NIGHTFALL
Isaac Asimov’s splendid short story NIGHTFALL is a perfect Sunday read—especially as a companion piece to all the scary movies of the Halloween season. Set on the fictional planet Lagash, where six suns hang in the sky at all times, the story is about the final hours before night falls for the first time in 2049 years. This is a world blessed and cursed by eternal sunshine. Darkness is a myth that nobody has seen—until a rare eclipse that is about to send the world into unknown territory. Asimov brings a dazzling mix of fear, naïveté, intellectual curiosity, and wicked humor to a story that feels increasingly absurd—where scientists, psychologists, and cultists speculate about the soul-robbing nature of nighttime and marvel at the use of fire to produce light. "Imagine darkness–everywhere. No light, as far as you can see. The houses, the trees, the fields, the earth, the sky–black! Can you conceive it?" The terror of darkness pulses through vivid dialogue that feels silly for its implausibility, but profound in its desire for light—a timeless symbol of sanity and hope. Stories like NIGHTFALL are why I’m so in love with spooky tales, because the best of them push me to think how I would react in the face of the terrifying.
—Lauren Ma, Business Affairs Coordinator
