Night Train to Rigel

Quadrail, Book 1

De: Timothy Zahn

Narrado por: Kevin T. Collins

A secret agent aboard a galactic railroad must derail a sinister conspiracy in this "rip-roaring" thriller by the author of Star Wars: Thrawn (Publishers Weekly).

The universe is a dangerous place, a fact violently brought home to Frank Compton for perhaps the thousandth time when a stranger delivering a message dies right in front of him. An operative for Western Alliance Intelligence until his whistle-blowing activities got him fired, Compton is now being sought out by the Spiders, the robotic alien beings responsible for the upkeep and operation of the Quadrail transportation system, which connects the galaxy's twelve inhabited empires. The discovery of a sinister plot to use the Quadrail for ill has brought the Spiders to Compton—for only someone possessing the former agent's unique skills can stop the scheme for good.

But when Compton leaves Earth behind—joining forces with Bayta, the Spiders' beautiful, half-human representative aboard the Quadrail—the terrifying scope of a vast, galaxy-wide conspiracy begins to reveal itself. Targeted on all sides by alien assassins of every shape and species, Compton and his enigmatic new partner are suddenly in a race against a clock ticking down to an irreversible doomsday, one in which the galactic night train will derail, carrying all members of humanity screaming to their deaths.

©2005 Timothy Zahn (P)2025 Tantor Media

Great book, wooden narration.

I first read these books years ago. They are the kind of book that I love to recommend to friends, but that’s hard to do because the genre is hard to nail down. Sci-fi, obviously, but also a little of Fleming’s James Bond and Christie’s Poirot (or maybe Tommy and Tuppence(?)). Regardless, all 5 books are great fun, and each one has stuck in my memory the way some more revered sci-fi hasn’t. (For sheer memorableness these books rank up there with Starship Troopers and The Forever War.)

Unfortunately, I found the narrator very wooden, laughably so, at times. He pronounces Bayta’s name the way I imagine Billy Bob Thorton’s Slingblade would (“Baaay-tuuh”), and it really took me out of the story every time.

Regardless, the books are great and the audiobooks are still worthwhile. I hope Audible keeps releasing the rest of the series.

Great series

I have loved this series for a long time. I was thrilled to see the audio books. I found reader is fine as long as I sped up the reading. I personally preferred it at about 1.1. He is a bit slow in the narration and speeding it up helped a great deal.

Great book amateur narrator.

Read the series a couple of years ago. Was very excited, but became disappointed. I will listen to all the books as I enjoy the series. The author was reading the book as if reading to a child. Pronounced weird as well.

A Well concieved Mystery with appreciable Twists!

Creative world building and good exposition. I recommend speeding thebplay speed to 1.15 as the narrator was a tad slow in my opinion.

Love Zahn storytelling, Narrator is ok

What I liked about the story: everything. Zahn has a writing style that transports me into the world. It's easy for me to picture what's happening as the story unfolds.
What I like about the narrator: Collins spoke very crisply, so it was easy to understand the words. He changed his voice for different characters.
What I didn't like about the narrator: he's so intent on pronunciation that he reads a bit too slowly where I kept feeling like I needed to pull the story out of his mouth. I changed the speed to 1.2 (default is 1.0). It was a bit too fast, but better than too slow. In the default speed, the word 'sphere' sounded like spherrrre.

I've purchased Book #2 in this series.

Great book, bad reader

I loved the book but it sounded like it was read by an AI reader.

Meh ... It was like unseasoned boiled fish

I hoped the author would have come up with a better plot and a better ending. The whole story was bland... boring ... like it was written by an intern. It felt like he just ran out of steam and needed to make a car payment, so what the hell, we'll do a generic crappy ending. "And they lived happily ever after" would've been more satisfying. Some of the author's other works are stellar, but not this one.