[MartinJH]

I think I know this one; it sounds exactly like “Seahorse in the Sky” by Edmund Cooper.

I’ve been lurking for a while, reading lots of really interesting threads, but I’m now looking for a book I’m trying to identify. But before I post about that I’m pleased that my first contribution is actually going to be of some use.

The main characters were all on a commercial air flight when they passed out. They then woke on a deserted replica of a town’s main street in the middle of a grassy plain, complete with a hotel to stay in and a shop whose goods were mysteriously replenished every night. They’d been abducted and set down with what their abductors considered to be what they needed for day-to-day life. They then discovered other communities of abductees from different cultures; for instance I think they had a run in with a tribe of bronze age level horsemen.

Spoiler – giving away the ending…
After much exploring they discovered that they were not abductees at all, but actually copies of the people they thought they were, their originals having carried on with their lives on Earth unaware that anything had happened on that air flight. After that revelation they realised that they weren’t going to get home to Earth, and the only place that they could really call “home” was the planet that they’d found themselves on. The books ends with a jump forward in time to the launch of their descendants’ first manned space rocket.

I’ve not read it for years, but I remember really enjoying it, in fact I think I’ll see if I can track down my old copy.

Martin