Customer Reviews

Destiny's Road

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

This is an average book, and not one of the author's best. The plot seems to ramble. Without a prelude to explain the planet, the characteristics are left to be picked up in bits and pieces. The author creates a planet with essentially a 32 week year, but then forgets where he is on the time-line. A man leaves home for a few months, and then returns to find his wife remarried with a child, a major evolutionary leap in 240 years. There are far too many improbabilities (e.g., people don't visit, and are not aware of, the next town, a bicycle ride away). the main character wanders, leaving various people behind, and the book seems to end without a solid conclusion. There are major gaps in the account in the later part of the book after minute detail in the early part. Perhaps the author plans a sequel, but I doubt that I would buy such a sequel.

Let me start off by saying that I am a big fan of Larry Niven. To be more specific, however, I am a big fan of the 1970s Larry Niven. The Niven of the past ten or so years seemed to have little in common with that 70s Niven. He had lost something. Books like "The Ringworld Throne" were pale imitations of his previous works. Where had the real Larry Niven gone?

So it took my quite a while to pick up a copy of "Destiny's Road." But I finally did so, and I'm happy to report that my faith in Larry has been restored. He is back. Big time.

"Destiny's Road" is one of Niven's best ever, and it may be the best science fiction novel to come out of the 1990s.

The plot, briefly, is this: Young Jemmy lives in Spiral Town, an isolated community on a distant planet that mankind has colonized. Because of an accident Jemmy must flee Spiral Town. As he goes where no Spiral Towner has gone before, he uncovers many mysteries and, finally, many answers.

Other reviewers have complained about the rather clipped style in which the book is written. I, however, appreciated that aspect of it. The tale is told from Jemmy's (why isn't the name Jeremy?) point of view. And as the story is slowly revealed, you learn why Jemmy thinks in these short, clipped thoughts.

Yes, Larry Niven is back. But it is a more mature Niven than the writer we knew in in the 70s. I believe he will now be writing in much more depth than he did in his younger days. That may turn some people off, but I now very much look forward to what he will be writing next.

Destiny Road is an interresting outline of what could have been a really great story with some charachter development, plot development, and some real feeling. However, it reads as a technical/historical account of someone who wanders along a road on the planet Destiny, and meets people in different places and experiences some hardships. I never really felt I could connect with any of the charachters.

The plot lacks any real momentum, and the story jumps in places, near the end a full 27 years, during which time he marries, has children, and a stable life.....but when his wife of 16 years dies from a tragic accident, he gets on with things and finds someone new to 'rub up with' in a matter of days. Finding the 'great terrible secret' of Destiny life is little more than the protaginist surfing the net on a library computer and reading entries on various topics. No real conflict, no real suspense. There are also inconsistancies in the book which others have pointed out in many places. It's books like these which reinforce the idea of using the library to read books, and only buying the ones I really want to keep.

I enjoyed this book immensely, though being new to Niven it was difficult at first to get into the style of his writing, very short and clipped, a large number of thoughts and ideas coming at you all at once. There is no poeticism here, and possibly that is missed at times. The characters seem to be totally emotionless, with the central character, Jemmy, undergoing all manner of personal upheavals which seem, largely, to just go in his stride.
But the story and the scale of Niven's imagination are so broad, it really is difficult to fault. At times it becomes confusing because so much is packed into so little space, but this is just a small moan because on the whole it is largely faultless.
Overall, the novel is extremely involving and the world that unveils itself is breathtaking too.
You will not be disappointed with this book. I've just finished reading it for the second time, which means it must be good.

Unfortunatly, This was the first Niven book I have ever read, and even though I liked some of his other work, I still can't forgive him for this one. A small city on a desolate colony planet, resting on a peninsula with a road leading towards the mainland, a person on the run from this city into the unknown, sounds like a very promising beginning for a great adventure novel, doesn't it ? Unfortunatly, a promise is the only thing it is. The character switches enviroments so fast, that you can hardly track all the people. Even worse, in scenes where something is actually happening, Niven went into hyperdrive, and wrote such dialogs, that it leaves you wondering "Say what?". Till this day I cannot figure which character was whom. The plot itself was somewhat childish, and generally, this book left a lot to be desired for.

Oh, why, why? So many good ideas, so many errors. Why can we assume that no one, in 27 years, would recognize fertile speckles at Swan Lake, and then have Jemmy assume that if he scatters speckles along the Crab, the next time there is a merchant/settler disagreement, the settlers will recognize and cultivate the speckles? It just doesn't make sense. Far more likely that some merchant, maybe one who has been a prole at the Windfarm, recognizes speckles plants on the Crab and takes appropriate action.

Anyone notice that it was stated that outside the Crab, speckles are free--yet Jemmy and Harlow discuss that speckles have to be bought. Give me a break.

Larry Niven, as I'm sure you know, is generally thought of as an idea-man, rather than a terrific storyteller. His Ringworld and Smoke Ring books are unparalleled in the annals of science fiction. But, goodness gracious, Destiny's Road is NOT typical Niven; it's really, really terrible. It would be terrible from any author.

It is difficult to follow the action, the dialogue usually has little bearing on the rest of the text, and the plot is a muddled mess. What about The Idea? You know, that central, amazing theme that has drawn people to Niven in the past? Here it is, in a nutshell: There's a planet that was colonized by man ("Destiny"). Some of the colonists decided to leave, some decided to stay. Of those that stayed, a few of them took it upon themselves to build a road across the planet with a star drive ("Destiny's Road"...get it?). And that's it. Terrific fun, don't you think?

There is the odd bit of science tossed about. The self-replicating machines (hey! That was my idea!), the skinless birds. But none of these concepts are particularly well-developed. A lot of the time, Sci Fi authors introduce a concept or a bit of technology in a matter-of-fact manner, and leave it to the character's dialogue to reveal the true nature of said concept. Occasionally, this contributes to the fun of reading a novel. In this case, however, it certainly did not.

Honestly, I'd love to have Destiny's Road read to me by Larry Niven himself. I could stop him and ask for directions, because, to me, this road goes nowhere slowly.

The book takes one interesting idea (an alien planet that cannot be explored because technology is low and the native life forms inedible to travellers) and makes a mess of it. Two-thirds of the way through, he gets so bogged down in a boring plot that he simply jumps twenty years, giving the main character a wife and family that we know absolutely nothing about, and any attempt for the reader to empathize with the protagonist is gone or taken an interest in the story-line is gone. Whatever happened to the imagination that created Ringworld?

I enjoyed Destiny's Road for about 80% of the book, then it seemed he just tacked on an ending because his publishers were bugging him to finish the book.

Some spoilers here, but you read through the whole book and it covers several years of the protagonists life then suddenly just before the end of the book, 20 years have past, he apparently got married had kids and then Niven throws some tragedy his way. Like we are supposed to care about characters we didn't even know about until that chapter.

This book shared the same fate as The Ringworld Throne, it seemed like there was a large part of the book you missed. I really enjoyed Niven's earlier books, but his later ones leave much to be desired.

I have to agree with most of the negative reviews. The first book I read of Mr. Niven's, a collaboration with Mr. Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye, is still one of my favorite SF books ever. Do yourself a favor and read Lucifer's Hammer (again, with Mr. Pournelle), Ringworld, and The Mote... Forgive him Destiny's Road.