I've returned to this science fiction novel for the third time.  It's a good update of an idea that probably started with the Robinson-Crusoe-style stories of the nineteenth century.  One such novel was Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island" (go directly to the book, not the films), in which a group of people is marooned on a desert island after a balloon crash and must use modern knowledge to fend for themselves and fashion strategies for rescue.  Jerry Sohl's version of the problem occurs when a dimensional field experiment uproots a few city block's worth of people and drops them at an Earth-like location with the provisions of nature but not much else.  

   What happens next is a revealing picture of human nature that stands opposite William Golding's "Lord Of The Flies".  Where Golding stresses violent tendencies among those who are deprived of the trappings of civilization, Sohl's story has the more rational and cooperative people (most of them) advancing quickly, while the less rational and more violent separate from the larger society and stagnate on a caveman level.  Predictably, the advanced group moves closer toward the discoveries that promise a way home, while the regressive group proves a military annoyance. 

   An enjoyable and perceptive effort, it should be reprinted.  In the 1960's and '70's, many printings were in circulation, so it should be easy to locate in used book stores.

11/15/2009