Nightfall (1990)
Nightfall is a 1990 american science fiction book written by Isaac Asimov.
On the planet Kalgash, six suns share the sky and darkness is unknown. Nobody has ever seen a true night or a single star. At Saro University, the astronomer Beenay finds an anomaly in the planet's orbit, and the psychologist Sheerin senses what it means for minds that have never faced the dark. Meanwhile the Apostles, a religious sect, preach that the world burns and falls every two thousand years. Expanding their classic 1941 story, Asimov and Robert Silverberg trace a whole civilization in the last calm hours before an eclipse its people cannot imagine.
Quick answers
What is Nightfall about?
On the planet Kalgash, six suns share the sky and darkness is unknown. Nobody has ever seen a true night or a single star. At Saro University, the astronomer Beenay finds an anomaly in the planet's orbit, and the psychologist Sheerin senses what it means for minds that have never faced the dark. Meanwhile the Apostles, a religious sect, preach that the world burns and falls every two thousand years. Expanding their classic 1941 story, Asimov and Robert Silverberg trace a whole civilization in the last calm hours before an eclipse its people cannot imagine.
When was Nightfall published?
Nightfall was published in 1990.
Who made Nightfall?
Nightfall was written by Isaac Asimov.
Similar books
Explore Nightfall guides
Nightfall in our writing
- Companion guide: Foundation: The Complete Guide to Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire
A few thoughts on Nightfall
For the same dread of a sky turning against a people, try the film Sunshine, where a crew fights to rekindle a dying sun, and Melancholia, which watches ordinary lives brace for a cosmic ending. Readers drawn to sociology-driven catastrophe should reach for the game SOMA, another study of minds pushed past what they can bear.
An astronomical event too big for anyone's training to absorb
Nightfall follows astronomer Beenay and psychologist Sheerin as Kalgash's six suns edge toward an eclipse nobody living has a word for. Sunshine, Melancholia, Project Hail Mary and SOMA all put ordinary, competent people in front of an astronomical event too big for training to absorb, watching composure crack long before anything visibly goes wrong.
Prophets whose end-of-the-world warnings turn out to be true
On Kalgash the Apostles preach that the world burns every two thousand years, a warning the astronomers dismiss until the data agrees with them. 20th Century Boys, Phoenix, Swan Song and Fist of the North Star all follow prophets and cults whose predictions of collapse stop being crackpot theory and start being schedule, forcing everyone around them to decide how seriously to take a warning.
Rebuilding a whole civilization once its old assumptions are gone
Nightfall spends its whole runtime on the hours before Kalgash's certainties get erased, without showing what its people do afterward. The Scorch Trials, The Marrow Thieves, The People of Sparks and Appleseed all sit in that missing chapter, following people who have to rebuild a working society, government and food supply once the old assumptions about their world stopped being true.