Animorphs #9 and #10

[flameraven]

Summary

As usual, we have two plots happening in this book: the main plot, which involves the Yeerks trying to discover/sabotage the 'Andalite bandits' by starting a logging company and destroying national forest, and Cassie's emotional subplot, which involves saving some baby skunks after their mother is injured by the first plot.

Tobias discovers that the Yeerks are trying to start a logging operation in the nearby national forest. Unfortunately, the operation is protected by a force field. In order to discover who is supporting this legally and try to stop the Yeerks, the group decides to burrow under the force field by morphing termites. This goes exactly as badly as you'd expect, but they do manage to succeed in their mission.

However, Cassie freaks out over the whole thing (they have to destroy the termite queen in the process) and becomes very obsessed with this litter of skunk kits nearby. She's even more obsessed after Tobias reveals that he ate one of the kits. Since Cassie and her dad are tending the mother skunk, she morphs the skunk and tends the kits. The others are angry at first (especially as she's almost trapped in morph the first time) but eventually they all end up taking care of the kits.

Meanwhile, in the main plot, the Animorphs find out there is a committee of three people who will decide if the Yeerks can go ahead with their logging plan. One has voted yes (a Controller), one has voted definitely no, and one guy is undecided. So they plan to grab the last guy and prevent him from being captured by the Yeerks. There's a fight, and Cassie is captured as an osprey along with the deciding committee member. She demorphs and morphs into the skunk, then sprays Visser 3 and some Hork-Bajir when they check in on her.

The Animorphs bargain with Visser 3: if he lets the deciding guy go, they'll give him the secret of removing the skunk smell. Naturally, they lie to him, and tell him grape juice cures the smell instead of tomato juice, and everyone laughs at the end.

Thoughts:
This book was really irritating, and especially disappointing after how enjoyable #8 was. I give the Yeerks points here for a half-decent plan: going after a habitat that can support Andalites would be a good way to sabotage them. And I liked that the Animorphs were able to grasp that sometimes the best way to fight the enemy is through surveillance and bureaucracy rather than straight-up fights.

But oh man, the way they went about it was just so poorly thought out. Termites, really? After the disastrous experience with ants that they had only four books ago? REALLY? Not only do the characters themselves question whether it's really the best plan, but we then find out the force field stops at the soil. So really they could have used almost any other animal to get in. Like, say, rabbits! Gophers! Prairie dogs! Mice! Freaking meerkats! Anything that burrows could have easily made a tunnel under the force field and come up into the main building without being detected. But no, they go for termites. Why? I guess just to be extra-gross and give Cassie that guilt over killing the termite queen.

And man, Cassie's guilt here was really annoying, even moreso than her moral dilemma over whether it was okay to morph dolphins. She killed a bug. A bug she probably wouldn't have hesitated to squash as a human. And she is upset enough by this that she then goes out of her way to save the skunks (and totally rag Tobias for eating one, which is extra unfair) and kind of waste everyone else's time dragging them into it. I mean, I guess if this is what she needed to do to stay sane, fine. But pulling the whole team into it?

They're in the middle of a war. I understand Cassie's usefulness in the group; she needs to be there to serve as a moral compass and remind them of the real cost of their actions. But she really needs to get better about picking her battles. Even without the Yeerk influence, there was never any guarantee all those skunk kits would make it to adulthood-- as proven by Tobias snacking on one. That's how nature works, and Cassie knows this.

So. Yeah. Very frustrating and irritating. I appreciate Cassie's struggle, but I can't really identify with it.

As a side note, they mention the tomato juice cure for skunk smell several times. Mythbusters did an episode on this-- the tomato juice thing might mostly work, (as will commercial skunk scent remover) but a mix of peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap worked best. Too bad for the characters that the episode aired in 2004.


Summary:
This book introduces Erik King, a member of the android race the Chee.

The book starts off with Marco and Jake morphing dogs to get into a combination Alanis/Nine Inch Nails/Offspring concert. There they run into Marco's old friend Erik King, but something is weird about him: he doesn't have a scent, and he's handing out flyers for the Sharing. Deciding they need a closer look as something non-mammal, they sneak into a weekend Sharing event at a lake, with Ax and Marco turning into wolf spiders. They quickly find Erik and see that his human form is just a hologram: he's actually an android.

Erik turns out to be an ally, however, as he protects Marco after a quick demorph out of spider to escape being eaten by a bird. He tells Marco to bring the others to his house. Later, they all go to the house, with Rachel and Tobias staying outside as backup. Erik takes them downstairs to a huge underground habitat, full of dog-shaped androids and thousands of dogs running about in a huge park. He explains that the androids are the Chee, a race of servants made by the pacifist Pemalites, who were destroyed by mysterious enemies called the Howlers. The Chee escaped to Earth, where they imbued wolves with the peaceful essence of the Pemalites, creating dogs. They've been on Earth ever since.

The Chee are completely pacifists: their programming prevents them from harming any living being. However, Erik wants to change this. He and some other Chee have been spying on the Yeerks, and have learned that they recently found a Pemalite programming crystal. Not only is it important that the Yeerks not gain use of this advanced technology, but Erik wants to use it to change the Chee's programming, allowing them to join the fight against the Yeerks. But he needs the Animorphs' help in getting the crystal. Seems the crystal is held in a room of perfect darkness, with pressure-sensitive strings all over, and sensors all over the walls, floor, and ceiling. Now what kind of animal might be able to sneak in there...?

The Animorphs go through a complicated plan, morphing cockroaches to get into the vents of the building, then into the secure room, where they demorph and morph into bats. (Apparently there's a 2' 'safe zone' around the edges of the room where there are no sensors. Seems like kind of a big security oversight to me.) They quickly get to the crystal in their bat morphs, but oh no! They can't figure out how to carry the crystal out as bats. So naturally they end up fighting their way out in a battle where they are terribly outmatched.

As everyone is literally torn to shreds and dying*, Marco manages to smash through the window to where Erik is waiting outside, and get him the crystal. Erik changes his programming and proceeds to tear the entire force of dozens of Hork-Bajir and other enemies to shreds. However, he is terribly mentally scarred by the fight and resolves to never fight again: he changes his programming back. He promises that the Chee will give the Animorphs whatever useful information they can, but they can't fight beside them.

A few days later Marco and Jake again hang out at the beach and are approached by some dogs, who take the Pemalite crystal and toss it in the ocean, burying it away from all use.

*Quite literally. Marco actually has to hold his guts in with one hand and fight with the other. You know, for kids!
I think I'm actually going to have to keep a tally of these moments. So far: 3

Thoughts:
So initially I was going to complain about the cover of this book and how the text says they morph a wolf spider and that the picture looked more like a tarantula. But then I googled pictures of wolf spiders and, uh, they actually do look like the picture on the cover. I stand corrected, and oh god do I not want to actually think about wolf spiders anymore. D:
Have a cute drumming spider instead:



Anyway. I'm a bit torn on this book. On the one hand, the Animorphs finally morph into bats! Woo, bats! This is extra entertaining for me as our D&D group has a bit of a running joke regarding bats-- our resident Druid, Liah, turns into a bat quite frequently for scouting purposes, and we once spent several sessions convincing a not-quite-sane villain that in the 10,000 years he'd been dead, bats had taken over as rulers of society (by leading the Dwarves out of the caves, of course). So we have a fond space in our hearts for bats. Also, they're adorable.

Unfortunately, despite finally being clever enough to morph bats, the Animorphs totally bungle their super spy mission. Really, no one thought how they would get the crystal out? And the only way to carry it was in their mouth? Are you sure? Bats hang upside down all day; their feet have to have pretty good grip strength. I'll bet they could have carried one little crystal a few dozen feet to escape. *sigh* But then we wouldn't get the awful battle at the end with the conflicted androids.

Which is another beef I have with this plot. Erik is upset at the end because he now has all these horrific memories of the battle and he doesn't know how to process them. That's fair, it's certainly upsetting. But he complains that he'll never be able to forget the memories because he's an android. Dude, you are a robot. Memories are just another file! Just delete them! If you can rewrite your entire programming in a few seconds with that crystal, I'm sure you can manage to delete some bad memories.

I understand that an android who can absolutely destroy enemies in battle and then erase all memory and trauma from it would not be in line with the severe anti-war message of these books, but it's still a bit frustrating to see all these possible advantages perpetually yanked away.

Ah, well. At least Marco's POV was less annoying than Cassie's.