The one where Ax watches entirely too much TV.

<Look, Tobias! Victor and Nikki are doing that thing again!> I pointed at the screen.

<Uh-huh.> His hawk eyes were trained on the little screen as Victor tightened his arms around Nikki. <It’s called kissing, Ax-man. Just like yesterday. And the day before. Kissing. Everyone does it. Of course, you need lips.>

<Ah. Well . . .> Tobias rearranged his wings noisily. <It’s definitely got a purpose. By the way, Marco’s heading this way.>

Way too much.

Marco sighed. “Whatever you call it, it basically reeks, you know. I think it’s time I introduced you to some better programming, Ax. Buffy. Party of Five, maybe. Cops. South Park. Something, anything better than this. Although she is hot.”

<Yes, she is hot. This is why she often wears less artificial skin.>

“Yeah, well, I think you may have your cause and effect turned around there. Hey, you know what you need? A TV Guide.”

Entirely too much.

“Nothing but lame sitcom reruns this week,” she said. “You’re not missing anything.”

<There are always These Messages,> I pointed out.

“These what?”

<The shorter shows that are displayed between longer shows. These Messages. They are often my favorites. “Zestfully clean! Zestfully clean! You’re not fully clean unless you’re Zestfully clean!” So much information condensed into so brief a format. So much emotional intensity.>

“You’re starting to scare me, Ax.”

Yes. The entire book is like that.

Oh, there’s also something about a machine to remove free will, which seems to fall into the ‘duh, that’s not possible category’:

“I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say, Look, it can’t be done. You don’t understand! There’s no such thing as a human being without a free will. It’s . . . it’s . . . idiotic! But he’s no scientist, much less a philosopher. You can’t separate a sentient creature from free will. They are free will. Yeerk, Hork-Bajir, human, it doesn’t matter. A sentient species has free will like an object has mass. You can’t separate them! But Visser Three doesn’t listen.”

Which… annoyed me more than it probably should have.

We don’t know what free will is. But you very much can seemingly take away people’s free will. That’s what whole classes of drugs are designed to do.

Onward.

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Erek’s glitching.

Which–if the Yeerks find out there have been highly advanced androids infiltrating them for years–could be bad.

“How about his face? A mask?”

Jake ran to snatch up some full-head masks.

“I have Clinton, Gingrich, and a Teletubby. Dipsy, I think.”

“That’s not Dipsy,” Cassie corrected. “That’s Tinky Winky. Dipsy’s green and has the straight up thing. Tinky Winky’s the one with the triangle.”

<Who’s the little red one?> Marco wondered.

“Po,” Cassie said.

<Oh, yeah.>

“No offense,” Erek said, “but how on Earth have you people managed to avoid getting caught for this long?”

I mean, he has a point.

So now the Animorphs have to go somewhere they’ve never gone before–deep, deep in the ocean. The Message was nothing compared to this. They’re going to need all new morphs this time around.

“Calamari,” she said with a grin.

“Snails?” I said, frowning.

<I am not in favor of snails,> Ax said.

“Wait, that’s not-” Cassie said loudly.

<I had the misfortune to inadvertently eat one while feeding,> Ax continued.

“You ate a snail through your hoof?” I asked. That picture temporarily replaced the image of me being squashed to the size of a Barbie doll on the ocean floor.

<Yes, and the meat portion was fine. However, once the snail’s body had been digested, the shell was very difficult to->

“Ooookay, I think that’s probably enough about snails,” Jake said.

(Calamari isn’t snail anyways, as Cassie yells shortly after this section).

It’s an interesting premise and some really weird and wonderful (ymmv) new morphs and a fun (pun intended) look into Pemalite technology and culture.

Onward!

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Whelp, it seems The Extreme wasn’t extreme enough. Forget the Arctic, now the Animorphs are going to a world far, far away.

It’s a(nother) precursor to The Ellimist Chronicles, detailing that long, long battle between the Ellimist and Crayak.

“But it wasn’t to be that simple. Approximately a hundred million Earth years ago, we became aware of a new force in the galaxy. Not a species, an individual. He was a fugitive from another galaxy, chased out of that galaxy by a power even greater than he. Greater than me.”

…

<We knew then, Crayak and I, that we could never make war again. Not open war, at least. The conflict would have to be carried on by different means. No longer a savage battle. Now it must be a chess game. There would be rules. Limits.>

This time around, it’s a contest of champions: the Animorphs (plus Erek the Chee) versus Howlers (they killed the Chee’s creators, thus Erek).

It’s quite the weird world. And quite the battle(s). And of course… quite the solution out of left field. Turns out even strengths can be turned into a weakness if you’re … human enough?

An interesting story, if a little weird.

Onward!

I’ve been hurled sixty million years into the past, and been trapped on alien planets, but I’d never felt so far from home.

The Animorphs go to the Arctic¹.

The Yeerks have decided enough is enough. They’re sick of those ‘Andalite bandits’ always ruining everything, so for their new secret project… they’re going to build at the North Pole.

Took long enough… Even if they don’t think they’re humans, the Yeerks have the numbers. Spread out and there’s no way that a half dozen guerilla fighters could deal with you any more.

In any case, it’s quite the adventure–and establishes that the Animorphs have a way to handle extended away missions now:

Erek’s solution had been to have himself and three of his Chee friends program their holograms to look like each of us. Little did my dad know that he’d be sharing his cornflakes with an android who’d been on Earth since before the first flake was created.

It… works. And gives a bit more flexibility in what stories they can tell. Man. They’re children. And having to deal with even this now…

A solid story–and more evidence

Side note: This is the first ghostwritten Animorphs book. I’ll be putting the ghostwriters in the author section as well. It’s an interesting practice. Not sure what to think about it.

Betrayed!

Of course. It was all going too well. And now we get an entire volume of death and destruction, trying desperately to claw every scrap they can away from being destroyed by Vader and the Empire.

Quite exciting. What’s next?!

(The attached annual, if somewhat shorter, is also a really fun story. Sith artifacts that should have stayed buried and accidental pod racing… oh my.)

So… the one with the Helmacrons.

They’re small. And very angry.

It’s kind of weird just how many aliens there are/have been wondering about the Earth. And this is no exception.

Plus, the idea of tiny aliens is (for the most part) played for laughs, rather than really digging into how in the world that would work. How does anything work at that scale?

Not one of my favorites.

So it goes.

Onward!

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And so after the David Trilogy and The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, we were about due for something lighter, yes?

How about… Tobias getting a letter from a long lost relative (hmm).

Of course it all goes well.

<How long do we have till your birthday, Tobias?"

<Um . . . three days?> I asked.

“Today’s the twenty-third. When’s your birthday?”

<The twenty-fifth. I think. Twenty-sixth?>

Marco laughed, then I guess he realized I wasn’t kidding.

<I don’t . . . I don’t exactly remember. Not for sure. But I think it’s in three days.> I forced a laugh. <Just don’t ask me how old I am in bird years.>

I really like Tobias. He’s quite often my favorite Animorph (Marco is a good one too). He’s just got such a fascinating story and does not give up. No matter how absolutely terrible of a life hand he’s been dealt. And perhaps…

For a long while neither of us spoke. Then Rachel, in a whisper, said, “What am I supposed to do, Tobias? I’m a girl. You’re a bird. This is way past Romeo and Juliet, Montagues and Capulets. This isn’t Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio coming from different social groups or whatever. It’s not like you’re black and I’m white like Cassie and Jake. No one but a moron cares about that. We are . . . we can’t hold hands, Tobias. We can’t dance. We can’t go to a movie together.”

Even find love? (I enjoy their growing relationship.)

What it all comes down to?

It suddenly occurred to me, right then, for the first time, that what I thought was so unique about me - that I was half instinctive predator, and half human being - wasn’t so unique after all.

Every human - Jake. Rachel. Marco. Cassie, all humans - kind of lives on that edge between savage and saint. And the thing is that sometimes when you get pushed you do have to push back. And other times, you have to turn the other cheek.

A solid story.

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Oh, I do enjoy the Animorphs Chronicles. The Andalite Chronicles were good, but if anything, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles are even better! If nothing else, there’s a lot less time travel. 😄

In this one, we get not only the story of the Hork-Bajir, but to a large extent the story of how the Yeerks came to be as well:

Alloran turned all four of his eyes on my father. <Prince Seerow, you are relieved of duty.>

<You can’t relieve me!> my father cried.

<When a commander has become incapacitated due to injury or mental defect, his subordinates may relieve him,> Alloran quoted from the regulations.

<What mental defect?> my father demanded.

<Stupidity,> Alloran said harshly. <The stupidity of kindness. Charity to potential enemies. You’re a fool, Seerow. A soft, sentimental, well-meaning fool. And now my men are dead and the Yeerks are loose in the galaxy. How many will die before we can bring this contagion under control? How many will die for Seerow’s kindness?>

It’s Alloran and his family (especially his daughter) sent to the Hork-Bajir world–and them that end up directly participating in the terrible mess that we all knew had to be coming.

But up until then, I love the worldbuilding in this one. The Hork-Bajir world is weird. I love the idea of a shattered world and giant (kilometers tall) trees keeping it barely habitable. I love the (minor spoilers) reasons why the world and the Hork-Bajir are the way they are.

And then eventually, I love the conflict. Andalite versus Hork-Bajir, not fighting, but morally and ethically. And the Yeerks in all their soon to be overwhelming numbers. It’s an invasion rather unlike that of Earth–far more out in the open.

As an added bonus, our first point of view of how the Yeerks do their thing:

My sonar found the head quite easily, of course. And I’d been taught how to pinpoint the opening into the head by extending two palps.

It was quite a small entryway. I had to squeeze myself down and work my way slowly inside the ear canal. From there on, it was all by feel. My sonar didn’t work, of course. And the smells encountered were unfamiliar, useless.

But then, after what seemed far too long a time, my palps encountered a surface alive with electricity!

The brain. I could feel the activity, the snapping neurons, the arcs of microvoltage between synapses. I had to flatten myself all the way. My palps sought for trenches, gaps, openings around the brain. And I found them. I pushed my body down inside each wrinkle of the brain. Just as I’d been taught to do.

And slowly at first, then faster and faster, I began to make contact! I felt the neurons connecting to me!

Still… a bit weird. But it’s fascinating to see for once.

As I mentioned, one of my favorites, at least up until we get to The Ellimist Chronicles.

Onward!

And so The Solution to the David Trilogy (The Discovery and The Threat).

Oy.

Sometimes there are no good solutions. This becomes increasingly clear as the series goes on.

But oh, this one. This is one of the hardest to justify.

It do not like this storyline. It’s well written and I think needed to be told. Still don’t like it.

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<Aww, shut up, Marco,> Rachel said good-naturedly. <It’s kind of fun. The wind whistling through the chinks in my body armor, rustling the spikes on my legs . . .>

<You people are all crazy,> David said.

<At one level, it’s kind of fascinating, you know?> Cassie said. <I mean, did anyone ever read the Miss Spider books? Miss Spider’s Tea Party, Miss Spider’s New Car? This could be Miss Spider Goes Flying.>

<You people are all crazy,> David repeated.

<Dragonfly Airlines,> Rachel said with a laugh.

And so continues the David saga (The Discovery and The Solution).

In this one, the new Animorph is put entirely under the test. A meeting of world leaders. One (at least) is already a Controller¹.

Good times.

It’s interesting seeing David fit in–and even more so when he doesn’t.

Onward!

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