"Nightfall" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated at all times on all sides. It was later adapted into a novel. Nightfall has been anthologized four dozen times, and has appeared in a half-dozen collections of Asimov's stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall the best science fiction short story written prior to the establishm...
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"Nightfall" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated at all times on all sides. It was later adapted into a novel. Nightfall has been anthologized four dozen times, and has appeared in a half-dozen collections of Asimov's stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall the best science fiction short story written prior to the establishment of the Nebula Awards in 1965 and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964.
The short story was published in the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine under editor John W. Campbell. It was the 32nd story by Asimov, written while he was working in his father's candy store and studying at Columbia University. According to Asimov's autobiography, Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The fictional planet Lagash (Kalgash in the...
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