Reviews of the books

[Slushie Man]

So I never did read all the series when I was younger. I stopped around Book 28 or so, so I've started r-reading the series now, about 10 years later, in chronological order. This thread will be where I post my thoughts on each book as I read them. Since I've already finished all the Chronicles books, I'll just copy my reviews from Facebook, over to here for them and then continue on from there when I read each book:

The Ellimist Chronicles

I'm amazed at how good this book turned out to be. It's one of the many books I never got around to reading before I quit 10 years ago, so it was nice to have that element of surprise while reading it. It follows the all-powerful God-like Ellimist, from before that point in his life when he was just a teenage high-tech gamer for an advanced alien species. Some members of this species decided to broadcast game footage out into space and another alien race misinterprets that as actual footage and comes to wipe out this species for being so 'dangerous'. A handful survive though, including the Ellimist and they blast out into space Battlestar Galactica-style, to search for a new home. Along the way, the Ellmist character gets promoted through the ranks of his people and they come across many hardships and problems, and eventually extinction, which leads Ellimist into the first step of the rest of his life as an All-powerful being.

It was interesting to see the transition of the Ellimist character from a lowly gamer nobody to leader of his entire race, to the all-powerful Father Version 2.0 (A very old, very large, very very creepy character in the book) pretty much, to an even more powerful inter-dimensionable being. I also liked the confrontations between him and Crayek, who is pretty much the Evil version of Ellimist. I actually forgot I was reading an Animorphs book for a bit because it's SO different in tone and style from everything else in the series, but in a good and refreshing way. This is also a book that is good for people to pick up and read that aren't familiar with the series as a whole, because you need absolutely no knowledge of the series to enjoy it. Apart from a cameo of the Andalites far in their past, this doesn't have any connection to the Animorphs overall plot at all, so it can be equally enjoyed by all.

It feels so good to be back in this universe again after so long away. I'd even go out on a limb here and say that Animorphs was probably my favorite sci-fi related thing back in the day. Forget Star Trek, forget Star Wars, give me my Animorphs.


The Hork-Bajir Chronicles

This entry was really interesting to read because while The Ellimist Chronicles was about that one character and didn't really have anything to do with the rest of the Animorphs history or story, this book marks the start of the backstory on the history of the entire War that is the grounds for the entire Animorphs series. Reading these Chronicles books, is like the equivalent of the Star Wars prequels. Starting off before the Yeerks even started their Universe-wide invasion, we find out about how that happens, why the Andalites blame themselves for it, and the first entire species to fall under their control and the battles the Andalites fought to save them.

I think I still liked the Ellimist Chronicles a tiny bit better, just because it stood better as a stand-alone general sci-fi book that anyone at all could pick up and read and not be confused, while this one is the start of the history of the rest of the series, and beginners may not want to pick it up as it assumes that you've read the Animorphs series and thus doesn't take the time to explain some info that a beginner to the series may be confused over. However, for fans of the series, this one is pretty good and one of my favorites.

I'm not so fond of the constant POV-changing though. I think I much prefer the Andalite's POV to the others, but Visser 3's rising through the ranks was interesting as well, just not as fun to read about. I also was surprised with how much of a downer the ending was; the Andalites loose the battle on the Hork-Bajir homeworld and the few that survive retreat, the one Andalite Princess main character gets trapped in a Hork-Bajir body for the rest of her life due to staying in Morph for too long, most of the Hork-Bajir get enslved by the Yeerks and those that don't get wiped out by a bio-engineered virus that was made by the Andalites themselves and released on the Hork-Bajir homeworld to wipe out all Hork-Bajir in order to hurt the Yeerks.

All in all, a pretty depressing end. I knew it would be somewhat, as it's common knowledge in the series that the Hork-Bajir were all enslaved, but I was thinking there would be somewhat of a happy ending in all of that. But for some reason, I love depressing endings like that, because it leaves you with a sense of dread and doom, only in the end to have the good guys' victory be oh so much sweeter.


Visser

Perhaps reading this book when I did, in terms of chronology, was a bad idea, as only half of it takes place in the past, while the other half takes place during the later books in the series, but oh well. What's done is done. In my opinion, this is the weakest book in the Chronicles prequel series, but before I get into all the negative things, I'd like to start on a positive note about the things I did enjoy.

The scenes of Visser One on trial in present-day were damn interesting and by far the best scenes in the book, and I loved how Visser Three kept trying to trick her into admitting failure and admitting all her secrets yet she kept turning the tables around on him, and it was a great format for the flashbacks to the past that take up the other half of the book, and while not much that happens in the past is nearly as interesting as the present-day trail stuff, there is some good things in there. When she first arrives on Earth, she arrives in the middle of one of the Gulf Wars in the Middle East, and I'm surprised with how much gruesome details the author put in it, for a kid's book, such as her very vivid descriptions of dead human bodies after a battle in the desert. And after Visser One gets to Hollywood and infects the mind of an actress, devolops a drug addiction to coke, which I also was very surprised was in a kid's book.

And all that was good, for a time. Overall, the half of the book that was in the past, after the first few chapters, was just boring as nothing really happens in it. Visser One finds Earth and infiltrates it by hopping from host to host, and all of her struggles are simply with the host's mind she's trying to take over. You can only read about someone talking to themselves and struggling with themselves for so long before it gets old. I also wasn't so fond of her 'falling in love' with her Yeerk buddy. It doesn't really fit who we come to know Visser One as later in the series. And while I liked the Trail stuff better, it wasn't perfect. I thought the book would have been far stronger if they didn't have the Animorphs crash the trial. I understand why the author had it happen, but that ends up making this almost feel like an Animorphs book and not one of the Chronicles books.

So yes, there is some good stuff in here, but not enough for me to ever read it again. Maybe it was the false advertising of the cover, or maybe it was just that overall I found the book very boring, I don't know, but once was enough, and even then, it took multiple tries to finally get through it all.


The Andalite Chronicles

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.


Animorphs: Book 1: The Invasion

: 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.

[Chad32]

The coincidences, like Marco's mother being Visser One's host and Elfangor being Tobias' father, aren't really coincidences. The Ellemist made sure those two were members of the resistance group, as well as Cassie and Ax.

[Slushie Man]

Ahh, ok. That makes a bit more sense then.

[morfowt]

well no, drode accused that the ellimist did, but the ellimist neither confirmed nor denied.

[Slushie Man]

Well at least K.A. Applegate addressed it somewhat, instead of just leaving it like that.

[CounterInstinct]

If they were selected or not... no one really is 101% sure. We can guess, we can speculate, but isn't it against the rules to select those 6?

[Chad32]

If they were selected or not... no one really is 101% sure. We can guess, we can speculate, but isn't it against the rules to select those 6?

I think there are times when one of them wants to interfere more than they're supposed to, so they let the other bend the rules a little at another time. Like when the Drode is allowed to tempt Jake.

The rules are likely very complicated, and there is evidence of rule bending in the series.

[Slushie Man]

Animorphs: Book 2: The Visitor:

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.

[Slushie Man]

Animorphs: Book 3: The Encounter:

In this book, the Animorphs, still searching for the new entrance into the Yeerk Pool, discover a Yeerk ship not in space, but in the sky above their city, cloaked in invisibility. Not only that, but it seems to be the ship that is a supply ship, bringing water and breathable air up to the mother ship 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.

Is it just me, or does each book seem to be getting shorter and shorter? Anyway, this book was very interesting and unique, as it's told from the perspective of Tobias, who is permanently stuck in hawk form, so right from the bat, you know this book will be very different then anything in the series so far, so at the very least, you know it'll be interesting if nothing else.

Now, one thing that I don't understand is all the talk of Tobias being emo. I 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. Personally, I find Marco much more annoying with his constant non-stop ****ing and moaning about everything.

So, with that out of the way, I'll start with my complaints. In Book 2, the Animorphs saved a bunch of birds from poachers. In this book, they save yet more birds. A 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.

On the good side of things though, we get even more characterization as 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 the characters I remember. 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. Plus, what happens with the female hawk that kept popping into the story was heartbreaking.

Also, we finally get to see the wolf morphs. Wolves are my favorite animal, after dinosaurs, 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 also seemed the most exciting to me. It had some great scenes, not just of action, but also of suspense as well, and the scene where they were morphing back to human, right on the 2-hour mark, would look pretty disturbing in a film.

All in all, I have to say, this is my favorite in the series so far (Not counting the Chronicles series there), despite it's short page count and the problems I listed above.

[Slushie Man]

Animorphs: Book 4: The The Message:

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, 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.

[Liz]

Anyway, a pretty good start to the series, with my only real problem being with the style of writing, which I know improves over time.

Actually, I like the writing style in #1.  It reminds me of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, how she wrote Ponyboy's voice.  It sounds very real and like the actual way Jake would talk or write.

Also agree about the redundancy of describing morphs, but even more than that, what bothered me was the introduction at the beginning of every book about the Yeerks, how the Animorphs got their powers, and so on.  I know it was necessary, as not everyone starts reading from #1, but it was a bit tedious. :|

[morfowt]

I find it useless. in my opinion, animorphs would be too confusing unless you start from #1 so I find that introduction pointless.

[Slushie Man]

Yes, now, but back in the day, the only way to get them was to order them through Schoolastic, or find them in a bookstore. Schoolastic, unless there's a boxset in their monthly catalog, only ever had whichever one was new for that month, and bookstores very rarely carry every single volume of a long-running series like this, so sometimes it was hard to find the first few books, so newcomers very often, back in the day, pretty much had to start in the middle if they were late at getting into the series. I started on book 3 or 4 I think, cause I couldn't find the first bunch anywhere, until much later.

[Chad32]

What's all this about saving birds three times in a row? I remember them saving a red tailed hawk, elephants from being prodded with a cattle prod, and the whale. What other birds were saved?

[Slushie Man]

Saved some birds from being poached in Book 2, saved a hawk from captivity in Book 3, and saved some injured birds on Cassie's farm from a fox in Book 4.