1970's probably, cat/snake, super-future, desert planet, Don Juan?

[Rachael]

So when I was in junior high/ high school, I found this old book my dad had in his old bedroom at my grandma's house. I read it, loved it, and now like 10-15 years later, can't for the life of me, figure out what it was called or who it was by. It involves a dude in a spaceship, which I believe was called the Don Juan in an ironic twist. He ends up in super future time, like 100 million years in the future or something. Earth is a desert wasteland. There are people but they are all these weird pale, black haired (with a horseshoe baldness pattern) people. I also remember that cats evolved into these weird cat/snake creatures without limbs. I just remember this book being really cool, and would like some help if anyone has randomly read it. My mom is a hoarder, so It's seriously more possible to find help online than actually search her entire house again. Thanks so much, Rachael.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

There was a Larry Niven book that had a reluctant starship pilot who changed his flight plan and time-dilated into a distant future. There were cat-snakes, altered humans who did not age (but were frozen at maybe ten years old physically), and a search for the kind of immortality that could help the pilot (he was getting old).

But I don't think his name was Don Juan. But I could be wrong.

 

[Dave]

I think the book David Evil Overlord is referring to is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Mars Rainbow Mars. The main character's name is Hanville Svetz. I can't remember but I don't think it exactly fits with all the things you mentioned.

 

[chrispenycate]

The Niven book featuring Cattails and a wilderness (not desertified) world is 'A World out of Time"; I know I own a copy but my bookshelves won't give it up. I can't remember the name of the ship (It's personality is that of his Earthbased inspector), but the most noticeable detail of the standard (not Dictor) immortality is that bodies are maintained juvenile, never achieving sexual maturity, so the boys and girls have separate societies that have even warred.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Chrispy, that's the one I was thinking of.

 

[Rachael]

Thank you both so much! A world out of time is definitely the one, and i recognize Larry Niven's name. I must have meshed it with another book in my head over the last decade or so. Time to look up one to buy

 

[jastius]

and there is this crazy old woman that wants him to find the secret to immortality.
and it is in their tranporter system. it filters out the bad stuff in cells and repairs the dna as part of its biological filtration system.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I'm sure I have a copy of A world Out of Time somewhere. It was as I recall a strange read. Too many disparate ideas (and I don't often say that.)

In essence out hero is a man who had cancer and got himself frozen in the hope of a cure. But they couldn't cure him. Instead they mapped the dead man's mind on a criminal several hundred years in the future so he's no longer who he thinks he was. The world at that stage is so overcrowded that it has become one giant dorm. They test him to see if he can have sex in public which is the new norm, and when he can't thus proving his new personality is unable to live on their Earth, they then send him out on a ship on a million year or more mission. And when he returns to Earth as an old man it's vastly changed, with two tribes of kids (girls and boys) running everything and at war. The boys want the secret of immortality that allows them to become adults and not age, and he discovers it accidentally, hidden within a transporter system - there's a cool scene where his teeth regrow by the way, and his enemy is another starship pilot (a woman) who the same thing was done to as him. I don't remember the snake cats.

Is this the book?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

That's the one. The hero gets bitten by a snake-cat, and the boys think that's why he's showing signs of reverse aging.