I finished the Novella A Hole in the Sun by Roger MacBride Allen today. It appeared in the April 1987 edition of Analog, which I picked up while I was at MileHiCon the weekend before last. The other stories in the magazine were definitely fun to read, but I wanted to comment on this one because it struck me a little closer than the others. Spoilers below.

To start, A Hole in the Sun is about a wealthy young man, Jason, who uses his money and influence to get a nearly-dead solar observatory project off the ground. The project’s creator is a retired scientist named Joseph, who, at first, wants to dislike Jason – he’s just too nice, and is getting something done that he never could because of his money. Luckily, Jason is nicer still, and appoints Joseph as the director of the observatory, not just a figurehead, but someone to run the place in earnest.

It’s not long after that Jason earns the respect of the other scientists in the observatory as a scientist in his own right. As the observatory makes it solar polar orbit, they discover new and exciting facts about the sun, an, in the peak of the solar flare season, they make a huge discovery of a gigantic weather pattern that would allow them to get readings from much deeper than they ever thought possible. It’s here that decisions are made which ultimately decide the outcome of more than just their experiments…

Ultimately, this story really caught me because of two things: First, it really feels like classic sci-fi. This is not to say that I don’t like modern sci-fi, but I really enjoyed the way this story dodged the issues involved with getting a solar observatory going, and really made it feel like such a thing could happen. This is something I love about science fiction from the 70s and 80s that typically seems lacking lately. Also, this story provided the backdrop of classism well – it was always there, but it was never at the forefront. It was the little things, not the main story. But, in the end, it brought it all back together excellently.