Pegasus in Flight

Taking place about 80 yrs after 'To Ride Pegasus' Rhyssa Owen, granddaughter of Daffyd op Owen, is now the Director of the Center for Parapsychic Talents on the North American East Coast. Along with many descendants of the original members, Rhyssa is under extreme pressure to provide kinetics to complete the Padrugoi Space Platform. Without the kinetics the space platform construction is falling behind schedule. With Earth’s population already straining its resources to the limit the space platform needs to be completed on time in order to use it for a jumping point for colony ships to be sent off to habitable planets. But that’s not the only problem the Director has to deal with.

Rhyssa is being visited in her sleep by someone who can travel out of body. She can’t get enough of who or where he is to pinpoint his location, so they have to search for him. Someone that powerful needs to be under the protection of the center and he needs to be trained in his Talent, whichever Talent that may be. When they finally find 14-yr-old Peter Reidinger in a hospital, paralyzed from the waist down as the result of an accident and realize he’s been boosting his kinetic talent with electricity they are staggered by the thought of his potential.

In another part of the city Tirla is a 12-yr-old girl living in Residential Linear G. Her parents are dead, but she makes a decent living serving the many different ethnic groups in her linear never realizing that her knack for survival and speaking many languages is actually Talent. When the Center and Law Enforcement and Order try to crack down on a child kidnapping ring in Linear G they discover Tirla and her unusual Talent. Coaxing her to the Center she thrives along with Peter. Then the unthinkable happens. Both Tirla and Peter get kidnapped and everyone rushes to find them before it’s too late.

After discovering this series back in 1990 I couldn’t read them fast enough. I had them in my hot little hands as soon as they were published. I like that this book picks up a few generations after 'To Ride Pegasus' because we can see the progress already made while learning the problems this generation of Talents have to deal with. I have to say that I’m glad our world isn’t as crowded as McCaffrey portrayed in this book. Yikes! Those Linears! *shudder*

Well-written with rich characters and a great plot this book is another winner with me. The potential of Peter just boggles the mind and in this book it hasn’t even really been tested yet. Tirla is also another great character with an unusual Talent. It makes me wonder how many more ways Talent will evolve over time. Oh, wait…I’ve already read all the books, so I know. *grins* That doesn’t dim my enjoyment of the re-read. I haven’t read this series in a number of years, so I’m thoroughly enjoying them all over again.

*Book source ~ My home library. ( )

I read this many many years ago, probably quite close to it's initial publication date and this actually is the cover I remember from then. The second story of the Parapsychic Talent agency, this deals with the grandaughter of the founder. She's dealing with the demand on psychics from the space platform, and two teenagers who are developing skills in two different directions. They could be pivotal in the future of the world and the colonisation of earth. You can see where later ideas sprang from and how she was working out how things work with her psychics.

I liked this series when I read it before and re-reading didn't diminsh my liking for it. It's about the people involved, and while science may have changed, and the relationships with countries didn't develop how she predicted, much of the human elements remain the same. ( )

My favourite of the pegasus books - the distopia, the rescuing of poor children with talents from the slums, all very good fun. Still, leaves a nasty political taste in my mouth - the talents live in their privileged positions while the rest of society slums it (and they're tax dodgers to boot!) ( )

PEGUSES

1990