Cluster

By: Piers Anthony

Narrated by: Basil Sands

As Cluster opens, the alien envoy Pnotl of Sphere Knyfh seeks help from Sphere Sol in a shared galactic-level crisis: Galaxy Andromeda has discovered the secret of energy transfer and intends to use it to steal the basic energy of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Knyfh offers the secret of aura transfer on the understanding that Sphere Sol will spread the technology to help create a galactic coalition to find and defeat agents of Andromeda. Sol's highest-Kirlian individual is Flint, a green-skinned native of Outworld, who has a Kirlian aura of 200, an eidetic memory (useful for memorizing the complex equations of Kirlian transfer that he will need to communicate to other spheres). He has extraordinary intelligence and is highly adaptable. His mission is complicated, however, by the fact that he is pursued everywhere by a very high Kirlian female Andromedan agent, and somehow the Andromedans are able to detect and trace Kirlian transfers.

Flint embarks upon several missions to bring transfer technology to neighboring spheres, inhabiting various alien forms. His efforts are successful despite attacks and sabotage by the Andromedan agent. Through the conflict, however, the mutual attraction of their two vastly superior auras begins to undermine their individual loyalty to their own spheres. Flint and a group of other entities recover the information that will allow them to detect and trace transfers, and a member of the group is revealed as the Andromedan agent. One result is the catastrophic destruction of the local habitat.

Flint and his nemesis are transferred into alien Mintakan bodies to survive. Choosing to leave things with parity between their two galaxies, Flint and the Andromedan mate and remain together until their auras fade (which happens rapidly, since their physical bodies have been destroyed).

©1977 Piers Anthony Jacob, Revised 2008, This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Narrator took the life out of it.

This is one of my favorite book series, with amazingly imaginative alien species that are fleshed out extremely well for such a short book, and excellent environments. Everything you might want from a Sci-Fi story is here. Basil Sands was NOT the person to narrate this book, let alone the entire series. Every single sentence he says is said the exact same way, starting high and ending low, sounding very matter of fact and lifeless, and it takes the soul right out of the book. I cannot recommend buying ANY of the Cluster series audiobooks entirely because of him.

A little confusing.

the story started off a little bit slow but I really liked it in the end.

What a reader!

What would have made Cluster better?

A different reader

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Basil Sands?

Anyone. A corpse. Someone who doesn't speak English. Anyone would have been better

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I remember reading it and liking the story.

Any additional comments?

If you have trouble sleeping the narrator can take care of it immediately