To Ride Pegasus, Damia, The Rowan, Pegasus in Flight, and Pegasus in Space, Anne McCaffrey - I was lending a couple of these to a friend, and was struck by the urge to re-read them first. They have, as I'd expected, been visited by the Suck Fairy, but not as badly as some of her others; I still quite enjoyed them, despite everything. The series was written over quite a period of time; To Ride Pegasus was published in 1973, which is some level of excuse for the massive gender essentialism, astonishing normative heterocentrism, weird racist tendencies, and ableism (among other things). Unfortunately it's less of an excuse twenty years on when she's still writing new stories; some things improve a little, but she's still accidentally (I think!) promoting eugenics, and her attitude to disability is often quite odd.Her fetish for older man / much younger woman relationships is a bit of a squick for me. I just can't deal with women marrying men who changed their nappies for them, what can I say. I'm not keen on age-gap relationships anyway (though I do accept that they can work in the real world!), but a) it all feels terribly Electra complex on her side, and b) when he's known her all her life it ends up having almost paedophilic vibes. Especially the scene where Damia insists that Afra admire her naked fourteen-year-old body, particularly when combined with the fact that he is later described as having been in love with her since she was that age. I just - squick. McCaffrey also has a thing about babies, and women having babies, and large families; again, it's almost fetishistic at times. The standalone Nimisha's Ship is particularly bad, but that sensitised me to how much she uses it elsewhere. The stuff on Peter's "sexual awakening" is pretty terrible, too. I do get the impression that she has some... issues surrounding sex, and that's not even getting into her attitude towards homosexuality.The biggest problem I have with the series, though, is her bad habit of having her heroes (and they usually are heroes) be self-righteous; they're always right, and the people who oppose them are stupid, evil, or both, but they tend to get very high-handed and aggressive about pushing their inevitably-correct agenda, and not very good at considering the sometimes-valid criticisms they face. They're right structurally, because the author says so, rather than necessarily because their arguments are convincing, and they have a bad habit of keeping secrets in order to score points off their opponents. There's a recurring argument, for instance, about the space station being "too noisy" for Talents, and the "heroes" don't mention until really late on that they're talking about psychic noise, and not physical noise, which puts a very different complexion on the discussion, and the arguments over whether Talents need different treatment from non-psychic workers. There's a ton of stuff like this; they won't give their opposition all the information, or proper explanations, or anything, and then they get all snotty when they reveal their obvious rightness, which is reliant on stuff that nobody else knew, because they wouldn't tell them... It doesn't make me sympathise with her poor beleaguered protagonists, it makes me think they're jerks.Having said all of that, I did just read, like, five of them (in a very random order!). So obviously it didn't bother me all that much. I find a lot of her worldbuilding interesting; I still don't really get why the universe ends up revolving around what are essentially transportation centres, even if they are doing it with their minds, when some of the other Talents - especially Finding - seem so much more intriguing. But life in the Linears is kind of fun to read about (if, er, unintentionally racist) and I like the first-steps-into-space arc in the Pegasus books. Space colonisation is cool. Flawed but still basically entertaining.
Padrugoi Space Station is complete and now attention has been turned to building Moon Base and Mars Base. Little do Peter Reidinger and Johnny Greene know they will be instrumental in making that happen at a much faster pace than anticipated. In the meantime, an orphaned five-year-old girl named Amariyah, is found after the floods in Bangladesh. When it’s discovered she has a lot of as-yet-unknown Talent she is brought back to the Center and raised by Dorotea. There are sinister machinations going on and Peter is in danger when he turns 18 and takes up his official duties for the Center up on Padrugoi. After an accident involving Peter on his 19th birthday the true scope of Amariyah’s Talent becomes known and it’s a doozy. And when Johnny tricks Peter into teleporting a small package from Australia to Moon Base, after getting over his shock, Peter slowly begins to realize he truly can reach for the stars.Even though this is the 3rd book in the Talents series it was the last to be written after the Tower and Hive series was complete. In my opinion, it makes a better bridge between the two series than Pegasus in Flight and I’m glad it was added since Peter’s story is as fascinating as it is heartwarming.There is a lot going on in this book, but most of it revolves around Peter. Since Peter is the catalyst for all of the books that follow, it’s only right that we learn the history of how FT&T (Federated Telepath and Teleport) comes about. FT&T features heavily in the Tower and Hive series.Once again the story flows smoothly and the plot proceeds quickly. My favorite characters are back, some with much larger roles and we pick up Amariyah as well as a few more. The story still fascinates me and makes me wonder how much faster we would be exploring space if we had people with Talents such as these. The mind boggles at the wonder of it all.I’m looking forward to picking up The Rowan to continue with the series. As I’ve said before, it’s been a long time since I’ve read this series and I’m really enjoying my immersion back into the world of the Talents. *Book source ~ My home library.
What do You think about Pegasus In Space (2001)?
This is a great book and third in Anne McCaffrey's Pegasus series. I finally finished this one so I can get back to my projects but I was so into it, I have been reading nearly non-stop.This has more of the Talented men and women with extraordinary mental powers. The characters are so engaging that I "see" the scene in the book more than I read the words. This first happened with me while reading "The Hobbit" in the mid 1960s and it is always a treat to find another book and author that can do that to me.
—Jim
In a triumphant career spanning more than thirty years, Anne McCaffrey has won the acclaim of critics, the devotion of millions of fans, and awards too numerous to mention. Her bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® series is counted among the masterpieces of modern science fiction, a work whose popularity continues to grow as new generations of readers discover the literary magic only Anne McCaffrey can provide. Now that magic is back, displayed as breathtakingly as ever in the exciting and long-awaited addition to McCaffrey's classic Pegasus series—and the perfect link to her bestselling Tower and Hive saga . . .PEGASUS IN SPACEFor an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. Additional bases are feverishly being built on the Moon and on Mars, stepping stones to the greatest adventure in all history: the colonization of alien worlds. Already long-range telescopes have identified a number of habitable planets orbiting the stars of distant galaxies. Now it's just a question of getting there.But there are those who, for selfish motives of their own, want Padrugoi and the other outposts to fail. People who will stop at nothing to maintain their power or to revenge its loss. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected—and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort.There is Peter Reidinger, a teenage paraplegic who happens to be the strongest telekinetic ever, his mind capable of teleporting objects and people thousands of miles in the blink of an eye. Yet all his power cannot repair his damaged spine or allow him to feel the gentle touch of a loved one . . . Rhyssa Owen, the powerful telepath and mother hen to Peter and the rest of her "children"—and a fierce, unrelenting fighter against the prejudice that would deny the Talented the right to lead happy and productive lives . . . and Amariyah, an orphan girl who loves two things in the world above all others: gardening and Peter Reidinger. And woe to anyone who harms either one of them—for the young girl's talent may prove to be the most amazing of all.Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who's going to save the Talented?
—Ward Bond
Accidently I read this story first of the trilagy. The story does well to quickly explain the histories of these characters when needed. You will not get a complete history lesson in the first chapter.Ms. McCaffery does a wonderful job of creating a world modern day can relate to with the "fantastic" of mental powers and explinations of how they might work. Semiliar to her crystal line a pitch, a tone, is brought to the attention to tune to the abilities of the mind and to that ability to explore more fully space and where it might lead humanity to.I do not know what the pegusus has to do with the trilagy but may find it in the two previous stories, I have yet to read.
—Becky
