Nightfall (DIMX)

Isaac Asimov's Nightfall was first published in Astounding Science Fiction (Sep. 1941). It has been anthologized countless times, adapted into a novel by Robert Silverberg (1990), voted best science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America (1968), and was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Nightfall is about a planet that has experienced constant sunlight for thousands of years and is about to be thrown into darkness by an eclipse. As such, I would call it "hard SF." The story is far from perfect/believable, but it definitely poses some interesting questions.

According to Asimov's autobiography, Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!

Campbell's opinion was: "I think men would go mad."

Dimension X #50
Nightfall
29 Sep 1951
19510929(050)_DIMX_Nightfall.mp3
Cameron Prud'Homme, Isaac Asimov (author), Lyle Sudrow, Ernest Kinoy (adaptor), John McGovern, Norman Rose (host), Albert Buhrman (music), William Welch (producer), Fred Weihe (director), Bill Rippe (announcer), Staats Cotsworth, Joseph Boland