<An Arn, on Earth? Here? Why? That’s the question. What’s he up to?> Rachel wondered.

<He had to come. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace isn’t coming out on DVD there for, like, two years. He buys up a bunch of copies here, takes ’em home, makes a fortune.>

<Good grief, Marco, you live science fiction, why do you want to watch science fiction?>

<Don’t be dissing TPM,> Marco said.

So… the Arn. Like I said The Hork-Bajir Chronicles was among my favorites of these books, so following up on that storyline is pretty cool. Especially the the Animorphs getting a chance to go offworld entirely.

And hey, let’s bring back the memory implant of Aldrea (the Andalite from the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Seerow’s daughter) for good measure. Of course bringing back the dead to the source of some of their worst possible memories (although best too I suppose) can’t possibly go wrong…

It’s a neat book. Bit weird, but I liked it. I hope something comes of it, but if it does, I don’t remember from last time I read these books. We shall have to see!

Side notes:

Fact: You already know someone who is controlled by a Yeerk. You just don’t know you know someone who is controlled by a Yeerk. Yeerks can access their hosts’ memories and make them act exactly the way they always have. A human host, called a Controller, cannot move a single muscle unless the Yeerk in his or her head gives the order.

I was considering this back in The Threat, but… it’s a big world. And yet it seems that for now at least the Yeerks are focused on this one small section of the Southwestern United States. Which is a bit weird, when you think about it (they go into it a bit more in VISSER). Why don’t the Yeerks expand any more? There are enough of them.

In any case, either they’re everywhere and the war is already definitely lost or … only someone I know is a Controller if I happen to be local…

Also:

“Oh, Erek, one more thing,” Marco called after him. “I kind of need a makeup paper on some great figure from American history. It’s kind of due day after tomorrow.”

“How about Franklin Roosevelt? I was the White House butler during his administration. I was the one who came up with the phrase ‘New Deal.’ Of course, it was during a poker game.”

The ‘Chee did something at any given historical moment’ bits are cute. But I’m not a huge fan. It sort of robs humanity, just a bit, even if they did nothing. So it goes.

Also also:

<Translation into Zero-space,> Ax told us.

A different galaxy?

They tend to play fast and loose with the size of space a lot in these books, but … that seems like a lot. Galaxies are really really big.