Category: Serena’s Reviews

Animorphs #47: “The Resistance”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, November 2000

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: The Animorphs and Ax have to make the most important decision they’ve ever had to make: Do they continue to fight the Yeerks in secret, or is it time to let everyone know there is a resistance? That the Animorphs exist. And that Earth does stand a small chance against the invasion.

Jake knows that either choice is a major one. Not one that some kid should be responsible for. But he’s getting tired of the pressure. So, even though he realizes the other Animorphs need him to be strong, he doesn’t feel that way. In fact, he feels just the opposite. And Jake knows if he starts to lose it the Animorphs are done…

Narrator: Jake

Plot: Why. Why would we waste one of the Jake’s last precious books on this steaming pile? It’s only half a Jake book at best, and even that half is so, so not awesome. I think I could have resigned myself to this kind of nonsense if we were still in the doldrums that was much of the books in the 30-range, but here?? Now?! No.

Look, I’m too mad to even detail the Civil War plot. Let’s be honest, I skim read all of these sections. Not only did I not care one bit, but the parallels that were being drawn were so on the nose that it was just uncomfortable at times. And also unnecessary. The series as a whole has always done an excellent job of presenting complicated wartime decisions without the need to prop those conversations up against some historical event. So, here is the plot description for the half of the book that was, you know, actually an Animorphs book.

Jake returns home, exhausted from yet another mission. On top of that, after Marco’s exposure and their exploits on the military ship, the team is in the middle of a serious debate about how/when/or if they should make their war public. Everyone is grumpy, and Jake doesn’t know what is the right choice. His mom greets him with a chores list to clear out the basement. Trudging down, he begins going through boxes and discovers a journal from a past relative who served in the Union during the Civil War. [Here enters the alternating storyline that I will actively try to forget even happened.]

Cassie calls and through code informs Jake that he’s needed at the free Hork Bajir valley. Once he and the others arrive, they are told that the worst has happened: a couple of Hork Bajir warriors have been captured and will have been infested by now, exposing the location of the valley to the Yeerks. Jake and the Animorphs immediately insist that the Hork Bajir must flee the valley, but Toby insists that they want to stay and fight, even in the face of what has to be insurmountable odds. Once it becomes clear that they will not be moved from this position, the Animorphs get down to trying to plan their defense.

As they explore around the valley, they come across a beaver dam and pond. From there, Jake gets an idea: if they build up the dam even further, they can use the pooled water as a timed released to flood out the invading Yeerk forces. The team also discovers a group of campers in the area. The team split up to get to work with several of them morphing beavers and starting to build up the dam. Tobias and Jake head out to try and get the campers to move out.

They decide to approach the campers in their human form with some lame stories about incoming weather. Not surprisingly, the campers don’t believe them. They then decide to just forget it all and morph in front of them. Luckily for them, the campers turn out to be huge Stark Trek nerds and are immediately down with the idea of believing a wild story about invading aliens. Some of them take off, but a small group (a father and his two teenage kids) decide they want to fight alongside the Animorphs and head back to the Hork Bajir valley. There, they join in an assembly line where the Hork Bajir are building spears to fight against the Yeerks.

Finally, the attack comes. They manage to hold back the first line of Hork Bajir, but shortly follows Visser One (Three) himself, in the morph he used in the first book when he chased the Animorphs out of the Yeerk pool, along with a group of Taxxons. Jake frantically signals for the dam to be released as free Hork Bajir fall all around the fighting Animorphs. Tiger!Jake ends up in a one-on-one fight with Visser One, but luckily the flood of water hits right when things start looking bad for him. He manages to swim his way out, and Visser One and the remaining Taxxons retreat.

Knowing that the Yeerks will likely try again, Toby prepares the remaining Hork Bajir to flee into the woods where they will remain until the end of the war. Marco’s parents will accompany them. As for the campers, the dad died in the attack and the two teenage children are shell-shocked. Jake and the Animorphs head home, with Jake reflecting that all they can ever do is what they think is best in the moment.

Our Fearless Leader: The beginning of this book is really great for highlighting just how exhausted Jake has become at this point. He mentions the fact that the group is barely making it through school and are all running on empty. To then get home and be presented with a list of chores…you can see how it would almost be enough to break him. Especially on top of the looming debate about going public.

There are some good moments between him and Tom. Tom even slips up a few times, making comments under his breath that would be suspicious if Jake wasn’t already in the know. It goes to show that the war is beginning to take a toll on the Yeerks as well; everyone’s guard is beginning to fall as things start to come to a head.

As for the rest of the book, we see a few good leadership moments from Jake, especially with his idea about the beaver dam. But we also see a lot of moments where things and people are definitely out of his control. He reflects on the choices that Ax made in the last book and has to come up against Toby and the Hork Bajir when they refuse to follow his direction to flee the valley.

Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel is, of course, pro to the idea of the team going more public. She also uses her grizzly morph to help get the dam built more quickly when the beavers have a hard time moving some of the bigger logs. Not much else, other than that.

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias is with Jake when they confront the campers, so I equally blame him for the sheer stupidity of this move. I will detail my feelings on this whole “plan” later, but essentially I think it was a pretty terrible choice on both of their parts. I also wish we had gotten more from Tobias with the debate with Toby and the other Hork Bajir about the future of their life in the valley. He’s the closest to this group, so it always feels like a missed opportunity when he’s not more at the center of any discussion or interaction with them.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie is the one to wade into the beaver pond and captures a beaver for them to acquire. Not sure how believable her method is, but if anyone was going to do it, it would be her.

The Comic Relief: Marco, as usual, is the only reasonable one in the group when it comes to the nonsense that is the idea that the Hork Bajir want to stay and fight and the fact that Tobias and Jake revealed themselves to the campers. The entire time, he repeatedly points out that they have no chance of winning and fighting simply for pride or something is just a way to die more quickly.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: I have to say, one of the bigger disappointments of this book is the way that we get very little follow-up on the monumental decisions that Ax made in the last book. Jake pretty much says that they’ve both kind of silently agreed to just not talk about it. Jake admits that he is secretly glad that Ax took the decision out of his hands, but he’s also still mad that Ax would disobey him so directly. For his part, we see that Ax won’t meet Jake’s eyes and clearly still has strong feelings about the entire experience. And that’s about all we get. There is zero reference to the fact that Tobias, Rachel, and Marco all agreed with Ax’s plan and helped him execute it as well, which has to be almost as notable to Jake.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Not really a lot. The beaver morph was pretty straightforward, as far as morphing mechanics go. The fight between tiger!Jake and Visser One is pretty  brutal, however. Poor tiger!Jake, always with the neck injuries!

Couples Watch!: Really nothing at all. There were a few nice references to how well Marco’s parents are doing with their life in the valley, but Jake and Cassie don’t have much and neither do Rachel and Tobias.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: It’s a cool call-back to have Visser One come after them in the same morph he used in book #1. I think this may be one of the first times we’ve ever seen him re-use a morph? I’ve always thought it was strange that he didn’t have preferred battle morphs in the past, but if he was going to have one, this one seems like a solid choice. The only reason it didn’t work way back in the first book was due to its size and the small tunnels in the Yeerk Pool. Out in the open, it seems like a powerful choice. He gets in his usual corny lines, so it’s nice to know that the promotion has done nothing to improve (?) his campy villain mode.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: The whole decision with the campers, especially when you look at the end result which is two teenagers who are now orphans. There was absolutely zero reason this had to go down the way it did. It’s one thing to reveal themselves to military personal on the ship, individuals who have signed on and trained for battle. It’s completely another to involve unprepared civilians. Not only  have we seen the Animorphs deal with scenarios exactly like this in the past super easily (just send in grizzly!Rachel and the problem is solved), but they only make the barest attempts to convince the campers to leave before just jumping to “let’s reveal all of our secrets to a group of complete strangers!”

Then, to make matters worse, it becomes immediately clear that the campers are in no way tracking with the seriousness of the issue, making tons of references to Star Trek and such (these were fun for laughs, but should have been seriously worrying for Jake and Tobias). So what do Jake and Tobias do? Agree that sure, it’s fine if some of them want to join in the fight. And sure, it’s fine if the others want to head out, now knowing all of their secrets. Jake and Tobias even make some passing reference to the fact that no one will believe them because they’re Trekkies. Do you know who will believe them? The Yeerks, that’s who!! They’ve known this for literally years now, which is why it’s always been so important to not reveal their human forms. It’s just insane that they now hand-wave it away or “forget” this part of it.

And then what happens? The dad and teenagers get there and then the dad realizes that wait, yes, this is real and death is on the line. But, oops, it’s too late, and now the Animorphs have civilians who all they can do to protect is to tell them to hide. Which they do, and the dad still ends up dead. There’s no reference to what happens to the kids past this point. But there is zero excuse for any of this nonsense. Jake and the others essentially just exposed their whole operation for no reason and got two kids’ dad killed for nothing. It has to go down as one of the worst things they’ve done in the entire series.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: The whole idea that the Hork Bajir wanted to stay and fight. This falls largely on Toby’s shoulders, but also on the rest of the Animorphs for giving in as easily as they do. I get that they couldn’t force the issue, but Toby really has no excuse. There were a lot of pretty lines about freedom and defending one’s home, but all of this is completely pointless in the situation they were in here. Freedom is meaningless if you’re dead. Not to mention, in the middle of battle preparations Toby is also preparing her people for the necessary retreat at the end of it. What the hell?! It’s bad enough to be naive enough to think they could win the battle, but the fact that they know and acknowledge the fact that they’ll need to retreat at the end of it anyways? Then you are literally just throwing your life away for pride or some nonsense. And asking others to do it too by involving the Animorphs. It’s pure stupidity for nothing. They still suffer huge losses, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that this counts as a “win” because now they’ve “protected their home” or some such nonsense? You’re still retreating to life in exile in the woods!! Nothing changed from this other than the fact that you lost a lot of your people for nothing and had the same end result.

I will say that the beaver/dam issue was rather clever. I’m not sure about the mechanics of how this would work (how fast would water really build up?), but it’s a cool idea nonetheless.

Favorite Quote:

A good comical line from Marco. The same could be said about the cover. Here we are, getting close to the end, and we have…a beaver morph.

<You know, this mission is seriously important. I’m thinking the morph should be a little more, I don’t know, glamorous. I mean, going beaver to save an entire colony of aliens is like putting James Bond behind the wheel of a minivan. With a bumper sticker that says, “World’s Greatest Mom.” No offense.>

Marco, again, calling it like it is. Jake’s rebuttal is completely weak, too. Marco legitimately did have to do what he did. Jake absolutely did not. If they had to reveal themselves to every person who’s been in the way on one of these missions, they would have shown themselves to people in almost every book.

<Exactly the problem!> Marco said angrily.<Jake, who decided it was okay to make public appearances?>

“Well, you, actually,” I said. “And that’s not an accusation. It’s a fact. When you told your dad about us. You did what you had to do and so did I.”

<That was different with my dad,> he said forcefully. <Maybe even with those sailors and marines on the aircraft carrier. I don’t know. But come on, Jake. You don’t even know these campers. Who they work for, who they’re related to, where they’re from.>

Scorecard: Yeerks 13, Animorphs 16

A point for the  Yeerks! Not only did the Animorphs/Hork Bajir make terrible decisions throughout this all, but the Yeerks successfully flushed out the Hork Bajir and took one of the Animorphs’ main bases of operation off the table.

Rating: This book was infuriating. I only covered the half that had to do with the Animorphs and as you can see from my multiple rants above, even that part was incredibly angering. And that’s not counting the fact that a full half of the book was wasted on a Civil War plot line that was completely unnecessary. Look, I get that in long-running book series or show, you reach a point where this type of experimentation with storytelling comes to play simply due to ideas running dry. But we were at that point books and books ago. Now, things are actually ramping up! The series is clearly building towards an ultimate conflict. This is absolutely NOT the time to waste an entire half of an already short book on stupidity like this. And really, it’s not like the Civil War story added anything to this. I skim read it, but I could have literally read zero of it and missed nothing. Like I said above, any parallels that were drawn were so on the nose as to seem comical. And Jake’s not even reading this story or anything where he could be making these connections himself as his own story plays out. It’s just two completely seperate stories running next to each other. I’m not here for the Civil War; I’m here for Animorphs, and there’s so little of it left that it’s almost insulting to read a book like this where half the page count is essentially just thrown out on a pointless side story.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all!

Animorphs #46: “The Deception”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, October 2000

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: The Animorphs and Ax have managed to contact the Andalite home world. But the battle is far from over. Visser Two has arrived on earth, and he’s not happy about the state of things. He decides the best way to take over Earth is to have the humans destroy the people and the land the Yeerk’s don’t need. He decides to start World War III.

Ax and his friends know that Visser Two means business and there will probably only be two ways to keep him from destroying everything they know: Find a way to stop the war. Or, find away to stop him …forever..

Narrator: Ax

Plot: Another “beginning of the end” book where we see the start of the expansion of what, to this point, has been a very small war up on to a much larger, global scale. And poor Ax really embraces his role as being of two people and what that means, and it’s just rough.

The story picks up right off the back of the last with the Animorphs reaching out to the Andalites. In no surprise to anyone, even, notably, Ax himself at this point, the Andalites are huge dicks and immediately question the validity of the information the Animorphs are providing about the Yeerks preparation for the Andalite fleet. They accuse the Animorphs of potentially just trying to make things up to re-direct the Andalite fleet back towards helping Earth. Ax even gets on at one point and they say that while they’ll take what he says “under consideration,” he “might have confused his loyalties” by all of this time on Earth at this point, so they can’t completely trust him. Again, Andalites, showing their true colors as just the worst (all the more so for always strutting around claiming to be the best).

Later, Ax, Marco and Tobias overhear a garble report from the Yeerks on the transmitter. Ax manages to hack the transmitter into the NSA computer system and with its greater power is able to more fully receive the full Yeerk report: Visser Two is on his way to Earth to begin to put Visser Three’s (now Visser One) more grand plans into action. They overhear a set of coordinates and immediately need to make a plan.

They discover that the location is far out over the Pacific Ocean, and with the short amount of time before the plan, whatever it may be, is set to be put in motion, they won’t have time to make it out there using any of their morphs. This sets off the moral debate about whether or not they’ve finally reached the point where they will need to compromise on their general practice of not morphing humans. Cassie protests, but Jake is able to convince her that by this point in the war, they have to make these tough choices.

They make their way to an air force base and there Rachel and Ax knock out two pilots, morph them, and commandeer a fighter jet. The other morph flea and hang on for the ride, their small bodies able to survive the increased pressure from the incredible speeds the jet reaches. They make their way out to a large nuclear carrier ship in the middle of the ocean. But by the time they’ve gotten there, the original pilots have been discovered and everyone is on high alert. Ax manages to execute a controlled crash into the ocean and they all morph seagulls and make their way to the ship.

Jake, it turns out, has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of huge military ships like this, and using this information, they infiltrate the ship with Ax morphing another human sailor and making his way around. The problem is: they don’t know what they’re looking for! Until they spot some new arrivals who include a familiar face: Chapman. Alongside an officer called Admiral Carrington who they quickly discover is Visser Two, Chapman approaches the ship’s captain and says they have a special delivery for him. Ax slips two of the roach!Animorphs into the captain’s pocket and they are able to get in the room with him, but they are too late and the captain is infested. Ax and the others go to battle morphs to try and help, witnessed by several sailors around them. They barge in and Ax upends the portable Yeerk pool. In the madness, human soldiers barge in and the Animorphs have to bail to avoid hurting innocents.

Cassie and Ax end up together and Ax once more morphs his human sailor morph and, with Cassie on board, makes his way through the ship to an information deck that Jake had mentioned. There, they overhear an announcement of an incoming Chinese missile which shortly after hits with a massive explosion. Ax is quick to put together the Yeerk plot: they are planning on setting off WWIII by instigating a war between the Chinese and the U.S. Ax frantically calls out to Jake who orders him to do whatever he has to to reverse the admiral and captain’s orders to retaliate. Ax shoots the admiral/Visser Two in the leg. When the medics arrive to take him to medical bay, Ax follows them and quickly knocks them out when they are in a private room. He acquires the admiral and returns to the control center where he orders the captain to reverse the order for a counter attack.

Chapman and the captain return to the room where Visser Two is lying, but the room is now also full of the rest of the Animorphs in their battle morphs. They demand to know what the rest of the plan is. In the way of any true villain, Visser Two immediately spills the rest of the plan: in a few hours, the US will hear that the ship has been attacked by the Chinese, and a specific sub, manned by Yeerks, will set out with a nuclear weapon to attack China. They try to threaten Visser Two into telling them which sub is the one controlled, but Visser Two is a true believer and zealously wackadoodle with his visions of Yeerk glory and refuses to tell them.

They are interrupted by the arrival of a bunch of Bug Fighters carrying Hork Bajir. Pandemonium breaks out on the ship with the human crew fighting against the Controlled crew and the alien invaders. Several members of the crew begin to recognize that the Earth animals that have suddenly appeared on the ship are fighting on their side and try to team up with the Animorphs. However, they are all badly outnumbered and it is hard to tell which humans are Controlled and which aren’t in the madness. In the madness, Visser Two escapes.

Ax sets off through the battle to track him down. To do so, he decides to follow Chapman and to do that, he gets another human morph, this time asking the individual in question who quickly agrees. He tracks down Chapman and, holding him at gun point, tries to get him to reveal the location of Visser Two. But before he can make much progress, he gets knocked out. He comes to, returns to his Andalite body, and makes his way back through the ship where he discovers the dying Captain. The Yeerk slithers out, but Ax knows it won’t make it far. The Captain says he tried to fight it, and Ax reassures him that he did all he could and stays with him until he dies.

Ax meets up with Tobias who has also acquired another human morph. All around them, the battle is being lost, with more and more of the ship falling under Yeerk control and the real humans being massacred. They meet up with the others and debate what to do, knowing that Visser Two, in his mania, can’t be threatened into revealing the Yeerk-controlled sub.

It’s at this point that Ax realizes the only way forward and privately thought speaks Jake. He tells him that in this situation, they only threat that could work against Visser Two is  a threat against the Yeerk pool itself. And fighter jets on the ship has some pretty strong bombs…Jake is horrified, knowing that they’d have to kill thousands of humans to drop a bomb through the middle of their city to reach the Yeerk pool. Ax realizes that Jake can’t make this decision, but he, Ax, the alien and outsider, can. He knocks Jake out and tells Cassie that he’s been injured.

He spots Visser Two and calls out to Rachel, Tobias and Marco that he needs there help; he needs to steal a plane and Visser Two needs to be one it with him. Tobias and Rachel don’t stop to question him, but Marco is suspicious asking not only where Jake is but what Ax plans on doing once he’s in a plane with Visser Two.

<You Andalites. You people have a tendency to destroy what you want to preserve.

And that plane is carrying a nuke. I saw it being fitted up by some of the visser’s

men.>

Ax acknowledges that he and Marco have not always trusted each other, but that he, Ax, knows that Marco has always been one to put the mission first, to do what needs to be done in the face of horrible choices. Rachel looks to Marco, and Tobias looks away. Marco finally agrees to help, asking whether they ever really had any choices in this war.

With Marco, Tobias and Rachel’s help, Ax manages to get Visser Two on a plane and take off, right as Cassie and Jake run up. In the plane, Ax lays out the situation for Visser Two: either contact the submarine and have it stand down, or he will drop a nuke on the Yeerk Pool. At the very last moment, Visser Two agrees and Ax lets him use the radio to contact the submarine. He releases Visser Two and makes his way home, wondering how he will be received by his friends.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: This is a big book for Ax, with a lot of important notes for his character. One of the smallest ones, but one I still found interesting, was seeing just how far Ax has come in his understanding of human behavior. Throughout this story, instead of the general confusion and bewilderment at “strange humans” like we’ve seen in past books, instead we saw more and more evidence of how thoroughly Ax has come to understand humanity. From little things like know what rhetorical questions are and even using them himself, to larger things like being able to imagine facial expressions alongside comments made by his friends while in morph, thus increasing his knowledge of what is truly being communicated beyond the words themselves.

We also see in the very beginning of the book how much Ax has had to readjust his perceptions of his own people. He’s no longer completely surprised by the Andalites’ poor response to pleas for help from him and his friends. And, when asked by Jake later, he admits to not knowing whether the Andalites will ultimately listen to their warning.

Throughout the story, we hear more and more about how much Ax now sees himself as both Andalite and human. He is horrified by the evils of each race, but also loyal and and values them both as well. The destruction on the ship and loss of human life hurts him just as much as it does the others. But then, in the end, he also realizes the unique role he has come to inhabit on the team. He has adopted humanity as his own, but he is also still an alien, still the only one capable of making a decision such as the one to drop a nuke on the Yeerk Pool. That being the case, however, we see how much this decision tears him apart. Marco accuses him of perhaps doing it for Andalite glory, but as a reader, inside of Ax’s head, we see how terrible this decision weighs on him the entire time. And, given that Marco, Rachel, and Tobias ultimately agree to help him, we have to imagine they sense that his real reasons are still in the right place: trying to avoid WWIII.

Our Fearless Leader: It’s pretty lucky/convenient that Jake has so much knowledge of the layout and organization of a massive battleship like the one they end up on. But on the other hand, as someone who has been leading an underground war for years now, it’s also probably not surprising that he may have spent his down time researching other military avenues.

The moment between Ax and Jake where Ax brings up the suggestion to bomb the Yeerk Pool is exceptionally good. We see that while Jake has come far in his ruthlessness and willingness to bend moral lines to do what needs to be done, he still has a pretty hard and fast line with regards to the loss of human life. Ax, to his credit, is quick to realize this as well and to even conclude that it hadn’t been right of him to even ask or expect Jake to be able to grapple with a decision like this. This is pretty close to the end of the series, and I think from here on out, Jake’s progress down this ruthless path goes faster and faster.

Xena, Warrior Princess: Rachel doesn’t have a whole lot in this one. Of course, she’s in on the action the entire time and is chosen to be the other Animorph to morph another person to operate the fighter jet with Ax in the beginning. Ax mentions that she was elected to this role for her “nerves of steel,” since the incredible speeds of the plane would be pretty intimidating to most. It’s also worth noting that in the end, when confronted with Ax’s plan, she looks to Marco to make the ultimate decision about whether they will help Ax.

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias, too, doesn’t have much other than his involvement in Ax’s plan in the end. Looking at the three who end up involved in this, I think it makes a lot of sense. Of the entire team, Rachel, Tobias and Marco have a pretty solid history of making big, often ruthless decisions. Let it not be forgotten that Tobias and Ax were the ones to ultimately decide the fate of an entire alien species back in Megamorphs #2.

Peace, Love, and Animals: One of the more notable moments for Cassie came with the discussion about morphing humans. She immediately resists the idea, but Jake is able to convince her that it has to be done (though, notably, she doesn’t do it herself). She also says that Jake is the only one she would trust to know if the time has come where this type of moral compromise is truly necessary.

The Comic Relief: As I said, it makes sense that Marco, Tobias, and Rachel end up being the three to ultimately decide to go with Ax’s plan. It’s also great seeing just how quickly Marco figures out what is going on. Ax even notes that he had prepped for Marco to ask where Jake was, but even with that prep, Marco jumps immediately to the correct conclusion about Ax’s use of the plane as well. It’s interesting to see Marco accuse Ax of potentially doing this for Andalite glory. Being in Ax’s head, especially in this book, we’ve seen the transformation he’s underwent with regards to the naivety he used to have about his own people. We see how much he values Earth and sees the Animorphs as his family. But from an outsider’s perspective, especially someone as naturally cynical and suspicious as Marco, it’s interesting to note that a motivation like this could still be assigned to him. But Ax’s direct reasoning, that WWIII can not be allowed to happen, is exactly the sort of Point A to Point B line of thinking that would resonate with someone like Marco.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: There wasn’t a whole lot as far as body horror goes in this one, other than your usual morph descriptions. I will say that it’s interesting to see just how “all-in” they went on the morphing humans thing once they decided that was the way to go. Ax ends up acquiring something like three human morphs over this entire book, and he’s the one of them that even has a human morph already that couldn’t be traced (though, of course, the fact that he’s a kid would stand out). And then Tobias and Rachel each morph people. Rachel’s makes sense, but I’m not sure that Tobias really had to. It almost seems a bit too easy, morally speaking. Like once they got the go-ahead, any moral qualms were immediately out of the window, making it seem like the only one who truly cared about this particular issue was Cassie herself. The others just start morphing people willy-nilly.
Couples Watch!: Not a whole lot in this one, unsurprisingly given it’s an Ax book. Marco notes at one point, after riling Rachel up, that he doesn’t know how Tobias does it. And, of course, we see Cassie’s trust in Jake’s judgement when he gets her to agree to them using human morphs.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Whelp, it has happened: Visser Three has become Visser One. And we get the introduction of yet another Visser, Visser Two. For the most part, he’s played for pretty comical effect. I mean, the title of this topic area pretty much fits him perfectly. He immediately reveals the Yeerks’ entire plan under very little pressure. And he randomly starts saluting and genuflecting throughout his various speeches about the coming glory. For all of this, he’s also set up as a pretty unmovable foe as far as being threatened into giving up any real advantages. Unlike Visser Three who values his own life above anything, it’s made pretty clear that Visser Two would die before giving up the submarine, which ultimately forces Ax’s hand at the end to take things to a much more extreme level.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: There are a handful of pretty sad scenes in the last third of the book when we see the poor human sailors fighting against the Hork Bajir. Ax’s own encounter with the dying captain, and his last words essentially trying to apologize for everything, was pretty heart breaking. But there’s also another scene where at one point a sailor solutes gorilla!Marco, having noted that the Earth animals seem to be on their side. And later in the battle, Ax spots Marco kneeling over the body of this same soldier. Scenes like these also prompt Ax further into action, as well as the others, who all see how badly this individual battle is being lost and are, for the first time, losing fellow human fighters alongside them.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: A lot of people see them morph in this book. Like…a lot. Pretty much immediately it seems they all throw caution to the wind and start morphing/demoprhing in front of pretty much anyone. I don’t get this! For one, it’s pretty well established that they don’t know who is Controlled and who is not. And for two, it’s also pretty well assumed that almost everyone will be eventually Controlled once the Yeerks show up and start laying the smack down. So all of those people who saw kids morphing…not only is now really obvious that its humans morphing, but after the close call with Marco in the last book, it’d be really easy to figure out the exact identity of these kids. Obviously, the whole secrecy thing is going to go out the window pretty quickly now, but the Animorphs themselves have no reason to assume this, so their lack of caution is pretty strange.

The other really strange thing is the idea that somehow preventing the Yeerk-staffed sub from launching an counter attack will do much to stop a domino fall that’s already been started. I mean, it would already be communicated back to who knows how many bases that the Chinese attacked this ship. So…isn’t the mission already successful for the Yeerks? Theoretically, the US on its own would launch a counter attack, no need for a Yeerks-only sub at all!

Favorite Quote:

This line from Jake to Cassie when they are discussing the morality of morphing humans is a pretty good summation of the general thought-process/experience of every one of the Animorphs that we witness playing out in each of their books in the entire series:

“But…doesn’t it always come down to each one of us, all alone, asking ourselves: Am I right in doing whatever it takes for the greater good? And, do I trust myself enough to know I won’t become evil in the process? It always comes down to something that personal.”

There are so many good lines from Ax as he reflects on his choices at the end of the book, but he concludes with this simple, but sad, realization.

I would accept the consequences of my actions. I would accept full responsibility. I was the alien.

Scorecard: Yeerks 12, Animorphs 16

I’m going to give this one to the Animorphs, since preventing WWIII is a pretty big win (regardless of whether or not it’s believable that they actually accomplished this.)

Rating: This was a really good book. It reads a lot differently than other Ax books, which, at this point in the series, is pretty great to see. We see how fully he’s come to embrace his role as belonging to both species and how that effects the way he thinks and interacts with each.

The story does drag a bit in the middle when it feels like they just spend a lot of time running around a huge ship with no real idea of what to do. But then it concludes with a massive battle on the ship, with humans teaming up with the Animorphs for the first time really. And then the excellent, huge moral dilemma that Ax finds himself in at the end of the book.

I didn’t remember that this one ended without really resolving how Ax’s return to the group plays out. I’m not sure I like the cliff-hanger like ending here, though. I get that there’s potentially a lot that would need to be gone through with that reunion, but it also feels wrong to not get that scene from Ax’s perspective in particular, after spending so much time in his head for the rest of it. Oh well, still a great book!

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all!

Animorphs #45.5: “The Ellimist Chronicles”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, October 2000

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: He is called the Ellimist. A being with the ability to alter space and time. A being with a power that will never be fully understood. He is the reason Elfangor came to Earth. He is the reason the Earth now has a fighting chance. And though his actions never seem quite right or wrong, you can be certain they are never, ever what anyone expects.

This is the beginning and the middle of the story. A story that needs to be told in order to understand what might happen to the future. The future of the Animorphs. The future of humanity. The future of Earth.

He is called the Ellimist. And this is his story…

Narrator: Toomin/Ellimist

Plot: I only read this one once as a kid, and now I remember why…

There will be spoilers for the end of the series in this one for sure! You have been warned.

Bam. An Animorph will die. Just right there, in your face in the first few sentences of this book. I can’t remember my reaction as a kid, but it had to have been terrible. Especially since at that point the books were still being released so I didn’t know how many were left, whether it would happen in the last book itself or the very next one or when at all! Now, having a firm grasp on the few precious books we have left with dear Rachel, it’s not much better. And I had completely forgotten that these small bookend scenes were even part of this story, so that was sure a joy to discover when I picked this one up!

The story starts out in the nebulous unknown with a recently killed, unnamed Animorph questioning the Ellimist about the meaning of it all. Not having a succinct answer, the Ellimist lays out his story.

Long ago, he was born a member of the Ket race, an advanced alien life form that lived on crystal formations that the winged Ket kept in the air through shared lift duting. A young Toomin has lead a happy life of community and, importantly, gaming, where he goes by the gamer tag “Ellimist.” He and his friends regularly participate in a complicated game called “Alien Civilizations” which has complicated scenarios in which players try to control the outcome of alien races throughout time. In the midst of all of this, the Ket are preparing to launch their first Z-space ship to explore the greater galaxy. Toomin is lucky enough to be sponsored and drafted as non-essential crew for this ship.

In the months leading up to its launch, Toomin and his friends (he’s especially pleased to hang around more with the attractive female Aguella) visit another crystal colony where he meets another gamer named Menno. Menno describes how their crystal has recently adapted a democratic system of governance, doing away with the traditional form of following the leadership of an older member of the Ket. His mentality of chasing change crosses over to his approach to gamesmanship. Toomin is both fascinated and distrubed by Menno’s attitude.

As Toomin continues to learn about the ship and his impending trip into space, he and Aquella (also drafted to the crew) are brought into the secret that the Ket race had recently discovered a new species and part of their mission will be to reach out this new race. A few days before the launch, however, a mysterious ship shows. With brutal efficiency, it uses a host of weapons to take out Toomin’s home crystal, killing thousands. Toomin and about one hundred others happen to be on the ship at the time and so escape immediate death. Using a crystal shard, Toomin is able to take out the small alien ship, but as the Ket ship makes its final escape, they trap the now disabled alien ship in their force field. Out in Z-space, Toomin and the others discover that the alien is a member of the race that they had been planning to visit. They know they must head back to their planet to see if they can find any other survivors.

But when they get back, all they find are empty skies. They do manage to find one crystal however: Menno’s crystal that is using cloud cover to run away from the chasing alien ships that are leisurely hunting it. Toomin and the others land and meet up with Menno and the leadership of this crystal. They discover that Menno and the others, so proud of their embrace of change, sent out videos of themselves playing games in “Alien Civilization.” But the real disaster is they sent no explanation for what is being shown in the videos, leaving it to look like the Ket are a race of beings that simply play with the fates of others species for the fun of it. Menno and a few others make it onto the ship before the other aliens blow up that crystal as well.

Over the next 60 some years, Toomin and his crew scour the galaxy for a new home world. Menno, who Toomin makes his second in command to appease the Ket from the other crystal, pushes for them to accept their reality and adapt their own biology to become a land-based species. Toomin, Aguella (the two have now bonded into a pair but are waiting to have children until they can find a home), and the others resist this idea, insisting that they are beings of the air. As they continue their search, they discover a blue moon. Toomin heads up a crew of a handful of Ket who pilot a smaller ship into the ocean that makes up much of the moon. Once there, the ship is quickly destroyed.

Toomin “awakes” to find that he is the only member of his crew that is still alive (Menno and the original ship tried to save them after seeing the exploratory ship being attacked). He has been assimilated, essentially, into the living being that essentially makes up the entire moon and calls itself Father. Using plant-like tentacles, Father attaches himself to the bodies of all the beings trapped on his planet, using their knowledge to build himself up. Over the course of a century, Father insists that Toomin play games with him as a form of entertainment. Toomin continuously loses (something that he was also famous for doing back on his home world when he tried to play there, often focusing on trying to find the most moral route through scenarios). But at one point, Father introduces a new game that involves something called music. This new art form opens Toomin’s mind in a completely new way and he begins to win. As he wins more and more, Father retreats in a huff. While he’s away, Toomin reaches out and begins “downloading” the essences of all the trapped,dead beings around him, including his former Ket crew. When Father finally notices, Toomin has grown strong enough to over throw him and he does so, finally killing his captor.

With all the knowledge and power that Father had now in his control, Toomin “downloads” everything into his own mind and builds himself an advanced ship that incorporates his physical Ket body into it as well as creates a massive “brain” of sorts for his greater being to reside. He destroys the dying moon that was Father and takes off into the world. He wanders for a long time before finding his calling as an all-mighty do-gooder, interceding in the affairs of various civilizations throughout the universe to establish peace and order. After centuries of doing this, he returns to the site of his first “intercession” where he prevented two warring planets from continuing their conflict. He discovers that the change he caused to stop the war inspired one side to discover a new method of warfare that allowed them to completely destroy the species on the other planet. And then, without that conflict driving them, the winning species slipped backwards in technological advancement and is living a primitive life. As the Ellimist watches on in dismay, another all powerful being arrives who calls himself Crayak.

Crayak says he has been searching for this inter-galactic do-gooder and is pleased to finally meet the Ellimist. Crayak shares that he has an opposing goal: where the Ellimist wants to bring order and prosperity, Crayak simply wants to exterminate. And so begins another game, with Crayak racing ahead creating manipulative and cruel “games” with the lives of entire species and forcing the Ellimist to always play what turns out to be a losing hand. Slowly, Crayak begins winning and more and more life begins to disappear from the universe. Eventually, the Ellimist despairs and races away to a far corner of the universe.

There he discovers a primitive race of grass-eaters and he creates a body for himself and goes down to live among them. He calls these aliens Andalites and throws himself into his new life there. He marries a female Andalite and has a child, but is devastated when that child dies from a disease that he knows he could have prevented (though he has learned caution about how far he can/should intercede with the lives of species.) He is shocked when his wife comes to him later saying she wants to have another child. Over time, they have 5 children, two of whom live. It is through his wife’s vision of hope that he finally discovers a way to beat Crayak: where Crayak destroys, the Ellimist will create. Some may die, but others will live. He leaves the Andalites and goes about doing this, spreading life amount the stars. One of his favorite creations is a species called the Pemalites who he sets out to spread life as well.

Eventually, Crayak catches up to him, but by this point the Ellimist is even more powerful. As centuries go by, the Ellimist begins to win their battle of extinction and creation, with more of his lifeforms thriving than Crayak can exterminate. On this high of success, the Ellimist finally confronts Crayak himself. The two engage in a massive battle that takes place across the entire universe, crushing planets and civilizations in their wake. The Ellimist slowly gains on Crayak until, in a bout of over-confidence, he is lead into a trap and is sucked into a black hole. There, somehow, while his entire “body” is destroyed, the vast being that is now the Ellimist survives, even managing to gain control of new abilities like managing time itself. He continues his work against Crayak subtly but is eventually discovered. Now past the point of being able to be physically destroyed by each other, Crayak and the Ellimist strike a deal for one last game with a final winner and loser. It will be the last game and it will need to have rules. And so it has been playing out for millennia.

Back with the dying Animorph, the Ellimist ends his story. The Animorph knows that they cannot ask whether they will ultimately win or lose and the Ellimist agrees that even he does not know that. But the Animorph has one last question: did they matter. And the Ellimist says yes, yes they did.

Ellimist/Toomin: Oof, as per the usual for our “chronicles” characters, Toomin leads a rough life. He essentially has a few happy years as a child and then is thrown into a millennia of existential horror. From the loss of his entire home world, to a few short years (relatively speaking) of aimlessly wandering the galaxy looking for a new home, to witnessing the ultimate destruction of the sole survivors of his race, to being trapped in some mind game scenario surrounded by his dead friends for centuries, to getting caught up in another horror scenario with some random force of evil that tracks him down, to ultimately getting sucked into a black hole during his one brief moment of almost-triumph, to finally, another game that he’s been stuck playing for who knows how long. I mean, what part of any of that sounds like a good time?

In this light, we see how important it must have been for him to have that brief life span as an Andalite where he married and had kids. And even that was tragic, with the loss of his kids, while knowing that he could have saved them!

Of course, the running theme of the book is around his being a brilliant loser, so we have to see him do a lot of just that. And the story does do a good job of highlighting the importance of those few relationships he had to building up his identity and giving him enough strength to persist in what can often feel like foolish optimism in the face of impossible odds. It’s also interesting see all of this “losses” in the light that, from our perspective, we’ve only seen the Ellimist come out ahead, winning all of the smaller skirmishes that he’s been involved in with the Animorphs.

Poor, doomed Animorph: In the prologue, there’s really no clues as to who this Animorph could be. I’d say be the way he/she is written to speak, we can pretty easily write off Ax and Cassie, but other than that, the remaining four would all work. But then once you get to the epilogue, it gets narrowed down quite a bit. The Ellimist refers to the fact that this Animorph wasn’t one of the one he’s selected, but a lucky addition. From what we know from the fourth Megamorphs book, that leaves us with either Rachel or Jake. And, I guess, you could probably make a reasonable guess that Jake wouldn’t be the one to be killed off since that would essentially end the series in a lot of ways. So, without being told as much, by the end of the book, I think it would be fairly reasonable to be confident that Rachel is the going to be the one to go. And, obviously, we know that’s the case. I don’t remember making this connection as a kid, but I think I was so busy being in denial about the whole thing that I didn’t spend much time really thinking about it and putting the pieces together.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: There are quite a few bad body horror moments in this book, really. But the worst has to be Father and the way that he is essentially a living graveyard, with his tentacles twisting in and out of the millions of dead beings trapped on his surface. Toomin’s brief looks into reality (when he’s not pulled in the gaming mind zone with Father) are pretty stark. He’s surrounded by his dead friends, some of whom are torn up by their deaths, and he can see the tentacles going through his own original body as well. Pulling himself out of all this when he finally escapes is pretty gross, too.

Couples Watch!: We see Toomin/Ellimist form two major relation
If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Crayak is obviously the primary villain in this book, but in some ways I feel like we almost got more from Father than from him. At least with Father, by the end, we understood what he was: essentially a moon-sized sponge the built itself off everything that was caught in it. His motivations were also clear. Crayak…is just kind of evil for evil’s sake? And the main problem in creating an entire book that gives a backstory to an all-powerful, godlike character is that it raises a lot of questions about how another can also exist. There were millions upon millions upon millions of odds that had to play out just right to end up with the Ellimist gaining the abilities he had by the end. It’s hard to imagine a similar order of events playing out for the creation of Crayak. And, if so, I’m just as curious about those as I was am about the Ellimist, if not more so. Not only how did he become as powerful as he was, but why does he have the destructive goals that he does? It all just raises more questions than it answers, ultimately, and Crayak really exemplifies the worst part of this.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Like I said, the “chronicles” characters always have a tragic story it seems, and the same goes for this. I mean, it’s pretty hard to choose a crying moment when you have genocide and then the loss of not one but two spouses. I think though that the saddest part has to go to the loss of his first Andalite child. Not only is the loss of a child horribly tragic, but you have to add that on to the fact that the Ellimist knows that he could have easily prevented the disease that killed his child. And he’s having to choose not to do this. And, of course, this tragedy leads to his greatest realization about how to beat Crayak, by putting his weight behind creation in the face of destruction.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: I mean, the worst plan has to be Menno’s. I have to think that Applegate pulled inspiration from Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” with the whole misunderstanding of aggression between alien species and how that leads to a war.

We had lost our world because the Capasins thought we were aggressors when we were not.

But man, isn’t it fairly obvious that blasting out videos of your species essentially playing god with entire civilizations and worlds without any explanation that it’s just a game is just a terrible idea?? And it’s definitely interesting that more aliens than just the ones that conquered the Kets must have seen these videos, because this is the exact perception that Ax has about the “Ellimists” as a species when they first encounter the Ellimist: that they’re all-powerful gods that play with other species just for the fun of it.

Favorite Quote:

This quote highlights both the arrogance at the heart of what gets the Ellimist in trouble at various points throughout the story, but still, even at the end, the driving force that moves him as he plays out his “game” with Crayak.

Boldness allied with restraint and a minimalist aesthetic, all in the service of moral certainties: that peace was better than war, that freedom was better than slavery, that knowledge was better than ignorance. Oh, yes, the galaxy would be a wonderful place under my guidance.

Scorecard: Yeerks 12, Animorphs 15

No change!

Rating: I really liked re-reading this book. Mostly because it read so differently this time around as it did as a kid. When I read it the first time, I was pretty not into it to be honest. So much so, that I was actually dreading reading it this go around, as all I could remember was being extremely bored. And really, I can see why I didn’t love it as a kid. This is the most “hard sci-fi” book in the entire series. Not only do we have a ton of alien species thrown at us, with very little explanation for them all, but there are a lot of “high concept” theories being tossed around throughout the story. It’s less one of action and what happens, and more the slow moral development of this godlike character’s approach to creation, destruction, and balance. Expand this book out a bit more, and it would fit in perfectly in the adult science fiction section at the bookstore. But as a kid, there was not enough from our main characters and much of the greater questions and theories either went over my head or were simply not interesting to me at that point.

I do still question whether it really adds something to the Animorphs series as a whole. Like I said, it’s only a few steps away from being a good stand-alone science fiction novel on its own. But as part of this series? I’m not convinced. In many ways, I think it introduces more questions than it answers and there’s almost too much “neatness” in the way that other aspects of the series are all tied together with the Ellimist’s journey (his creation of the Pemalites, his time as an Andalite, etc.). Bitter moment: the fact that this book exists makes me even more angry about the introduction of “the One” in the final book and the weirdness of whatever other godlike creature was at work in Jake’s book a few books back during his period spent in an alternate universe where the Yeerks had won. If you’re going to have a bunch of unexplained god-like creatures, don’t bother explaining any of them. Because all this did was highlight how very much the odds are against any being like this existing, given all of the things that had to play out just so for the Ellimist to end up how he does. And now we have not only the Ellimist, but Crayak (unexplained), the One (unexplained), and the nameless one from Jake’s book that has been noted by the authors to not be the One either (also unexplained). It’s just too much, and while I still would never love that number of god-like characters in a series like this, it would be easier to swallow if we were just given them all on equal footing. The explanation of the Ellimist just highlights the problems with the others.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all!