Star Hunters

The Diadem Saga, Book 5

By: Jo Clayton

Narrated by: Therese Plummer

Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Intergalactic voyager-turned-mercenary Aleytys risks death on a planet overrun by madmen in the thrilling fifth installment of the Diadem Saga.

Brave and beautiful Aleytys has been gifted with mental abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans - thanks to her genetic heritage as a homo superior Vyrhh as well as the alien technology she wears called the Diadem, which, once donned, can never be removed. Her long, strange journey across the galaxy in search of her past now takes an unexpected turn as she accepts a position with Hunters Inc., and begins training as an interstellar mercenary.

Aleytys’s first assignment comes before her schooling is even complete as she finds herself dispatched to Sunguralingu, a planet owned by the powerful Chwereva Company. The world and its endangered humanoid population are being ravaged by telepathic creatures spreading a plague of chaos, destruction, and madness, and the Vyrhh’s intervention has been specifically requested.

There is more transpiring on Sunguralingu than meets the eye, and Aleytys and her ex-lover, Grey, set out to track the civilization-obliterating insanity to its source. But their perilous hunt leads Aleytys into an insidious web carefully woven by a psychopathic member of her superior species and, once ensnared, her only possible escape will be death.

Thrilling science fiction with strong elements of fantasy, author Jo Clayton’s epic Diadem space opera saga stands with the best of its genre, from the novels of Andre Norton, C. J. Cherryh, and Marion Zimmer Bradley to the humanist sci-fi masterworks of Ursula K. Le Guin. In the enthralling fifth installment of this classic series, a courageous star-traveler’s new life as an intergalactic soldier for hire begins - and nearly ends - on a distant planet in turmoil.

©1980 Jo Clayton (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Love this series!

Looking forward to the next release ! The narrator does an excel job and I live listening to this series!

Such a great story

I love these books. The story is so well put together.

My only struggle is with the narrator stumbling over the odd words/names. She doesn't do too bad but there is an obvious pause before every unusual word which implies a different meaning to the overall sentence and makes the audio a bit awkward. Otherwise it's all great!

Not as engaging as the first 4 books.

Book 1 - 4 of the Diadem Series knocked it out of the park. Book 5, Starhunter, was ho-hum at it's best and mindnumbingly dry at it's worst. Having so many characters perspectives and backgrounds explained in unnecessary detail was aggravating. Waiting for those loose ends to be brought together was anticlimactic as they had no specific meaning to give the ending closure or understanding. This book just meandered circularly and ended where one or two good chapters should have taken it. So many authors are guilty of this. They spend time, sometimes years, on storyline, character development, etc and when the publisher says great, write some more, they rush to make deadlines. Stuffing great characters full of sawdust to fill the necessary pages. I liked this series so much, I purchased the book versions of the saga. Fore-warning, the next two books The Nowhere Hunt and Ghost Hunt are a little better than Starhunters but not by much. Just why the author chose such a choppy style, jumping from extremely minor characters, felt like empty stuffing. The last two (which I hope to see in audiobook) The Snares of Ibex and Questers Endgame smooth out most of the choppiness and get back to the richer style of storytelling and are almost as good as the first four in writing while wonderfully satisfying as an end to a really good series.