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“[Anne] McCaffrey’s world of the Talented is as vivid as that of Pern and its dragons.”—Publishers WeeklyEarth has reached its darkest moment. In subterranean warrens, the poor eke out precarious lives where jobs are scarce and children are sold for labor—while on the surface, a privileged few enjoy lives of luxury. As the population surges and unrest spreads, a disaster of epic proportions seems inescapable. The only hope: a platform under construction in space from which show more starships will be launched to colonize distant planets. But the project is critically behind schedule.
In the midst of the chaos, Rhyssa Owen and her fellow Talents—telepaths who read minds, kinetics who manipulate matter, and precogs to whom the future is an open book—struggle to survive. Then two children are discovered whose extraordinary psychic gifts have the potential to avert the looming catastrophe—or hasten its ominous arrival. ... show less
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When I read To Ride Pegasus last year, I was distressed by its sexism and racism. Thus, I approached sequel Pegasus in Flight -- a cherished childhood favorite -- with trepidation. Would it live up to my rose-colored recollection?
Well. Yes and no. It's incredibly creepy to see the novel treating its dystopia as a utopia. For example, the government enforces mandatory sterilization for all the poor slum-dwellers, and all the heroic characters denigrate those poor breeders who keep selling their illegal children to organ-harvesters. (Gee, characters, maybe if these women had any economic options, they wouldn't need to sell their kids!)
And this doesn't even go into some of the questionable plot developments, such as all the characters show more applauding a middle-aged man falling in love with a twelve-year-old who looks nine. (I'm having horrible flashbacks to Damia!)
But. What I still love is pre-pubescent Tirla scrambling through the slum ducts and playing all sides against one another with a mercenary zeal. Despite some questionable quirks, the core elements -- the unionized Talents, crippled Peter, and scrappy Tirla -- hang together in a relentless (if brainless) plot. There may be some unpleasant ideological assumptions operating in the background, but the surface of Pegasus in Flight is smooth and sleek. And I really love Tirla. show less
Well. Yes and no. It's incredibly creepy to see the novel treating its dystopia as a utopia. For example, the government enforces mandatory sterilization for all the poor slum-dwellers, and all the heroic characters denigrate those poor breeders who keep selling their illegal children to organ-harvesters. (Gee, characters, maybe if these women had any economic options, they wouldn't need to sell their kids!)
And this doesn't even go into some of the questionable plot developments, such as all the characters show more applauding a middle-aged man falling in love with a twelve-year-old who looks nine. (I'm having horrible flashbacks to Damia!)
But. What I still love is pre-pubescent Tirla scrambling through the slum ducts and playing all sides against one another with a mercenary zeal. Despite some questionable quirks, the core elements -- the unionized Talents, crippled Peter, and scrappy Tirla -- hang together in a relentless (if brainless) plot. There may be some unpleasant ideological assumptions operating in the background, but the surface of Pegasus in Flight is smooth and sleek. And I really love Tirla. show less
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 show more 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. show less
Rhyssa is being visited in her sleep by someone who show more 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. show less
Earth has reached its darkest moment. In subterranean warrens, the poor eke out precarious lives where jobs are scarce and children are sold for labor—while on the surface, a privileged few enjoy lives of luxury. As the population surges and unrest spreads, a disaster of epic proportions seems inescapable. The only hope: a platform under construction in space from which starships will be launched to colonize distant planets. But the project is critically behind schedule.
In the midst of the chaos, Rhyssa Owen and her fellow Talents—telepaths who read minds, kinetics who manipulate matter, and precogs to whom the future is an open book—struggle to survive. Then two children are discovered whose extraordinary psychic gifts have the show more potential to avert the looming catastrophe—or hasten its ominous arrival. . . . show less
In the midst of the chaos, Rhyssa Owen and her fellow Talents—telepaths who read minds, kinetics who manipulate matter, and precogs to whom the future is an open book—struggle to survive. Then two children are discovered whose extraordinary psychic gifts have the show more potential to avert the looming catastrophe—or hasten its ominous arrival. . . . show less
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82 points, 4 ¼ stars!
Quote:
Review:
Well, Pegasus in Flight was definitely less troublesome than To Ride Pegasus was. I mean, I still have some major "what the fuck" issues. Yet those issues aren't anywhere near as many or as glaring as I had with the first book. It helps that this book was written nearly twenty years after the first was. The world had changed a lot in those twenty years, and the book reflected that change. Thank show more god.
Pegasus in Flight is about two generations after the events of the first book. The Talents world has moved on from learning psychics exist. They have adapted to having psychics around. And boy have they adapted. Their entire way of life is structured around the fact that they exist. The entire world seems structured in such a way that the Talents live and work for the good of all. I genuinely love this adaptation. I love the worldbuilding that it entails.
In this book there are two different plotlines, which take place in two different worlds, all on Earth, with two very different people. Yet in the end, it is all the same.
The first plotline is what I have dubbed the "Good" plotline, because it has genuinely good people in it. It follows two threads. The first is that there is a quadriplegic teenager who has been trapped in a hospital bed, yet is reaching out with his psychic powers for help. Peter ends up being the strongest telekinetic in the world, as is able to use his Talent to propel his body. Wrapped up in this plotline is that Earth is building a Space Station, for the good of mankind. Earth is overpopulated, and they're trying to do something about it. And they're leaning on telekinetics in any way that they can.
The second plotline is the "Bad" plotline, because the people in it are horrific. These horrifying people are wrapped up in the worldbuilding. In this book you see the near utopia of the previous plotline contrasted dystopian nightmare hellscape of this one. It is a hell of a trip.
This second plotline is located in what is essentially the slums. People are only allowed to have two children, since Earth is overpopulated, and they have to curb growth somehow. And once they have two children, they are forcibly altered so they can have no further children. So in the slums, they decide this is (in my opinion, somewhat rightfully,) an infringement on their rights, and so they have illegal children. Only, they end up selling those children when they get old enough for money to people who prostitute their children out. Charming.
Overall, I found Pegasus in Flight to be an interesting social commentary. Until the end. When a guy in his mid to late twenties falls in love with a 12 year old. Seriously. And they decide to wait for each other, because the guy had a premonition that she'd be ready for him. In four years. When she is sixteen.
Sigh.
This was mostly free of the glaring ethical issues that plagued the first book, just a whole lot of societal issues. Yet I chalk the societal issues up to worldbuilding, because that whole sterilization thing was horrid, but it made some sense. This... "relationship" was just unnecessary with a whole helping of what the fuck.
I genuinely love reading about this world, though. I loved the main characters. I just sometimes wish this was written today, instead of nearly 30 years ago. I wish it was written by a different author. But this is the story I got, and I'm sticking to liking it. show less
82 points, 4 ¼ stars!
Quote:
“How can there be that many illegal children in the Residentials?” Jerhattan City Manager Teresa Aiello demanded of Medical Chief Harv Dunster. “Your people are supposed to tie off after a second pregnancy.”
Review:
Well, Pegasus in Flight was definitely less troublesome than To Ride Pegasus was. I mean, I still have some major "what the fuck" issues. Yet those issues aren't anywhere near as many or as glaring as I had with the first book. It helps that this book was written nearly twenty years after the first was. The world had changed a lot in those twenty years, and the book reflected that change. Thank show more god.
Pegasus in Flight is about two generations after the events of the first book. The Talents world has moved on from learning psychics exist. They have adapted to having psychics around. And boy have they adapted. Their entire way of life is structured around the fact that they exist. The entire world seems structured in such a way that the Talents live and work for the good of all. I genuinely love this adaptation. I love the worldbuilding that it entails.
In this book there are two different plotlines, which take place in two different worlds, all on Earth, with two very different people. Yet in the end, it is all the same.
The first plotline is what I have dubbed the "Good" plotline, because it has genuinely good people in it. It follows two threads. The first is that there is a quadriplegic teenager who has been trapped in a hospital bed, yet is reaching out with his psychic powers for help. Peter ends up being the strongest telekinetic in the world, as is able to use his Talent to propel his body. Wrapped up in this plotline is that Earth is building a Space Station, for the good of mankind. Earth is overpopulated, and they're trying to do something about it. And they're leaning on telekinetics in any way that they can.
The second plotline is the "Bad" plotline, because the people in it are horrific. These horrifying people are wrapped up in the worldbuilding. In this book you see the near utopia of the previous plotline contrasted dystopian nightmare hellscape of this one. It is a hell of a trip.
This second plotline is located in what is essentially the slums. People are only allowed to have two children, since Earth is overpopulated, and they have to curb growth somehow. And once they have two children, they are forcibly altered so they can have no further children. So in the slums, they decide this is (in my opinion, somewhat rightfully,) an infringement on their rights, and so they have illegal children. Only, they end up selling those children when they get old enough for money to people who prostitute their children out. Charming.
Overall, I found Pegasus in Flight to be an interesting social commentary. Until the end. When a guy in his mid to late twenties falls in love with a 12 year old. Seriously. And they decide to wait for each other, because the guy had a premonition that she'd be ready for him. In four years. When she is sixteen.
Sigh.
This was mostly free of the glaring ethical issues that plagued the first book, just a whole lot of societal issues. Yet I chalk the societal issues up to worldbuilding, because that whole sterilization thing was horrid, but it made some sense. This... "relationship" was just unnecessary with a whole helping of what the fuck.
I genuinely love reading about this world, though. I loved the main characters. I just sometimes wish this was written today, instead of nearly 30 years ago. I wish it was written by a different author. But this is the story I got, and I'm sticking to liking it. show less
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 show more with countries didn't develop how she predicted, much of the human elements remain the same. show less
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 show more with countries didn't develop how she predicted, much of the human elements remain the same. show less
I loved this book when I was young and read it at least a dozen times. But when I picked it up this time (years after I last read it), I was unpleasantly jolted by the unexamined assumptions McCaffrey makes about poverty and non-Western cultures throughout the book: these show up in her minor characters, her major characters, and her own writing. I have the impression now that the book was written in a rush, and certainly not to its credit.
Much better than the cobbled together first book.
I felt the characters were all reasonably developed and generally likable.
Didn't pick up any of the misogyny from the first book.
I liked the way the plot came to a sudden climax towards the end with one of the threads that had just been quietly bubbling along almost in the background pulling all the other threads together.
I felt the characters were all reasonably developed and generally likable.
Didn't pick up any of the misogyny from the first book.
I liked the way the plot came to a sudden climax towards the end with one of the threads that had just been quietly bubbling along almost in the background pulling all the other threads together.
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260+ Works 208,130 Members
Anne McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 1, 1926. She received a degree in Slavonic languages from Radcliffe College. She worked in advertising for Helena Rubenstein from 1947 to 1952. Her first publication was a short story in Science Fiction Magazine, and her first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967. She is a well-known show more author of over 100 books, mostly science fiction, including the Dragonriders of Pern series, the Crystal Singer series, Acorna's Children series, The Twins of Petaybee series, and Barque Cats series. She won numerous awards including the Hugo Award for Best Novella for the short story Weyr Search in 1968 and the Nebula Award for Best Novella for Dragonrider in 1969. In 2006, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. She has also written books under the pseudonym Jody Lynn. She died of a stroke on November 21, 2011 at the age of 85. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Lot Pegaza
- Original title
- Pegasus in Flight
- Original publication date
- 1990-12
- People/Characters
- Teresa Aiello; Vernon Altenbach; Ludmilla Ivanova Barchenka; Per Duoml; Gordon Havers; Miklos Horvath (show all 92); Dave Lehardt; Madlyn Luvaro; Rhyssa Owen; Peter Reidinger; Boris Roznine; Sascha Roznine; Phanibal Shimaz; Sirikit; Tirla Tunnelle-Roznine; Elpida; Pilau; Bilala; Zaveta; Ari-San; Cytoto; Mama Bobchick; Mirda Khan; Dikka; Kail; Firza; Lenny; Ahmed; Buril Bobchick; Bulbar Yassim; Cecelia Allen; Ragnar; Buddy Budworth; Have Dunster; Waddel; John Johnnie JG Green; Lance Baden; Lester Pavelly; Vsevold Geb Gebrowski; Max Perigeaux; Hongkong Jimmy; Dolores; Kayan Kayankira; SavtJan; Menasherat Ibn Malik; Pavel Korl; Chas Huntley; Rick Hobson; Jesus Manrique; Ginny Stanley; Kevin Clark; Sue Romero; Dorotea Horvath; Bela Rondonaanski; Ilsa Reidinger; Roderick Roddy Horvath; Don Usenick; Bob Gaskin; Ponsit Prosit; Pandi; Anna; Marika; Chi-shu; Lao Wang; Aver; Bertha Zoccala; Felter; Barney; Malimoud; Juan; Maria; Bessie Dundall; Alparacin; Suzanne Albemb; Ranjit Yousef; Norma Banfiel; Loufan; Carmen Stein; Yoshi; Mirmalar; Tombi; Raina; Diik; Andre Shevchenko; Gruskov; Crosby; Straub; Halloway; Alan Eton; Rajit; Jak [Talents Universe]; Lessup
- Important places
- Jerhattan, North America; Padrugoi Space Station; Linear G, Jerhattan, North America
- Epigraph
- They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
- William Shakespeare - Dedication
- This book is respectfully and gratefully dedicated to
Diana Tyler
and
Diane Pearson - First words
- Tirla took a quick look from the alley into the Main Concourse of Residential Linear G, then pulled back instantly, flattening her thin twelve-year-old body against the plas-slab wall.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"He just told me so."
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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