Reddit mentions of Nightfall

While not my favorite ever I really enjoyed the Otherland series (only four volumes but each book is fairly large).

It's entertaining cyberpunk and features some interesting looks at the future. Very enjoyable read.

Another (shorter) series that is good for a quick read and a lighter introduction to scifi is The Risen Empire. Split into two parts (although together they would have made an only slightly-large novel) it's along the border of Hard Scifi and "pulp scifi". I'd consider it as an okay introduction to hard scifi.

Which leads me to the third and forth series, Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space. Reynold's is hard scifi, meaning that there are points where he spends twice as much time describing the technical details when character advancement would be very much welcome. However, this also means he takes into account things like relativistic travel and how boring space battles would be to spectators. Awesome books though.

Last but not least is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's hard scifi that doesn't lose sight of character development. Also, out of all the books I've mentioned I'd have to call it the most "realistic" as the technological point at which it starts could conceivably be reached in the next decade or so.

All enjoyable reads, all enjoyable scifi. After (or during) these don't forget to check out classics like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Banks, etc. Especially Asimov's Foundation books or the short(ish) story Nightfall, although the original short story can easily be considered better than the expanded version linked (so you might want to stop reading when you reach the end of the original).

nightfall by asimov? not quite the same, but my wife says this is rather familiar to that storyline.

Nightfall :-)

Robert Silverberg turned it into a whole book.

Good read.

Hopefully this won't get too buried, but one of my favorites is Nightfall.

Basic summary: A planet is orbited by six suns, and for all of known history there has been no night, there is always one sun in the sky. Everyone is scared of the dark. A scientist discovers some ancient dig sight with evidence of night and the end of man. Scientists try to publish their findings and receive scorn. Night comes, and SHIT GOES CRAZY.

I heartily recommend this for you if you like sci-fi.

The novel version is also amazing.

Between the night of this world, the open-air phobia of The Robot Series, and the denial of the fall of The Empire in The Foundation Series, Asimov seems to understand mass-hysteria and subtle psychologies in a way that I've yet to find anywhere else.

Thanks for promoting The Grand Master!