Today, I read the short story “The Dying Night”, another mystery written by Isaac Asimov. Again, the mystery seemed to be almost impossible to solve, but for a crucial piece of evidence, and I enjoyed reading the story, as Wendell Urth was, amazingly, able to come up with the necessary evidence to solve the mystery. Three astronomers were meeting at an astronomical convention; they had been classmates ten years ago, but had all left for different planets—Talliaferro to the Moon, Kaunas to Mercury, and Ryger to Ceres. Villiers, however, who had been the best of the four handpicked astronomers, had gotten rheumatic fever and was unable to get a doctorate or even leave Earth. He sent a letter to the other three, though, announcing that he had found a method of mass transference and would soon be able to go to each of those planets. He visited them, briefly, and later on they went to his room, but they decided that he must be mad and thought little of it. Shortly after their visit, though, Mandel—an important astronomer—received a call from Villiers, discerning only the word “classmate”, but when he called back, Villiers was dead, and the paper on mass transference, which Mandel said had been real, was destroyed. The undeveloped film was found on a windowsill, but the sunlight had already destroyed it. Mandel asked his friend, Wendell Urth, to help him solve the mystery, and Urth was successful. I really enjoyed reading the story and would recommend it for anyone who likes Asimov, mystery, or wants to read an interesting story, and rate it 9.8/10. Can you solve the mystery?
phoenixbookreview 