Customer Reviews

Night Train to Rigel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've followed Zahn for a while, and given good reviews to a substantial number of his other books, because I enjoy them and they seem not to get much recognition on amazon.com. I've said often how I buy each one as soon as it comes out, knowing I'll get a fairly formulaic but also extremely exciting romp with some very clever plot twists.

Well, outside of "formulaic", none of that describes this one. It seems like Zahn took the first half of The Icarus Hunt, perhaps my favorite of his, and removed all trace of humor and cleverness, then replaced the second half with something cliched and constantly, irritatingly predictable. Truly - the setup is EXACTLY the same, from the narrator having a shady job that the reader is not told, to a powerful and mysterious alien race controlling all of the transportation in the galaxy, to the main character recieving a job that is clearly more than it appears from someone with a hidden agenda, etc, etc. It does eventually go somewhere different from Icarus, but not somewhere good - instead, we're treated to a series of staggeringly easy to predict plot twists, resulting in a climax that, while somewhat enjoyable, is nowhere near Zahn's usual standards.

Also, the Big Secret hanging over the story - what the narrator's original occupation was (this is constantly referenced in little side-comments, like "Serving two masters is indeed possible, so I decided to take the second job" and "I was actually making progress on my original job, too, in a twisted way") - turns out to be nothing more than, essentially, a punchline, revealed on the last page (though I'd figured it out well before). Compared to Icarus Hunt, where this same setup produced the greatest final plot twist I've ever seen...well, calling it "disappointing" is extremely mild.

Zahn is a fantastic adventure sci-fi author. I highly reccomend Icarus Hunt or Angelmass or Warhorse, or the Conquerors Trilogy. Do not spend money on this book.

Like some of the other reviewers, I have read and enjoyed some of Timothy Zahn's other works. So I thought I'd give this most recent book a look, but I was never really engaged. I found the early setup interesting, but as the book moved along, I never really found myself taking much interest in the characters or the plot.

The main character is Frank Compton, an ex-government agent for a futuristic Earth. He receives instructions from a messenger (murdered just after he delivers his message) to claim a ticket to ride a transit system called the "Quadrail." This amazing transportation system can transport people to various star-systems in days, but nobody except its operators understands just how it works. Mr. Compton is soon asked to participate in a mission that could determine the fate of the galaxy and assigned a partner, the mysterious Bayta.

This book has its fair number of twists and some decent action as well. The problem was, I never really felt myself feeling interested in what did or didn't happen with the various characters, or even with the plot in general. Zahn just doesn't seem to concentrate on the right aspects here to really capture the interests of the reader. It's almost as if he's "phoning it in." Sure, I enjoy a nice, light read sometimes, but I do like to feel like I can actually take an interest in the affairs of the characters.

Set in a future galaxy in which interstellar travel takes place via the "Quadrail" which is a giant network of faster-than-light trains - yes, trains - running between solar systems. Spaceships are used only to travel within a solar system, e.g. between planets and the point in an inhabited system where the quadrail station is located.

The quadrail was built 600 years ago and has been operated since then by a mysterious race nicknamed the "Spiders" who are part organic and part machine. Until now they have always tried to stand aloof from politics between other races. Apart from the spiders, there are twelve other intelligent races recognised as major powers by virtue of having at least five inhabited systems: the human United Nations, with exactly five worlds, is one of the least significant of these twelve powers.

The story is told in the first person by Frank Compton, who used to be a top investigator for "Western Alliance" intelligence until he was fired for blowing the whistle on the bogus reports which had been used to justify the colonisation of Yandro, earth's fourth colony and hence the one which got UN officials the status of being a recognised empire.

Frank has just emerged from a meeting at which he was offered a new job, when he is accosted by a young man who has just enough remaining strength to utter Frank's name before dropping dead with multiple bullet wounds. The message which the man has given his life to deliver brings Frank to the Spiders, who want him to investigate a threat to both the Quadrail and the Galaxy. They tell him that someone, they don't know who, appears to have found a way to smuggle warships through the Quadrail and is preparing to launch a war.

Frank and his assigned partner, Bayta, who appears to be a human female but is very strange, begin to investigate. They soon begin to discover evidence of a vast and dangerous conspiracy which appears to threaten the entire galaxy - but is it the same as the one the Spiders warned about? And does Frank have a conflict of interest?

Frank and Bayta are soon enmeshed in a complex web of intrigue in which nobody and nothing, including Frank and Bayta themselves, is quite what they seem.

I had a little difficulty suspending disbelief in one or two of the ideas in this book - for example, how a railway network between the stars could be flexible enough to cope with the fact that stars move,and that the transfer stations would either have to orbit those stars or tend to fall into them. Once I'd got past that point and into the story I found it an entertaining and interesting read.

Most of the other plot ideas are not as original as the idea of an intragalactic railway, although they way they are put together is unusual. I didn't feel the charactisation was as good as this author usually manages.

Overall "Night Train to Rigel" is not up to the same level of brilliance as the best of Zahn's recent work such as "Warhorse", "Deadman Switch", or "The Icarus Hunt." However, I thought it had a lot more going for it than some of the strongly negative reviews here make out, and I did enjoy reading it.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2008

"Night Train To Rigel" has been followed by a number of sequels and there are now four published or expected books in the "Quadrail" series, which are:

1) "Night Train to Rigel"
2) "The Third Lynx"
3) "Odd Girl Out" and
4) "The Domino Murders."

This is sort of a companion piece to The Icarus Hunt (by the same author). That book was a wonderful homage to Alistair MacLean, working all of MacLean's conventions into a classic MacLean thriller plot. But Night Train To Rigel is a bit different.

There are multiple direct references to Hitchcock films (both explicit and otherwise). Much of the novel also has a generic Film Noir detective/horror story feel to it. But it still has a lot of the MacLean signatures as well.

The plot is not quite as tight as The Icarus Hunt, and the initial misdirection is so big that it almost feels like two books grafted together once the real plot conflict is finally raised.

The classic Pullman train setup is a wonderful image (sleeper cars and third class baggage cars to the stars at one light year per minute on a railroad through tubes connecting solar systems). But in the end it eventually comes off as something of a gimmick, used to justify all the conventions of the genre (like having to travel along the top of the train in order to reach a runaway engine).

All in all, a good book if you know the background references that Zahn is playing with. As a pure standalone, though, I can understand the reviewers who thought the plot was overly complicated and overly driven by coincidences and deception. However, the same could also be said of many of the classic Hitchcock films which this book is trying to reference.

I am an avid Timothy Zahn fan, he is an awesome writer who really knows how to develop an interesting tale. And what an imagination. But this book is pretty bad. It's the only book I've read of his that I actually think is bad. The character decisions are not too believable. There are some interesting aspects of the universe he tells about, such as the space trains. However, there isn't much told about those, and they don't really have anything to do with the story. The big mystery is regular Zahn kind of WOW how did you think of that, but all in all, this book is pretty bad. The dialogue is bad, characters are bad, believable factor is bad, and this really doesn't feel like Timothy Zahn's writing. Maybe he just had this idea and wanted to write it. I'm sure he has no problem getting published at this point. From any other author, this book would just be a failing statistic. I only gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because it's Zahn. But this book was not good, it didn't hold my attention, and in the end it was a disappointment.

I want to say again that Timothy Zahn is a great author, my favorite author who is still writing. Some excellent, highly recommended books are: Manta's Gift, Conquerors' Pride (first book of a great trilogy) and Heir to the Empire (even if you are NOT a Star Wars fan, this is the first book in a series that stands on its own).

Zahn also has many great books that are out of print but available used, such as Spinneret, Warhorse, Deadman Switch, Triplet, and A Coming of Age. These are all excellent. Zahn truly has a unique imagination.

Timothy Zahn is one of our most reliable producers of traditional action-adventure SF. His latest adult novel is Night Train to Rigel. Earth is the twelfth of the Twelve Empires: twelve alien races linked by an explicitly train-like interstellar travel system. The system is run by the Spiders, inscrutable aliens who do not allow details of their FTL method to be understood by anyone. But they do allow races access to this transportation network -- for a price. And those races who have colonized enough planets become part of the "N Empires."

At first blush this setup seems transparently an excuse to use a silly title like Night Train to Rigel. But so be it -- there have been worse backgrounds for good SF stories! The hero is Frank Compton, a former agent for Earth's intelligence service who was cashiered for his public criticism of the expensive plans to colonize the last planetary system required to make Earth an "Empire" in the Spiders' eyes. As the story opens he is accosted by a murdered man, and offered a ticket to Yandro, Earth's controversial colony in the Rigel system. He accepts seemingly on impulse -- though we learn that he has accepted another job, its nature not revealed until much later.

Once onboard the train, Frank is quickly apprised of the nature of the commission implied by his acceptance of the ticket. It seems the Spiders are concerned about a potential future war among the Twelve Empires: a war that they had hoped to prevent by their strict policy against taking weapons on the trains. Frank acquires a mysterious human companion, a young woman named Bayta who can telepathically communicate with the Spiders.

Frank and Bayta begin a journey along the interstellar railways, looking for the unidentified warmongers the Spiders want to find. Frank quickly realizes they are the objects of interest of a variety of entities, including an alien Frank had known on his previous job, and also his former boss, a man whom he has cause to hate. They survive attempts on their life, and attempts to frame them for murder, and they seem to be herded towards the Sistarrko system, which includes a resort on one of a pair of gas giant moons, a moon which is home to the extremely popular Modhri coral. And there, of course, (this being the kind of novel it is) they learn secrets affecting the future of the Galaxy... and they are in the position to affect said future.

I must say that for the first half of the book or so I was annoyed. Zahn seemed to be driving his plot by a series of absurd coincidences and unlikely actions. But to be fair, he is aware of all this, and by the end of the book things are explained in a satisfying manner. The central idea of the book, and the eventually revealed good guys and (especially) Bad Guy, aren't terribly new ideas, but they are fairly well handled in this context. The book is pretty enjoyable, though the opening sections do drag a bit. As I suggested, Zahn redeems some of the weaknesses of the beginning by the end, and I ended up a pleased, but not really thrilled, customer.

Night Train to Rigel (2005) is the first SF novel in the Quadrail series. It is set a few decades in the future after Earth has been admitted into the Galactic community through the Quadrail system. The station costs a trillion dollars to construct outside Jupiter's orbit, but it then provides access to many destinations throughout the galaxy.

The Quadrail system is run by the Spiders, an arachnid-like species. The trains travel through tubes that connect to stations in other solar systems. The four-railed tracks are built around iridescent Corelines running down the center of each tube.

In this novel, Frank Compton is a former agent of Western Alliance Intelligence. He was fired for blowing the whistle on the Yandro scam. Several scapegoats in the UN were publicly terminated from their jobs over the scandal, but Comptom was also canned six months later.

Bayta is a mysterious woman who serves as Compton's guide and liaison with the Spiders. She communicates with the Spiders through a form of telepathy. Bayta obviously knows various secrets, but is more closed-mouthed than Compton himself.

Korak Fayr is a Belldic commando officer. He and his men have apparently gone renegade, picking their own missions. Compton has a few encounters with Fayr before learning his status among his superiors as a loose cannon.

In this story, Compton has found another job and makes the final arrangements with his new boss. Upon leaving the hotel, however, he finds a person waiting for him on the street. He says a few things to Compton and then falls over dead. The boy has multiple wounds that should have put him to sleep or killed him much sooner. Compton finds only two items on his person: a Quadrail ticket to Yandro in Compton's name and a cash stick.

Since Compton was thinking of leaving Earth in the next few days, he just accelerates his departure. He catches the next flight to the Quadrail station. Along the way, he notices a young woman following the same route.

Once he reaches the train, he finds his seat in the last passenger car. Actually, it has a single file of seats down the center with freight on both sides. It currently holds only six other passengers besides himself. As he starts reviewing his information sheets, Compton falls to sleep.

Upon awaking, Compton finds himself to be the only passenger in the car. Then Bayta introduces herself and informs him that he is on the way to a meeting arranged by the Spiders. At their destination, Compton is briefed on a situation that the Spiders would like him to investigate.

Compton is presented with an unlimited Quadrail pass, but is also forced to accept Bayta as his companion. Her ability to communicate with the Spiders convinces Compton to drop his objections. Then they are returned to their train. Compton is moved to a compartment next to Bayta's quarters.

Strange things begin to happen during their journey. First, two drunk Halkas (who are not really drunk) knock on his door. Then the same Halkas break into a lockbox, steal a knife, and attack Compton.

A Bellco drunk becomes friendly with Compton. Later the Bellco and his companions knock Compton unconscious and stuff him in a bundle of spices. Eventually Compton learns that the Bellco is Fayr.

This tale leads Compton from one confusing incident to another. He begins to realize that he is being used as a diversion. Compton becomes very angry with Bayta on several occasions, but decides to continue his role despite her withholding information from him. Apparently he has no need to know.

Despite his ignorance of the reason for their actions, Compton makes his own decisions. Bayta gets exasperated with him, but she follows his agenda. Eventually, Compton contributes more than the Spiders ever expected due to his Intelligence experience.

This story combines high tech with classic cinema scenarios. Several Hitchcock movies are mentioned within the tale. The next installment is The Third Lynx. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Zahn fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of innovative space transport, unexpected villains, and competent intelligence agents. Anyone who has not previously read books by this author might want to start with The Blackcollar, his first novel.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I've read a lot of space opera, some good, some merely OK. I think I have a feel for what works and what doesn't. With this book, its the pacing that absolutely kills any shred of enjoyment I may have had. Setting is OK, Alien races are marginally interesting, even the overall plotline is semi-inventive....but the pacing....pages and pages, even whole chapters, of characters explaining to each other what happened, what they think will happen, or what may have happened. Blah blah blah...I kept hoping something would happen...anything. Nope. All leading up to an extremely underwhelming climax. Asher and Banks have more action and excitement in an average chapter than what's to be found here. If you're reading this, trust me...skip it.

NIGHT TRAIN TO RIGEL(2005) is a fast read at 350 hardcover pages, and is generally quite fun. However, the interstellar train travel scenario is concocted at best, and absurd on introspection - which gives a unbelievable background to the whole book.

The aliens are actually somewhat interesting, and the rest of the story is fairly intriguing and believable - but the whole thing just doesn't hold together well because of the forced early 20th Century style train travel backdrop.

Having said all that, I think this book would serve well to teenagers first getting into interstellar SciFi. I would have really liked this book in Jr. High School. The problem is, this book is not being sold as a "juvenile", which it really is. I give NIGHT TRAIN TO RIGEL 2 1/2 stars.

NOTE: It is worth mentioning that the heroine in this book goes by the same unusual name (Bayta) as the heroine in Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE(1952), which was the best book in the classic FOUNDATION TRILOGY; this was somewhat bothersome to me, as an aficianado of Asimov, but might not be to others. I suppose it is also worth mentioning that Asimov was the first SciFi writer to successfully put out a good SciFi mystery - THE CAVES OF STEEL(1954); which is still my favorite SciFi book, after having read over 300. As NIGHT TRAIN TO RIGEL is another attempt at SciFi mystery, perhaps this was Zahn's way of subtlely giving credit to Asimov.

This book is fart below Zahn's usuall standards. Nothing exciting happens. Even the few surprises are hinted at transparently far before they happen and are disappointing. I had several "Is that all?" moments while reading this book.

Don't buy it.