Core: 8/9. I would never forget this theme was derived from Emerson’s quote.

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?

Asimov then created an alien world holding an unending daylight by multiple suns and accordingly spun an impressive story, although the star here is not the symbol of God but the symptom of the hell.

Nightfall is meant to be that peculiar occasion which would see the catastrophe, the crowd insanity, and the cyclic doom of civilizations predicted or recorded by their planet’s cult. But scientifically speaking, it’s just the eclipse.

That’s why protagonists constantly wondered why the darkness and stars drove the previous civilization into madness and destruction. Some of them tested themselves to the dark and stars but didn’t find it horrible. Some of them surmised it’s just a complete darkness and coldness that had annihilated civilizations. The recorded millions of stars were just illusions. Some of them proposed there exist two dozen distant and indifferent suns. 

So when the once-in-a-millennium nightfall finally came about, they were all thrown into consternation by the sudden appearance and huge numbers of suns in the universe.

I surmise that they were probably all dismayed or shocked by their tiny existence and overturn of senses when they found their real universe is infinite, cold, dark and indifferent to their existence which overturned all their presumptuous beliefs. They suddenly knew the real universe was never as warm, finite, and bright as their perceived one through the “falling of wall”. I like the philosophical aesthetics in it: Our sense of security may be constructed merely on prejudice, folly or lies.

Character: 5/9. It possesses several lively characters, but I don’t think the intention of the cultists is depicted well. In addition, why the columnist had ridiculed Aton for two months and then suddenly came to ask Aton for the details?

Aton: the director of Saro University, who was an astronomer and took charge of the observatory. He seemed strict and serious all the time.

Theremon: the columnist who once ridiculed Aton and his colleagues by leading a campaign against Aton’s efforts to warn the menaces and therefore thwarted Aton’s attempt to save the world.

Beenay: the assistant of Aton who brought Theremon into the Observatory.

Sheerin: a lovable psychologist who left the Hideout to accompany his friends, witness the doomsday, and satisfy his own curiosity in the last minute. He loved alcohol and was more easy-going than Aton.

Sor: the head of the cult who once cooperated with Aton.

Latimer: the adjutant of Sor who was sent to thwart Aton’s observation.

Plot: 6/9. It seems like a good mystery story.

Aton scorched Theremon and told him in four hours the civilization would end and there’s no point in reporting this. Beenay however begged Aton to give Theremon a chance to know about the truth since the columnist might help if the prediction turned out wrong. Other staff agreed, and therefore Aton couldn’t deny the proposal.

Sheerin came back from the hideout and broke into the morgue-like atmosphere. Therefore, Aton allowed Sheerin to indoctrinate Beenay: The cultists said in the Book of Revelations that every 2500 years all the suns disappeared, and things called stars would come out and rob men of their minds, and therefore it destroyed previous civilizations.

Aton peevishly rushed out of the room, and Sheerin explained that Faro and Yimot had not come back, and he was terrifically short-handed for the following measurement.

Then he talked about the history of astronomy and the demonstration of the Law of Universal Gravitation. But it turned out this law could not account for the orbit observed. So Aton called in Sor to find some inspiration, and then it was supposed there might exist an invisible planetary body that would cause the eclipse with Beta, and it’s calculated to happen once every 2549 years. Probably it’s the eclipse that would bring about the universal darkness and the mysterious and ominous stars that would start over the cycle of civilizations.

Aton and other scientists had only two months to warn the public but failed thanks to Theremon and the like. So they arranged for some relatives and believers to go into the hideout, whereas they themselves were determined to record the eclipse so as to pass the truth to mankind in the next cycle, even if it risked their own lives.

Theremon didn’t believe that darkness could drive him mad even after he experienced the darkness by drawing the curtain. Sheerin supposed it would be caused by the claustrophobe exemplified by the real case he met in the exposition. (Maybe people in that world never had a time with total darkness and therefore they reacted more severely to the total darkness than people on Earth, both physiologically and psychologically.) But Theremon still doubted it. (He clearly forgot that it’s the stars that drove people mad in the Book of Revelations.)

Theremon asked how to get light, and Sheerin prompted that people can burn wood. (Clearly their civilization doesn’t have to resort to torch against the coldness and darkness.) So he surmised desperate people would burn whatever was nearest to get light, and then the world would go up in flames.

They heard Yimot and Faro’s hubbub, and it turned out these two risked themselves in the experiment of simulating darkness and stars but found nothing really happened. Theremon prided himself and asked Sheerin before they heard a sharp clang caused by the intruder Latimer.

Latimer was the adjutant of Sor, who abhorred Aton because Aton blasphemed their belief by backing it as a natural phenomenon and attempted to warn the world to take measures against the menace. From their belief, acting against the will of stars would put souls in jeopardy. So he was sent to wreck his device, but he was caught for his own clumsiness.

Sheerin didn’t want a person to lock in the closet and starve to death. So he offered to watch Latimer with Theremon and then threatened Latimer that if he didn’t swear to be an honorable man, he would be locked up and lose the only opportunity to welcome the stars and lose his immortal soul according to their belief. Latimer gave in and reluctantly pledged.

Beta was chipped on one side 15 minutes ago, which Aton ignored in the fuss by Latimer. They heard Latimer quoting the Book of Revelations. But Latimer shifted onto another language upon finding their spying.

Beta was chipped a third. Sheerin found the Cult making the most of the eclipse to proper themselves by holding a gigantic revival. Theremon wondered how the cultists managed to keep the Book of Revelations going from cycle to cycle. Sheerin supposed people who had not been mentally disturbed might record this event.

Aton told them he was informed by the Hideout that the cultists were rousing people to storm the Observatory by promising them salvation and anything. Sheerin thought they could gamble the observational time against the mob. 

Beta was cut in half, and Theremon found Sheerin had symptoms of claustrophobia. Sheerin continued that stars might be the illusion caused by madness rather than the cause.

Beenay proposed that less than two dozen dim far-off suns might account for the so-called millions of stars since people at that time couldn’t grasp numbers higher than five or could exaggerate the number.

Aton brought out the light. They worked themselves. But Aton found madmen came. So Sheerin and Theremon secured and reinforced the fortress-like observatory.

Latimer finally decided to disobey his pledged word of not sabotaging the camera before the last thread of sunlight. But Theremon thawed him. (I think Latimer could be depicted more positively. For example, in his belief, he was doomed to mortal peril because of the violence of his pledge, but he did it for the sake of millions of other souls. Also, the scene could be more dramatic.)

Latimer saw the total splendor of thirty thousand mighty suns without heat. Theremon thought himself about to go mad had it not been for the existence of man-made light. Aton was crying like the frightened child, for they once thought Lagash and six stars were something in the universe, but the nightfall told them that they were actually nothing and the real cosmos was actually forever darkness, contrary to the persistent illumination they sensed and conceived.

A crimson glow grew in the Saro City. The long night had come again.

World and Others: 4/9. I’m extremely curious about a world with never-ending daylight, but the author didn’t put much attention to the depiction.

Is it a searing planet compared to Earth? How did they observe a sky without darkness? How did their scientists find that Lagash was rotated about the sun rather than vice versa without proper observation? Is it enough just by observing and recording 6 suns? How could they never find out the fatality of darkness if they indeed had curtain, house and dark places in their architecture? They should probably found it out long time ago that darkness would be harmful to their mental health. Were their architecture different from ours?

Alpha: Lagash’s exact sun, about which Lagash really revolved. It has Beta and two other distant companion pairs. Beta: Alpha’s immediate companion. Gamma: The brightest sun in Lagash’s 6 suns.

Overall: 6/9. Good.

Frankly speaking, I was appalled by the fact that even a work from about 80 years ago still betters some of the science fiction today.

Still, I thought it indeed exists some imperfections such as the intention of cultists and the world view.