Customer Reviews

Costigan's Needle

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Costigan's Needle is a classic SF story from 1953, that while a little dated, remains an interesting story. Its strong point is a rebuilding of technology and society from scratch, working from the expertise, intelligence and drive of a small, random collection of less than 500 people that find themselves naked on a previously unpopulated alternate earth. A minor cliff-hanger at the end leaves room for a sequel, that apparently was never written, but doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the novel.

This is one of the all-time great sci-fi books, and especially relevant now with the rise of intolerant religious fanatics of all stripes and sorts.
A time machine is being built in the middle of Chicago, when a band of conservative religious zealots sabotages the machine (shades of tossing sabots into the looms!), and a chunk of busy workaday downtown Chicago is whisked into a primeval past (or perhaps post-apocalyptic future?). Nothing metallic survives, so there are no tooth fillings or belt buckles or weapons.
The cross-section of humanity thus transported needs to survive so they use all their skills to find resources and build a community.
Alas, the zealots are also transported and want no part of the rebuilding of a rational community, so create their own primitive and brutal theocracy just over the hill.
It's a wonderful contrast between the multi-skilled and multi-cultural community of disparate individuals tossed together, compared with the zealots whose religion suddenly must account for their transportation into the future -- a difficult thing for folks who don't believe in science.

Great read. Provocative story. My original long ago disappeared, and here I am over 30 years later happy to find a used copy and immerse myself in it again.

I read this story when I was a kid ... 50+ years ago. A few weeks ago I decided to find a copy and re-read Jerry Sohl's classic. It was still a fun read. The dealer I purchased this from was quick to send it out - I recommend both the book and the seller!

There is a kind of science fiction story that might be called the "fabulous invention" story. The author imagines an invention of some sort-- a television time scope, a matter duplicator, a series of teleportation gates, a super-sharp strip of wire-- and then dramatizes the effect that such an invention would have on society or on individual people.

This sounds easy to do, but it is not. To do it well, the author must imagine the invention in detail-- what it looks like, how it works, what it does... And what it _doesn't_ do. An invention with no limits on its functions and abilities is not realistic. There must be some parameters to it; it must operate in certain ways. Otherwise, it will not be believable . The fabulous invention story is essentially a kind of logical fiction: Given _this_ invention, then there will be _these_ consequences. But the consequences aren't likely to be credible unless the premise of the invention is convincing.

Jerry Sohl's _Costigan's Needle_ (1953) is a fabulous invention story, and a good one. The inventor is a fellow named Winfield Costigan. He is not a mad scientist, but he is an independent scientist operating out of a basement laboratory. The invention (as we see it early in the novel) is a rocket-shaped device about three feet high with an opening-- an "eye"-- at the base. You can look through the opening and see the other side. But when you put your hand through the opening, it vanishes. It feels either cold or wet on the other side. But when you pull your hand back it becomes warm or dry.

What lies on the other side of the needle's hole? Costigan isn't sure, but he runs a series of experiments that convince him that it operates according to several laws. One law: living things (plants, mice, people) can pass through. Nonliving things (watches, cloth, fillings from teeth, dead bodies) cannot. Nonliving things attached to living things (fingernails, hair) will pass through.

A combination of money and public pressure leads to the building of a jumbo-sized needle sooner than it should have been built. There is an act of sabotage, and suddenly several hundred people find themselves whisked out of Chicago and stranded in a parallel world. The remainder of the novel is a kind of Robinsonade, in which these people struggle for survival and to rebuild a society.

Jerry Sohl was a newspaperman who knew how to tell a good story in an economical manner. (I wish to God that more writers today knew that art.) Yes, the story is a touch old-fashioned. But it still holds up well. Give this one your attention.

Great premise and excellent building of characters and the science to support the story. Thoroughly enjoyable without the gratuitous "monsters" and gore.