Nightfall

You know what I'm saying? That's what it smells like to me.

I generally like referencing the book Nightfall by Isaac Asimov about how the first nightfall ever came and people were panicking and the scholars were saying that the world was going to end and all of that stuff for views like that.

But there's enough examples of insurance companies going under throughout history.

And in fact, in the city-states in the 1500s and the 1600s, there were annuities.

It would be an unthinkable terror, a force that could unravel the mind itself.

That is the premise of Asimov's Nightfall, a story that asks the question, what happens when a world bathed in endless sunlight faces its first true night? Nightfall by Asimov is interesting because you can read two versions of it.

Nightfall was originally published as a short story in 1941 and then later adapted into a novel in 1990 with the help of Robert Silverberg.

Both versions have the same premise but differ vastly in scope and character depth.

The short story is only about 30 pages long, a good length for a short story, but the novel is easily over 300 pages.

But for now, just know that this story, like many others during the golden age, was shaped by the editorship of none other than John W. Campbell.

According to Asimov himself, the story began to develop after a conversation he had with John W. Campbell based on a quote by 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? The influence of John Campbell can be felt basically all over Nightfall, in its focus on scientific reasoning, in its focus on psychological tension, the way ordinary people respond to extraordinary cosmic events.

The friendly darkness night brings to our own world on this far-off planet is a thing of terror, a breeder of panic and evil.

Be with us next week as we bring you Isaac Asimov's Nightfall.

Dimension X is presented transcribed each week by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

Today, Dimension X has presented Requiem, written for radio by Ernest Conoy, from the story by Robert Heinlein.

It would be an unthinkable terror, a force that could unravel the mind itself.

That is the premise of Asimov's Nightfall.

A story that asks the question, what happens when a world bathed in endless sunlight faces its first true night? Nightfall by Asimov is interesting because you can read two versions of it.

Nightfall was originally published as a short story in 1941 and then later adapted into a novel in 1990 with the help of Robert Silverberg.

Both versions have the same premise but differ vastly in scope and character depth.

The short story is only about 30 pages long, a good length for a short story, but the novel is easily over 300 pages.

But for now, just know that this story, like many others during the golden age, was shaped by the editorship of none other than John W. Campbell.

According to Asimov himself, the story began to develop after a conversation he had with John W. Campbell based on a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.