Nightfall (Asimov)
Nightfall 1990 edition
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| Author |
Isaac Asimov Robert Silverberg |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
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Publication date
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1990 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 24434629 |
"Nightfall" is a 1941 science-fiction novelette by Isaac Asimov about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated by sunlight at all times. It was adapted into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990. The short story has been included in 48 anthologies, and has appeared in six collections of Asimov's stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "Nightfall" the best science-fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards, and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964.
The short story was published in the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine under editor John W. Campbell. It was the 32nd story by Asimov, written while he was working in his father's candy store and studying at Columbia University. According to Asimov's autobiography, Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!
Campbell's opinion was to the contrary: "I think men would go mad."
In 1988, Marty Greenberg suggested Asimov find someone who would take his 47-year-old short story, "Nightfall", and – keeping the story essentially as written – add a detailed beginning and a detailed ending to it. This resulted in the 1990 publication of the novel, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. As Asimov relates in the Robert Silverberg chapter of his autobiography, "...Eventually, I received the extended Nightfall manuscript from Bob [Silverberg]... Bob did a wonderful job and I could almost believe I had written the whole thing myself. He remained absolutely faithful to the original story and I had very little to argue with."
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