I’m not caught up yet with reviews, but this one is fairly easy to do since, in the best “Blue Peter” tradition, “Here’s one I prepared earlier”. I first read and reviewed this book when it came out and re-reading the review, my views didn’t change on a second reading. It’s still tightly plotted, with a great background, nice characters who get rounded out. Plus, “Trains in Spaaaaaace!”

Original Vector Review:

Night Train to Rigel is, as the name suggests, something of a homage to the hard boiled detective novel. Unlike many such pastiches, however, this one involves a real Space Opera background to go with the cliches of the beautiful woman, the convoluted plot twists and the gun play.

We start with the almost-obligatory corpse. Not only is this in complete keeping with the hard boiled genre, but it provides the staple start to the story with the hero knowing a lot less than everyone supposes (allowing the author to keep us as well as the main character in the dark) while providing the other characters with a certain amount of suspicion and distrust. Frank Compton is an engaging principal character whose own present agenda is kept nicely hidden from the reader while his background and character are revealed in just enough detail to flesh him out. His James Bond antics are believable given the sacked government agent background, and his connections at the highest level of this multi-lifeform society provides enough clues and red herrings to keep the reader guessing about the main plot until the end.

In fact, the whole book is a nicely judged balance of detail and broad brush, explanation, obfuscation and revelation. Building not just a single new world but a number of them, complete with fast than light transit system between them, would be enough for several books this long for many authors but Zahn presents a mostly convincing past, present and potentially holocaust-riven future in a mere 350 pages while bringing the plot along at a fair clip. In scenes reminiscent not just of books from the forties but a whole sub-genre of movies, too, a substantial chunk of the action takes place aboard a nicely imagined interstellar train service, allowing for the usual sense of isolation yet urgency this provides.  In a nod to his own inspirations, even, the principle character realises the parallels between his own situation and classics such as The Lady Vanishes.

The final expose of the plot is a satisfying explanation of the underlying mysteries of everyone involved, while the bad guys are given both justification and a measure of pathos to round things out, while the good guys have their own moral dilemmas and secretes, so neither side are cardboard cut-outs.

We may see Frank Compton back on the interstellar rails again at some point in the future, gumshoeing his way around the galaxy, but then again after saving not one but several space-going civilisations, how could he top this? Given the skill with which Zahn presents a whole new world in one reasonable length volume, he could go on to a whole new setup each time.

Definitely worth catching if you like any or all of rip-roaring space opera adventure stories, hard boiled SF or futuristic train travel.