This resulted in the 1990 publication of the novel Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. Greenberg suggested Asimov find someone who would take his 47-year-old short story and – keeping the story essentially as written – add a detailed beginning and a detailed ending to it. Asimov believed that the unusual plot of 'Nightfall' distinguished it from others, but ' The Last Question' was his own favorite story. He later said that before 'Nightfall' neither he nor anyone else other than perhaps Campbell considered him more than a 'third rater' his name appeared on the cover of Astounding for the first time, and the story made him one of the field's top writers.

Consequently Asimov received US$166 ($3,100 in present-day dollars ), more than twice any previous payment for a story. Ĭampbell bought the story at a bonus rate of 1 + 1⁄ 4 cents per word and at more than 13,000 words, 'Nightfall' was Asimov's longest story yet. 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!Ĭampbell's opinion was to the contrary: 'I think men would go mad'. Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: It was the 32nd story by Asimov, written while he was a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University. Written from 17 March to 9 April 1941 and sold on 24 April, the short story was published in the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under editor John W. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted 'Nightfall' the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929–1964. The short story has been included in 48 anthologies and has appeared in six collections of Asimov's stories. It was adapted into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990. ' Nightfall' is a 1941 science fiction short story by the American writer Isaac Asimov about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated by sunlight at all times.

The nightfall by isaac asimov