Trap Line Audiobook By Timothy Zahn cover art

Trap Line

A Short Story

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Trap Line

By: Timothy Zahn
Narrated by: Greg D. Barnett
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $1.99

Buy for $1.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

An engineer’s groundbreaking solo mission is rudely interrupted when he stumbles into an interstellar trap. The New York Times bestselling author of the Thrawn trilogy is back with a wholly original short story of first contact.

En route to far-off stars, Toby’s consciousness has a crucial mission: inhabit his clone long enough to repair a spaceship, then zip back to Earth. He’s done it a million times, more or less. OK, twelve times. It should only take a few hours.

Until he wakes up in jail. And he’s not alone.

His fellow prisoners: a cadre of alien soldiers. His prison: an ethereal boundary that will imprison their spirits until their bodies die. His jailers can’t even see him. But their pet cat (er, iguana cat?) can—and it’s got a serious case of the zoomies.

With humanity’s place in the odd and ever-widening universe riding on Toby’s choices, it’s time to saddle up for a ghostly game of cat and mouse.

©2025 by Timothy Zahn. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. First Contact Humorous Science Fiction Space Exploration Cats Short Story
All stars
Most relevant  
I really enjoyed the premise and how it unfolded. The story requires some suspension of disbelief, but it was worth it. Looking forward to more from this author.

Interesting, fun, and short

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Astral projection at its best, with a small but interesting cast of characters Inter species cooperation and a great ending.

A Very Human Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good story and environment for speculative fiction, kept me interested though the ending. I will check into listening to some more stories by the author.

Interesting Scifi Short Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Zahn at his best, enjoyed a concise and well told hour long story that didn't need to be anovel!!

Great Zahn short break

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was surprised and delighted to see a short story from Timothy Zahn on Kindle Unlimited. As a huge fan of his Star Wars novels, I wanted to read some of his new work. This was an intriguing short story about a traveler who is caught in trap and how he works together with some aliens with a unique solution to the problem that helps everyone involved. Greg D. Barnett does a fantastic job on the audiobook version with a lively narration. Still hoping for more Grand Admiral Thrawn books in Star Wars, he is missed.

Intriguing Story with a Unique Solution

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I bought this to see If I might like the author. It turns out i do. So score one for the short story format. I'll be checking out his novels.

I bought this to see If I might like the author.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a fantastic story about space age antics. Humorous and fun. I really enjoyed the characters.

Entertaining

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a pleasant and uplifting scifi short story that is heavily reminiscent of Clifford D. Simak in the best way.

A delightful scifi short

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was sceptical that any short story Timothy would write couldn't be adapted into a plot to a bigger book but this felt great. A snack sized adventure with the same clever problem solving I'm used to from his books.

A quick and clever story!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What an excellent idea and execution of science fiction. This is the kind of thing that made me fall in love with science fiction in the first place, over half a century ago. Thank you, Timothy Zahn! 🤓

Brilliant Creative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews