Book Review: Destiny's Road
By Stuart MacGillivray

Destiny's Road
By Larry Niven
Tor Books, $8.99, 433 pages

	Destiny’s Road is a tale of one man’s journey from ignorance to understanding of the origins and destiny of the human colonists on the planet Destiny.

	Larry Niven is a renowned science fiction author known for several works, such as Tales of Known  Space, Ringworld, and The Mote in God's Eye. His stories explore the depths of human emotion and evolution, as he attempts to give a view into humanity's future.  He is something of an elitist in that his protagonists tend to be highly endowed in intelligence and luck, these two qualities being inexorably linked in his view.  The style of writing in his stories tends to be vivid, though not overly descriptive; for example, he often explains the scientific principles behind the writing without detracting from the plot.

	The tale of Destiny's Road centers on a young man named Jemmy Bloocher, detailing his eventful life.  Throughout the book, circumstance forces him to change his name several times, and to create new lives for himself.  Along his circular path of life, he discovers the secrets behind life on Destiny, and how a need for a single substance can dramatically alter environment, economy, and society.

	The point that Niven is trying to make in Destiny's Road is the possibility of a hydraulic empire in humanity's future; in other words, how a single caste of society, by controlling a vital substance (like salt, water or energy), can control everything.  In this case, it is the merchants of the caravans who control the supply of "speckles", or potassium supplements, to the rural people who need the speckles to live.  Those who refuse to buy from the merchants are fated to go mad from lack of this mineral; thus, the merchants control life itself.

	Here is an excerpt from the first chapter, as an example of Niven’s writing style:

	The old machine wasn’t doing anything.  Just sitting.  Weeds and vegetation that had been crops ran riot here.  It wasn’t all Earthlife.  Odd colors, odd shapes grew in wedge patterns, wider toward the southwest, toward the sea.

	Destiny’s Road is a book worthy of consideration for several reasons.  Firstly, the world that Larry Niven has created is well thought out; the relationship between the native Destiny life and the Earth life that the colonists imported has impact upon the ecology of the planet, and the history of human settlements on Destiny is realistically planned out.  Secondly, unlike much science fiction, Niven uses few “miracle machines”; there are no teleporters or force fields, merely relatively realistic technology that is secondary to the main plot.

	Finally, this book causes one to take pause and think;  could a situation like that on Destiny come to pass here, with the government controlling something needed for life?  For that matter, has it already happened?  If this book has a fault, it is that it is nearly impossible to put down!  In summary, those who enjoy thought-provoking literature may wish to take a look at Destiny’s Road.

	Stuart MacGillivray is a Grade 11 student at Fredericton High School.