Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Robert Silberberg (With)
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(Mass Market Paperback)
- Pub. Date: August 1991
- 352pp
- Sales Rank: 59,902
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: August 1991
- Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
- Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
- Sales Rank: 59,902
- Series: Bantam Spectra Book Series
- ISBN-13: 9780553290998
- ISBN: 0553290991
- Edition Number: 1
Synopsis
Imagine living on a planet with six suns that never experiences Darkness. Imagine never having seen the Stars. Then, one by one your suns start to set, gradually leading you into Darkness for the first time ever. Image the terror of such a Nightfall.
Scientists on the planet Kalgash discover that an eclipse - an event that occurs only every 2049 years - is imminent, and that a society unfamiliar with Darkness will be plunged into madness and chaos. They realize that their civilization will end, for the people of Kalgash have a proven fear of Darkness, but they are unable to predict the insanity and destruction that will accompany the awesome splendor of Nightfall.
Based on the classic short story by Asimov, "Nightfall" is unabridged Bookcassette Audio at its best - a spellbinding tale of an alien civilization not unlike our own.
Publishers Weekly
This collaboration by two masters of the genre expands on Asimov's classic short story first published in 1941. Kalgash is a planet with six suns, a world where darkness is unnatural. Scientists realize that an eclipse--an event that occurs only every 2049 years--is imminent, and that a society completely unfamiliar with darkness will be plunged into madness and chaos. The novel traces events leading to this discovery, and the fates of the main characters immediately following the apocalypse. While the premise is convincing in the context of a short story, this longer version brings up too many unresolved questions. The original tale was tightly written, succinct and stunning, but the novelization seems flabby and drawn-out--the reader recognizes the significance and consequences of the impending events long before the characters do. An abrupt and simplistic ending further mars a hallowed SF tale. 100,000 first printing. (Nov.)
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
The godfather of science fiction, Isaac Asimov is the genre’s undisputed master and one of the most prolific authors of all time. From his famous Foundation trilogy to his later stories, Asimov took fiction to new, strange, and often wondrous places.
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Nightfallby Anonymous
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April 25, 2007: I'm mostly a fan of feminist literature, so sci fi is not my area of expertise at all! However, Nightfall raises REALLY interesting philosophical questions - puzzling, tricky, intriguing. How does the knowledge of potential life on other planets, and the knowledge of how vast our universe is, affect our own day-to-day reality? On earth, we seem numb to it. We see thousands of stars every night, and don't freak out, don't even really pause to marvel at it. But what if we only saw the stars once in a thousand years? What if we suddenly realized, in a momentous epiphany, how small we really are, how high the possibility of life on other planets yet how unattainable complete certainty of this really is? These questions are raised in Nightfall. I remember it more for the interesting, maddening questions it raises than for the characters or plot, although these are quite amusing as well.
Nightfallby Anonymous
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October 03, 2003: Imagine a distant, Earthlike planet in a solar system with six suns. This is the planet Kalgash, where the people don't know what nighttime is except in fables and bad dreams. Little do they suspect what will happend when a heavenly eclipse changes their world forever. This book was fun and fascinating. It has a storyline about unique relationsihips, not only between the characters but also between the scientific and religious communities on the fictional world of Kalgash. My only disappointment was that one of the characters I grew to like gets killed in the latter pages. I would encourage anyone who enjoys Science Fiction to check out this excellent work.
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