Notes
Against the Fall of Night, a novel by Arthur C. Clarke.

First published in a shorter form in Startling Stories (November 1948 issue), the novella was then revised and expanded for publication as a novel in 1953.

A further revised and expanded version was published as The City and the Stars in 1956.

Against the Fall of Night was reissued in 1990 in a single volume with Beyond the Fall of Night, a sequel by Gregory Benford.

The image opposite and the blurb below are from the 1970 printing of the Pyramid Books paperback edition. Cover illustration by John Schoenherr.

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
Destiny In His Hands

Alvin hesitated a moment. None of his people had left the City for uncounted millions of years.

"Diaspar has everything," they said; ''why should we go outside into the desert?" But Alvin knew the fear that underlay the seeming free preference – the records he had studied hinted at the dark truth.

We are safe as long as long as we stay in Diaspar, the records said. If we leave . . . the Invaders will come again from the wastes between the worlds. And Man will not survive another such attack. . . .

Alvin knew the risk – but he knew, too, that if he did not take it, mankind was doomed to a lingering death – slower, but as sure as any the Invaders would bring.

Knowing that the fate of his race rested in his hands, he leaned forward and pressed the vehicle's starting button. . . .

". . . a novel of epic humanity . . . one of the most rewarding science fiction novels of the year."
- H.H. Holmes, New York Herald Tribune