Having read such books as FOOTFALL, RINGWORLD, THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE and DREAM PARK, I'm very familiar with the work of Larry Niven. So as I was passing through the SF aisle of my local Borders about a month ago, I happened to notice two Niven titles that I had not seen before: DESTINY'S ROAD and BEOWULF'S CHILDREN. The latter was the sequel to another Niven title I had read in the past, THE LEGACY OF HEOROT - a book that I enjoyed very much. DESTINY'S ROAD, however, was being billed on the cover as "an all new Larry Niven world!"

Well, how could I resist. I plucked both titles down, paid for them at the counter and brought them both right home to my "as-yet unread" book shelves. Just this past week I was able to give DESTINY'S ROAD a go and, as usual, Niven quickly pulled me into his imagination and kept those 400 or so pages turning.

DESTINY'S ROAD is a tale of Jemmy Bloocher, a young boy from Spiral Town on the world now known as Destiny, and the adventures of his life. More than an action tale, though, this novel is a study of the past, present and future of human settlers on a world far, far away from Earth. A world whose settlers know no other way of life. Oh sure, they know where they came from, they know what the people before them were capable of, interstellar travel not the least of which, and they know that life on Destiny is not easy. What's more, they know that most of the technology left behind, tools referred to as Settler's Magic, is slowly breaking down and leaving them with less and less technological capability.

But perhaps the most important thing they know is that, without one dietary supplement they call Speckles, their brains will wither away to nothing and take all of their intelligence away as well, leaving them without the capacity to perform the simplest of functions or take care of themselves in any way, shape or form. The secret to Speckles and the huge role they play in society on Destiny make up a very large part of the back story in DESTINY'S ROAD. And then, of course, there's the Road. A long and winding path cut into the very surface of Destiny, stretching for miles and miles...carved through the living planet by one of the landers that brought those first settlers to Destiny several centuries ago as the craft slowly made its way on a journey to...nobody knows where...or so Jemmy Bloocher has been led to believe.

Then, one night, in an instant of reaction and basic instinct, a man is killed in a crowded bar and a young boy finds himself fleeing for his life. That boy is Jemmy Bloocher and his life has just been radically changed...forever.

Here starts Jemmy's journey – traveling with a caravan, then running again from faces who might recognize him as the murderous boy from Spiral Town, and running aground in a prison where the inmates are put to work under the brutal supervision of proles, then escaping but fighting for his life with one of the inmates he escaped with, now starting a new life in a new town as a chef at an Inn and then coming full circle again to Spiral Town. Told over several decades and at a brisk pace, Niven fills this world with color, smells, sounds, traditions, history and many interesting characters. He creates an entire culture, several of them in fact, and a very plausible view of what life on one of these settler planets might just be like over the next thousand years.

Through it all, Jemmy Bloocher dons several names, marries several wives and gets to swim with the Otterfolk, the only other sentient species on Destiny. And through it all Jemmy Bleecher gets to see more of Destiny than any other person on the planet as he makes his way up and down DESTINY'S ROAD.

This one is well worth the price, folks. Pick it up, read it and smile like I did. Maybe you'll laugh a few times, out loud, like I did, too.