Plot: 6/9. The narrator depicted his tedious flight in detail before finally exposed what exactly troubled him so much. I supposed no one could predict the impressive ending except Clarke himself.

Three thousand light years from Vatican in space, the narrator, a Jesuit as well as Chief astrophysicist on the spaceship surveying the supernova, found a fact that would vacillate his belief and even might end the history of their religion:

Their religion recorded a supernova was once ignited by their God to shine above Bethlehem. But he calculated out that the detonation of this star actually destroyed a civilization.

Core: 7/9. I like the contradiction between conscience and religion. I would give a higher score if it rendered some hints to people who were unfamiliar to the Christian history like me.

Character: 4/9. The only impressive character here was the narrator. I would give a higher score if any interesting dialogues between him and his atheistic colleagues were written down.

World and Others: 7/9. The description of the dilapidated relics of the civilization and stars was spectacular and moving.

Overall: 6/9. It deserved the Hugo Award by rendering so much complicated emotions in such a short article. That’s why I love sci-fi.

Personally, I think a good ending was a must for the short science fiction because one could not render good environments or characters in a few words. So the author must enshrine the plot with an unexpected answer to the constructed mystery or a spectacular twist in the end.

Just like Asimov’s Noghtfall, I think it a great talent to spin up a short story with this such a spectacular answer at last that no later generation wanted to imitate the same gimmick ending because every reader would immediately realized the core had already been written.

I want to read more short science fiction like this.