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ihateprozac's review
5.0
In this book, the Animorphs take a little day trip off planet Earth. The Animorphs are in mosquito-morph, ready to acquire the blood/DNA of a senior Secret Service agent, when they're suddenly transported into Zero Space! An Andalite ship picks them up as it passes by, and they learn that the Andalites are on the way to stop the Yeerk invasion of Leeran. Turns out that the destruction of the shark facility didn't put the Yeerks off - instead of taking the stealth approach, they've decided to invade by force.
The Andalites are losing the battle on land, and the Animorphs are soon driven to the water. They morph and reach one of the underwater Leeran cities, where they unite with the commander of the Andalite forces. The commander reveals that losing the land battle had been the plan all along - the Andalites had rigged each continent with explosives, intending to drive the Yeerks together and destroy them. Something has gone wrong with the detonator though, and the Animorphs are tasked with finding its location and setting it off.
But something weird is happening to the Animorphs. They're disappearing into thin air, one by one. And it's happening more rapidly. Soon it's down to Ax alone to detonate the explosives and save Leeran.
---
Yay a book from Ax's perspective! I feel like we learned more about Ax and the Andalites in this one book than we've learned from all the previous books combined. It was great to get another glimpse of Ax amongst fellow Andalites, particularly in regards to his 'aristh' status. The Animorphs all look to Ax as some sort of walking encyclopedia on the universe, but the tables were turned here. Ax was suddenly at the bottom of the chain of command.
And yay for more Leeran! I was fascinated by the structure of their underwater cities. If anybody says 'underwater city' to me, I automatically imagine a Disney castle on the ocean floor, potentially accompanied by some kind of airtight dome. The Leeran city couldn't have been further from that, looking more like an ice cream cone that holds bubble-shaped ant farms. I was also fascinated by their psychic abilities, and how they represented nothing more to the Animorphs than the typical OMGANIMALBRAINFLAIL that they go through when morphing for the first time.
And surprisingly, yay for Zero Space stuff! The details are still fuzzy, but they're not half-arsed like the explanations we've been given before. I'm assuming that the Animorphs morphed something with such a low mass that they were accidentally sucked into zero space. Except a tiiiiny bit of their mass was still stuck on Earth, so the universe was trying to correct itself in snapping them back to the point of origin. As for the time discrepancy, unless the author bothers to explain that further, I'm just going to chalk it up to time moving differently in zero space/Leeran.
But boo for traitors. In [b:The Escape|363355|The Escape (Animorphs, #15)|Katherine Applegate|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1174109960s/363355.jpg|353430] we learned that a Leeran was helping the Yeerks invade his home planet. In this book we learned that the Yeerks were further assisted by none other than Andalites! I'm intrigued as to what made these Leeran and Andalites turn on their kind. They have to have the sense to know that no matter what the Yeerks promise, the Yeerks will likely kill or infest them once they're no longer useful. There's no way the traitorous Leeran or Andalite is just going to be allowed to chill on a throne in the Blade Ship.
What has happened to the Leeran and Andalites to make them hate their species that much? The Andalites sound as if they live in relative peace and order, devoting their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. And while we don't know much about the Leeran, the fact that their planet contains no natural predators means we can assume they do too. While the Yeerks on Earth find volunteers in downtrodden and abused humans, I find it hard to imagine what could make an Andalite or Leeran greenlight the annihilation or enslavement of their entire species. :(
And boo for the unfinished Hewlett Aldershot storyline. The Animorphs better revisit their mission in the next book, otherwise they're screwed!
The Andalites are losing the battle on land, and the Animorphs are soon driven to the water. They morph and reach one of the underwater Leeran cities, where they unite with the commander of the Andalite forces. The commander reveals that losing the land battle had been the plan all along - the Andalites had rigged each continent with explosives, intending to drive the Yeerks together and destroy them. Something has gone wrong with the detonator though, and the Animorphs are tasked with finding its location and setting it off.
But something weird is happening to the Animorphs. They're disappearing into thin air, one by one. And it's happening more rapidly. Soon it's down to Ax alone to detonate the explosives and save Leeran.
---
Yay a book from Ax's perspective! I feel like we learned more about Ax and the Andalites in this one book than we've learned from all the previous books combined. It was great to get another glimpse of Ax amongst fellow Andalites, particularly in regards to his 'aristh' status. The Animorphs all look to Ax as some sort of walking encyclopedia on the universe, but the tables were turned here. Ax was suddenly at the bottom of the chain of command.
And yay for more Leeran! I was fascinated by the structure of their underwater cities. If anybody says 'underwater city' to me, I automatically imagine a Disney castle on the ocean floor, potentially accompanied by some kind of airtight dome. The Leeran city couldn't have been further from that, looking more like an ice cream cone that holds bubble-shaped ant farms. I was also fascinated by their psychic abilities, and how they represented nothing more to the Animorphs than the typical OMGANIMALBRAINFLAIL that they go through when morphing for the first time.
And surprisingly, yay for Zero Space stuff! The details are still fuzzy, but they're not half-arsed like the explanations we've been given before. I'm assuming that the Animorphs morphed something with such a low mass that they were accidentally sucked into zero space. Except a tiiiiny bit of their mass was still stuck on Earth, so the universe was trying to correct itself in snapping them back to the point of origin. As for the time discrepancy, unless the author bothers to explain that further, I'm just going to chalk it up to time moving differently in zero space/Leeran.
But boo for traitors. In [b:The Escape|363355|The Escape (Animorphs, #15)|Katherine Applegate|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1174109960s/363355.jpg|353430] we learned that a Leeran was helping the Yeerks invade his home planet. In this book we learned that the Yeerks were further assisted by none other than Andalites! I'm intrigued as to what made these Leeran and Andalites turn on their kind. They have to have the sense to know that no matter what the Yeerks promise, the Yeerks will likely kill or infest them once they're no longer useful. There's no way the traitorous Leeran or Andalite is just going to be allowed to chill on a throne in the Blade Ship.
What has happened to the Leeran and Andalites to make them hate their species that much? The Andalites sound as if they live in relative peace and order, devoting their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. And while we don't know much about the Leeran, the fact that their planet contains no natural predators means we can assume they do too. While the Yeerks on Earth find volunteers in downtrodden and abused humans, I find it hard to imagine what could make an Andalite or Leeran greenlight the annihilation or enslavement of their entire species. :(
And boo for the unfinished Hewlett Aldershot storyline. The Animorphs better revisit their mission in the next book, otherwise they're screwed!
bookseller's review
adventurous
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
hostboi's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
c_dmckinney's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
rat_girl_'s review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lesserjoke's review
4.0
The sci-fi concept of Zero-space in this series is one that doesn't necessarily stand up to close scrutiny: it's the empty dimension where Andalite spaceships go during faster-than-light / warp travel, but it's also where a morpher's excess body mass is temporarily deposited whenever they become something smaller. (It's not clear to me why that justification for shapeshifting is even needed, nor what provides the extra material when someone turns into, say, an elephant.) But that's the setup for the premise of the back half of this novel, in which an ordinary mission gets derailed by a passing ship somehow running into the bits of Animorphs that are halfway across the galaxy, yanking them from mosquitos to their own bodies to be quickly rescued by the aliens.
It's very strange, and we're told highly unlikely, although no Ellimist or anything appears responsible for the event. Luckily Ax is on hand as the current narrator to lend focus to the plot, and the tale which unfolds from that point is a good one. He's compelling and funny before the sudden redirect too, distracting Yeerk guards and innocent bystanders by just strolling down a hospital wing, exhibiting his usual love for Cinnabons at the mall -- a recurring gag I'll admit is growing on me -- and challenging Visser Three to a deadly duel. But he's really in his element once he's back among his own people, and the story deepens accordingly to explore his conflicting loyalties. The young aristh feels caught between worlds, simultaneously an outsider to his new friends and a bit of a heretic to the rest of his species for aiding them, and the text explores that tension in an interesting way.
The remainder of the book is equally momentous. The teens are meeting other Andalites for the first time, and following up on a hint in The Alien that they have traitors in their ranks and are hardly the paragons of virtue that Aximili sometimes pretends. (He's oddly preoccupied earlier with the question of how the visser could have acquired the DNA of a kafit bird native to his homeworld, with no one suggesting the simplest explanation that Alloran already had the creature prior to his capture, but I suppose the matter is dropped after a different character's duplicity is confirmed.) And the craft soon lands on the planet of the Leerans, those aquatic telepaths from The Escape who are now under open siege by the Yeerks.
Then it's a race to reach a target that will secure an Andalite victory, and the action in this stretch is particularly exciting, as many of the locals are Controllers, and any enemy who reaches near enough to psychically learn that the guerilla force on earth is made up of human children cannot be allowed to survive to spread the word. Adding to the stress of the situation, the heroes begin snapping away from the scene one by one, although no one knows whether they are returning safely home or perishing in Z-space. The result plays out like a war movie with a shrinking team of fighters being shot out of the sky, despite what we can assume will be the ultimate conclusion.
So it's a busy and somewhat messy adventure overall, but a real thrill-ride with important continuity developments nevertheless. I'd say Ax earns his latest "bun-zuh."
[Content warning for body horror, gore, and suicide.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
It's very strange, and we're told highly unlikely, although no Ellimist or anything appears responsible for the event. Luckily Ax is on hand as the current narrator to lend focus to the plot, and the tale which unfolds from that point is a good one. He's compelling and funny before the sudden redirect too, distracting Yeerk guards and innocent bystanders by just strolling down a hospital wing, exhibiting his usual love for Cinnabons at the mall -- a recurring gag I'll admit is growing on me -- and challenging Visser Three to a deadly duel. But he's really in his element once he's back among his own people, and the story deepens accordingly to explore his conflicting loyalties. The young aristh feels caught between worlds, simultaneously an outsider to his new friends and a bit of a heretic to the rest of his species for aiding them, and the text explores that tension in an interesting way.
The remainder of the book is equally momentous. The teens are meeting other Andalites for the first time, and following up on a hint in The Alien that they have traitors in their ranks and are hardly the paragons of virtue that Aximili sometimes pretends. (He's oddly preoccupied earlier with the question of how the visser could have acquired the DNA of a kafit bird native to his homeworld, with no one suggesting the simplest explanation that Alloran already had the creature prior to his capture, but I suppose the matter is dropped after a different character's duplicity is confirmed.) And the craft soon lands on the planet of the Leerans, those aquatic telepaths from The Escape who are now under open siege by the Yeerks.
Then it's a race to reach a target that will secure an Andalite victory, and the action in this stretch is particularly exciting, as many of the locals are Controllers, and any enemy who reaches near enough to psychically learn that the guerilla force on earth is made up of human children cannot be allowed to survive to spread the word. Adding to the stress of the situation, the heroes begin snapping away from the scene one by one, although no one knows whether they are returning safely home or perishing in Z-space. The result plays out like a war movie with a shrinking team of fighters being shot out of the sky, despite what we can assume will be the ultimate conclusion.
So it's a busy and somewhat messy adventure overall, but a real thrill-ride with important continuity developments nevertheless. I'd say Ax earns his latest "bun-zuh."
[Content warning for body horror, gore, and suicide.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
ffictionist's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0