Nightfall

It’s astounding to me that some other reviewers who gave this a single star have the gall to call Asimov’s writing “bad” in a review that contains misspelled words.

While some may (badly) criticize Asimov's writing style, he made major contributions to the science fiction genre.

Asimov helped popularize science fiction and bring it into the mainstream. His books introduced complex themes like the role of technology in society. Asimov was masterful at plotting and generating intriguing concepts. His books inspired generations of authors and readers. Rather than dismissing Asimov's writing for the lack of understanding it, we should appreciate his seminal role in shaping modern science fiction.

Science fiction isn’t for everyone for sure, but it’s disappointing to see such great masters dismissed so callously by people who can’t even spell.

Nightfall exemplifies Asimov's talent for social science fiction, exploring how society might respond to astronomical events beyond their control or understanding. The imaginative premise allows Asimov to build tension through discoveries in astronomy and archaeology. The scientists struggle to convince a skeptical journalist of the impending disaster.

Nightfall will forever be a foundational work of science fiction.

WHAT
Asimov looses himself in his love for science, making this book too cold and devoid of emotions. Characters relations feels forced, inorganic, like he had to include them for sake of literary purposes. This book have a feel of classic old poorly written science fiction.

TLDR: too science fiction, not enough human, bad writing.

PLOT
A world with six suns is about to experience a prolonged period of darkness for the very first time. Experiments have proved that people experience severe trauma and even death when exposed deprived of light for a period of 15 minutes. A group of religious fanatics have predicted this moment as the end of the world, and just now the scientists are finding proofs that they may be right.

ANALYSIS
The plot seemed interesting, but I stopped reading when it became clear the literary quality wasn't going to improve, and too much noise was added to the main plot. The idea was to bring life to a few characters by developing a subplot for each one of them until finally they meet and everything made sense.

Also, too much time is spent explaining the “science” aspect. I did not find that interesting by itself, and besides that, for the story being told, it was completely unnecessary.

The original short story is better because it is more concise, but still it's just an okay tale.

Read 3:53/11:54 33%