Book #5: The Predator

PLOT: The Animorphs agree to steal a Yeerk Bug Fighter so Ax can get back to his home planet, but Marco breaks the news that this will be his last mission before he steps out of the group, that is, until he finds out that his supposedly-dead mother is actually Visser 1, the Yeerk in charge of the Earth invasion.

RATING: 10/10

REVIEW: With all the other Animorphs out of the way, its finally time to get a book from the POV of the group's token comedic member, Marco. Which makes it all the more surprising that this is actually one of the more serious books in the series so far as it gives one of the teens a very personal stake in the entire thing, that's actually been haunting him since before he got involved in the War. And if that wasn't enough to make this the most serious book yet, it also has a very deadly serious morph that will haunt the teens, and us as a reader, for a long time to come. It's also the most interesting morph yet - I was surprised, but the ant morph ended up being my favorite so far. It was just so much more different and thus interesting, compared to anything else they've morphed thus far, and the ant mind and the dangers they come across while in ant morphs (Such as an enemy ant faction) made it extremely intense. With everything they went through as ants (Getting their limbs ripped off by enemy ants among that), I have a feeling this is the last time we'll be seeing the ant morph in action, but I hope I'm wrong. The psychological scars they get from that will make it very interesting if they ever have to return to that morph in the future.

I found it interesting that when faced with seeing a man get robbed by a mugger, Marco make the EXACT same decision he gave Rachel so much hell for back in book 2 when she morphed into an animal to scare off a potential rapist. This go around, Marco did the exact same thing to scare off a mugger. Good to know he's really not that different, despite his whining and moaning and lecturing. And speaking of that, now that he's emotionally invested in the war with the Yeerks due to finding out about his mom, maybe he won't be doing as much whining and moaning from now on when it comes to them having to fight and go on missions to cripple the Yeerks, cause I have to say, its getting very annoying very fast.

One last scene I feel I have to mention because you can't talk about this book without talking about this scene - Ax in the mall, both in his human morph trying to blend in and then also in his regular Andalite form after he morphs back in public, and the hilarious hijinxs that followed. Good stuff there. He's diffinitly a great and unique addition to the series and I hope to see more of that in the future.

Overall, this was another really damn good entry that I don't really have any complaints about whatsoever.

Book #4: The Message

PLOT: The Animorphs start having strange dreams calling them to the middle of the ocean. When they all agree something is up, they go out into the ocean to investigate, knowing full-well it could be a trap by the Yeerks.

RATING: 10/10

REVIEW: It was nice to finally have a book from Cassie's P.O.V., as she seems to be the least-developed character in the series so far. She hardly has any lines in any of the previous books, and she's talked about the least by those characters. But now it's her time to shine and we finally get a really good look into just who Cassie is and what her beliefs are and what her home life is like and all that stuff.

We're also introduced to a new character in this book that remains for the rest of the series, an Andalite cadet named Aximili–Esgarrouth–Isthill, or Ax for short. I didn't think Ax came in this early. I could have sworn he didn't come in until book 7 or 8 or somewhere up around that area, so this entire book was a surprise for me, cause I also had forgotten over the previous 10 years, what exactly was calling out to them down from down in the ocean, and with me thinking Ax didn't come in until much later, it was like reading it for the first time all over again.

What I liked the most was that most of the redundancy of re-describing previous morphs, multiple times, is gone in this book! Finally. Although they use their morphs to save birds. Once again, for the third time in a row. But whatever, that's only very minor, seeing as how my other long-running complaints have finally been fixed, and they do finally save other animals (like a whale) this time around too, which leads into another thing I loved about the book. In every previous book we've had mostly all the same setting - on land. But this time around the majority of the book is under water and it was refreshing to get that change in scenery and an intrduction to an entire new world so to speak, of animals.

Also, the writing is already improving in each book, so that's also good. You can tell that Applegate is starting to feel more familiar with the characters and the world they exist in. Oh, and there was a slight nod to the TV show Friends, by naming all the dolphins after the characters from that show, which I loved as that was one of my favorite shows back when it was on, although it does make the series a bit dated.

Any complaints? Not really, apart from there being a few times that Cassie didn't seem like the Cassie that's been described to us in the previous books, but instead felt more like Rachel or Jake, as if Applegate forgot which character she was writing for at times. That's about it though, so nothing major.

So even though Cassie is my least favorite character, her book is so far my favorite.

Book #3: The Encounter

PLOT: The Animorphs discover a Yeerk ship cloaked in invisibility in the sky above their city and upon recon, they discover that it's a supply ship, bringing water and breathable air up to the mothership in space. So they launch an attack to knock out its invisibility while it's over a city, thus revealing the invasion to the world on a scale so large, not even the Yeerks can quiet it.

RATING: 9/10

REVIEW: Is it just me, or does each book seem to be getting shorter then the previous book? Anyway, this book was very interesting and unique, as it's told from the perspective of Tobias, the character that is permanently stuck in hawk form, so right from the opening lines you know this book will be very different then anything in the series so far.

One thing that I don't understand is all the talk among fans of Tobias being emo. I just don't see it. Just because someone's depressed, doesn't automatically make them emo. Tobias has every reason in the world to be depressed. You would be too if you were stuck in the body of an animal for the rest of your life. Personally, I find Marco much more annoying with his constant non-stop whining and moaning about everything.

So, with that little rant out of the way, I'll start with my complaints of the book. In Book 2, the Animorphs saved a bunch of birds from poachers. In this book, they save yet more birds. It's starting to get a tad bit redundant. I know Tobias is a bird and all, but they can still save other animals from time to time too. But whatever, this is only a very very small complaint. Although, while we're talking about redundant, I'm getting really sick of hearing the exact same morphs' morphing processes get described in every book over and over and over. It was a complaint I had with the last book, and it's a complaint that's even more on my nerves in this book. I don't mind describing new morphs, but for god's sake, this is the third and forth times about hearing these exact same morphs morphing, spending multiple pages to describe each one. If it keeps happening I'm just going to start skipping over those parts of the books.

On the good side of things though, we get even more characterization in this book then in the previous two, and Tobias and Rachel's little unspoken relationship steps up a major notch from the last couple books. The other characters get a bit more characterization as well as they finally start coming into their own personalities and settling down with them. These are finally the characters I remember from my childhood. And as I said above, it's really interesting to have a book from the POV of someone permanently stuck in a morph. It's different then the other two were and more interesting as its more or less a book from the POV of an animal. Plus, what happens with the female hawk that kept popping in and out of the story was just downright heartbreaking and not something that could have been done nearly so good from any of the other character's POVs.

Also, we finally get to see the wolf morphs. Wolves are my favorite animal, after dinosaurs anyway lol, and I remembered there were wolf morphs but I couldn't remember what book they first came about in, so that provided some very fun reading for me. This entry was also the most exciting to read so far as well. It had some great scenes, and not just of action but also of genuine suspense as well. The scene where they were morphing back to human, right on the 2-hour time limit mark was disgusting to read and would look pretty disturbing in a film, and its scenes like that that I have to remind myself that this was made as a kid's series, which is pretty amazing.

All in all, I have to say, this is my favorite in the main series so far (Not counting the Chronicles spin-off series). Despite it's short page count and the problems I listed above, it managed to be my favorite and it was great to re-read it again after so long. Also, I loved how in this series, unlike most kids' series, the good guy don't always win. Actually, so far they've lost more then they've won, which is quite the realistic portrayal of how things are in real life sometimes. You know, minus the brain-controlling aliens and animal-morphing teens :D

Some Site Changes

I've been writing articles for a movie website recently called DVD Snapshot, and I figure I can just post my movie reviews and opinions and such on there, and since there's no point in posting them on here as well if that's the case, I've decided to remove all that and keep this blog as mostly one single thing - An Animorphs review blog, which MAY make way into a Goosebumps review blog once I'm done all the Animorphs books.

I've taken it upon myself to read each Animorphs book in chronological order. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Animorphs, it was a young teen book series that started in the 90's, that was about a group of kids that got the power to morph into animals for a limited time, in order to fight evil brain-controlling aliens. Not only did it rock hard, but it actually addressed a fair number of realistic issues and dark situations that a kids' series normally wouldn't. I got up to the books mid-20's before I stopped reading, only now to pick it up again over 10 years later. The proper reading order for this series is NOT the chronological order, but since I've already read part of the series before, I'm deciding to read it in chronological order this time. I've already got several reviews posted, which I've kept on the site while I deleted most other things, and I'll continue to post more reviews as I read the books.

Book #2: The Visitor

PLOT: The Animorphs use Rachel to try to get close to the daughter of a Human-Controller – their Principal, so they can find the new entrance to the Yeerk pool, after the old one had been sealed up following the events in the previous book.

RATING: 6/10

REVIEW: The Visitor is one of the many 'Filler' books in the series where nothing that happens in it has any real bearing on anything else in the series. Normally filler-related stuff (More-so TV episodes then anything) are obviously filler and not very interesting, but I'm happy to say that's not entirely the case with this book.

We start getting a better fix on the characters in this one. For instance, while we knew Marco was a joker in the first one due to Jake always saying it, we actually very rarely saw it as Marco was actually the most serious member of the team for most of that book. In this one, we finally get to see his joking sarcastic self that sticks with him for the rest of the series. On that same point, we also start seeing the beginnings of Jake and Cassie's 'relationship' in this one, as well as Rachel and Tobias' little messed up thing that some could call a relationship down the road. The first book was about introducing the characters, this one is about fleshing them out a bit more.

It was also really good to see the Animorphs using their powers for something other then just fighting Yeerks. They used them to stop some poachers from poaching endangered birds, as well as Rachel morphing to take on a potential-rapist, which makes perfect sense to me. I mean, these kids are given this great power, wouldn't make much sense to save the world from alien invaders and then just ignore all the other problems that they're also capable of fixing. It was nice to see that. Makes them almost seem a bit more like superheroes.

Another thing this book did that I really enjoyed, was it showed what kind of effect the morphing is having on these kids, psychologically, in the long-run. Constant nightmares and mental scars and all that. It was great to be shown some psychological repercussions to what they're doing – something that most kids series' would never even touch on.

However, I do have a lot of problems with this book as well. It was predictable as all Hell, which is actually a huge-step down as I found everything in the series I've read up till now, really unpredictable for a kid's series and that's why I enjoyed them so much. Also, when morphing into an animal we've already seen them morph in a previous book, there's no reason to continue going into vivid multiple paragraph-long explanations as to how the morph looks. We've already read it, several times in some cases. It just gets old and takes up space when we have to read about it over and over and over. When it's a new animal, ok sure, or even in the later books one they haven't morphed in awhile. But one we've already seen them morph recently and multiple times already, there's just no need to continue describing it over and over and over and over.

And the biggest complaint I have about this book - when all was said and done...not a whole lot really happened. It was shorter then the first book and the space it did have, seemed to be used more for over-explaining and over-describing things, so chapters were longer then they needed to be, and situations took more pages and more time then they needed.

So to finish off this review with a brief summery, this is a step down from the first book story-wise, but a step up characterization-wise, however it can easily be skipped and you won't miss a single thing.

Book #1 - The Invasion

PLOT: In the first actual Animorphs book, a group of friends gets the power to morph into animals from a dying alien, in order to secretly fight against an invading alien species.

RATING: 8/10

REVIEW: Now that I've got all the prequel Chronicles novels out of the way, I finally got to start the actual episodic book series. My first impression was that its very noticeable that this book was written before the Chronicles books. The writing style is much more amateurish, and there are some aspects that are mentioned that are contradicted in the later novels. One example of that is that in this book it's stated that the characters can thought-speak to each other, even while not an animal morph, while in the very next book and for the rest of the series, its stated that they can thought-speak only while in morph. Also, there were some situations that didn't really seem all that realistic and made very little sense (I.E. the Cop-controller randomly showing up at Cassie's farm to ask questions without actually suspecting them as having been the people at the Construction site).

The storyline itself was pretty good though, detailing how the characters get their powers and their first main battle against the alien species known as the Yeerks. It was nice to see the return of Elfangor from The Andalite Chronicles, although it was just a glorified cameo pretty much, but if it wasn't for him, the teens would have never gotten the power to Morph and the series wouldn't be what it is. There is also a nice introduction to each character, and I was actually surprised Tobias got stuck in his Hawk morph so early. You see, they can only remain in a Morph for two hours or they get stuck in that body for the rest of their life (Like what happened with Andria in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles). I knew Tobias got stuck as a hawk, but I thought it wasn't until book 3 or 4 that he got stuck, not right away, so I was almost as shocked when it happened as I had been when I first read the series 10 years ago. That's what I like about reading this series again now all these years later - I remember almost nothing, so its like reading it for the first time again.

It was also great to see right off the bat that even though this is a kid's series, it's not 'kidified'. By that I mean that this is about their first main battle, and in the end, they loose that battle. Normally in an introductory book to a series like this one, the main characters win their first battle at the end of the book and celebrate during the final chapter. Not this one. Their first battle was a failure that bit them on the ass and cost them a lot (I.E. Tobias stuck in hawk form, Jake loosing his brother to the Yeerks, some humans they tried to rescue got killed, ect) What damage did they do to the Yeerks? Killed a couple Hork-Bajir and Taxxon Controllers. That's about it. And I loved that. It was unexpected and actually made the battle very suspenseful and had you invested in it. They let you know right off the bat that in this series, anything goes and nobody is truly safe.

Overall, a really good start to the series, although not without some faults.

The Andalite Chronicles

PLOT: This Chronicles book follows Elfangor as he starts off at the bottom of the Andalite chain of command during the War against the Yeerks, and details his various adventures across the Galaxy, which leads him into direct confrontation with the Yeerk known now as Visser 3, as well as into the middle of the Taxon civil war, and on a journey to find the Time Matrix, an object that has the ability to make you travel through time and space.

RATING: 7/10

REVIEW: So this is the one book in the 'Chronicles' prequel series that I did read when I was younger. While it's really good, it's not as good as I remember. I remember back in the day, it being my favorite Animorphs book, ever. Now, while I've really enjoyed it, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did with the Ellimist and Hork-Bajir Chronicles. Elfangor seems to just be a male carbon-copy of Andria from the Hork-Bajir Chronicles. It feels I just finished reading all about this character, as a female, in another book.

However, it's still a very well-written and a very engaging sci-fi story that is sure to not disappoint. It was also really nice to see a return of Alloran, the War-Prince from The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, and good to see he hasn't changed any of his sleazy insane ways. It was also cool to have the whole Taxxon uprising in there, as that was really fun to read about. And even though this was written BEFORE the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, it's easy to see she had all the history and backstory planned out beforehand, as it directly references events that happen in that book, despite the book being written over a year AFTER this one was. Nice to know she wasn't just making everything up as she went along but actually had it all planned out from the beginning.

I also really loved the ending and how it led into the beginning of the first Animorphs book perfectly. Although I think a bit too much time was spent in the alternate screwed-up world created by the Time Matrix. They could have shaved 15-20 pages out of that and tightened up those chapters and I think it would have been better. Make it 4 chapters there instead of the 8 or 9 it was.

Also, I don't like all the coincidences in the series. Marco just so happens to be the son of the Visser 1 host body, Tobias just so happens to be the son of Elfangor, ect. And as much as I love The Ellimist, I did not like his appearance in this book at all. It makes for some continuity errors later in the series.

Other then those things though, this was a pretty good read. As I said, not my favorite but far from being the worst and it was still really engaging, just a bit too long for the material, IMO.