Pegasus

This post first published May 7, 2011.

Author: Robin McKinley
Published: November 2010
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
404 pages (hardcover)
 
I love Robin McKinley. She’s amazing at retelling fairy tales, and some of my favourite books of her’s includes Spindle’s End, Rose Daughter and Beauty. So when I saw Pegasus sitting in the new books section of my library, I picked it up without a second thought. Unfortunately, I was horribly, horribly disappointed with this book … I felt so let down. It’s Robin McKinley! I thought I was in for a real stellar story but I got … the opposite of a stellar story.

The premise sounds interesting enough (if not slightly odd): in this world, pegasi are a ‘people’ — they are just as intelligent as people and they have their own mini-civilization and everything. There’s a pegasus king and a pegasus queen, and they have pegasus princes and princesses. There are pegasus shamans and sculptors and servants and, well, ‘regular people’. They have buildings, they can do crafts and make paper and bags and … well, you get the idea.

In this world, the royal humans are bound to a pegasus; not like pets or anything, oh no! This binding or bonding is an ancient tradition from centuries ago when the Alliance formed between the humans and the pegasi. Anyway, the main character of this novel is Sylvi, and the story begins with her being afraid of her bonding ceremony to her pegasus, Ebon. The rest of the plot can be really easily summarized: Sylvi and Ebon realize they can actually mind-speak with one another and become super good buddies, which freaks out one of the human magicians, Fthoom, because this is not supposed to happen and he’s convinced that such a bond will bring disaster to their Alliance. At one point, Ebon invites Sylvi to visit him in his pegasus country. She goes, a change happens to her in that she feels more connected to the pegasi than ever. (!!! sort of spoiler-ish but I really don’t think so !!!) She comes back to the human country where rocs and other  intelligent monster bird creatures are preparing to attack their country, at the same time Fthoom finds evidence that Sylvi and Ebon’s relationship really is disastrous for their countries. (!!! end spoilers !!!) 

The plot moved so slow. It was, for lack of a better word, boring. I could not comfortably read this book in a sitting or two — small doses is what got me through it. I felt like often the narration beats around the bush, repeating things that have already been driven into my head multiple times earlier, and is just … slow. The first half of the novel is mostly just explaining the world of the pegasus, and a lot of background information regarding the Alliance and how it came to be.

The last 30% of the novel, according to some reviewers on Goodreads, is more action-filled and gripping, but I did not find it that way, personally. The entire thing, from beginning to end, was sluggish. I don’t know what action those reviewers were referring to; I didn’t find any. I don’t know if I even experienced the climax of the story. I’m not even really sure what the conflict is, or was. And the ending was really sudden. It’s a cliffhanger, which surely means there’s a sequel coming soon (which, at this moment, I don’t plan on reading). It didn’t even really feel like a cliffhanger, it just felt like the story abruptly ended, in a place it shouldn’t have. I feel that, since this entire book felt like one big Pegasus 101 textbook, the sequel should have just been merged into this book to make one book. There’s no need for two books, because there pretty much nothing happened in this first book, so if there is actually a conflict or a plot in the second one that continues this story, I feel it should just have been all put together in one package.

That’s all just my personal opinion though. From what I can tell, it seems people are pretty split on this book. There are many who feel the way I do, but there are also some who felt Pegasus was an enjoyable read (though they agree the beginning, at least, was slow). Anyway, I don’t really recommend reading this book, especially if you want to try some of Robin McKinley’s work; she has so many better novels published, and Pegasus is not one of them.

My Rating: 1/5