Kerschen, a former teacher, is now the executive director of a children's charity and a freelance writer. In this essay, Kerschen examines the similarities to Earth culture that permeate the alien world found in Asimov's most-admired short story.

"Nightfall," one of Isaac Asimov's earliest and best-known short stories, presents an alien world in crisis. Lagash has six suns and perpetual daylight, yet it is populated by humans, and they are struggling to confront the unknown and survive. Through the story, Asimov champions science and rational behavior as the only viable vehicles under such circumstances. Endowing life on Lagash with many of the same characteristics as that on Earth, the message is hard to miss that Asimov is commenting on what he sees as helpful and harmful to his own world's civilization.

Michael Stanton, in an overview of Asimov for the Reference Guide to American Literature, says that...