flameraven | Animorphs #7 & Megamorphs #1 (Reply)

Summary
In this book the group has found another way into the Yeerk pool. This time, showing they've at least learned a little bit from their past defeats, they decide to simply infiltrate it and do a bit of surveillance in the hope of finding out where the Kandrona is. If they can destroy the Kandrona, they reason, they can do real damage to the Yeerks for the first time.

Meanwhile, real life drama intervenes for Rachel. Her dad is taking a new and better job halfway across the country. Not only is she going to see him much less because of it, but he offers the choice of moving in with him. She wants to jump at the chance, but of course she can't abandon the group. Adding more incentive to the mix is that there is a very prominent gymnastics coach living in the city, that her dad says is willing to take her on. This conflict between Rachel's desperate desire for a normal life and her duty to the Animorphs causes her enough trouble that she ends up morphing an eagle in the middle of the night and going to talk to Tobias. When she gets there, however, she can't quite bring herself to tell him what's really the matter. She flies to the Gardens instead and acquires a grizzly bear morph.

The next day they morph cockroaches to infiltrate the Yeerk pool. They get in okay and find a cafeteria where they plan to eavesdrop, but unfortunately, they're eaten by a Taxxon first. And then, as they are halfway down the Taxxon's throat, time stops.

They all find themselves involuntarily demorphing, and when they walk outside to the main pool, they see Tobias there as well, in his human form no less. Then the Ellimist appears. No one else knows what he is, but Ax is terrified of him. The Ellimist offers them a choice: he will save them, their families, and a number of other humans and transfer them to an alien planet, along with some of Earth's more important animal species. They'll be safe. If they say no, they'll go right back to being eaten by a Taxxon.

There is a lot of discussion, with only Cassie really considering the idea. Everyone else is mostly just pissed at the Ellimist's blackmail, especially in Tobias' case. They eventually vote no and end up demorphing and escaping up a drop shaft they noticed during the debate. Rachel morphs the bear during the fight out and apparently goes a little crazy. The next day she is tired and stressed and spends most of the day as an eagle flying around just to relax a little. The others aren't thrilled about this when she shows up at a meeting, berating her for using morphing for personal reasons.

Then the Ellimist shows up again. This time the emotional blackmail is even worse, as he transports them to ~The Future~. Future Earth has been conquered by Yeerks, and is a generally awful post-apocalyptic place. The group wanders around and ends up at the giant Yeerk pool in the center of town, where they meet Visser 3 and an older Rachel, who is a Controller. Even though they feel like something about the conversation is a bit odd, the Animorphs can't deny the truth of what they're seeing and the futility of their mission. Afterwards, returned to their normal time, they vote yes to the Ellimist's offer, but he doesn't respond.

Rachel figures it out the next day after a convenient mention from their teachers about the Butterfly Effect. She realizes that the Ellimist placed them in a position where they could notice something important (like the dropshaft.) By not telling them directly, he doesn't interfere and break the rules, but they can still make changes. When they were in The Future, one building was preserved with a dome on top, and Rachel realizes this was like a shrine to the first Earth Kandrona.

So naturally, they head on over to the top of the building and take out the Kandrona. It's surprisingly easy, really; they go in at the crack of dawn and simply chuck it out a window, overpowering the few guards around it in a fierce fight. It's their first real victory, and even though the Ellimist reveals that a new Kandrona will be in place in three weeks, they've certainly struck a solid blow to the Yeerks for the first time.

Thoughts

Woo, the Ellimist appears!

I remember all the timey-wimey butterfly stuff kind of blowing my mind the first time I read this book. It's much more straightforward this time-- or maybe it's just that I've now watched Doctor Who and am used to far more complicated plots! Either way, I do still enjoy it. Which is weird, because normally I hate deus ex machina type things, and the Ellimist is totally a deus ex machina. Also kind of a dick.

I'd be really surprised if he wasn't at least partly inspired by Q from Next Generation; there are a lot of similarities. Some similarities to Doctor Who as well. Maybe that's why I don't mind the Ellimist as much? As the series goes on, it becomes more and more evident that timey-wimey effects are just part of the universe; the Animorphs go back to the time of dinosaurs, after all, and the Ellimist is an alien gamer who ascended to godhood in a series of incredibly unlikely and strange events, one of which involved eating/being eaten by Cthulu. The weirdness is just part of the universe, and together, it all makes a weird sort of sense. I'm okay with that-- as long as things are internally consistent, I can accept things that don't make logical sense. Although I will still call them out for not making sense.

All of that is to say that the plot is pretty cleverly done here for a book aimed at 12 year olds, and I enjoy the Ellimist's loophole in the rules. Though considering his interference a few books from now with Tobias, I'm not really sure why he even bothered being oblique.

This book is straightforward and a little forgettable. The format is interesting-- for the first time we get a story from multiple POV's instead of just one.

The book starts off with Rachel leaving for a few days for a gymnastics camp. She's been on the fence about whether or not to go, with the result that she's told the camp she's not coming, but she's told her parents she's going. Not a recipe for disaster at all! Rachel decides to check in on Tobias before she leaves, ends up getting mobbed by jays, crashes into a tree and blacks out while demorphing.

Everyone else goes about their business, which involves Marco and Ax sneaking into a party as mice to harass some girl. After they've done their mischief, they flee to the basement to demorph, and suddenly the house is destroyed by what looks like a living tornado.

Back in the woods, Rachel wakes up halfway out of her eagle morph and freaks out. Naturally, because she hit her head, she has amnesia and can't remember anything.

The others have seen some news reports that featured the dust monster and a glimpse of Rachel, and confer about the situation. Cassie does some surveillance on a bookstore with Chapman and other controllers, and learns that the tornado/monster is under Visser 3's control. They also realize it focuses on morphing energy.

Rachel heads through the woods and eventually comes upon a shack where an old woman collects clothes. The woman is crazy, keeps muttering about Yeerks and how she won't let them get her again, and eventually traps Rachel in some kind of cellar. Rachel busts out using her bear morph, and the tornado/dust monster shows up again. So does Ax! As Ax watches, Rachel's bear arms are sheared off by the whirling dust**, and she freaks out and runs away. The dust monster captures Ax instead.

The rest of the Animorphs go looking for Rachel. They catch up with her in an abandoned house in a subdivision, and start playing a game of 'keepaway' with the monster. Jake morphs, than Marco, than Cassie, all in an attempt to keep the monster distracted and tire it out. It works for a bit but eventually Marco is grabbed too. However, they learn that there is a limit to what the creature can carry off; it's unable to pick up Rachel in elephant form because she is too heavy.

On Visser 3's ship, the Visser gloats over his capture of Ax and brags about his new pet, which is called a Valeek and is native to Saturn. It's a creature made up of billions of tiny particles that feeds on energy; the Yeerks have reprogrammed it to search for morph energy but eat energy from their ships. Ax, left alone in his cell, ends up morphing into a flea and jumps on Visser 3 just as Marco is brought in. Ax starts demorphing, causing the Valeek to show up and snatch Visser 3, and everyone panics. Marco and Ax use this panic to open a hatch and jump out of the spaceship. But it's cool, they demorph and morph into birds before they hit the ground.

The Animorphs regroup and come up with a plan to defeat the Valeek, because it's that or never morph again. Essentially, they force the Valeek to try and capture a humpback whale. Naturally, it fails, and is scattered throughout the ocean. Rachel regains her memory through the magic of plot, and everything is pretty okay.

**YOU KNOW, FOR KIDS! D:

Thoughts:
I don't have too many thoughts on this one. It was a nice read, and I enjoyed the multiple POV's and the more complicated plot that a longer book allowed (this one was about 250 pages, as opposed to the standard 120-150 of normal Animorph books). It was nice to see Visser 3 being a bit more clever about hunting them. Sometimes I feel like he's a little bit too incompetent, and wonder how he got such an important job in the first place. Especially when he kills so many of his underlings. Read the Evil Overlord List, Visser 3! A high fatality rate does not loyal employees make!

Unfortunately, a number of the other plot elements like the sudden introduction of the Valeek and Rachel's magic amnesia are just a little too contrived for me to really enjoy. It does make me wonder what the series would have been like if all the books had been this length and allowed for more complicated plots. Because one of the things I consistently notice is how many better strategies there are for practically everything the Animorphs do.

I do like the concept of the Valeek, as well as the idea that it came from within our own solar system. It would be nice to see a bit more of this kind of thing; aliens from within the local system in addition to all these other invaders from far away. Are there strange aliens on Mars? Venus? Other moons from the big gas giants? There has to be something around for the Valeek to eat. A little more exploration on that kind of thing could have been really cool, although I don't think that we really get it.