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Against the Fall of Night is an early (1953) work by Arthur C. Clarke. Originally appearing in the November, 1948 issue of the magazine Startling Stories, it was first published in book form in 1953 by Gnome Press. It was later expanded and revised as The City and the Stars. The original also appeared in a more recent edition along with another unconnected early work: The Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night. A sequel called Beyond the Fall of Night was written in collaboration with Gregory Benford.
[edit] Comparison with The City and the Stars
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- The work opens with a fragment, apparently originally written in isolation in 1935, in which all Diaspar has fallen silent and Alvin is called out by his father to see something in the sky. Alvin's father says he has only ever seen one other. It is a cloud. This scene dramatises the "desert at the end of time" setting, but is not quite consistent with the detail that we are later told that Rorden had never seen the stars until Alvin shows him the outside.
[edit] References
- Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd., 302.
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent, 101. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
