Back to the Future, Part 2
[In the following review, Stewart compares Asimov and Silverberg's rewrite of Nightfall with Asimov's original short story of the same name, focusing on the former's flaws and cultural influences.]
The essence of science fiction is suspension of disbelief. Readers are not supposed to notice that the Ringworld is unstable, that the sandworms of Dune are a biological impossibility, or that there is no evolutionary advantage for Thread in laying waste to every living thing on Pern; certainly not until long after the story has been read and enjoyed.
The original Nightfall, written by Isaac Asimov and published in Astounding in 1941, has suspended its readers' disbelief so effectively that it has topped more than one poll as the best SF short story of all time. Now Asimov and Robert Silverberg have expanded it into a novel. Hubris often begets nemesis; expanded timescales can leave the reader with an uncomfortably long period in which to ponder the tale's internal logic. The temptation to look, 50 years on, for flaws, is irresistible. So is the temptation to compare rewrite with original for cultural influences.
Irresistible temptations, by definition, cannot be resisted.
The remarkable appeal of Nightfall (1941) can be traced in part to its being science fiction: a story about science in the making and the scientists who make it, rather than about technological gimmicks. The scene is the planet Lagash, blessed with six suns, and upon which at least one sun never sets. The inhabitants never experience darkness; in consequence lack of light drives them mad. A group of astronomers, using the newly discovered law of gravitation, is led to postulate the existence of an unknown “nonluminous planetary body” whose orbit eclipses the red star Beta once every 2049 years, when it is alone in the sky … and an eclipse is on the way. Coincidentally, the Book of Revelations of The Cult, a bunch of religious fanatics, tells of strange things called “stars” appearing in the sky every two thousand years, and fire destroying the world. The fanatics are right, of course; and the maddened citizens set fire to their cities in a desperate bid to obtain light.
In Nightfall (1990) Lagash has become Kalgash (I have no idea why) and Beta is now Dovim. The story has three phases: well before the eclipse, the immediate events surrounding it, and the aftermath. The initial build-up is handled well, the background is filled in quite convincingly, and again the feeling of science in action propels the story along very effectively. In 1941 all the scientists were male, of course, and for once the traditional female SF role of scantily-clad victim went unrepresented. By 1990 there is a major female character, the archaeologist Siferra 89, who discovers—by accident—the layered remains of some seven to nine ancient cities, each separated from the next by a layer of ash, neatly spaced 2000 years apart. The Cult—now the Apostles of Flame—continues to play a key role, provoking the scientists' anger at its irrationality, especially when it dawns on them that the Apostles are right.
The eclipse itself has moments of high drama, but the slower pace of the novel and the tendency of characters to explain to each other things that the reader has already witnessed three pages earlier tends to dull the dramatic edge. Disbelief, given more time to grow, does so. Since every home possesses a “god-light” for use in darkened rooms, and the eclipse only lasts 12 hours, one begins to wonder why the scientists make so little effort to convince their government to take action. It would not have been hard to get everyone to stay home and wait it out. The blame for governmental indifference is laid at the door of the sceptical journalist Theremon; but is this really convincing? (Mind you, Mrs Thatcher's disregard of mad cow disease does cast doubt upon how much sense a government would actually exhibit if told the end of the world was at hand …)
Despite the blurb's promises, the aftermath is the most disappointing part of the book: a run-of-the-mill post-disaster scenario in which random protagonists wander around ineffectually, encountering entirely predictable and unconvincingly portrayed scenes of violence, insanity or squalor. Only because they tend to bump fortuitously into each other at crucial moments do any of them survive to participate in the final dénouement. The Apostles, so central to the build-up, disappear from view for so long that one wonders whether the authors have forgotten about them, until they suddenly emerge with a master-plan. I do not want to spoil the ending by telling you what it is, but for me the final twist wasn't very convincing. And poor Siferra 89, imported in the first part to even the scientific gender balance for the affirmative-action 1990s, ends up in part three doing little more than providing some love interest for Theremon. Apart from a gratuitous gunpoint striptease.
It is possible to go back to old ideas and breathe new life. Asimov did it well with Prelude to Foundation. Nightfall (1990) is readable, and not lacking in appeal to fans of the original. But it could have been done so much better. Nightfall (1941) ends with one of the most chilling final sentences in SF: “The long night had come again.” Nightfall (1990) ends with the journalist getting the girl.
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