Literature In The Evening (LitE)

History Repeats Itself and so does this blog!

A few years ago I read an Isaac Asimov novel titled. Nightfall. It is about a planet with mutliple suns that, on a typical day, does not have darkness. There are three scientists (and one journalist) that the book follows: an astronomer, archaelogist, and psychologist.

• The astonomers find an error in the long standing theorized orbit of their planet and they believe that the error is caused by a moon.
• The archaelogist found an ancient city that, when "pealed" back revealed that at a constant interval was burned down and reconstucted many times.
• The psychologist investigates an amusemnt park ride that uses darkness as part of its scary factor, but many riders go crazy from it. The people of this planet are not used to darkness.

As a person can conclude from my descriptions, the moon causes an eclipse that casts darkness upon the land. Bringing society down with it. Every 1000s of years (I don't recall the actual time interval), the entire civilization must be rebuilt.

I found the book to be very well written and interesting. The plot is captivating and the characters are intriguing. I have not given away every plot detail either; there are many aspects of the story that I am leaving out of my description ;)

As of late, I have began to wonder if Asimov wrote this book as a warning to the world that history does repeat itself and that another dark age is possible. Also, Asimov also wrote a historical (nonfiction) book on the dark ages (titled The Dark Ages). So, should we start making bets on when the new dark age sets in? What needs to be done to avoid it? Will people heed any warning we give them? I don't know yet, maybe I will have a better idea when I finish Dark Age Ahead.