Destiny's Road
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Author | Larry Niven |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction noovel & Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Tor Science Fiction |
| Released | May 15, 1998 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0812511062 |
| Preceded by | Beowulf's Children |
Destiny's Road is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven first published in 1997. It follows Jemmy Bloocher's exploration of Destiny's Road, a long scar of once-melted rock seared onto the planet's surface by a spaceship's fusion drive. Jemmy descended from the original Destiny colonists, who were stranded when their landing craft (which created the Road) deserted them.
The novel takes place in the same universe as the novel The Legacy of Heorot.
[edit] Plot summary
In the start of the novel, the main character is around age 10. The novel then proceeds to skip through time in the various sections of the book including his teenage and young adult years, ending when he is in his forties.
Jemmy lives in Spiral Town, at one end of the Road--no one there knows what lies beyond a short distance down the Road. Speckles, which contain an essential nutrient, are only available from caravans of merchants, who trade them for local wares and produce. No one knows where the merchants come from, but they are well armed. If speckles are not eaten, intelligence is lost, possibly permanently, and death can result. As it turns out, speckles contain potassium, very rare in the Destiny environment and necessary for proper brain function.
Jemmy, when a late adolescent, kills a merchant and is forced to flee Spiral Town. He winds up a distance down the road in a fishing community where he changes his name and appearance, and becomes a cook. He marries into the population. When a different caravan comes through town from Spiral Town, they arrange with the village elders to hire Jemmy as a chef. He proceeds on the caravan to the Neck, the isthmus which joins the peninsula on which Jemmy has lived to the mainland from which the caravans come. No locals, like Jemmy, are permitted on the mainland.
At the Neck, Jemmy is told he must return to his town on the next caravan--a member of which he killed in self defense. He flees by sea. Taking refuge on an artifact left over from the time of Landing, he floats around the peninsula to a point beyond the Neck. There, in a storm, he goes ashore and is found by prisoners at the Windfarm. Their job, in a volcanically active area, is to farm speckles. All speckles come from the area; the monopoly is rigorously maintained.
The others use clothing that Jemmy has salvaged to plot an escape, led by the violent Andrew. They break out and evade pursuit. Andrew has planned all along to kill Jemmy, but Jemmy literally gets the drop on him and kills him in self defense. Jemmy leaves the other prisoners, taking money they have found and a supply of speckles, and goes away.
Twenty years later, Jemmy is a pit chef at a beach resort along the Road. When his wife is burned in an accident, he is forced to leave his place--a place, as it turns out, of hiding. He finally reaches his lifetime's goal of seeing the other end of the Road, and Destiny Town. His wife dies, and Jeremy, with Harlow, a former wife of Jeremy's father in law, returns to the site of the prisoners' hideout, where he had planted fertile speckles. They still survive, and he takes some, sharing the secret with Harlow.
They return to the beach resort, of which Jeremy, by his wife's death, is now part owner. The two contrive to join a caravan, and Jeremy returns as a merchant, unknown to his former townfolk, to Spiral Town, scattering fertile speckles along the Road as he goes. The next time the merchants try to withhold speckles, they will be in for a surprise (it is unclear, though, how the villagers are to recognize the plants as speckles).
