Synopsis
It all starts when a man comes to deliver a message to Frank Compton--only to fall dead at his feet. What follows is a suspenseful thriller that only Timothy Zahn, a master of hard SF adventure, could have written.
More than two hundred years from now, the Quadrail transportation system run by the enigmatic Spiders connects civilizations throughout the galaxy. But someone is threatening the entire system and the worlds it serves with a military force that could wreak interstellar havoc. Worse yet, a more subtle and sinister threat lurks: the Modhri, whose unique coral is prized throughout the galaxy, but which has properties that may create addiction--or worse. Compton, a sharp investigator, lost his job with Earth's security forces when he exposed a corrupt scheme that had roots in high places. Enlisted by the Spiders to find out who's trying to take over the Quadrail, he's got his hands full, because he's got beings of many races gunning for him to keep him from discovering a far-flung conspiracy that could destroy every civilization in the galaxy.
The result is one of Zahn's most memorable and compelling novels in years.
More than two hundred years from now, the Quadrail transportation system run by the enigmatic Spiders connects civilizations throughout the galaxy. But someone is threatening the entire system and the worlds it serves with a military force that could wreak interstellar havoc. Worse yet, a more subtle and sinister threat lurks: the Modhri, whose unique coral is prized throughout the galaxy, but which has properties that may create addiction--or worse. Compton, a sharp investigator, lost his job with Earth's security forces when he exposed a corrupt scheme that had roots in high places. Enlisted by the Spiders to find out who's trying to take over the Quadrail, he's got his hands full, because he's got beings of many races gunning for him to keep him from discovering a far-flung conspiracy that could destroy every civilization in the galaxy.
The result is one of Zahn's most memorable and compelling novels in years.
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About the Author
Timothy Zahn has written more than twenty SF novels and six Star Wars tie-in novels, including the all-time bestselling Heir to the Empire. His YA novel Dragon and Thief was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Zahn won a Hugo Award for his novella "Cascade Point." He resides in coastal Oregon.
Reviews
Hang on! Hugo-winner Zahn (Cascade Point) takes off on a rip-roaring interstellar train ride with hard-boiled hero Frank Compton, recently fired from Earth's Western Alliance Intelligence for whistle-blowing on the costly Yandro colony boondoggle, a U.N. scheme to make humanity a real interstellar power. From Earth's mean streets, Compton hops the Quadrail, a mysterious galactic system run by the alien Spiders, who give him four months to defuse an interstellar war being engineered by the gestalt entity the Modhri. With Bayta, "The Girl" sent by the Spiders to recruit him, Compton blasts his way through layers of subterfuge and teams of unpronounceable alien baddies. Seeing a new chunk of the truth fall into place about every hundred pages, Compton carries comic-strip action to dizzying extremes in this highballing romp. Situations predictable from tough-guy PI fiction and characters straight out of Dick Tracy (even though some wear chipmunk fur and others inhabit telepathic coral colonies) make this night train a juicily familiar joyride.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Zahn's latest is a highly readable thriller in space-opera trappings, set a few hundred years from now. The myriad worlds hosting intelligent life are tied together by the Quadrail, an interstellar transport system run by the enigmatic Spiders. Transport of weapons or military equipment isn't allowed, but someone, somewhere, appears to have found a way around the prohibition. The Spiders hire cashiered government investigator Frank Compton (he uncovered a few too many skeletons) to discover how and what threat it constitutes. By the third chapter, beings of a number of species are gunning for Compton from all directions. Zahn's ingenuity, a steady resource during a writing career now a generation long, makes it easy for him to come up with reader-rewarding demonstrations of his characters' similar quality. A great read. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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