Cluster: Volume 1

Piers Anthony

Apr 2014 · Cluster Book 1 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

First in the sci-fi series “packed with exotic beings, ancient secrets, and futuristic worlds” from the New York Times–bestselling author (The Portalist).

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 two hundred, 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).

Ratings and reviews

This is not the first time I've ready this book. Once, a much younger me read it while sitting in a library one day. Maybe it took two days. I used to sit in a library all day, reading things like this, Slaughterhouse Five, and books on Heraldry, and I got to be quite good at the Dewey Decimal System, back when it was a thing. I've been reading Piers Anthony for thirty years. I started with the Xanth book "The Source of Magic", and eventually owned and read all of that series that existed at the time. I think I stopped with Question Quest before I joined the Navy at age 19. One of the things I always enjoy about Anthony books is that there will be a major incorporation of some sort of game or game-like activity. In the case of the Cluster series, that activity is Tarot cards, and how ancient Greek mythology maps onto the stars of the galaxy. The main character has alien sex several times. The alien modes of sex are clever and interesting. As usual, Anthony talks a lot about breasts. I'm not going to pretend that I'm above enjoying such things. You may find much of the dialog in an Anthony story unrealistic. Don't let that keep you from enjoying the book.

About the author

Piers Anthony has written dozens of bestselling science fiction and fantasy novels. Perhaps best known for his long-running Xanth series, many of which are New York Times bestsellers, he has also had great success with the Incarnations of Immortality series and the Cluster series, as well as Bio of a Space Tyrant and others. Much more information about Piers Anthony can be found at www.HiPiers.com.