Pegasus in Flight

by Anne McCaffrey

Hardcover, 1990

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Del Rey (1990), Edition: 1st, 290 pages

Description

As director of the Jerhattan Parapsychic Center, telepath Rhyssa Owen coordinated the job assignments for psychically gifted Talents. And though she had her hands full dealing with the unreasonable demand for kinetics to work on the space platform that would be humankind's stepping-stone to the stars, she was always ready to welcome new Talents to the Center. Feisty and streetwise, twelve-year-old Tirla used her extraordinary knack for languages to eke out a living in the Linear developments, where the poor struggled to make ends meet and children were conscripted or sold into menial work programs. Young Peter, paralyzed in a freak accident, hoped someday to get into space where zero gravity would enable him to function more easily. Both desperately needed help only other Talents could provide. With the appearance in her life of one extraordinary man with no measurable Talent at all, Rhyssa suddenly found herself questioning everything she thought she knew about her people. And when two Talented children were discovered to have some very unusual -- and unexpected -- abilities, she realized that she would have to reassess the potential of all Talentkind...… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member emrya

Love the beginning of the Talent series, where the impetus to the stars is discovered. SO much ground possible with Talents, I feel sorry that the author has not chosen to pursue some of the more interesting ones, focusing instead on the T&Ts.

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LibraryThing member timepiece

I really liked this one. I like the contrast between the characters of Peter and Tirla, not only their personalities, but their origins and interactions with others. I also enjoyed how the rumor mill and fears (and hopes) of Tirla's people were dealt with - yes, I can well imagine the poor would be

convinced that people in authority were out to get them for no good reason. I did like the view that only the rich would get to emigrate off-planet, leaving Earth to be taken over by them (the poor).

And watching the beginnings of T&T emerge (the space launches) was a good precursor to The Rowan and the rest of the Talent series.

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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

Fun. I like Peter - and Rhyssa, and Sascha, and Tirla. It's nice to see Dorotea again - she's aged well. It's neat to see the Center two generations later - I was surprised that Rhyssa was Daffyd's granddaughter rather than daughter, and I think I've been surprised by that every time I read it

(it's in the first chapter, that's not a spoiler). Peter is interesting both in his power and in his personality; I really like Tirla, for all her wild-child dealing. Watching Rhyssa deal with Dave, and Sascha with Tirla, is fun. And Johnny Greene is excellent - especially when he finally figures out Peter's gestalt trick. It comes at need! And the side-issue (it's no more, though it's an important side-issue) of the child-stealing is nicely presented and beautifully wrapped up. Nothing like having the villain screw up and lay the trap for himself... There are developments here that lay the foundations for the Tower (Rowan) books, too. Overall - very very nice.

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LibraryThing member atreic

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!)

LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

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.

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LibraryThing member RowanGolightly

This is the 2nd of the Pegasus series, predating in chronological timeline "the Rowan" and the rest of that series. McCaffrey does her customary masterful job of gripping adventure and superb character development. It gives much of the "early history" of the Talented (i.e. people with telekinetic,

telepathic and other related abilities). This is one of my all-time favorite series which I revisit from time to time, finding that it never goes stale.

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LibraryThing member AVoraciousReader

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.

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LibraryThing member eaterofwords

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.

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LibraryThing member ConalO

I decided to re-read this series in some down time this month and it has not lost it's appeal since the last time I read this twenty years ago. I have always enjoyed stories that dealt with higher mind powers and Anne McCaffrey does not disappoint in this area.

4 stars for a fun and entertaining

re-read.

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LibraryThing member gypsysmom

This is book #2 in the Talented trilogy. Talented refers to people who have extrasensory perception ranging from telekinesis to telepathy to precognition and others. In the first book, To Ride Pegasus people with Talent were just learning how to use their powers and how to protect themselves from

lawsuits, harassment, mental bombardment. In this book the Talents are widely accepted and appreciated but some people would lke to use their gifts in unacceptable ways. The Chief Engineer of the Space Station thinks that all the Talents with telekinetic powers should be put to work on completing the Space Station. This would leave industries and countries short of their assistance which is particularly worrisome in the event of a disaster. However, since the Space Station is a world-wide endeavour Rhyssa Owen, manager of the Talents in the Eastern US, and her counterparts around the world agree as long as the telekinetics can return to Earth if there is a precognition of a disaster that could use them. Meanwhile, a young boy, Peter, who was paralyzed in an accident starts to reach out mentally to Rhyssa. When he is finally found in a hospital ward it is discovered that he can tap into electrical power to augment his telekinetic talent. Peter is too young to be sent to work but in an emergency his talent is used. Another young person also emerges as talented about this same time. Tirla is a twelve year old girl who has no legal existence since her parents were supposed to only have one child. Many of the people living in the massive housing units in Jerhattan have illegal children and many are sold by their parents when they reach adolescence. Tirla's parents and her older brother are dead so she fends for herself using her ability to understand many languages to make a living. She is extremely worried that the gangsters who buy the adolescent children will seize her one day. She comes to the attention of the Center for Parapsychic Talents when she inadvertently sparks a riot.

Peter and Tirla become very important to the Center. I expect to see more of them in the final book of this trilogy.

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