Destiny's Road

This novel is, in fact, a departure for Niven in narrative form and staging from his other works; it is also somewhat of a departure from the more conventional SF market as a whole. These points of departure are definitely strengths. This book is a long, slow burn describing the ecology and history of a colony world through the eyes of its main character and his life's quest, a young man who has come to question the very nature of his society and the reasons for that nature. It's not action-packed, nor is it particularly a political thriller; it's much more like an Ursula K. Le Guin construction than works of Niven's like "Ringworld."

Two significant flaws merit mention. There is a long, low learning curve for the reader at the beginning show more of "Destiny's Road" that makes following along pretty tough, let alone grasping intricacies. Also, the Windfarm part of the book seems poorly proofread and inconsistent; it gets hard to keep track. Seems like the author himself keeps confusing Spiral Town and Destiny Town in the text.

Other than that, this is a mature and satisfying novel. I have to admit, I've reread a number of Niven's earlier novels over the last few years and they haven't aged well at all. Never strong at writing characters, Niven laced his earlier books with creepy sexism and bigotry that handicaps them. Those aren't present here. 'DR' makes it into the rotation on its merits as a tale part "Odyssey" and part "Always Coming Home." show less

This was an interesting world to delve into. The main character is from a colony on a new world, and as far as he knows it is the only colony. His life seems on track until a surprise event forces him to leave his town and he starts to find out more about his world. He is smart, and curious, and this drives his adventure. It is an interesting book to read because the main character - the voice of the story - is so ignorant of his surroundings that the reader is often left in the dark since the character hasn't quite figured this out yet. I enjoyed following his adventure and discovering his world along with him.

I haven't really read Larry Niven much, not even Ringworld, and I wanted to give him a try. Destiny's Road is a story of a colony from Earth to a planet called Destiny, over 200 years after its establishment. The story is a mystery really, as we follow Jemmy Bloocher as he travels from Spiral Town, a hick city that is the original landing spot of the colony but that is totally dependent on the Caravans that come twice a year from a mysterious other place, about which the merchants will not speak. The key element the Caravans carry are Speckles, the only source of potassium on the planet, without which everyone's mind will turn to mush.
Jemmy is forced to leave Spiral Town after killing one of the merchants, and has to change his show more identity. We follow his travels as he strives to learn the parts of the planet's history that is kept secret from Spiral Town and the other villages on "The Crab", the strip of land they farm and cannot leave.
I wanted to try Niven alone after reading 2 books he wrote with Gregory Benford, which frustrated me because, while the story was cool, the writing was difficult to follow. I hoped that I could get the cool story with better writing.
But alas, not this time. I like that Niven creates a world with what I presume is plausible science (also true of the Benford books), but he just isn't good at explaining this stuff to the lay person. By the end of the book, some things became clearer, but I guess I don't want to work that hard to understand what's going on. And while the mystery is great, and unfolds nicely, Jemmy's travels are odd, disjointed, and random with too many characters who aren't adequately fleshed out.
I need to try Ringworld.
Oh, one more thing: would it really have killed him to put a map of Destiny somewhere in the book? I guess he didn't want to include it at the front, since details of the colony were part of the mystery. But I would have liked to see a map somewhere in the second half of the book, so I could visualize the layout better. show less

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.

All in all, a decent book. There are some interesting ideas in world-building - otterfolk, the Wind, the control experiment. I didn't appreciate as much some of the narrative choices, particularly the nature of how the secret about the Cavorite was revealed, along with what all was going on. It felt underwhelming; part of this was the nature of what was revealed, and part was how it was revealed and how the main character reacted to it. But even so, it made for an interesting story in an interesting world.

This was an interesting story, but exceedingly slow. I understand Niven's narrative had the uphill battle of creating an entirely new civilization on an alien world and I think he did a great job pulling it all together in the end. Much of the last couple chapters was an infodump where Jemmy finally learns the secrets of the caravans and uses it to free his people from ancient tyranny.

I think this would've worked better for me if the book was 20-25% shorter.

Strange planet - check
Mystery path or road - check
Unknown history of settlement or town - check
Crime or altercation resulting in sudden banishment from home - check

Destiny's Road has all your classic elements for a quest slash adventure romp. Set on the alien planet of Destiny the book follows a young man who flees from his home with more questions than answers.

The tale of adventure across the planetscape and slow uncovering of secrets and distortions was well paced and I certainly enjoyed the unexpected events as they unfolded. They were far enough out of field that they're unexpected but not so far that they're silly or break the your immersion in the story.

It's good futuristic scifi tale, felt the ending could have been better show more however I can see what the author was trying to do there. show less