Pegasus

Pegasus by Robin McKinley (NEW READ)

I've been a Robin McKinley fan since high school, but I feel like I haven't loved her newer work as much as "Hero and the Crown", "Deerskin" or even "Beauty". This book looked like a return to her old form, so I was looking forward to it. Plus the cover is gorgeous- it really looks like the girl and pegasus are in different worlds (earth and sky), but their placement makes them look like they are trying to reach each other.

Sat down and started reading and got a big old history lesson on the how the kingdom was founded. Great, not only was I in infodump city, but it made the pace of the first 100 pages slooooooooooow. I'd rather have started with the main characters (Sylvi, the princess and Ebon, the pegasus) meeting and learned more through their character development, but I felt like I was getting the worldbuilding in huge boring chunks.

Since the start was so slow, I had to hang in there until things got better. And... they did get better. The descriptions of pegasi culture were fascinating, and I wish we had spent more time there early, or maybe had a pegasus narrator for alternating chapters. McKinley actually comes up with a decent reason that beautiful flying magic horses might feel jealous of humans (they long to create, but only have a few fingers which are super delicate and weak). Human hands actually feature in the pegasi fairytales, which is a nice way to round out their culture (not perfect, wants things they don't have).

Unfortunately, I did not know that this book was half of what originally was one story. The end comes at what would be a climax in the story complete, which makes for a horrible cliffhanger and gives the book almost no story arc of its own. I haven't said "Fuck!" this much about a book in a long time. I felt strongly about it- too bad I felt anger and disappointment. I'd like to know what happens, but I feel so cheated I will have to make myself pick up the next one.

Ideally, I wish this book had been more heavily edited to remove the boring bits (court politics, suspicious wizards that are OBVIOUSLY evil but spend pages wasting our time) and then released as a complete story, instead of only half a book.