Nightfall

Imagine a parallel universe, in which we lived in a planet that had six suns instead of one. A planet where at least one sun is always visible in the sky, a place where it never gets dark. A planet without night. What would happen if all of a sudden, an eclipse occurs and for the first time in thousands of years the whole planet is unexpectedly dark? Moreover, what if we didn’t know that the sky is filled with stars at night?

Would we be surprised at the day of the eclipse, enjoy the dark sky filled with stars and think how wonderful it is or would we become terrified and loose our sanity?

“Nightfall” is a wonderful “What if...?” kind of story, in which the worse scenario is told, leaving us wondering about the consequences of a total unpredicted change in our scientific beliefs. In addition, discussing how a powerful religion organization could benefit from this situation, and how it could influence and control people’s beliefs.

The book starts telling us about an archeologist, a scientist, a psychologist and a newspaperman. Slowly, their stories and discoveries connect with each other, converging to the main plot. The imminent threat of total darkness in the planet!

It was a very delightful read, I loved the characters and the ideas explored in the story. The ending was okay, leaving me thinking that humanity always takes the same paths, and the history tends to repeat itself from time to time, no matter what we do. Yes, that was the message of the book for me.

Deep inside, I was hoping for something more extraordinary, but I think I understood the point of the authors.
It’s a nice light science fiction discussing science, social breakdown/organization and religion in one package.
I gave it 4 stars just because the ending didn’t reach to my expectations, but that just me.

One of the greatest Asimov's short novels I had the pleasure of reading. Can you imagine what happenned to us if we've at night, and in one entire continnent, the electricity were ran out !? And what in one entire planet. It is true, being us, humans, able, as species that lives under the light of the Sun, were able to conquer the Night after the invention of the electric lamp, but what can happend if those things where gone suddenly !? This way, you can start to feel how the inhabitants of this planet suddenly fallen into darkness would start to feel. The Mayans believed that one day the Sun would not rise anymore. It could not have been the end the Day, but the end of one entire civilization. The Night can come in different ways, it doesn't need to be the necessarily by the means of the sun disappearing below the horizon.