PBOTD: 26th February, Michael Maguire - Mylor, the Most Powerful Horse in the World

Michael Maguire has a solid set of adult racing novels to his name, but he also has a couple of books written with a sort of lunatic invention that makes them stick in the mind of everyone who read them. The pony book world has its share of wildly imaginative books which take off into fantasy, but they're rare. Such books don't chime with the girl plus pony plus gymkhana blueprint, although winning the bending each and every time not because of your immaculate riding, but because of your finely engineered horse, has a certain attraction as an idea.

Because the Mylor books featured a horse alright, but Mylor was a robot. Despite that, Mylor has character - bucketfuls of it, in fact. 

WH Allen, 1976, first edition
I rather like the chestnut horse on the front cover of the original hardback (the later paperback had an identical illustration). Michael Maguire has republished the book himself, and Mylor now appears still as a chestnut with a white blaze, but he's become an Arab. Quite Shantih like in fact. The thought of Patricia Leitch's Jinny and a robotic chestnut Arabian is certainly one to give one pause for thought.

Authorhouse, 2012

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For more on Michael Maguire, see his page on my website.

Comments

Sue Beard said…
oh! I had no idea there was a follow up to the original! I feel a trip to Amazon coming on!

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