Rating: 
Summary: It had some potential
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the worst books ever
Review: I've read almsot everything Niven has ever had printed. He's one of my favorite authors from my youth. That being said, this book was so painful to read that it made me physically angry. The plot wanders aimlessly, at times almost like entire chapters had fallen from the book binding. I kept finding myself backing up in the book trying to see where I missed what was going on, only to discover that IT WASN'T IN THE BOOK. Years would pass unremarked from one page to the next. Characters disappeared, never to be mentioned again, new ones appeared and treated as if they'd been there for 100 pages. Not simply a waste of time, but a literary insult to the reader.
Rating:
Summary: The Worst Book I've Ever Read
Review: I picked up this book at a time when I was looking to read some hard-core sci-fi. Larry Niven had been very highly recommended to me and this book seemed to have an interesting premise. It currently stands as the worst book I've ever read. It is absolutely atrocious. It has no plot whatsoever. It literally has no plot. It's three hundred pages of a lifeless protagonist wandering around a bland world and meeting a myriad of uninteresting characters without accomplishing anything. It is extremely rare for me not to finish reading a book, even if it's terrible. After making it through about three quarters of this one, I began skimming through the remaining pages in an attempt to determine if anything was ever going to happen. It didn't. I flung the book across the room and lamented ever having bought it. It was an utter waste of money. It stands as a testament to the worst kind of writing and bad storytelling. The prose is bland, lacks flow and is completely uninspiring. The world it is set in is dull and unimaginative. Do not buy this book. It's a crime that it's still in print.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read, quite different for Niven
Review: As other reviews have pointed out here, this is quite different from most of Larry Niven's works. I have read many of his novels, some are more interesting than others. Occasionally I found he would get into obsessive detail describing something that I couldn't really visualize, and I would skip ahead. (As much as I love the Ringworld series, parts of that book fall into this category.) This book was much easier to read than many of Niven's works because it was mostly plot driven. And what a plot it was. It features the adventures of Jeremy Bloocher who lives on the partly terraformed planet Destiny. Through his eyes, we see several different societies on this planet, and how men and women interrelate, and the differing types of economy. There were many gripping moments of adventure that made it hard to put the book down. But the ending of the book was fairly anti-climatic. Niven leads up to a big revelation, but it's not a huge surprise. I would recommend this book to people who are looking for a fun science fiction book that talks about economics and sociology. There is even an interesting alien race, the Otterfolk, and Niven doesn't mention that their females aren't sentient like he does with many other alien races he has created!
Rating:
Summary: It's all about the speckles.
Review: Destiny's Road is a fairly slow paced character study that contains a fair amount of science fiction, but mostly low tech. The protagonist of the novel, Jeremy Bloocher commits a murder (albeit in self-defense) and is uprooted from his safe existence in a very small colony of Earthlings on a distant planet. We follow Jeremy as he gets further from his home and begins to learn the secrets of Destiny. Jeremy is very well written and the world Niven has created is interesting enough to keep you turning pages. The main complaint I have is that the scope of the world is too small (maybe 100kms from end to end) for such the dichotomy of existence Jeremy found.
Rating:
Summary: Skip this one
Review: I've read lots of Niven's books, and all were good or excellent. Except this one. I seriously wonder if Niven even wrote this himself. I'm really sorry to say it, but its awful.
Rating:
Summary: The Eye of the Beholder
Review: I just finished reading the lifelong adventure of Jemmy Bloocher in the Larry Niven novel "Destiny's Road", .... Here's my 2 cents. I've been reading sci-fi for decades now, and Larry Niven is one of my favourites, but I'd recently been reading more popular novels, such as James Patterson's books, some Star Trek novels, and even J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter quartet. So I was hungry for a serious, "hard-core" science fiction novel. "Destiny's Road" fit the bill. If you like sci-fi, this one is definitely worth a read, but it's not exactly a great introduction to the genre for new readers. It's a "life story" novel so it's a little slower moving, with less emphasis on action. In return for putting up with less action, you're treated to Larry Niven's trademark brilliance at the little things. His ability to make small changes to common words, names, behaviours, etc create a world that's different but still understandable. I found myself asking questions throughout, but it always felt like I came up with the question myself, rather than the truth which is that Mr. Niven skillfully drops enough hints to make you wonder about any number of things he chooses. I wanted to know what speckles were, I wanted to see where the road ended. I wanted to know how the book would end. The answers, when revealed, were satisfying enough that I put the book down happy to have read it. Were there flaws? Sure, small ones pointed out in other reviews. Is it a great sci-fi novel? Absolutely. Keep in mind that my own enjoyment of it came about partly as a result of my desire for this TYPE of book. Sometimes the quality of a book is in the eye of the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Another book Niven didn't bother to finish
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, poorly executed
Review: Long ago, the first settlers on Destiny explored, leaving a trail of lava behind. Today, Jemmy Bloocher lives near one end of "Destiny's Road". Forced by circumstances to leave his home, he learns more about what goes on further down the Road, and eventually fulfills his desire to travel to the other end. The ending is very staged and very unrealistic. 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. When that happens, the merchants will dig up every speckles plant they can find. 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. Niven should have gotten his act together and his world straightened out. For that matter, a map would have been very useful to the reader. (this is a modification of my review posted three years ago, which is out there as "A Reader from Fairfax, VA". That's me)
Rating:
Summary: Very impressive
Review: 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.
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