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%

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.