whom was at one time amenable to the problem. Instead of a plausible report of his character, we're rewarded with yet another inexplicable issue as a scientist (Beenay) has a hysterical fit and completely forgets his fundamental training, all so that the writers may patronize the reader by re-introducing Occam's Razor under a suitably "alien" name.

Occam's Razor was apparently not much employed in the writing of the book. Six-sun systems with errant planetary bodies are not wholly implausible (our own system's gaseous planets produce their own heat internally), and the concept of a solar eclipse in such a system is workable enough (at least mechanically - I don't know if I'd want to be in close proximity to six suns at a time). But the work has more than its fair share of the unbelievable: despite fear of the dark being the ultimate downfall of society, no psychiatrist advances the possibility of using therapy to acclimatize people to the darkness (but, amazingly, this is something two other characters in the book mention having done). Many houses have enclosed rooms with a simple small glowing lamp in them, and there are caves to explore, but the psychologist never mentions even simple pranks. In Nightfall's world, nuclear age particle accelerators, computers, transcontinental highways, and airplanes coexist in a world where the discoverer of the Universal Theory of Gravitation still holds his post at the academy. This is to say nothing of the many issues that are theoretically explainable enough (such as why the stars never show even when only one or two fainter suns are in the sky), but may seem to be errors to the reader without a background in astronomy.

The overall tone of the book is flawed juxtaposition: between alternately coddling the reader and expecting blind faith; between alien and human. The foreword suggests that the reader may find and replace human terminology (such as 'miles') with suitably alien-sounding nonsense words, but these are essentially human creatures (even to the extent that they can discern between objects in the dark, something that would not survive for any period of time in a rapidly changing genome).

The wildly different denoument is worth reading to, even if it is on the whole unpleasant and reeks of that mid-century assertion that common people would seek to destroy educated people in the wake of an apocalypse, and that religion would pick up the pieces and move onwards (here the comparisons to Miller inevitably renew). Perhaps my favorite thing about this section - besides the notable increase of the abberancy of behavior - is the influence on the computer game Fallout (with a certain artifical spokesperson).

Find the short story, and if you like that, try the full version. It's deeply flawed, but intriguing.

Not a typical Asimov novel. Although well-written, somehow entertaining at the begining, and easy to read, the left an unsatisfactory taste. At about half the novel the plot becomes previsible and at some point in time all you want is the story to end for you just to confirm you were right. The ending however, was not exactly why I expected; but only because it doesn't make sense.

This very well written book is about people on a planet who have constant sunlight, thanks to their many suns, with atleast one and as many as four up all the time, but once every 2049 years, their suns are eclipsed and they experience total darkness... they experience the stars. While this may seem normal to an earthling who is conditioned to the concept of night, to the people on the planet who have never seen such a thing, this is a very bizarre and stressful experience. The book talks about how they deal with the situation and makes you wonder if we earthings would react in a similar fashion under such circumstances.

The book is divided into three sections - Twilight, Nightfall and Daybreak. The first two sections are very well written, the third, i thought, was a bit of a drag. The sudden ending was a bit disappointing, but after some reflection, it did seem realistic (not all stories in life have interesting climaxes).

Asimov with his great story-telling also delves into human psychology and religion. Interesting weekend read.

Nightfall is perhaps one of the best science-fiction stories I have read. The concept of a world with multiple suns that never sees night is very unique and entertaining. Perhaps the best part of the novel is the fanatical religious cult that predicts an impending doom for this planet. The novel has some basic striking similarities to the new movie "Pitch Black". The concept of the world is the same, but the creatures are not. It is hard to imagine what would happen to a world that never saw night. This novel shows the paranoia and mob frenzy found in a new situation.

This book really stretched my willing suspense of disbelief beyond its limits. Let's start with the basics: there's a planet in a six-star system, and because of this its surface is (almost) always bathed in light.

First of all, any planet in such a system would have highly irregular orbits, which would bring it pretty near to some stars pretty soon, tearing out out of its Goldilocks-zone. Second, the tidal forces alone would shred any planet to bits, or at least deform it so heavily as to render it inhabitable. And third, the planet's surface would be cooked once it gets bombarded with the energy of several stars at once. Just imagine the atmospheric conditions on such a planet alone: massive hurricanes would sweep over the surface because of the constantly changing energy levels, yet the depicted weather seems to be calm and almost earth-like.

Then there's the life of the planet. Why the heck would its inhabitants have the earthly habit of sleeping? Animals on our planet follow this pattern because of the change in light levels, but why would it happen on a planet where it is never nighttime? And why would they be so afraid of the dark? There still should be huge amounts of dark places, like caves, forests and the deep of lakes and oceans, which likely contain life forms accustomed to low light levels, just like on earth. Come to think of it: caves would likely be the first dwellings of beings who want to be sheltered from the elements, so shouldn't they already be used to that? They live in buildings where they can close the shutters before the windows, so the idea that they don't know about darkness is just ridiculous. I can imagine how a sentient race would not enjoy lack of light, but it's silly that a whole planet of them would live in such debilitating fear of it.

I also find it highly unlikely that they wouldn't know what stars are. At one point they describe how the weakest sun on its own barely manages to illuminate the surface. Under such conditions, stars would be visible, ESPECIALLY when using light-sensitive equipment--which the inhabitants are shown to have.

Furthermore, as some reviews have pointed out, it is very strange that they would be so afraid of the stars. Sure, they'd be bewildered, fascinated, maybe even frightened by the idea that they are surrounded by thousands of suns. But driven to insanity? Why? Shouldn't they be glad that there is at least SOME source of light?

What I find most egregious though is that they would be so ill-equipped to handle the situation. Why not simply tell the populace to stay indoors during Nightfall, clinging to their "god lights", until the main sun rises again? Why do the scientists expose themselves to the Darkness, even though they are shown to be able to automate the scientific equipment? Heck, why don't they install massive flood lights everywhere, to illuminate the cities once it becomes dark? Or how about training the people to spend time in the dark, starting with a minute a day in a locker, gradually letting them get used to longer stretches? How about sedating the population? ANYTHING would be better than doing nothing, yet they spend most of their time squabbling with the members of some silly cult.

And with this I haven't even started about the characters populating this mess, which are often stupid, unlikable and behave in totally counterproductive ways, although the unlikely premise already makes that a moot point.

Nightfall is set on an alien planet that, in many respects, resembles Earth a few centuries ago. While involving an epic clash of religion and science, the book primarily follows its effects on an ensemble of characters caught up in their own personal struggles. The grand plot leaves something to be desired in its devices. Occasionally I felt like I knew exactly where things were going and they were taking a little too long to get there, or that things were slightly too convenient and lacking in meaning. Enjoyable though.

_Nightfall_, the book, is "Nightfall", the Asimovian short story, padded into a novel by Robert Silverberg. I enjoyed the original story very much, and apreciated Silverber's adaptation of _The_Ugly_Little_Boy_, but in this case, I think that Silverberg should have left well enough alone.
His additions to the story include a huge novelette that could have been a sequel to "Nightfall", "Daybreak." Ugh. This section feels forced, like a movie that's trying desperately to have a happy ending, so it just keeps going until something less depressing happens. It is unneccessary, and detracts from the rest of the storyline as originally intended.
In summary, I can't see why this version is any improvement on Asimov's original, and I recommend that original instead of this superfluous adaptation.

Nightfall sent my jaw dropping to the floor by the tales end. It was an amazing piece of work that blew me completely away.

That being said, I am a huge fan of Asimov but this collection is indeed a mixed bag. There are some great stories and his ideas are grand but the writing style is mixed so don't feel bad if the stories feel a bit mixed in quality. Despite that fact read all the intros by Asimov, as they are quite candid and, in many ways, more entertaining than some of the stories themselves

I am ashamed to say that out of all the science fiction books that I have read, this is my first by Asimov. I know that it is based on a short story by Asimov and that that story was expanded by the Silverberg into a book.

The plot is weak and all of the big realizations are foreshadowed to the point of being obvious long before they are revealed. When reading I felt like the author kept beating me over the head with the same information by having the same stories repeated by the main character(s) multiple times to different people. It became annoying and slowed the story down to the point that I almost wanted to put the book down and never open it again.

Asimov gives a forward that this is an "alien" planet and race with a different language and culture, but that has been sort of "translated" into our terms for the reader's benefit. So what is the point? Why do I need to be told that these aliens have a different language that you have translated for me. Isn't that a pretty commonly accepted assumption when reading science fiction that takes place on alien worlds? Then there are aspects of their culture that are included but never explained (or given any significance) such as the numbers after everyone's name.

The premise is interesting enough (a world that almost never has a nighttime) except it is hard to be convincing with it. The idea of the tunnel of mystery is ridiculous. These people have never experienced darkness. Am I supposed to believe the no one has ever stepped into a room without windows and turned the light off or spent time in a cave? The first time that anyone has "experimented" with the dark is at a fair? Just silly.

Maybe this book should have remained a good short story instead of expanding into a poor book.

What an incredible book. Filled to the brim with terrific short stories, Asimov completely engrosses you in the lives and situations of the characters in these stories in only 30 pages. Some have twist endings that truly surprise and thrill. Others are good looks at technology and the like in a nutshell, developed too far.
I would absolutely recommend Nightfall & Other stories- Nightfall is the classic about a world who never sees darkness- surrounded by numerous suns, and how it affects its inhabitants. A must read for any science fiction fan- Asimov doesn't disappoint!

This one really should have remained as a short story, thats all there is to it. I didn't find that it read slowly or anything, but it had that co-author feel that I don't like, and it took some time to get going. Briefly, near the middle I found it truely interesting, but that only set me up for disapointment at the end.
The characters are indeed boring, I never found myself really attached to any of them, not much a chance for that is given. The concepts are good, the idea of Nightfall is interesting, but by the end you realize that all the ideas are essentially the same ones as in Asimov's Foundation Series and the Robots Series, just not done or devloped as well. The ending sequence is pretty much ripped from Foundation, and the thing about the dark is very similar to how Earthmen feel about the outside from the Robot Series, with the added twist of mass hysteria.
The ending too, is just not done correctly. During reading, you may notice that something is dreadfully wrong when you get toward the end, and notice that the book is going to end in about 15 pages or so. The closer to the end you get, the more obvious a rough landing is likely to be in store. It is. While somewhat interesting, it is not done terribily well.
You could skip this one if you wanted to. Despite all I said, it wasn't that bad. Really though, go read the Foundation Series or Robot Series instead, you get everything Nightfall should have been.

Standard fair for asimov as he got older in that there is an excellent idea with an execution written for science-simpletons that was somewhat tedious.
Also standard fare for Robert Silverburg who, along with his highly obnoxious pseudointellectual fans, manages to be singularly pretentious to a degree I never imagined possible; he is the personification of arrogance with no justification in my admittedly not so humble opinion.
Read a real book on science if you want something truly interesting, but if you are an obnoxious Silverberg fan or if you simply must read every asimov book then go ahead.

A noted classic in science fiction, "Nightfall" by Asimov (the short story first printed in 1941) is a gripping, detailed look at a planet and the nightmare of an eclipse every 2049 years. Silverberg and Asimov (and I'm not sure of the collaborative process here), have taken this story and expanded it. What was once the tale of a planet becomes the tale of several individuals on a planet. The shift in focus does not work well. What was once a skillful examination of a society becomes an almost soap opera of characters without clear focus. The two characters that become the protagonists in the second half of the book are certainly interesting, but their personalities change and the reader is left to wonder why these two characters have been singled out to study. And they are not studied. After nightfall comes, the book is simply drudgery: repetitive, predictable, and with no new light shed on this society. The book essentially shifts from a skillful probe into human nature (okay, on a different planet) into an adventure story whose point has been muddied. If you have not read the short story, you need to. Instantly. This book has been watered down, the focus has been lost, and the purposes of its existence are unclear.

Another superb work by the Grand Master of the genre, co-written by another great author, namely Robert "Where Silverberg goes today Sci-Fi goes tomorrow" Silverberg. An ingenius plot, with seemingly unmatched detail. A six-sun world, where not a second is without the glow of light from at least one of the gleaming suns. Except one day where in a matter of hours the vail of darkness envelops the world of these sun-shoned creatures. Struck by sudden madness they tear their world apart, dooming civilization. The depth of thought and vision needed to contribute to the world of litterature in the way this book has done, is what makes Asimov the GRAND Master of Science Fiction.
I was grasped by it when I read it the first time and I have enjoyed every single moment the other five times I've read it! Intense excitement and suspense makes it a worthy equal to "Nightfall": The short story, not to mention many other great works by this and the other masters of the genre.

The premise of this novel is that the world of Kalgash has six suns, and so the people have never known darkness (evidently they don't have basements). When a rare astronomical arrangement causes total darkness for a few moments, the entire population of the planet goes stark raving mad with fear, and destroys civilization. (Though they are blubbering insane, they nevertheless are capable of enough directed behavior to break into reinforced buildings and methodically smash to pieces anything that would scientifically document the eclipse.) The main characters are shallow as children's action figures in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Maybe this sort of nonsense was plausible at the dawn of the atomic age back in the 50's, but in today's post-9/11, post Y2k world, we know that humanity is just a bit more resilient than that.

It is, however, an entertaining read.

I must say that I love the concept of a world plunging into darkness and chaos resulting. I also admire the way Asimov and Silverberg manage to explain why everything happens using theoretical science. I also like the way that an astronomer, a psycologist, an archaeologist and a reporter could be linked together amidst a catastrophe. Nevertheless I do not like many things about the book. Mainly, I don't like the ending. As was mentioned in another review, I think that it was too rushed. I don't like the way all the characters turn out to be good and everyone is happy. While this ending is satisfying since you find out what happens to everyone, I find it utterly dull and repetative. I don't like the way the book ties up all loose ends and leaves you nothing to think about. There are no themes to ponder and the characters are not described well enough for you to feel for them. I feel that this book had a great plot, but the story probably could have been better written.

This book is definitly movie-material...or at least that of a sci-fi mini series. I loved this book in its entirety. My father originally had picked it up on a sale for $5. Thats pretty good for a hard cover book. I'm glad he did, as I loved it. You just have to read for yourself on this one. Great building up for the climax and then the sometimes violent occurances in the downfall thereafter.

Nightfall is a great sci-fi novel which is expanded from the original short story by Isaac Asimov. The book sets itself in a star system where there are six suns shining on the planet of Kalgash. On this planet darkness is a concept that naturally scares people and severly effects their mental state. The book really delves into the topic of mental insanity related to the effects of darkness on these light-dependent people, and it makes you think how realistic it could be if our solar system was the same as theirs. I won't tell you any more than that about the story, but this is a very good book. The character development in the story is outstanding, and the book definitely has the feeling of being a thriller. I agree with some people that the book did seem a little drawn out at times and also seemed to fall off somewhat about two-thirds of the way through the book, but nonetheless, I thought it was fantastic. If you like sci-fi read this book.

Having found myself among the uninitiated when it comes to either Asimov or Silverberg, I was delighted at this book, and the story that it delivers. A rich world filled with characters that come to life is presented, and the horror and grief can be felt, even by the reader. I have, and will continue to recommend this book where and whenever I can. One of my favorites!

I started with the short story, which was about 20 pages long if I recall, and I just loved it! The story introduced some really fascinating ideas and made you think. The novelization took all those ideas and expanded on them, extending the timeline in both directions to shed new light on the questions and bring the story to fuller life. The novel did this very well! But it expanded a short story geared only to make you think and turned it into a fully fledged story which distracted a bit from the original's purpose. Don't get me wrong, the novel is awsome! But I'm only giving it 4 stars because it's based on a much better short story.

This books examination of a theoretical society facing absolute darkness for the first time (in recorded/remembered history) is interesting. However the characters are not particularly likeable and it would have been nice if we cared more about their fates. At times when interesting short stories are stretched into novels it feels like a TV mini-series that lasts too long because they want to place in all the commercials and sponsorships. Maybe this would have been best if it stayed a short story.

The beginning was interesting, the middle was fascinating and the end was a dud. Really, my main problem was the "madness" premise. My question is: Why would seeing the stars come out make everyone go insane? (I know, I know...it only happens once every 2049 years...uh...I think my question still stands.) This was simply too unbelievable. The story was basically over for me after that. Which was too bad because the "Nightfall" section was as thrilling a page-turner as I have ever read.

A neat expansion of Asimov's great, and often reprinted, short story about a planet with multiple suns where darkness is unknown by the inhabitants. According to Asimov's autobiography 'I, Asimov', Robert Silverberg did the bulk of the new writing and expansion of the original story; the result is an enjoyable and entertaining read. A cool blending of religious fanaticism and modern scientific approaches to understanding the universe--hmm, where have we seen that before?

Read the short story years ago and was fascinated. Asimov was and still is the master of scifi even so many years after his death. This is the second time I read Nightfall. I have it in hardback and paperback, both lent out to friends.

Having never read anything by Silverberg, but being an avid Asimov readoer, I picked this one up. The first part of the book is well handled and very interesting. It truly expands the original short story. I thought to myselg "this will earn 4 stars at least."
Then the second part, Daybreak, came along... and my rating fell from 4 stars to 2.
Characters became flat, the story became boring and cliched and it has one of the worst endings I've ever read, so hurried up, to wrap things up fast.
Looking for great Asimov sci-fi? Try the original "Nightfall". Try the Robot Novels and the Foundation series. Try The End of Eternity. They WON'T dissapoint you. This one, on the other hand, will.

I've read a lot of science fiction in my time. But few can compare to the pure brilliance that is "Nightfall." An excellent character story of the nearly-human inhabitants of Kalgash, "Nightfall" should be read by anyone who wants to write sci-fi. Highest possible recommendation!

I love to read. I've loved reading science fiction for 30+ years. I like Asimov (very much).
This book is mind-numbing garbage.
By page 10 it was obvious where the various plot threads were headed. By page 100 the threads were wandering and the characters babbling aimlessly. With a yell, I threw the book across the room in disgust (something I NEVER do because I treat my books as close friends) and have not touched it since.
I really should have known better. About 10 years ago I swore off all science fiction that was "co-authored".
I read science fiction, not only because of the unimaginable and inventive concepts, but primarily because of the author's style. In my mind, the author's style is their personality in print. You can read any of their books, no matter what the theme or subject, and it's like meeting an old friend.
In the co-authored books that I have attempted reading in the past, the imprint of either author is muddled. Style is virtually non existent or erratic.
If all I want is concepts, plot ideas, and situations I'll read Cliff Notes.
The premise of this book is so very much Asimov (I will definitely read the short story). The expansion of the premise is tedious, wordy, and throws your mind into a stupor.
This book is totally devoid of any of the wry humor, the quirks of human nature and the clever wit that I associate with Isaac Asimov.
No Asimov is better than watered down, faux Asimov.

Because I enjoyed the Foundation series, I wanted to enjoy this book, but from the start I kept asking myself a question: Why the hell don't the people simply stay indoors with lights on, FOR JUST ONE NIGHT? (They had various light sources.) This literary device is called an idiot plot, where nobody states the obvious solution while the reader screams it. Other than that, it seemed a predictable potboiler filled with basic science lectures. Silverberg wrote the ending--I read the short story, too--and I must assume he was running out of typewriter ribbon, because the story ends as abruptly as it does unsatisfactorily. Disappointed.

This is an intelligent, thought provoking story of a world where darkness is unthinkable. Written in a timeless manner, technology (or the lack thereof) has no bearing on the quality if the story.

The story itself is exceptional and describes a society not unlike our own, but at the same time totally unlike it.

Time well spent in my opinion.

Nightfall was a classic when published as a short story some 50 years ago. Asimov really gave his best then as he did now. Then we read about the psicological disaster that total darkness meant in a wolrd of perpetual daylight. Now we see the facts after the disaster. As the prologue says, "first you read what happend at nightfall. Now you'll also learn what happens at daybreak". This book is a must.

In the past century there have been countless anthologies in the field of SF. This one is the paramount. The Grand Master of SF assembeles tales that range from cynical humor to predictions of the future, to just generaly great stories. From the tile story Nightfall to my personal favorite Sally, this book will hold you captivated not just once, but over and over again.

...and go to sleep. Is it just me, or are the main characters in this book unsympathetic? The only one I can think of that was even slightly likeable was Sheerin, and yet he's scarcely there past the introductory chapter. I really wish I could have just read the short story, and done without several hundred pages of tedious "before and after" fluff.

Silverberg has written some good short stories and Asimov has written hundreds of science books, so why is this book have neither plausible science nor decent characters, dialog or plot?

This novel has more filler in it than it does actual writing. The characters tell themselves and each other what has just happened every other page. Shame on you, Silverberg.

And I was amazed that, among the other ridiculous failures in logic here, that Asimov would expect us to believe that the planet causing the eclipse would be invisible with 5 other suns. Shame on Asimov.

And shame on me for reading this misbegotten stepchild of a padded out short story.

Good thing the store allows kindle returns within 7 days. Thanks, the store!

This is a pretty good book, everything works, except the ending. What happened with that? Suddenly it is all over and you have no idea what is going to happen. Probably best to be left as a short story, but it is still very good.

Perhaps the most boring book you will ever read. Seriously. I know, it's a classic, but it is literally just people talking about dumb stuff nobody understands. I don't recommend this garbage. Save your money and just print it off online. You would still be wasting money in ink though.

This book is one of the most unique ever written. The concepts developed here center around the battle between man's inherent needs and instincts and the civilized world he has fought to maintain. This book examines what happens when our needs are denied-not food nor air, but our dependence on those simple facts of life:the sun will rise again, the darkness won't consume us. Poignant and rich in human evaluation, this book stands tall among other science-fiction work. It's not merely science, or fantasy, or even psychology; it is all of these and more. This book will compell you to re-examine your faith in science, religion, and humanity; a journey well worth taking.