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The author, Miles Mathis, recently read Isaac Asimov’s short story “nightfall” after learning it was voted the greatest science fiction story of all time. Mathis found the narration and dialogue sappy and the science illogical. The story is set on a planet with six suns, where only Beta is visible at the time of the story. A large, previously unknown moon is about to eclipse Beta, plunging the planet into total darkness for the first time for its inhabitants, an event that supposedly occurs every 2049 years. The planet’s inhabitants have never experienced darkness or seen stars, although Cultists prophesied their existence and the madness that seeing them would cause.
Mathis points out a major flaw: with five other suns, the eclipsing moon would be illuminated by their reflected light, preventing total darkness. The moon would be significantly brighter than Earth’s moon. He believes he might be the only one to have noticed this, though he found a few others questioning the six-sun system online, none of whom mentioned the moon’s reflected light. The only way for the story’s premise to work would be if the planet were eclipsing all five suns from lighting the moon, which would require all six suns to be in a line, an event unlikely to happen on a 2049-year cycle or even on a scale of millions of years. Furthermore, even if it occurred, it would be too brief to cause significant stress. Mathis also finds the core conceit – that these people have never experienced darkness – ridiculous, arguing that darkness can be easily experienced during the day in enclosed spaces or by closing one’s eyes. He found the story “an embarrassing absurdity” and could not finish it.
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