"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov

The second short story we will be reading and discussing for our Sci-Fi unit is "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1941.  (Remember that it was published 70 years ago as you read ... these ideas and images were very progressive back at that time!)  Asimov is one of the most famous and prolific Sci-Fi writers of the 20th Century, and "Nightfall" is one of his most famous pieces, frequently referred to as his "best" story by Sci-Fi fans.  In this post is the link to "Nightfall" and Other Stories, a collection of Asimov's work.  "Nightfall" is the first story in the collection.  This story is more complex than the excerpt we read from 2001: A Space Odyssey, so some may find it more difficult to follow.  For that reason, you may want to print out the text and ANNOTATE it as you go along, taking notes on characters and plot, asking questions, etc.

In this pdf file, the individual pages are not numbered on the text, so you will need to write those in manually if you print it out.  (You will need to print pages 1 - 19.  Don't hit "print all" because it will print the entire book, which is over 200 pages!)  If you read it online, it will show the page number at the bottom of the computer screen as you scroll along.

The Table of Contents on the first page is followed by Asimov's introduction to "Nightfall."  Make sure you read that, too, to give you some background on the story.  The story begins on page 2, where it says "Nightfall" in boldface.  It ends on page 19 at the dash two-thirds of the way down the page. (Below the dash is the intro to the next story.)

And now, have fun reading
"Nightfall"

*Please note: If you research this story (and you probably should, as "close readers"), make sure you are looking up Asimov's short story version of "Nightfall" ... there is a longer, novelized version that Asimov worked on with Robert Silverberg years later.