Destiny's Road by Larry Niven

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Destiny's Road by Larry Niven
pub: Tor Books, 1997. 351 page hardback. Price: $24.95(US). ISBN: 0-312-85122-7. Also released by Orbit Books. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 1857235487

Check out website: www.tor.com

'Destiny's Road' follows the story of Jemmy Bloocher, a young man growing up in Spiral Town on the planet Destiny.

After killing a merchant trader who was menacing a local girl in the tavern, Jemmy finds himself on the run to escape merchant 'rough justice'. The story is about Jemmy's flight along Destiny's Road.

There is a post-holocaust feel to the story. The colonists have computers, von Neumann machines, robots and various future technologies but these machines are decaying and have become precious relics of the past.

The original colony ships flying low over the land formed the Road itself, using their back jets to melt rock into lava, thereby creating a smooth surfaced Road linking major settlements.

Alongside the Road, the colonists' lifestyles are perhaps early American. People live in small communities, linked to the outside world only by the merchant traders who move along the Road. Manual skills such as cooking, farming, sailing and hunting have become of paramount importance, since these skills ensure survival.

In true early-American style, these communities have developed their own fiercely independent sub-cultures, as have the merchant traders whom Jemmy joins at one stage.

As Jemmy journeys along the Road, each community provides him with more information as to the origins and nature of the colony. For example, he comes to understand the nature of the mysterious trace element for most of the book referred to as 'speckles', that the planet cannot supply into the colonist's diet and which the colonists can only obtain by trade.

Without speckles, the colonists become progressively stupid, regressive and ultimately degenerate into adult sized babies. The essential nature of speckles gives the merchant traders an entree into all the local communities and, later in the novel, speckles play a pivotal role as being one of the first causes for the structure of the colony and the communities.

While this sounds like and is, in many respects, a classic 'journey' tale, this is not really a quest of self-discovery for Jemmy but an understanding about the mysterious origins of the Destiny colony and planet.

Of course, along the way Jemmy has adventures, grows up somewhat and in classic Larry Niven style, these adventures make for a rollicking yarn. However, Jemmy's character develops only slightly.

He retains throughout his traits of curiosity and an ability to recognise patterns, essential characteristics for a protagonist whose role, in part, is to give the reader the experience of gradually piecing together the solution to the puzzles in the colonists' past.

The story answers all the questions that it poses and then some, proposing a subtle and profoundly effective way forward for the colony. The answers are not delivered bluntly and sometimes the answers are provided by suggestion. This is a refreshing aspect of the novel and a testament to Larry Niven's skill at leading the reader to water and letting the reader do the drinking.

This is a good read. For Larry Niven fans, it's a classic Larry Niven tale. For anyone who likes a good yarn and some intelligent questions, it is well worth a visit to the shops or the library to locate a copy.

I enjoyed the trip through this world and found it absorbing and mentally engaging. It was not the thrilling page turner that I found works like Peter Hamilton's 'Dawn Of The Night' trilogy to be, but was a good, interesting and adventurous yarn.

Karen Chapman

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