by David Quantick

Titan Books, out now

A woman awakens on a train – with no idea how she got there, or even who she is…

I’ve not read any of David Quantick’s prose fiction before, but on the strength of The Night Train will be seeking it out. He takes a deceptively simple premise and provides the reader with an often chilling, thought-provoking read, where every door that any of the protagonists open leads to somewhere that neither they nor the reader can anticipate. It’s a similar sort of idea to Cube, but more two-dimensional (although that’s not always the case) and with characters who you really wouldn’t want to be trapped alongside.

Quantick parcels out the information about who and where the lead characters are, with some “interlude” flashbacks that fill some, but by no means all of the gaps. The worldbuilding is done unobtrusively but effectively and the horror splattered around at the most unexpected moments – there’s some startling imagery here that’s described just enough that you can envision it without bogging down the speed of the plot. The characters may not be the most approachable but the bickering between the dysfunctional group is credible, never becoming tiresome, and there’s a musical undercurrent throughout for which Quantick provides references at the end for some of the less well-known items.

For those who know the movie of Snowpiercer, rather than just the recent TV show, there’s the same inexorable drive forward – but here it’s with far more pitfalls. Quantick’s style is equally inexorable – to the extent I read the last third in an evening.

Verdict: A fast paced blend of SF and horror that grips from the start. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk