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Title: Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg ISBN: 0-553-29099-1 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1991 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.02 (60 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Not as good as the short story, but still worth a read.
Comment: This book expands the original short story "Nightfall" written by Asimov many years ago. Just about every science fiction aficionado agrees that the original story, based on an Emerson quotation, is one of the classics of the genre. The basic premise is a superb leap of the imagination. Picture a planet which is part of a six-sun system. The respective orbits of the planet and the six suns are so defined, that one or more of the suns is always in the sky over any part of the planet. As a result, the people of the planet have only the faintest conception of what the absence of light i.e. darkness can be. With no dark night sky, they have no idea of other stars in the universe (forget radio astronomy as an inconvenient abstraction!). As far as they know, they are the masters of the universe. Now picture an unexpected total eclipse, at a time when only one sun is in the sky: a strange and frightening darkness covers the land, and the night sky now reveals millions of stars looking down on the stunned populace. How does a society deal with so drastic a blow to its fundamental picture of itself? In sheer imagination, in boldness, in vision, this story has few equals. The skillful blending of a religious doomsday cult and its interweave with a psychologist and baffled yet striving physical scientists brings out the roles of superstition and rationalism in society. I still remember the awe that gripped me when I first read this story more than a decade ago. This collaborative book builds upon the story and introduces some interesting ideas. The use of archaeology to derive the cyclical history of the plant is both imaginative and educative. The longer book format also allows the author to develop the characters more fully than in the short story. The weakness of the book however is the ending; to be fair, the cataclysmic end portrayed in the short story cannot possibly be improved upon. All the book does is stretch out the period of rebirth, adding interesting human vignettes along the way. I withhold one star for this reason. Do not miss this book, but do try to read the short story of the same name that started it all.
Rating: 5
Summary: Glorious
Comment: Another superb work by the Grand Master of the genre, co-written by another great author, namely Robert "Where Silverberg goes today Sci-Fi goes tomorrow" Silverberg. An ingenius plot, with seemingly unmatched detail. A six-sun world, where not a second is without the glow of light from at least one of the gleaming suns. Except one day where in a matter of hours the vail of darkness envelops the world of these sun-shoned creatures. Struck by sudden madness they tear their world apart, dooming civilization. The depth of thought and vision needed to contribute to the world of litterature in the way this book has done, is what makes Asimov the GRAND Master of Science Fiction.
I was grasped by it when I read it the first time and I have enjoyed every single moment the other five times I've read it! Intense excitement and suspense makes it a worthy equal to "Nightfall": The short story, not to mention many other great works by this and the other masters of the genre.
Rating: 5
Summary: Good stuff
Comment: 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.
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Title: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553288105 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 04 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Nemesis by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0553286285 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0575071184 Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov, Ralph McQuarrie ISBN: 0451450647 Publisher: Roc Pub. Date: 06 July, 2004 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: I, Robot by ISAAC ASIMOV ISBN: 0553294385 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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