The Invasion
Narrator: Jake
Cover tagline: Some people never change. Some do. . .
Interior tagline: Jake is changing...
"My Name Is...": My name is Jake.
Page count: 184
Publication date: June 1996
Narrator: Jake
Cover tagline: Some people never change. Some do. . .
Interior tagline: Jake is changing...
"My Name Is...": My name is Jake.
Page count: 184
Publication date: June 1996
Publisher's description:
Sometimes weird things happen to people.
Ask Jake. He may tell you about the night he and his friends saw a strange light in the sky. He may even tell you about what happened when they realized the "light" was only a plane – from another planet. Here's where Jake's story gets a little weird. It's where they're told that the human race is under attack – and given the chance to fight back.
Now Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Marco have the power to morph into any animal they choose. And they must use that power to outsmart an evil that is greater than anything the world has ever seen. . . .
* "My name is Jake," the story begins. The narrator can't tell us his last name or where he lives, but he promises that it is a real place, a real town. Maybe even my town! Probably not, though.
* Jake informs us that he's writing all this down so that more people will learn the truth, and somehow be able to survive until the Andalites return. So I guess the conceit of the Animorphs books is that the Animorphs are writing them and secretly distributing them to warn humanity of the threat they face from the Yeerks. This of course makes no sense.
* It's a Friday night, so naturally Jake and his friend Marco are playing video games at the mall. They're about to head out, though, because they've run out of quarters. We aren't directly told what video game they've been playing, but the title is subtly revealed in this line of dialogue: "Certain people keep forgetting that the SleazeTroll shows up right after you cross the Nether Fjord."
* On their way out they run into Tobias, this dorky kid whose mom ran off a few years ago and left him to get passed around between his neglectful uncle and aunt. He's been desperately trying to be Jake's friend ever since Jake rescued him from bullies giving him a swirly.
Sometimes weird things happen to people.
Ask Jake. He may tell you about the night he and his friends saw a strange light in the sky. He may even tell you about what happened when they realized the "light" was only a plane – from another planet. Here's where Jake's story gets a little weird. It's where they're told that the human race is under attack – and given the chance to fight back.
Now Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Marco have the power to morph into any animal they choose. And they must use that power to outsmart an evil that is greater than anything the world has ever seen. . . .
* "My name is Jake," the story begins. The narrator can't tell us his last name or where he lives, but he promises that it is a real place, a real town. Maybe even my town! Probably not, though.
* Jake informs us that he's writing all this down so that more people will learn the truth, and somehow be able to survive until the Andalites return. So I guess the conceit of the Animorphs books is that the Animorphs are writing them and secretly distributing them to warn humanity of the threat they face from the Yeerks. This of course makes no sense.
* It's a Friday night, so naturally Jake and his friend Marco are playing video games at the mall. They're about to head out, though, because they've run out of quarters. We aren't directly told what video game they've been playing, but the title is subtly revealed in this line of dialogue: "Certain people keep forgetting that the SleazeTroll shows up right after you cross the Nether Fjord."
* On their way out they run into Tobias, this dorky kid whose mom ran off a few years ago and left him to get passed around between his neglectful uncle and aunt. He's been desperately trying to be Jake's friend ever since Jake rescued him from bullies giving him a swirly.
FORESHADOWING ALERT: "Tobias was . . . I mean, I guess he still is kind of a strange guy."
* The three of them then run into Rachel and Cassie. Rachel is Jake's cousin and a total babe (she's thirteen but that won't be revealed until much later in the series, so it's only creepy in retrospect). Cassie is Jake's crush. Sometimes they sit together on the bus but he never knows what to say to her. "She's black and wears her hair very short most of the time. She had it longer for a while, but then she went back to short." So what was the point of telling us
* The five of them decide to walk home together by cutting through the old abandoned construction site that was supposed to be a shopping center but isn't. Then Tobias sees the spaceship. Marco suggests running home to get a video camera, but Jake is worried the ship might blast them with phasers if they run. "Phasers are only on Star Trek," Marco says.
* The ship lands in front of them and Jake notices that it is pocked with burn scars and melted patches. Tobias tells whoever is inside to come out and that they won't hurt him. <I know,> comes the reply.
* Elfangor staggers out of his ship, badly burned. He collapses on the ground and the kids rush forward to help him. Cassie's parents are veterinarians so she thinks she can heal the alien's wound with Jake's shirt somehow. But Elfangor tells them not to worry about it because he's pretty much already screwed. There's a dramatic exchange where Elfangor first tells the humans about the threat they'll be facing for the following ~60 books:
* The three of them then run into Rachel and Cassie. Rachel is Jake's cousin and a total babe (she's thirteen but that won't be revealed until much later in the series, so it's only creepy in retrospect). Cassie is Jake's crush. Sometimes they sit together on the bus but he never knows what to say to her. "She's black and wears her hair very short most of the time. She had it longer for a while, but then she went back to short." So what was the point of telling us
* The five of them decide to walk home together by cutting through the old abandoned construction site that was supposed to be a shopping center but isn't. Then Tobias sees the spaceship. Marco suggests running home to get a video camera, but Jake is worried the ship might blast them with phasers if they run. "Phasers are only on Star Trek," Marco says.
* The ship lands in front of them and Jake notices that it is pocked with burn scars and melted patches. Tobias tells whoever is inside to come out and that they won't hurt him. <I know,> comes the reply.
* Elfangor staggers out of his ship, badly burned. He collapses on the ground and the kids rush forward to help him. Cassie's parents are veterinarians so she thinks she can heal the alien's wound with Jake's shirt somehow. But Elfangor tells them not to worry about it because he's pretty much already screwed. There's a dramatic exchange where Elfangor first tells the humans about the threat they'll be facing for the following ~60 books:
"NO!" I cried. "You can't die. You're the first alien ever to come to Earth. You can't die."
. . .
<I am not the first. There are many, many others.>
"Other aliens? Like you?" Tobias demanded.
The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side. <Not like me.> ... <Not like me,> he repeated.<They are different.>
<I am not the first. There are many, many others.>
"Other aliens? Like you?" Tobias demanded.
The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side. <Not like me.> ... <Not like me,> he repeated.<They are different.>
"Different? How?" I said.
I will remember his answer forever.
He said, <They have come to destroy you.>
I will remember his answer forever.
He said, <They have come to destroy you.>
Nothing really that remarkable, but it works.
* He tells them about the Yeerks and projects a psychic image of their true slug form into the kids' brains, an ability I'm not sure we'll ever see Andalites exercise again. Elfangor's Dome ship was ready for the Yeerks' mother ship (known in later books as a Pool ship) and Bug fighters, but they were caught unawares by a Blade ship hidden in a crater on the moon. The Andalites fought, but they lost. It could take more Andalites at least a year to get there, by which time the Yeerks will have gained control of the planet, so the kids have to warn their people. They rightfully point out that no one would believe them, so Elfangor sends Jake into his fighter to retrieve a small blue cube, four inches on every side. Jake sees a picture of four Andalites, two adults and two kids, and realizes that it is a picture of Elfangor's family. It seems like this would have to be a picture of Elfangor, his brother, and his parents, but I guess the implication of this book alone is that Elfangor has a wife and kids of his own. Pretty sure it doesn't really matter either way.
* So Elfangor's like "Hey, you guys are in deep shit, but I can give you superpowers" (not actually a direct quote). He tells them that he can give them the power to morph. "Morph? Morph how?" Rachel demands, her eyes narrowed (unfortunately a direct quote).
* The gist is, they can touch an animal and thereby acquire its DNA, and from then on they can shapeshift into that animal. There are a bunch of problematic side effects that Elfangor doesn't have time to go into, but the most important one is don't stay morphed longer than two hours, because then you'll be trapped in that form forever.
* Marco thinks this is retarded, but then Yeerk ships appear in the sky and they're all like oh well, what the hell and they touch the cube. Jake feels a tingle run through him, like a pleasurable electric shock, and that's that.
*FORESHADOWING ALERT: "Finally, I looked at Tobias. It was weird, the feeling I had at that moment, staring at him. A chill or something."
* Suddenly another ship appears in the sky with the Bug fighters. Elfangor cries out that Visser Three is coming and tells the kids to run, but not before Jake asks, "What's a Visser? Who's a Visser?" Brilliant. They hide behind a low wall and watch as the Bug fighters and the Blade ship land. Hork-Bajir- and Taxxon-Controllers come piling out and Elfangor identifies them to the kids via private thought-speak. We learn that Hork-Bajir do not see well in darkness, but their hearing is very good. This will probably never come up again.
* Then Visser Three steps out of the ship. Elfangor identifies him as the only Andalite-Controller, the only Yeerk who shares the humans' new morphing ability. Jake observes that he looks almost exactly the same as Elfangor (although he feels different), because Jake is a racist.
* Elfangor assures the kids that the visser can't hear their thoughts unless they direct them at him. Thought-speak will work this way for the rest of the book, and then never again.
* <What have we here? A meddling Andalite?> says Visser Three. Then, after inspecting the damaged Andalite fighter, he adds, <Ah, but no ordinary Andalite warrior. Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, if I am not mistaken. An honor to meet you. You're a legend.>
So I guess we're pretending that whole long personal rivalry in The Andalite Chronicles hasn't been written yet.
* Elfangor gets to his hooves to face the visser face-to-face while the Yeerk continues to taunt him. <I promise you one thing, Prince Elfangor — when we have this planet, with its rich harvest of bodies, we will move against the Andalite home world. I will personally hunt down your family. And I will personally oversee the placement of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. I hope that they will resist, so I can hear their minds scream.>
* He tells them about the Yeerks and projects a psychic image of their true slug form into the kids' brains, an ability I'm not sure we'll ever see Andalites exercise again. Elfangor's Dome ship was ready for the Yeerks' mother ship (known in later books as a Pool ship) and Bug fighters, but they were caught unawares by a Blade ship hidden in a crater on the moon. The Andalites fought, but they lost. It could take more Andalites at least a year to get there, by which time the Yeerks will have gained control of the planet, so the kids have to warn their people. They rightfully point out that no one would believe them, so Elfangor sends Jake into his fighter to retrieve a small blue cube, four inches on every side. Jake sees a picture of four Andalites, two adults and two kids, and realizes that it is a picture of Elfangor's family. It seems like this would have to be a picture of Elfangor, his brother, and his parents, but I guess the implication of this book alone is that Elfangor has a wife and kids of his own. Pretty sure it doesn't really matter either way.
* So Elfangor's like "Hey, you guys are in deep shit, but I can give you superpowers" (not actually a direct quote). He tells them that he can give them the power to morph. "Morph? Morph how?" Rachel demands, her eyes narrowed (unfortunately a direct quote).
* The gist is, they can touch an animal and thereby acquire its DNA, and from then on they can shapeshift into that animal. There are a bunch of problematic side effects that Elfangor doesn't have time to go into, but the most important one is don't stay morphed longer than two hours, because then you'll be trapped in that form forever.
* Marco thinks this is retarded, but then Yeerk ships appear in the sky and they're all like oh well, what the hell and they touch the cube. Jake feels a tingle run through him, like a pleasurable electric shock, and that's that.
*FORESHADOWING ALERT: "Finally, I looked at Tobias. It was weird, the feeling I had at that moment, staring at him. A chill or something."
* Suddenly another ship appears in the sky with the Bug fighters. Elfangor cries out that Visser Three is coming and tells the kids to run, but not before Jake asks, "What's a Visser? Who's a Visser?" Brilliant. They hide behind a low wall and watch as the Bug fighters and the Blade ship land. Hork-Bajir- and Taxxon-Controllers come piling out and Elfangor identifies them to the kids via private thought-speak. We learn that Hork-Bajir do not see well in darkness, but their hearing is very good. This will probably never come up again.
* Then Visser Three steps out of the ship. Elfangor identifies him as the only Andalite-Controller, the only Yeerk who shares the humans' new morphing ability. Jake observes that he looks almost exactly the same as Elfangor (although he feels different), because Jake is a racist.
* Elfangor assures the kids that the visser can't hear their thoughts unless they direct them at him. Thought-speak will work this way for the rest of the book, and then never again.
* <What have we here? A meddling Andalite?> says Visser Three. Then, after inspecting the damaged Andalite fighter, he adds, <Ah, but no ordinary Andalite warrior. Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, if I am not mistaken. An honor to meet you. You're a legend.>
So I guess we're pretending that whole long personal rivalry in The Andalite Chronicles hasn't been written yet.
* Elfangor gets to his hooves to face the visser face-to-face while the Yeerk continues to taunt him. <I promise you one thing, Prince Elfangor — when we have this planet, with its rich harvest of bodies, we will move against the Andalite home world. I will personally hunt down your family. And I will personally oversee the placement of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. I hope that they will resist, so I can hear their minds scream.>
* This is not a bad little villain speech, but the last line really falls flat. If you've ever seen the live-action Animorphs TV show, you know that it was generally pretty dire, but the actor playing Visser Three gave a really great delivery of that line, very evil and menacing. Much better than just writing the words on a page with no italicization or punctuation or dialogue tags.
* Eh.
* Anyway, Visser Three morphs into a giant monster and eats Elfangor.
* First truly brilliant piece of writing in this series: <Ah, nothing like a good Antarean Bogg morph for . . . taking a bite out of your enemies.>
* This is actually a pretty sickening scene. Jake describes Elfangor crying out one last time as the visser's teeth tear him apart, and then little gobbets of his flesh fall from the visser's mouth and the Taxxons gobble them up. There are human-Controllers (or Human-Controllers, since that term is capitalized in this book for some reason) hanging out over there who think this is hilarious.
* "R-r-r-r-a-a-a-w-w-w-w-g-g-g! R-r-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-a-g-g-g!" says Visser Three.
* Marco starts throwing up, which alerts the Hork-Bajir to the kids' presence. They split up and haul ass with the Controllers in close pursuit. Jake takes a tumble and tells Rachel to leave him and keep running, which she does, something that later in the series she would never do. Jake ducks into one of the abandoned half-built buildings and escapes by accidentally leading the Hork-Bajir into the campsite of some homeless guy, who presumably is then killed.
* Jake gets home and calls his friends to make sure they all survived. Rachel is still beating herself up about running out on him and Marco thinks it was all a dream. Jake wakes up the next morning half-convinced that Marco is right. He's awoken by his mom pounding on his bedroom door and telling him that Tobias is there. Tobias comes in looking all goofy and excited and tells Jake that he morphed into his cat. Tobias's cat's name is Dude, which is possibly the gayest cat name I have ever heard, and I had to sit through a VHS recording of Cats over several music periods in middle school.
* (Note that the cat names in Cats aren't actually stupid because they were invented by T. S. Eliot, whose least valuable work is still better than anything we'll be reading here.)
* Tobias describes how he was petting his cat and it went into some kind of trance, then as he continued to concentrate, he started growing fur. His cat freaked out and started clawing him up, which Tobias attests to by erotically sucking on his sliced-up finger. Although in later books, morphing or demorphing will repair any injuries incurred to either form. Whoops!
* Jake thinks Tobias is crazy, and then Tobias turns into a cat.
* The thought-speak plot hole is further established here when Tobias discovers he can thought-speak to Jake while morphed, and Jake discovers that Tobias can hear his thoughts when he consciously directs them at him. In future books, only Andalites and people in morph can send thought-speak, and I am boring myself just talking about this.
* At Tobias's instruction, Jake pulls a piece of string along the floor for him to chase. Jake doesn't see the appeal. Tobias realizes that morphing doesn't just put a human mind into an animal's body; the animal's brain is in there too, with all the animal's instincts.
* Tobias demorphs and is left standing naked in Jake's bedroom, looking embarrassed. Jake for some reason doesn't look away.
* :/
* As Tobias pulls his clothes back on, he talks about how they can use their powers, and Jake makes it clear that he wants no part of this lunacy (although apparently he does want a part of Tobias). Tobias insists that they were given their powers for a reason, and Jake snaps back that Tobias can use them then, leading to this important exchange:
"I will," he said. "But we'll need you, Jake. You most of all."
"Why me?"
He hesitated. "Geez, Jake, don't you understand? I know what I can do and what I can't do. I can't make plans and tell people what to do. I'm not the leader. You are."
I laughed rudely. "I'm not the leader of anything."
... "Yes, Jake, you are our leader. You are the one who can bring us all together and help us defeat the Controllers. We have the ability to be much more than we are, to have the stealth of a cat, and . . . and the eyes of eagles, and the sense of smell of a dog, and . . . and the speed of a horse or a cheetah. We're going to need it all, if we have any hope of holding out against the Controllers."
And so Jake's fate is set.
* FORESHADOWING ALERT: "He just looked at me with those deep, troubled eyes — eyes I can now see only in my memory."
* Tobias's speech persuades Jake to step up, so he morphs his pet golden retriever. The dog is named Homer, presumably after the famous poet from ancient Greece, since this is a kids book from the 1990s.
* Jake looks out the window and starts barking at the real Homer, who is out in the yard. Tom, Jake's older, high school-age brother, comes in to tell him to shut up his dog and asks Tobias where Jake is. "Oh . . . he's around," Tobias says, not at all suspiciously. Something about Tom smells wrong to Jake's dog nose, and for some reason this makes him think of one of the laughs he heard coming from the gaggle of human-Controllers at the construction site. Tom calls Jake a bad dog and leaves. Jake sulks in a corner, but Tobias scratches him behind the ears and he feels better.
* scritch scritch scritch scritch
* Tobias's speech persuades Jake to step up, so he morphs his pet golden retriever. The dog is named Homer, presumably after the famous poet from ancient Greece, since this is a kids book from the 1990s.
* Jake looks out the window and starts barking at the real Homer, who is out in the yard. Tom, Jake's older, high school-age brother, comes in to tell him to shut up his dog and asks Tobias where Jake is. "Oh . . . he's around," Tobias says, not at all suspiciously. Something about Tom smells wrong to Jake's dog nose, and for some reason this makes him think of one of the laughs he heard coming from the gaggle of human-Controllers at the construction site. Tom calls Jake a bad dog and leaves. Jake sulks in a corner, but Tobias scratches him behind the ears and he feels better.
* scritch scritch scritch scritch
* The gang gets together at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, aka Cassie's barn, where her parents take care of wounded animals. Rachel shows him a newspaper article about the disturbance at the construction site last night. According to the police, a bunch of kids were setting off fireworks and spooked people into thinking they saw UFOs. The police are looking for any information about the identities of these kids. The police, Jake realizes, must be Controllers. Marco starts freaking out and says they should just forget about what's happened to him. Two years ago, his mom disappeared in a boating accident or something. Her body was never found and his dad switched careers from industrial engineer to janitor.
* Cassie shows up in horse morph. Just as she's demorphing, a cop car pulls up. The kids stand in front of Cassie as she finishes demorphing, which somehow prevents the cop from noticing a horse changing into a girl. The cop asks them if they know anything about the delinquents from the construction site. "We want these kids," he says. "We want them real bad. See, it was dangerous what they did. Could have been someone hurt. So we want to find the kids." The Yeerks obviously understand normal police priorities. Not sure if I'm being sarcastic there or not.
* The cop leaves and Cassie reveals that she figured out it's possible to morph skin-tight clothing; she came out of horse morph wearing a leotard. She doesn't know what they'll do in the winter, but that's okay, because I'm pretty sure it never comes up.
* Cassie says something stupid about using the morphing power to communicate with animals. The gang debates what they should do about the secret alien invasion, then Jake and Marco go back to Jake's house to play Dead Zone 5.
* Gross.
* Tom comes into the
room and plays with them for a while, then starts asking about the
construction site. "It's not like I'd get them in trouble. I mean, I
think it's kind of cool. They're just shooting off fireworks and they
get all these people terrified of flying saucers." Yeah, real cool, man.
Completely awesome. Then he adds, "Catch you guys later. And don't
forget — let me know if you hear anything about those kids at the
construction site." Seriously, who gives a shit?
* Tom, page 70: "Besides, we do much cooler stuff at The Sharing. Maybe you should join up."
Tom, page 84: "You know, you should join The Sharing. Marco, too."
Broken record much, pal?
* I thought the Controllers' MO was not acting extremely sketchy and suspicious.
* Marco points out the obvious, which is that Jake's brother is evil. Jake punches Marco in the head, so Marco sits on him to calm him down. Um
* Tobias shows up at Jake's window in the body of a red-tailed hawk, which is a bird.
* FORESHADOWING ALERT: "I hadn't ever seen Tobias so happy. I mean, Tobias has a pretty lousy home life. Thinking about it, I suddenly had this feeling . . ."
* Tobias reveals that he was out looking for Yeerk pools, which he knows about thanks to the convenient psychic download Elfangor gave him. Every three days a Yeerk has to leave his host body and swim in a Yeerk pool to soak up Kandrona rays, which are rays emitted from a device called the Kandrona. Tobias also reveals that this is only one of many pieces of information and pictures that the Andalite gave him, and he hasn't even begun to sort through it all yet. And he never will.
* "Then maybe Tom is the enemy," Marco said. "Maybe it's your own brother you'll end up destroying."
Put a pin in this. Actually, wait, I don't remember if this ever happens.
* Marco deduces that The Sharing is the Yeerks' version of the Hitler Youth and the gang decides to infiltrate a meeting. "We play night volleyball," Tom assures them, "which is so funny because half the time guys can't even see the ball." Yeah, Tom, sounds like a real laugh riot LMAO!
* Oh, The Sharing is some club that Tom quit the basketball team to join, btw. Jake describes them as a co-ed Boy Scouts. Fun!
* The kids head out to the beach. Tobias turns into a hawk for recon duty while all the non-freaks have fun on the beach.
* Tom starts talking to Jake about the wonderful mysteries of The Sharing again, because apparently that's all he knows how to do, when all of a sudden his face gets all weird and he starts to shake his head. Then he goes back to normal, but this is how Jake knows that Tom is a Controller and his brother was able to break free from the Yeerk's control for a moment to try to warn him.
* So Jake turns into a dog and spies on the private meeting of The Sharing's full members. He confirms that Tom is a Controller, as is the assistant principal of their school, one Mr. Chapman.
* Fucking unknown physics of black holes, man.
* Cassie also attempts to get close to the private meeting because she is stupid. She is caught by the same Controller cop who came by her farm. She tells him she was just collecting shells because she is stupid, and he lets her go because he is stupid.
* Jake morphs into a lizard who lives in Cassie's barn (because he is insanely jealous of anything that has been in Cassie's barn, wink wink) and spies on Chapman in school on Monday morning. He can't control the lizard brain and ends up eating a spider, which is kind of gross, I guess, and he starts freaking out over it because he's a pussy. Jake follows Chapman into a janitor's closet, and because this vast technological space empire runs on Scooby-Doo logic, Chapman twists a hook on the wall and this opens a secret door leading directly to the Yeerk pool.
* "Nobody gives a rat's rear about me," Tobias says ruefully as the kids discuss the pros and cons of infiltrating the Yeerk pool. Because real thirteen-year-olds never use mild profanity.
* Then there's this absolutely awful passage where Cassie muses about people in olden times calling on animal spirits to protect them from evil and it goes on for like four paragraphs and makes me want to pound nails into my cock.
"Will their strength be enough?" Jake wonders.
"I don't know," says Cassie. "It's like all the basic forces of planet Earth are being brought into the battle." Then she adds, "We're fighting for Mother Earth. She has some tricks up her sleeves."
* Cassie also attempts to get close to the private meeting because she is stupid. She is caught by the same Controller cop who came by her farm. She tells him she was just collecting shells because she is stupid, and he lets her go because he is stupid.
* Jake morphs into a lizard who lives in Cassie's barn (because he is insanely jealous of anything that has been in Cassie's barn, wink wink) and spies on Chapman in school on Monday morning. He can't control the lizard brain and ends up eating a spider, which is kind of gross, I guess, and he starts freaking out over it because he's a pussy. Jake follows Chapman into a janitor's closet, and because this vast technological space empire runs on Scooby-Doo logic, Chapman twists a hook on the wall and this opens a secret door leading directly to the Yeerk pool.
* "Nobody gives a rat's rear about me," Tobias says ruefully as the kids discuss the pros and cons of infiltrating the Yeerk pool. Because real thirteen-year-olds never use mild profanity.
* Then there's this absolutely awful passage where Cassie muses about people in olden times calling on animal spirits to protect them from evil and it goes on for like four paragraphs and makes me want to pound nails into my cock.
"Will their strength be enough?" Jake wonders.
"I don't know," says Cassie. "It's like all the basic forces of planet Earth are being brought into the battle." Then she adds, "We're fighting for Mother Earth. She has some tricks up her sleeves."
ANIMORPHS
* So the gang decides to go to the zoo to acquire morphs that don't suck.
"I can get in free," [Cassie] said. "You guys will have to pay, but I can use my mom's employee discount, so it'll be cheaper."
"Oh, I'm sure we could talk them into letting us in for nothing," Marco said. "Just tell them we're Animorphs."
"Tell them we're what?" Rachel asked.
"Idiot teenagers with a death wish," Marco said.
"Animorphs," I tried the word out. It sounded okay.
* So their zoo is also like an amusement park? Like with roller coasters and shit. So I guess it's supposed to be like Busch Gardens, I guess? Oh, and the name of the park is The Gardens.
* Tobias is too poor to pay his admission so he claims he doesn't want any morphs besides his hawk. FORESHADOWING AL oh I don't even care.
* Jake confides to the reader that if he were an animal and he had to be in a zoo, he'd want to be at The Gardens. Because I guess he thinks they let the giraffes out to ride the roller coasters whenever they want or something.
* Cassie leads her friends into the employees-only area behind the animal exhibits. Marco acquires a gorilla named Big Jim. Rachel wants to acquire a dolphin but Cassie's all like "What are we going to do with dolphin morphs?"
* Jake confides to the reader that if he were an animal and he had to be in a zoo, he'd want to be at The Gardens. Because I guess he thinks they let the giraffes out to ride the roller coasters whenever they want or something.
* Cassie leads her friends into the employees-only area behind the animal exhibits. Marco acquires a gorilla named Big Jim. Rachel wants to acquire a dolphin but Cassie's all like "What are we going to do with dolphin morphs?"
Bitch.
* Suddenly a security
guy shows up and starts chasing the kids. Jake and Marco run one way and
Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias run the other. Cute of the girls to stick
together like that.
* Jake and Marco steal a golf cart and take off with the old security guard ambling after them. This chase sequence is actually pretty funny so enjoy it while it lasts.
* Anyway Jake and Marco accidentally end up in the tiger exhibit. Jake starts to acquire the tiger to put him into a trance so they can escape without being eaten. They take off for the ladder, not realizing that there is a second tiger in the exhibit, and Marco is eaten alive. His dying screams haunt Jake for the rest of his life.
* No, they just get away.
* The Animorphs regroup and for some reason Rachel, Cassie, and Marco refuse to believe Jake and Marco's story about being chased into the tiger exhibit and almost eaten. Why is this hard to believe, again? Did you forget about the alien invasion going on? Hello?
* Because no one in this book understands the word "subtle," Jake starts pestering Tom at dinner about what he's doing that night. This is pointless and accomplishes nothing. Once Tom leaves for the Yeerk pool, Jake starts calling his friends. Cassie isn't home, however, and according to her mom she went out to feed the animals and never came back. Thank God. Can we keep it that way, please?
* The four remaining Animorphs rendezvous at their school. Tobias is already dicking around in hawk morph because he is an idiot. Jake is all like "WTF, bro, we don't have time for this emo shit." Tobias lands on Rachel's shoulder and she rubs her head against him. I wasn't expecting the series to get this weird this early.
* Marco leads the kids to the top secret science lab window with the broken lock and they all crawl inside. There are people in the hall going into the janitor's closet so the Animorphs decide to just walk in there nonchalantly and pretend like they're Controllers. Suddenly that cop Controller from before appears, dragging Cassie down the hallway.
* "Too late for you to morph back now," Jake says to Tobias. What? No it's not. It'll take like thirty seconds. Why didn't you just have him demorph before you even broke into the school? Why don't we have any thirteen-year-old generals, again?
* After inputting the impregnable entry code by turning the faucet and twisting a hook on the wall, the Animorphs descend into the Yeerk pool. It's basically like this underground city in an earthen dome that stretches beneath half the town. Human screams drift up to them as they go down hundreds of stairs into hell. In the center of the cavern is the Yeerk pool, which is about a hundred feet across. Human and Hork-Bajir hosts are kept in cages while their Yeerks swim in the pool. Two separate piers lead out over the pool, one for Controllers going to feed and one for hosts about to be reinfested. Cassie is on the latter.
* Page 36: <Because there are so many, and they are so weak,> Visser Three sneered.
Page 159: And we were so few, and so weak.
* "You filth, let me go! Let me go! I am a free woman! You can't keep doing this! I am not a slave! Let me go! Help! Oh, please, someone help. Help us all! Help! Please, someone help us!" ~ some woman
I don't know why, but that line always makes me LOL.
* There's also an area where voluntary human, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxon hosts hang out and watch TV. <The Yeerks convince them that taking on a Yeerk will solve all their problems. I think that's what The Sharing is all about. People believe that by becoming something different, they can leave behind all their pain,> Tobias explains. Marco zings him good for this, of course.
* A human, a Hork-Bajir, and a Taxxonwalk into a bar
stroll up and accost Jake and Marco, because I guess they are always
the most suspicious of the group. Never mind that there is a fucking
hawk flying around in your secret base, you assholes. It's okay,
though, because Rachel turns into an elephant and murders them. I like
how Rachel is the first Animorph to kill anyone, and it doesn't even
bother her (because she is insane).
* Jake morphs his tiger and Marco goes gorilla and they start beating up aliens. That's right, my little Hork-Bajir friends. Time to meet the tiger, Jake thinks, making me cringe as I type this. Marco breaks the hosts, including Tom, out of their cages. Meanwhile, a Hork-Bajir-Controller is about to shove Cassie's head into the Yeerk pool, but Tobias divebombs his face and she escapes and turns into a horse, because I guess she didn't think to pick up anything a little more dangerous the whole time they were fucking around at the zoo.
* Btw, none of the Animorphs bothered to hide at all before they morphed, they just did it right in front of everyone, so the fact that the Yeerks don't realize that the Animorphs are human until the end of the series is retarded.
* The Animorphs and the freed hosts race for the stairs, and Jake is starting to think that they might actually make it. Then Visser Three appears. I guess he was just on his lunch break before. A Taxxon slithers up to the visser and whispers something in his ear. <This Taxxon fool says you are wild animals. He wants to know if he and his brothers can eat you,> Visser Three explains. That line is also hilarious to me. Of course, Visser Three knows better than his underling. He addresses the Animorphs as Andalites, musing that they must have survived when he burned their ship.
* Jake and Marco steal a golf cart and take off with the old security guard ambling after them. This chase sequence is actually pretty funny so enjoy it while it lasts.
* Anyway Jake and Marco accidentally end up in the tiger exhibit. Jake starts to acquire the tiger to put him into a trance so they can escape without being eaten. They take off for the ladder, not realizing that there is a second tiger in the exhibit, and Marco is eaten alive. His dying screams haunt Jake for the rest of his life.
* No, they just get away.
* The Animorphs regroup and for some reason Rachel, Cassie, and Marco refuse to believe Jake and Marco's story about being chased into the tiger exhibit and almost eaten. Why is this hard to believe, again? Did you forget about the alien invasion going on? Hello?
* Because no one in this book understands the word "subtle," Jake starts pestering Tom at dinner about what he's doing that night. This is pointless and accomplishes nothing. Once Tom leaves for the Yeerk pool, Jake starts calling his friends. Cassie isn't home, however, and according to her mom she went out to feed the animals and never came back. Thank God. Can we keep it that way, please?
* The four remaining Animorphs rendezvous at their school. Tobias is already dicking around in hawk morph because he is an idiot. Jake is all like "WTF, bro, we don't have time for this emo shit." Tobias lands on Rachel's shoulder and she rubs her head against him. I wasn't expecting the series to get this weird this early.
* Marco leads the kids to the top secret science lab window with the broken lock and they all crawl inside. There are people in the hall going into the janitor's closet so the Animorphs decide to just walk in there nonchalantly and pretend like they're Controllers. Suddenly that cop Controller from before appears, dragging Cassie down the hallway.
* "Too late for you to morph back now," Jake says to Tobias. What? No it's not. It'll take like thirty seconds. Why didn't you just have him demorph before you even broke into the school? Why don't we have any thirteen-year-old generals, again?
* After inputting the impregnable entry code by turning the faucet and twisting a hook on the wall, the Animorphs descend into the Yeerk pool. It's basically like this underground city in an earthen dome that stretches beneath half the town. Human screams drift up to them as they go down hundreds of stairs into hell. In the center of the cavern is the Yeerk pool, which is about a hundred feet across. Human and Hork-Bajir hosts are kept in cages while their Yeerks swim in the pool. Two separate piers lead out over the pool, one for Controllers going to feed and one for hosts about to be reinfested. Cassie is on the latter.
* Page 36: <Because there are so many, and they are so weak,> Visser Three sneered.
Page 159: And we were so few, and so weak.
* "You filth, let me go! Let me go! I am a free woman! You can't keep doing this! I am not a slave! Let me go! Help! Oh, please, someone help. Help us all! Help! Please, someone help us!" ~ some woman
I don't know why, but that line always makes me LOL.
* There's also an area where voluntary human, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxon hosts hang out and watch TV. <The Yeerks convince them that taking on a Yeerk will solve all their problems. I think that's what The Sharing is all about. People believe that by becoming something different, they can leave behind all their pain,> Tobias explains. Marco zings him good for this, of course.
* A human, a Hork-Bajir, and a Taxxon
* Jake morphs his tiger and Marco goes gorilla and they start beating up aliens. That's right, my little Hork-Bajir friends. Time to meet the tiger, Jake thinks, making me cringe as I type this. Marco breaks the hosts, including Tom, out of their cages. Meanwhile, a Hork-Bajir-Controller is about to shove Cassie's head into the Yeerk pool, but Tobias divebombs his face and she escapes and turns into a horse, because I guess she didn't think to pick up anything a little more dangerous the whole time they were fucking around at the zoo.
* Btw, none of the Animorphs bothered to hide at all before they morphed, they just did it right in front of everyone, so the fact that the Yeerks don't realize that the Animorphs are human until the end of the series is retarded.
* The Animorphs and the freed hosts race for the stairs, and Jake is starting to think that they might actually make it. Then Visser Three appears. I guess he was just on his lunch break before. A Taxxon slithers up to the visser and whispers something in his ear. <This Taxxon fool says you are wild animals. He wants to know if he and his brothers can eat you,> Visser Three explains. That line is also hilarious to me. Of course, Visser Three knows better than his underling. He addresses the Animorphs as Andalites, musing that they must have survived when he burned their ship.
<I compliment you on getting this far. But it will accomplish nothing. Because now, my brave Andalite warriors, it is time. Time to die.>
He began to morph.
<I acquired this body on the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star. Like it?>
* Visser Three turns
into a giant monster with eight arms, eight legs, and eight heads, each
of which spit fire. The Animorphs run while the visser begins to
immolate all the freed Controllers. Rachel is too big to climb the
stairs so she begins to demorph, again in plain sight. There are only a
few freed humans left when Visser Three begins shooting fire at the
stairs in front of the Animorphs, blocking their escape. Tom calls
Visser Three a creep and runs at him, only to be batted off the
staircase. Jake goes nuts and starts biting the visser, narrowly
avoiding his fireballs. As the visser roars in pain, the Animorphs flee.
"And we ran, ran, ran up those stairs with a hundred nightmares on our
heels."
* It turns out that
the visser's morph is too big to fit all the way up the stairs. When he
can't go any farther, he screams after them, <I'll kill you all,
Andalites. Run away, it doesn't matter! I'll kill you all! Looks like
I'm blasting off agaaaaain...!>
* Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco do run, having escaped with one single human woman who rode out of the pit on Cassie's back. But Tobias is nowhere to be found.
* Cassie tells her friends that they don't have to worry about the Controller cop who kidnapped her anymore, although she won't say why. I guess she trampled him to death with her horse hooves or something. Luckily for them, he was the only Yeerk who knew her name and where she lived and that she'd been spying on The Sharing, so they don't have anything to worry about now. I don't know how she knows that, but I don't doubt it, because that guy was an idiot.
* Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all go home exhausted and apparently indifferent to Tobias's fate, as they should be. Tom comes home later that night, the Yeerk back in his head with no idea that Jake was the tiger who almost saved him.
* It's almost morning when Tobias shows up at Jake's window. Jake is relieved. "I figured you were still trapped down there," he says. Um... that's what they thought? And none of them wanted to do anything about it? Seriously? Okay, guys.
* Tobias asks how the others are, and Jake says that they're still alive, adding, "I guess that's all that counts."
<Yes,> Tobias agrees. <That is all that matters.>
* Jake tells Tobias to demorph and even offers him his bed, because Jake is still gay for him.
* Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco do run, having escaped with one single human woman who rode out of the pit on Cassie's back. But Tobias is nowhere to be found.
* Cassie tells her friends that they don't have to worry about the Controller cop who kidnapped her anymore, although she won't say why. I guess she trampled him to death with her horse hooves or something. Luckily for them, he was the only Yeerk who knew her name and where she lived and that she'd been spying on The Sharing, so they don't have anything to worry about now. I don't know how she knows that, but I don't doubt it, because that guy was an idiot.
* Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all go home exhausted and apparently indifferent to Tobias's fate, as they should be. Tom comes home later that night, the Yeerk back in his head with no idea that Jake was the tiger who almost saved him.
* It's almost morning when Tobias shows up at Jake's window. Jake is relieved. "I figured you were still trapped down there," he says. Um... that's what they thought? And none of them wanted to do anything about it? Seriously? Okay, guys.
* Tobias asks how the others are, and Jake says that they're still alive, adding, "I guess that's all that counts."
<Yes,> Tobias agrees. <That is all that matters.>
* Jake tells Tobias to demorph and even offers him his bed, because Jake is still gay for him.
He didn't say anything. And I guess in my heart I'd known it all along. I just didn't want to admit it.
"Come on, Tobias," I said again. "Morph back."
<Jake . . .>
. . .
I just stared at him. At his laser-focus eyes, at his wicked beak and sharp talons. And at his wings. At the broad, powerful wings that let him fly.
<I guess this is me from now on,> Tobias said.
They look up at the stars together. Tobias tells him that the Andalites will come one day, and until then...
"Yeah," says Jake. "Until then, we fight. And let it be called... BEAST WARS!"
"Yeah," says Jake. "Until then, we fight. And let it be called... BEAST WARS!"
* Overall, this one
wasn't bad. I guess it was kind of good, actually, as these books go. A
couple bits of actual strong, moving prose and only a few legitimately
embarrassing passages. Nothing too stellar overall, though. Just bland
and inoffensive writing. The characters and the war are adequately
introduced and a number of recurring plot threads are set up. Marco and
Tobias probably get the most development, even though it's Jake's book.
His character is sufficiently explored to set him up as the leader of
the group and the de facto main character of the series, however. I feel
like we learned almost nothing about Rachel, but her first book is up
next so maybe that will change soon. The main villain, Visser Three,
seems pretty cartoonish, but he also gets some of the best lines of
dialogue in the book, so I guess I can live with him for now. Probably
the most off-putting part of this book is the numerous disparities
between itself and what the series will shortly become. Thought-speak
works weird, Elfangor and Visser Three have never met before, the
characters morph in front of the Yeerks and no one notices, the
mechanics of morphing and the backstory of the series have not been
ironed out yet. But all in all it's a decent introduction. Very dark but
still hopeful, which is I guess the tone of the entire series.
**** out of *****
**** out of *****
Star Trek references: phasers
'90s references: Sega, the word "dweeb"
Up next is book two in the core Animorphs series, The Visitor, in which no one will make a visit of any kind. Should be done by this time next year, so mark your calendars, Anifans!
