2011 Book Blog – The Talent Series

I’ve said it a gazillion times in my blog, and it’s still true. I love Anne McCaffrey’s writing. Seriously. I just finished the prequel to her Tower and Hive series, which I blogged about here. The books in this series were written some 30 years after the original series, which is kinda cool – how many authors are still popular after 30 years? Anyway… though she calls these three books the “Talent” series, I refer to them as the Pegasus series. Because I can. And it separates these three from the other five “Talent” books.

Since there are only three books in this series, I’m just going to review them all in one blog (and because I don’t remember where one book left off and the next began…)

The three books are To Ride Pegasus, Pegasus in Flight, and Pegasus in Space. All three tell the story of young Peter Reidinger… who in the original series was Earth Prime, aka the strongest Prime and the leader of all of the Talents.

To Ride Pegasus is actually a collection of short stories Anne wrote between 1969 and 1973 and begin with how “talent” was first discovered and the beginning of the talents’ fight for equal rights and recognition as humans, not freaks. We meet Henry Darrow (the first talent, so to speak) who figured out how to test people for talent. We meet the extremely wealthy benefactor who basically turns over his estate upon his death. This estate eventually becomes the East American Parapsychological Research and Training Center where Talents are safely raised and trained.

Though the stories were interesting they seemed a bit slow for me to get through. Perhaps because there were a lot of missing ‘parts’ jumping from one generation to the next with only a smidgen of segue. I didn’t realize they were short stories when I started reading this book. That probably would have changed how I perceived it when I read it. Still very good and gives you a nice history of the earliest of Talent days.

Book two is Pegasus in Flight and wasn’t written until 1990. And this is where things just flow and are fun. You meet Talents of various ages, backgrounds, and of course, talents. And through it all you meet a young boy stuck in a body brace after being chased and having a stone wall fall on him, severing his spine. I think this is why I fell in love with Peter Reidinger – having wore a back brace in my youth and hating it, I could sympathize with him and identify with his wanting to be free of the restrictions. Through various episodes and multiple plot lines you become familiar with all of the people and how they all became an influence on Peter’s life. Of course, they didn’t know who Peter was or where he was – until he “accidentally” telepathically contacted Rhyssa Owen – the current head of the Parapsychic Center.

Once you meet Peter you begin to see his unique talent… unlike that of any before him. You also see his love for outer space, which plays a significant role in book three. And once you’re into Pegasus in Space, (written 10 years after Pegasus in Flight) you see Peter’s power just erupt. He’s whipping large items across the planet as if it were nothing. He’s teleporting space shuttles to and from Earth. You see him whip stuff to the moon but most of all you see how dedicated he is to uphold the integrity of Talents and to building up a place to “stand” so they can help the exploration of space.

The books are so much fun and to see the humanity in them is heartwarming. You generally don’t see a lot of that in science fiction. Of course there are good guys, bad guys (and gals) in all three books, some of the storylines begin in book one and carry all the way through (somewhat expectantly). There are kidnappings, murders, mutinies and all kinds of fun to keep one entertained while watching Peter grow.

Now, should you read the Tower and Hive series or this one first? I would recommend reading the Tower and Hive series first. Probably because that’s the order I read them in, but I think it makes you appreciate the Pegasus books more after reading Rowan’s story.