Princess Leia has a plan! Economic upset on a massive scale… and if it happens to come with revenge against a certain recent traitor to the Rebellion? All the better.
What could go wrong?
(It’s even better, as Luke was just looking for them…)
It’s quite cinematic. Fetch quests, exotic locales, a crazy multipliprong battle with stakes both huge and personal…
I quite enjoyed this one.
Well…
What if what could happen were more akin to a forced vacation? Stranded alone on a world with a strict isolationist policy. No transmitters. No traffic in or out other than every six months.
It’s a neat story. Interesting to see which of our heroes adapts to the quiet life… and which very much do not.
Plus, hints of the wider Star Wars universe. Lightsaber proof shields. Massive beasties to hunt–in defense of the town. A Jedi in love. And maybe a way away from all that war…
A good one.
And it ends.
And a new day begins.
This isn’t really a book with much action (although there is some). It’s really more of an epilogue. How things wrap up and what happens next. It’s not always something you get in a series and I appreciate it.
The end of the end? Weird. Undoes a bit of the closure. But in a way, it fits?
The Animorphs were an amazing read when I guest found them years (decades?) ago now. This is my third time reading them. They may be dated at times, but oh, they hold up.
A story of teenagers growing up far too fast. Fighting a war. Saving the world. And paying for it all in blood.
Well worth the read.
My full name is Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger, Forty-one. My chosen name is Toomin. I like the sound of the word, which is all the reason you need for a chosen name.
My “game” name is Ellimist. Like Toomin, it doesn’t mean anything in particular. I just thought it sounded breezy. Never occurred to me when I chose the name that it would follow me for so long, and so far.
A world of flying crystals. Searchers, flying to the stars. A living moon. And all along, games. Games at an unimaginable scale.
Perhaps my favorite book of the whole series–although it’s for the most part completely inconsequential to any of the other books. It explains a few things (that were acceptable not to explain) and builds more worlds (perhaps connecting things too much). Still, I quite enjoy this one. And it’s at a good point.
The beginning.
And the end.
My name is Jake.
My name is Jake Berenson. The days of secrecy, of lurking in the shadows are over. The Yeerks know my name. They know my height, weight, eye color, Social Security number, and favorite foods. At long last they know the word Animorph, Marco’s word for us.
I’ve fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started. I’m sixteen now, though that fact, like so many facts, has been deliberately obscured in the secret accounts we’ve kept.
I’m a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs.
More battles, bigger than ever before. Characters we’ve met long ago, back where we’d never expect them. And choices. Choices that could charge the whole galaxy.
It all comes back to the power to morph.
And the choices the Animorphs will all have to make. And live with.
Or die by.
One more book.
The Yeerks are in the open now. Rounding up people by gunpoint and sending them by subway to the Yeerk Pool.
The Animorphs need to do something about it… but at what cost?
Add on to that, it finally comes out. Cassie stopped Jake from killing Tom–and that’s why the Yeerks can morph now.
Ax’s reaction is… interesting. We often get fairly alien beliefs from him and other Andalites. But this one, this is interesting.
But really, it all comes down to this:
None of us are adults. The others are now of the age to be attending what humans call “high school.”
Man. They’re so young.
The National Guard is mobilizing! It’s time… to kidnap the governor?
Everything escalated so fast in these last few books.
The Animorphs tried adding to their number once before.
It went poorly.
But nothing is going well any more. So now, perhaps, it’s time for some reinforcements.
The only reinforcements the Animorphs can universally assume not to be Controllers.
It’s quite the idea–and quite the risk, both for the Animorphs and for Applegate.
But as Jake said, it’s our planet. All of our planet.
Another step further.
“No, Rachel. We retreat,” Jake answered. “A tactical retreat. Save the army. Live to fight another day. But a toothbrush would be good. And extra deodorant. We’ll be out there a while.”
It’s like a series of heists. Barely planned, absolute chaos.
Almost all successful.
And still things escalate.
Well that’s a lot of world building. Start with elemental magic, nothing super new there (although acid is always a fun one). Add in an ancient prophecy and twins where only one can rule. Still not that unusual.
And then defy the prophecy and literally stop the world spinning, leaving one side a desert scorched by a never ending noon, the other frozen in perpetual night.
We’re chasing a dying sea under an endless sun that kills us with a thousand little cuts every day. There’ll be nothing left soon. Nothing but sand and bone.
Now that’s pretty cool worldbuilding, especially for a fantasy world (it’s something you see slightly more in sci-fi).
Now on top of that, you have a ruler in each world, each with a daughter. Well, you can guess what probably happened and who these two are (remember those twins I mentioned?), but none of them know that.
So you get a fascinating ride as each realized just how screwed up their own corner of the world is, falls in love (there is more than a touch of romance in this book)…
If the choice is between me risking my life and losing you, I’d choose the first.
…and sets off on a journey to set things right.
When the dead find words, the goddess and the Devoted son will meet atop a fish not a fish, on a sea not a sea. It is she who travels to the endless Abyss, and it is he who guides her.
I quite enjoyed this book. It takes a bit of getting into and the leads are… more than a touch Young Adult/‘chosen one’ish, but it’s still a fun read/listen.
Onward!