This is one of those SciFi books that is really more of a character study but in a SciFi setting.

Forced by circumstances, Jemmy leaves his home - a colony of Earth people that had been left on a distant planet that built Spiral City. He takes off down a road that had been formed by the landing craft that had originally brought the colonists. No one who has ever travelled down the road has ever returned. Jemmy doesn't have any choice and there begins his journey.

I don't feel this is one of Niven's better novels. There are gaps in the time-line that glared out at me and inconsistances abound.

Towards the end Niven attemps to put in exlanations of why this world works the way it does but it doesn't really jive and I was just thankful to be ending the book by the end. ( )

One of my favourite Larry Niven novels. He builds civilizations but doesn't forget humanity.

Spiral Town is home to the settlers of the Starcruiser Argos which abandoned them 250 years ago on the planet Destiny. Shortly afterwards their landing craft, The Cavorite, disappeared. It left behind a Road seared into the rock as it departed. Where did it go? No settler who has ever travelled down the Road has returned.

Jeremy Bloocher flees Spiral Town and begins a lifelong journey down the road to find Destiny Town and the truth. ( )

Jemmy Bloocher is accused of murder. He flees and finds himself travelling along the road created by the landing craft the Cavorite made. No one has ever gone down this road and returned. It follows the whys and wherefores of how people live and survive on this planet. Not exactly my kind of thing but not a bad tale of a colony. ( )