Just read Nightfall (short story) by Asimov as it was one of the few listed here I hadn’t already read.
Isn’t it just a tad silly? No one on that planet has ever dug a hole? Been in an enclosed room? Shut their eyes? It also reminded me of why I can’t stand Asimov prose.
Re-read the story. People on that planet have played around with total darkness, as, for example, for an amusement park thrill ride. And when they’ve done so, people who experience it go crazy.
After skimming the thread, I decree these to be the undisputed best ever!
The Last Question.
All You Zombies.
A Sound of Thunder.
Light of Other Days.
Nightfall.
The Jaunt.
The Cold Equations.
Flowers for Algernon.
There Will Come Soft Rains.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
(And a nod for one of my personal faves: Flowering Mandrake)
I usually don’t need to re-read a story. Especially one such as this, lacking in readability as it is.
I just really don’t get this story though. I’m not trying to be an ass, I really don’t get it. If you could explain I’d be grateful.
The way I read it is: A non-human culture, who are pretty much human-like in the way they think, behave and move (only a few snippets in the story about their physical make-up, but it seems to be human-like) have an aversion to lack of light because their planet is constantly doused in light from several nearby suns. Until the great eclipse, which would only be an eclipse of one of their suns, wouldn’t it? So it would only be temporary, right? And this is supposed to send them all into madness.
Haven’t any of these people been in real or simulated darkness before? I know there are two examples of simulated darkness given in the short story but they are portrayed as really out of the norm happenings and worthy of scientific note, that also need to be reported to junior scientists.
So no one ever tied a blindfold over anyone else’s eyes, as is human nature, and played Blind man’s Bluff? No one’s ever dug a tunnel?
And how are the bunkered few surviving under their presumably enclosed hideout? Are they using torches too to stave them off from madness?
If you could explain any of the above I’d be grateful.
The eclipse happens when all the other suns are in the other side of the planet. The bunkered few hope that electric lights and torches will keep them sane, but the weirdness of a sky full of sky combined with the psychological effects of the legends of doom don’t bode well.
As far as the tunnels are concerned, these people don’t like darknesses, so they never would think of digging a tunnel without taking a lot of light along with them. They probably never built enclosed rooms until they had artificial lighting.
I wouldn’t say the story is incredibly well-written, but the sense of impending doom from a source the people are incapable of understanding makes it compelling enough to me.
Here are a few of my favourites (in no particular order):
Enthusiastically seconded. A distant-future Catholic inquisitor tries to suppress a schismatic church that worships St. Judas.
I would say that my all-time favorite short F&SF story was “Flowers For Algernon”. As with Moris, it is one of the very few times I’ve ever cried while reading a story. Very powerful.
I’ve always thought that the attraction everyone feels for “Nightfall” is the unexpected ending. Asimov has you speculating on all sorts of things, contemplating how you would react in similar circumstances, wondering what all the fuss is, and then throws in the kicker at the end, something you’d never expect that the planet and its stars are in the central region of the galaxy, and the sky is filled with the incredible glory of millions and millions of close stars.
I am quite partial to a short story writer not listed here from the 50s and 60s: Zenna Henderson. Many are partial to “Deluge”, but I much prefer “Captivity” (which, I know, was nominated for a Hugo as a novellette; “Flowers For Algernon” won as a novellette, so sue me 
). I read it the first time as a teen and loved it; read it again ten years later and recognized it instantly, and loved it again, and now that I teach, I’ve loved it even more.
“The Long Watch” is actually my favorite Heinlein short story, but that may be influenced by having read about John Ezra Dahlquist in Space Cadet, well before first reading the story.
A particularly funny short story I recall well was “License to Steal”, by Louis Newman. I read it in the 6th Galaxy Reader.
Robert Sheckley wrote many very good short stories. One in particular I loved upon first reading was “Seventh Victim”, which was made into the movie “The Tenth Victim.”
I don’t read much modern short story SF. Frankly, I don’t read much modern SF, period. Tends to be a lot of dreck, and hard to find the really good stuff. I recently re-joined the SFBC, and I’m not seeing anything showing up in the monthly catalogues to change my mind. 
i cant search posts easily on this stupid ipad so i have no idea if this already mentioned or not. But, here is my suggestion.
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Badbury.
Absolutely my favorite short story.
I’m pretty sure they never had light other than sunlight or fire. In the story the introduction of torches (dried reeds soaked in oil) was revealed to be a novelty in the last few minutes.
The best I can say of the story as a whole is that it’s a well-intentioned mess.
I reread that passage - you’re right about that.
Fine here a another one.
Shell Game P.K.Dick
A Psychiatry Ship full of Psychotics marooned on a foreign Planet.
They try to “make” Democracy very funny indeed and also very concerning.