Customer Reviews

Nightfall

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nightfall is a great sci-fi novel which is expanded from the original short story by Isaac Asimov. The book sets itself in a star system where there are six suns shining on the planet of Kalgash. On this planet darkness is a concept that naturally scares people and severly effects their mental state. The book really delves into the topic of mental insanity related to the effects of darkness on these light-dependent people, and it makes you think how realistic it could be if our solar system was the same as theirs. I won't tell you any more than that about the story, but this is a very good book. The character development in the story is outstanding, and the book definitely has the feeling of being a thriller. I agree with some people that the book did seem a little drawn out at times and also seemed to fall off somewhat about two-thirds of the way through the book, but nonetheless, I thought it was fantastic. If you like sci-fi read this book.

This book is worth reading--for the ideas and themes if not for the story. I've read other Asimov works (The Foundation Trilogy is one of my favorite series of all time), but this one seemed stretched thin, possibly because it was co-authored.

The first third of this book, up until Nightfall, is chilling and thrilling. The second half wanders, and though I don't want to give anything away, has a very anticlimactic ending. After finishing it, I felt the last section 'Daybreak" could have been left off almost completely and the novel would have actually benefitted.

Some of the ideas in the novel should have been further developed, while others, especially a quasi-romance subplot, made the story drag in places.

To sum things up, the first half or so is excellent, true to Asimov-form. The second half is boring, disappointing, and un-Asimov. For a 5 star start and a 1 star finish, I give 3 stars. I would be interested to know who wrote which parts of this book.

Like all of Asimov's better works (because not all of his works are all that great), this is both entertaining and insightful. I greatly enjoyed it.

I love to read. I've loved reading science fiction for 30+ years. I like Asimov (very much).

This book is mind-numbing garbage.

By page 10 it was obvious where the various plot threads were headed. By page 100 the threads were wandering and the characters babbling aimlessly. With a yell, I threw the book across the room in disgust (something I NEVER do because I treat my books as close friends) and have not touched it since.

I really should have known better. About 10 years ago I swore off all science fiction that was "co-authored".

I read science fiction, not only because of the unimaginable and inventive concepts, but primarily because of the author's style. In my mind, the author's style is their personality in print. You can read any of their books, no matter what the theme or subject, and it's like meeting an old friend.

In the co-authored books that I have attempted reading in the past, the imprint of either author is muddled. Style is virtually non existent or erratic.

If all I want is concepts, plot ideas, and situations I'll read Cliff Notes.

The premise of this book is so very much Asimov (I will definitely read the short story). The expansion of the premise is tedious, wordy, and throws your mind into a stupor.

This book is totally devoid of any of the wry humor, the quirks of human nature and the clever wit that I associate with Isaac Asimov.

No Asimov is better than watered down, faux Asimov.

To start with, I thought the original 1941 short story was simply fascinating. People experiencing a world-wide event that had never occurred before in their entire history, trying to prepare for it and being horrified as it actually occurs. The end is an absolutely masterful span of writing, ever-increasing suspense and dark madness as a mob descends, ending so abruptly, it's almost certainly the reason the story is so popular.

This novel includes that short story as most of the middle third of the book, and provides an interesting contrast between novels and short stories in general. This has been expanded and a whole backstory and extension developed. Much of it seems to be the ideas that went into the original story, finally put on paper and explored more thoroughly.

The characters are what drive this story, much more than in the original. The pacing is slow and drawn out, letting them discover, ponder, agonize, reflect, and discuss. Much of the mundane could have been left out, though it helps to drive home a sense of how un-alien the people are, and the prose could have been tightened up. Still, the only truly jarring parts were the long flashbacks stitched into the beginning of the middle.

Although the plot has a definite "fluffed-out" feel, the masterful writing style of Asimov, especially combined with Silverberg, always keeps it from becoming stale. He also manages to paint a very convincing picture of the new post-apocalyptic world, full of fire and distrust and petty warlords and above all, ever-increasing despair and loss. By the end, the heros' failure is absolute, and even the twist (but not so surprising) ending can't eliminate the sense that the survivors are doomed. That kind of emotional response is rare in science fiction.

I kind of liked it. I don't think it's nearly as rereadable as the short story, because nearly all of the forward motion hinges on the original section, but the character interaction and explorations of the old culture and the new provide a passtime for an afternoon.

This book reads like a much older story than it really is, first seeing publication in 1990, just a few years before Asimov's death. Perhaps that's because it is based on a much older short story of Asimov's, perhaps that's because his collaborator, Robert Silverberg, really managed to capture the Master's old-fashioned writing style. No matter -- none of this should be construed as a criticism of the book -- no, instead, take it as praise.

The lonely planet Kalgash roams the heavens in orbit around six suns, resulting in the odd situation of perpetual daylight all over the globe. No one on Kalgash has ever seen nightfall, even has any concept of what "night" is, and darkness, one of the most primal fears of even our own half-and-half world, is enough to drive a person mad if exposed to it for too long.

Slowly, groups of scientists across Kalgash begin to conclude, through evidence both anthropological, mathematical and astronomical, that Kalgash has a satellite of its own that it never sees, and that satellite lines up just properly with the suns every 2049 years to create a total eclipse, plunging the planet into darkness for hours. The cataclysm will most certainly be enough to drive everyone mad, and the world as they know it will end.

The book is kind of hard to classify -- not a thriller, not a mystery, not really hard science fiction and not completely a post-apocalyptic tale, but it's still very good. Silverberg assimilates Asimov's style well and you can't tell that you're reading the work of two separate authors, which to me is the mark of a successful collaboration.

The book does get a bit tiresome at points as characters begin to "hypothetically" debate how life would evolve on some impossible world that was in darkness a whole half of its day, but those segments fortunately never last very long and don't detract too much from the story itself.

All in all, a good, solid sci-fi tale that Asimov readers will most certainly enjoy.

_Nightfall_, the book, is "Nightfall", the Asimovian short story, padded into a novel by Robert Silverberg. I enjoyed the original story very much, and apreciated Silverber's adaptation of _The_Ugly_Little_Boy_, but in this case, I think that Silverberg should have left well enough alone.

His additions to the story include a huge novelette that could have been a sequel to "Nightfall", "Daybreak." Ugh. This section feels forced, like a movie that's trying desperately to have a happy ending, so it just keeps going until something less depressing happens. It is unneccessary, and detracts from the rest of the storyline as originally intended.

In summary, I can't see why this version is any improvement on Asimov's original, and I recommend that original instead of this superfluous adaptation.

Nightfall is a extrememly interesting book with amazing concepts. The storyline and plot keeps your eyes glued to the words, and you don't want to stop turning the pages until the climax. The book itself was written by both two of the most brilliant science fiction writers. Nightfall was only a short story by Isaac Asimov until he teamed up with Robert Silverberg. This book will pull you into the story as things turn dramatic. I read this in a matter of days and for you Sci-fi fans, you will be thinking about this book long after you read it.

Standard fair for asimov as he got older in that there is an excellent idea with an execution written for science-simpletons that was somewhat tedious.

Also standard fare for Robert Silverburg who, along with his highly obnoxious pseudointellectual fans, manages to be singularly pretentious to a degree I never imagined possible; he is the personification of arrogance with no justification in my admittedly not so humble opinion.

Read a real book on science if you want something truly interesting, but if you are an obnoxious Silverberg fan or if you simply must read every asimov book then go ahead.

Nightfall is a novel about what would happen to a people who have never experienced night once the sun goes down. Asimov came up with the idea of a planet in a 5 sun system. There are almost always 2 or 3 suns in the sky. On rare occasions, there is one sun in the sky, but never are there 0 sun in the sky. However, unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the planet (since it is never night and they do not see stars), the solar system also contains another planet the rotation of which causes an eclipse once in a great while. The eclipse just happens to always occur on a day in which only one sun in the sky. Therefore, during the eclipse, the planet experiences night.

Asimov wrote a short story about this planet and Silverberg and Asimov extended it to a full-length novel. I loved the novel and later found the short story and thought that was extremely well-done too.

In the novel, a group of scientists discover that the eclipse and the nightfall are imminent just at the same time as archeologists discover that societies have risen and fallen on the planet at regular intervals. The only other people who believe night is coming are the priests of a religion with whom the scientists do not get along. Thus, society is unprepared for nightfall despite the warnings of the scientists and the priests. Devastation follows during night as well as during the eternal day following the night.

Asimov and Silverberg do a compelling job setting up the discovery that night is coming. Their description of the actual eclipse and the reaction to it is truly fantastic. I also enjoyed (although a little bit less so) the description of the shambles of society after the day dawned again and, again, a little bit less, the rest of the story, although the characters have been written so well by this point that you really care what happens to them. The end could have been handled a lot better. The book ends abruptly, and, I think, in an unlikely way.

However, the ending is nothing that should stop you from reading this extremely well-done book about a truly creative idea.