In the spring of 1903, the 311, known to locals as “The Majestic,” carried over a hundred passengers on board towards a tunnel mouth that would allow the thirteen-car locomotive to pass safely through the underbelly of the Canadian Rockies.
The tunnel swallowed the 311 whole, and the train—and everyone on it—were never seen again.
Search parties scoured the tunnel length with torches, searching for clues as to the big engine’s fate. During that search, some of the men swore they heard a ghostly whistle echoing in the cold, Albertan dark. The only thing they found, however, was a lady’s hand fan with an Oriental design, spread wide like a butterfly’s wing.
In the winter of 1910, just after a snowy sundown, the Leland Baxter gang, a collection of cattle thieves, gunmen, and cutthroats, wait on horses before a tunnel exit. They wait for the 5409, which secretly carries a train car full of railway cash—wages destined for workers of the copper and gold mines of British Columbia.
A payroll they intend to rob
What they will discover, however, is that the approaching train isn’t the 5409. It’s the missing 311, the train only whispered about around dying campfires. A train that some believe still rides the iron rails, traveling to places no mortal should ever go, seeing things no one should ever see.
Those men will climb aboard the 311… and will soon realize two sinister truths about the train.
Seven outlaws are intent on jumping on a train as it slows around the bend and robbing it of its $300,00 payroll. Getting aboard is the easy part. Getting off this hell-bound train is another matter entirely. It takes only moments for the thieves to realize they’ve made a mistake. But...too late.
This is a “weird western”. And strange it is. The story reads almost like an opium dream, where the merest thought takes you in a new direction. The seven thieves are fabulously rendered. It’s tough to root for the bad guys, but before the story ends you’ll be worried about all of them as their number dissipates through misadventure. The dialogue is outstanding and there are some hilarious observations made in very tense situations. There are a couple of very memorable characters in the story, especially the villainous Ike.
I really enjoyed this book. It was my first weird western and now I hunger for more. My favorite line in the book: “Don’t pinch!”
A rag tag gang of Canadian robbers targets a train they heard has a payroll car, for miners working up north. What they get is a smorgasbord of horrors they may not live to talk about...
The writing is sharp, graphic, and witty. The story winds through loop after loop of varying degrees of supernatural weirdness - so much so, that the end is all I wanted after about 70%.
My head is spinning! A completely unexpected, super weird story that I couldn’t put down. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I can’t wait to see what else he has written. Thank you Mr. Blackmore for a wonderfully bizarre and fun escape from reality.
I don't know what possessed me to actually buy this book. I don't often pay attention to recommendations from my many book apps and sites (including goodreads), trusting, instead, friends and folks whose taste I admire, but I saw the ugly, toxic, choo-choo train cover and felt compelled to click some link somewhere and read the plot summary.
I think I found out at that point that Keith C. Blackmore was a Canadian author, so that probably influenced me. I remember thinking, too, that the cover of The Majestic 311 reminded me of one my favourite repeating billboards in my many Trans-Canada journeys, a billboard trumpeting the awesomeness of The Minnow Trap (a truly awful book by some goofy writer from Northern Ontario), and I thought The Majestic 311 would at least be some trashy fun to take my mind off all the serious books I've been reading. But even then I shouldn't have been convinced enough to spend the money on The Majestic 311, yet I did and much to my surprise I didn't just put it on my "to read" pile and let it languish for five years. I opened the cover and started reading.
Awesome decision.
I love The Majestic 311. It really defies description, but let me try one out without spoilers: a gang of Canadian train thieves finds themselves in the wrong train one cold, wintry, Alberta night, and that train takes them across the universe and back again. Or something like that.
The Majestic 311 started out feeling like an old black and white Twilight Zone episode, blending Western and the supernatural, then it turned into an 80s mash-up of Slasher & Western movies before becoming a full out Bizarro novel before morphing its tone to the New Weird before shifting to full-out Sci-Fi before giving way to John Carpenterism then eventually winding up in a sort of Rod Serling's Night Gallery double twist ending. I never knew what was coming next, what was waiting from train car to train car, and I loved every second of it -- much to my surprise. I loved it so much that by the time I made it about two thirds of the way through the book I had to slow down my reading just to savour the remaining story.
I'm not sure how many people I know would love this book as much as I do, but there is no denying Blackmore is a solid technician and a fiercely imaginative author. I'm already nearly finished the first book in his Zombie series -- Mountain Man -- and I can't see myself slowing up. Blackmore's writing is just too damn entertaining.
There is one sad thing about The Majestic 311, though. I have been dreaming of starting to record audiobooks, and I was going to beg Blackmore to let me narrate The Majestic 311. Turns out that audiobook ship has sailed. Too bad. Back to dreams of classics, I guess.
I think this novel had one of the best blurbs promoting it that I have ever read, but I don’t think the novel lived up to its blurb. It wasn’t that the blurb was dishonest, it’s that the book took a large number of turns that felt “out of the spirit” of the blurb to me. The basic plot, as laid out in that blurb, is that in 1903 a 13-car train dubbed The Majestic 311 disappeared while going through a tunnel under the Rockies and 7 years later, train robbers mistakenly scramble onto the 311 when it appears in place of the locomotive they are waiting for. What I expected to follow was a horror mystery regarding how those outlaws come to understand where they were and finally manage to get off the train again. Technically, all of that happens, but in the middle of it are half a dozen excursions to other worlds that frankly quickly became highly tiresome and never seemed to be truly connected to the train. Instead of investigating the train and its mystery, most of the novel focuses on our train robbers exploring (albeit unwillingly) other worlds and that just never caught my attention. The little bits that focused on the Majestic 311 itself were pretty good, but they are truly a very small part of the overall novel.
Not a bad read. I listened to the audiobook version with RC Bray doing his usual fantastic job. In fact, his narration probably saves this book since, had I been reading it, I might have skimmed through some of the repetitive parts or given up half-way through. RC Bray has read Blackmore's other books including the Mountain Man series.
You have heard by now the book is about 7 train robbers who attempt to rob a train - only to find it is haunted. The group of men navigates through each car on the train at first to find the payroll car and then to find the caboose so that they could get off. But each car offers a different and dangerous reality, each offering a life and death scenario in which the group must fight and survive.
Each "reality" the group encounters is not limited to the confines of a train car, nor to Earth. They meet up with different worlds, technologies, and aliens, all the while a constant pull draws them back to the train.
The book was very well written (and it was nice to see the book taking place, albeit initially, in Canada) and the dialogue was well done. Again, RC did a great job narrating those conversations using the different voices. The characters were well developed and not all buddy-buddy since they were partners intended to get along long enough to rob the train. Interesting to watch their relationships develop.
About half-way through, I began to wonder about the end. While the dangerous situation in which the gang found itself was well written and action-packed, it started to get repetitive. It picks up again, as it digs a bit deeper into the reason this train exists and why it is haunted or cursed. The excitement and action continue all the way to the end with a satisfying end. There are a few loose ends still remaining at the end - like who were the "fad knocks" (sorry for spelling)?
Not everyone will like the way the book is ended, but at least it was not
Can I rate it 3.5? It started out grabbing my attention and I was enjoying it however, not only did it tend to drag on but then the characters - when thrown into another completely bizarre and incomprehensible setting would continually ask things like, "Where are we?" "What is that?" etc. To the point that it became annoying and ridiculous. NO ONE knew what the heck was going on (including me, the reader). After a while, it just went on too long.
It was a strange journey, for sure. I don't regret reading it ... but I also don't necessarily recommend it, either. Twisted.
Here is what you gotta do: take the book Alice in Wonderland, Train Robbers, the crazy mind of Keith C. Blackmore, a whole lot of LSD and put it in a bag. Shake it up really good. Dump it out and what you will find is Majestic 311. What a crazy tripped out ride.
The second of my Audible 2 for 1 picks. I'd been looking at this for a while, and thought, why not? The blurb sounded really interesting. I like westerns, I like mysteries, I like the odd bit of horror, should be great. It involved cowboy-adjacent characters, but it was definitely not a western. Nor was it a mystery, really. Mysterious, sort of. There were definitely horror elements, but I'd have to describe this as some kind of speculative fiction? With monstrous creatures and a lot of killing and a plot held together with off-brand Scotch Tape. The train? It's in the body of a magical snake creature and it travels through a variety of bizarre worlds full of bizarre creatures. The train itself is full of dangerous inhuman foes. It's all just... weird and incoherent. They end up in space for a time, in a cosmic bar full of aliens, including one with 6 breasts and one pervert who tricked an outlet into shaking his penis instead of his hand. I'm not making this up. The shift in tone was jarring. Ok, yes, it was a funny scene, but a scene from an entirely different book. It came out of nowhere. Everything came out of nowhere. Then there was the mystical undying/undead Chinese man. I know the author was trying to make relevant social commentary about the way the Chinese were brutally exploited during the building of the railway, but... the way the story was handled left a bad taste in my mouth. Mystical undying/undead Chinese man is responsible for the train being caught in the nightmarish snake pocket universe, or whatever it is. He cursed it because so many of his brethren were killed. And he has dragons! I hate it. It's lazy plotting and kind of offensive? Like, that was some intense orientalism, as well as some Pet Cemetary BS. But I digress. And then the train gets swallowed up by the sun.
Speaking of relevant social commentary, the one outlaw that survived was a residential school survivor who, on one of their forays into the worlds outside the train, found his grandparents. He found where he belonged and was no longer tied to the train. That was nice. That was about the only thing that was nice, but, you know...
There's also little asides where one of the outlaws remembers his mother reading him bedtime stories- it's supposed to be Alice in Wonderland but it's never actually Alice in Wonderland? And then that same outlaw is...reincarnated in the end? And heads back into the tunnel as a 2 month old in his car seat in the back of his parents SUV, the sun looming large overhead.
Nitpick- the author uses language that would not have been in common parlance at the turn of the 20th century. The one that stands out the most is "vibes." There were a lot of vibes being felt. By outlaws. In 1909. It took me right out of it.
Yeah, I liked that it was so Canadian, but for me, this was not enjoyable in any way. It felt like one excruciatingly long MadLib. And the ending was deeply unsatisfying.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Not what I was expecting, but so much more!!!! I know what I was expecting when I began listening to The Majestic 311, heck I’ve listened to all of Keith C. Blackmore’s Mountain Man series, and I’ve listened to R. C. Bray narrate not just the Mountain Man series, but several sci-fi series from other authors, so I was expecting a western that had a supernatural component. Not only did I get the western/supernatural part, then there was the horror element, and oh so much more. I found myself fully engaged trying to figure out what the seven train robbers had gotten themselves into, and each time I started to feel like I had a handle on the story it shifted, sometimes in very subtle ways and sometimes in ways that were anything but subtle. And, then came that ending, and what an ending it is – I’m still pondering it now three days after listening to the story. I would have to say any story that keeps your attention even after its over is one heck of a story.
If you are looking for some awesome entertainment, I highly recommend listening to R.C. Bray’s expert narration of Keith C. Blackmore’s The Majestic 311. With so many elements to this story you can’t help but be entertained.
I love the writing in this book. Keith C. Blackmore is just right up my alley. I listened to the audiobook and Bray was perfect as always. But I’m only giving it 4 stars because I’m confused! Did everyone get reincarnated? Or just Nathan? Or was Nathan just dreaming? “…and the world screamed with him…” So Jimmy died or whatever too? Was the end supposed to be ambiguous so I’m to use my own imagination to figure out what I think it all meant? If so I hate that! I HAVE NO imagination, I do math, that’s why I read rather than write ;) Overall I loved the characters, the general feel (it reminded me of a poem I read as a child that scared me silly called The Hellbound Train) the narration was great, and even the dwindling nature of the “cast” and increasing concern for their almost certain doom was simultaneously fun and dreadful. But wtf happened? Because Nathan stuck it out until the end on the train he got to start over but in a later time? I don’t know!!!! Did I miss something? Ahhhh!!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Well, first of all it will teach me to read the full synopsis before buying a book, getting carried away just because I heard the words outlaws, gun runners and ghost train, well all I can say this book was far far from what I expected! I’m not even sure, without slandering the writer, what on earth was he on when he wrote this? LOL I’ve never taken anything weird and wonderful, and if you don’t need that kind of stimulation to write a book like this, then you have a deep, weird and wonderful imagination beyond my comprehension.
The Majestic 311 is like a western version of Alice in Wonderland on acid! Definitely a fun listen! The Leland Baxter gang wait in the snowy Canadian Rockies for the 5409 train so they can rob it. Unfortunately it wasn't the 5409 that they boarded, it was the Majestic 311. The Majestic disappeared years ago and was never found, although some believe that the ghost train still rides those tracks. R.C. Bray really brings this story to life. Maybe life isn't the correct term for this book lol.
It’s a western with a difference…cattle rustlers, a disappeared train, mutant passengers a snake plus an Archie are just some of the treats to explore within this book. It’s over the top, holds your attention, the moons a balloon…whalers… Just buy it and listen…if you know the authors other work then you know what your getting…R C Bray hits it out of the field…brilliant!
I came upon this book because I am committed to reading every single book this author writes. He is simply fantastic. This book is excellent. I would have never read a book like this had the author not written it and I'm so glad I did as I was thoroughly entertained and engrossed in the experience. It was a heck of a lot of fun and a memorable standalone experience. If you find your way here like I did, go in blindly and enjoy the ride.
As always, great narration by RC Bray. Great sci-fi horror story with some very trippy parts, but always well written with very believable and likable characters, even when those characters aren’t the best people. I don’t like to say too much because discovering all of the good bits on your own is all part of the fun.
A ghost train and 7 robbers what can go wrong? This book had everything. Horror, and sci-fi. There were twists on almost every chapter, confusing you along the way but also making the story more appealing. Interesting read
Usually only give 5 stars to books even if I didn’t like them. I was all in at the beginning. Wanted to quit reading have way through. Pushed through because of RC Bray narration. No idea what happened or why. Ended with way more questions than I started with.
Probably the most conflicted rating I’ve given. I should’ve loved it but didn’t. Well written, excellent audio performance but I just didn’t care at all about the characters. It felt like a knockoff of The Gunslinger without a hero to root for!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Loved many of Keith's other books and RCB is a great narrator but just couldn't really get into this one. Gave up about 3 hours in as i didn't feel any connection with the characters and found myself being distracted by things other than the story.
Man I really wanted to love this book. Great premise. I liked the characters and the idea of the wrong, lost train. But then it was wildly all over the place. I am not saying skip it, it was enjoyable but just not grrat
One of the weirdest books I've read in a long time, and somehow, I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. Like, what in the world was up with It read like a fever dream.