Book 1 - To Ride Pegasus was disjointed.
Book 2 - Pegasus in Flight was better.
Book 3 - Pegasus in Space.....

... started well enough with an exciting wrap-up of a plot thread hanging over from the previous book. I liked the way this was done as the previous book had enough of a climax and this worked quite well as a start to book 3.

.....and then, not much else happens.... Peter grows up and realises his true abilities - which had been hinted at enough in the previous book that we all knew it was coming.
A bit of sabotage that feels like it could at least turn into a bit of a whodunnit, but again sort of fizzles out without an exciting resolution.
Minor villains, love-interests, etc are all very predictable from first sighting, and just takes forever to reach the end of this book and the happily ever after.

Oh well. Another series completed. ( )

For 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? ( )

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82 points, 4 ¼ stars

Quote:

“Pete, I have every confidence in you.”
“What if …”
“What if be damned, Reidinger. You’ll never know until you reach the limits of your envelope.”

Review:
Pegasus in Space was written almost a decade after Pegasus in Flight, and after the entirety of the spinoff, The Tower and the Hive, as well. Yet it actually takes place shortly after the events in Pegasus in Flight. And by shortly after, I mean like two or three years. And it still mostly follows the same character, too.

The main character is Peter Reidinger, the quadriplegic super-telekinetic from the previous book. There are a few new side characters, too. This follows Peter's journey into space, something he craved to do even in book two when he was confined to a hospital bed. Peter has made it his goal to figure out how to use his telekinesis, specifically his gestalt with electricity, to accomplish space flight. But before he can do that, he has to get out into the working world. He has to figure out the limits of his abilities. He has to figure out how to help other telekinetics create a gestalt with electricity. And he has to find some confidence in himself and his powers.

Throughout it all, Peter comes up with the FT&T organization, which is the organization that is predominant in the Tower and the Hive spinoff series. He is building a guideline to the future, all in his head, while he solves the problem of how to accomplish things in space. Just like in the first book, To Ride Pegasus. Only, this time, Peter doesn't have any precognitive help. Also he is only a young adult, around 18-20 years old over the course of the book. He has a long journey ahead of him.

Overall, I liked Pegasus in Space. However, I did find it a bit boring. I ended up reading this in publication order, not chronological, which meant I read all of the Tower and the Hive first. And overall, I think I was just done with this story before I got to Pegasus in Space. And it didn't help that I was going back in time. Luckily this is the last book in my read, and I'm happy with where the series ended up. ( )

Having gathered all three books of the Talents trilogy (To Ride Pegasus, Pegasus in Flight and this one) I read them in 2018. Although the first book was not as strong as McCaffrey's Pern books the second and the third books were very well done. These books as a whole deal with how the human race uses psychic powers to launch our species into space. Maybe it will happen!

In the second book Peter Reidinger was discovered to be a powerful teleporter as well as a telepath when he was paralyzed after a wall fell on him and he was desperate to get out of his hospital bed. In this book Peter reaches maturity and can be put to use transporting shipments to the Padrugoi space station and beyond. He has help and support from other teleporters but he is still paralyzed. Then Amariyah Bantam comes to the Eastern Parapsychic Centre and becomes Peter's foster sister. Amariyah was orphaned by the huge flood in Bangladesh with which the second book ended. Everyone feels she has pyschic powers but she is so young and no psychic can be expected to test their abilities until they are at least in puberty. She does love to garden and her plants do wonderfully under her care. She can also give a good massage which Peter appreciates after he sustains a number of broken bones in what might or might not have been an accident. Later when Peter starts to regain some feeling he suspects that Amariyah's massages may have covered her ability to make repairs to his spinal chord injury. First though Peter (and other pyschics) have to survive attempts made on their lives and find out who is behind it. There are some very tense moments in this book.

McCaffrey, who wrote this book in 2000, dedicated it to Christopher Reeve who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995. She says "This book is respectfully dedicated to Christopher Reeve with the devout hope that he realizes his ambition--to stand on his own two feet once again in 2002!" Although Reeve never regained the ability to stand on his own feet he did regain some motor function and was able to sense hot and cold. This is very similar to the path that Peter Reidinger took in achieving control of his body. Too bad psychics weren't available to help Reeve. ( )

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. ( )