Time Turner Tuesday ~ To Ride Pegasus

Title ~ To Ride Pegasus
Series ~ The Talents, #1
Author ~ Anne McCaffrey
Publisher ~ Ballantine Books; Del Rey Books
Published ~ 1973 (hardcover); 12 January 1986 (paperback)
Genre ~ Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Anthology

My Rating ~ 5 bites out of 5

Henry Darrow is a surprisingly accurate astrologer. He predicted the car accident that would give him a serious head injury and would put him in the one hospital with an ultra-sensitive electroencephalograph, otherwise known as a Goosegg. After his surgery he woke to a nurse watching him. He had a precognitive episode predicting they would get married and since he was being monitored by the Goosegg the chart showed the unusual activity in his brain at the exact moment of his episode. Scientific proof that parapsychic talent exists. From that point Henry Darrow begins the hard work needed to form the Parapsychic Center and bring all those with Talent under its protection.

This book contains four short stories chronicling Henry Darrow’s hard work to get the Center started then a place for the Talented to stay where their quarters weren’t crammed in with others and could be shielded to protect their minds. Land for the center, finding Talents to bring into the fold and getting laws passed to protect them all started with Darrow, but continued well after his death.

While this book was first published in 1973, I didn’t read it until after came out in paperback in 1986. Did I read it in 1986? No. I read it in 1990 after reading The Rowan, the first book in The Tower and Hive series. After reading McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, I was hunting for other works by her to read and when I picked up The Rowan I didn’t realized there were three books prior to it in a series called The Talent. Once I realized that fact it was just a matter of hunting down the books.

I was enthralled with the idea that people had extrasensory abilities and I remain enthralled to this day. A fan of Anne McCaffrey since my brother gave me Dragonflight when I was a kid (in the 70s), I love her writing. She brings a world and people to life with a minimum of description that is a perfect balance between describing what she sees and allowing the reader to paint their own version of the same picture, letting imagination fly. Her plots are tight and the characters are well-developed. The endings always make you want to have the next book on deck, so you can dive right back in.

To Ride Pegasus is the beginning of the The Talent series and it morphs into The Tower and the Hive series with The Rowan. If you like books that feature people with a wide range of parapsychic abilities then this story and all those that follow should appeal to you.

*Book source ~ My home library.