The Decision (Animorphs, #18) (2024)

FIRST REVIEW / MAR 27, 2015
Ax being all like "My human disguise is perfect, I can effortlessly pass as one of them!" is so hilarious to me. You'd think his fish-out-of-water adventures would get dull after a time, but I really don't get tired of them.

Where this book goes, however, is so balls-to-the-walls crazy and awesome. KAA pulls more crazy weird metaphysical stuff -- harking back to a throwaway line a few books back about the science of morphing -- in order to bring the Animorphs to the frontlines of war-torn Leera, right in the trenches of a ground war on an alien planet. To which I go: f*ck YES!! We get to see our first proper alien world, the first open battle with the Yeerks, Andalite generals, and heroic sacrifice -- suddenly the series takes a left turn into something more like hard military sci-fi. I really love the books that shake up the formula like this, expanding the world and showcasing more than their backyard struggles against the Yeerks in their (likely Californian) neighbourhood.

It also delves into more of Ax's struggles split between the Andalites and the humans, his own species vs. the one who took him in, and his divided loyalties between the two; it's like the ultimate expatriate problem. Each of his books brings him closer and closer to the Animorphs, becoming more and more one of them. The Decision is touching, exciting, and dramatic -- I loved this one.

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SECOND REVIEW / MAY 9, 2020
My previous review pretty much covered all the bases, but I'll just note that the scale of the tragedies that the kids witness on Leera is so very different than before. They're accustomed to fighting their guerilla war in the shadows, where they are their only allies, and they've managed to avoid any deaths so far. Here, it's in the frontlines, they're in the metaphorical trenches, they witness the slaughter of so many allies, and they suffer such PTSD and survivor's guilt as a result:

It's a terrible thing, living when so many others have died. It's terrible because no matter what you do, a single thought keeps popping up in your head: I'm glad it wasn't me.

I was glad it wasn't me.

Good stuff as ever!!

Favourite quotes moved to Google Docs.

I have a real soft spot for The Decision, because it is so awesome.

I remember the “Animorphs get pulled into Z-space” book from my childhood reading of the series—but I didn’t remember it coming so early. I loved the whole concept. Indeed, while not quite as long as the Megamorphs books, I’d argue that the plot of The Decision is just as cinematic and huge as any of those books—and maybe superior to some of them.

We finally get Ax’s second turn at narrating. Applegate spaces out his books more than the others, at least at the front end of the series, probably because for the moment his perspective is the most alien. That makes it harder to write for longer periods, and also harder to read. There’s only so much you can do with the “I’m an alien and boy do I think humans are the weird ones” stand-up schtick … but hey, Applegate nails it.

After an opening with Ax in human morph going all out on cinnamon buns that can only be described as hilarious, he continues to deliver zinger after zinger in his observations about the other Animorphs, or about human society in general. Whereas #8: The Alien is generally an introduction to Ax and Andalite society, The Decision is about the ways in which we prosecute war. Ax was briefly in contact with the Andalite homeworld in his first book, but his role was largely one of passive soldier who received orders and followed them. Here he has a more active role, one in which he has to choose loyalties. Because that’s the kicker in war: sometimes it’s not even clear if the “good guys” are all on the same side.

There are so many reasons to give this book five stars, but the moment that clinched it for me comes when Leeran-Controllers start shooting at the Animorphs, who are in hammerhead morph:

Marco yelled.

Think about that for a moment. To an adult reading this book, the reference makes perfect sense. But I don’t know about you—as a Canadian growing up in the 1990s, I didn’t know much about the Vietnam War. I knew it was a thing that happened over the 1960s and most of the 1970s. I knew there was a draft, and that Canadian had not only stayed out of the war but welcomed the “draft dodgers.” But the moral complexity and ambiguity surrounding Vietnam escaped me at the time. I have no doubt this allusion went over my head when I read The Decision as a child.

So Applegate’s inclusion of this reference speaks to the subtlety and layers she builds into these books. For those kids who get it, it’s an added bonus. For those who don’t, maybe it makes them wonder what Marco means by this comment. These are not just fluffy adventure books: war is serious; war is hell; and Applegate is not sugar-coating it. A whole ship of Andalites dies in these pages.

Ax’s need to choose between his loyalty to the Andalite command and his loyalty to the Animorphs underlines this idea that war is ambiguous and messed up. We also get a good sense of why the Andalites are losing this war: it’s not that the Yeerks are superior so much as they are less picky. The Andalites’ morality is slipping, as we saw from the revelations about Alloran and the Hork-Bajir in The Andalite Chronicles; even so, their arrogance is getting the better of them. “We are stronger fighting alone” is the most BS thing I have ever heard, and younger!Ben would definitely have picked up on that. (And even if he didn’t, the tactical officer’s change of heart prior to sacrificing the ship would have hammered it home—sometimes you don’t need to be subtle.)

The Decision is nothing short of beautiful. I first gave five stars to #6: The Capture because it is terrifying. And while Applegate continues to show us the horrors and things that go wrong with war in this book, she also underscores the values of cameraderie, loyalty, friendship, and trust. She combines the “alien moved by humanity’s passion” and “war buddies” tropes and makes something wonderful.

Next time, it’s the second Megamorphs instalment, and you know what that means: time travel and dinosaurs. Off the chain!

My reviews of Animorphs:
← #17: The Underground | Megamorphs #2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs →

Remember back when Ax warned the other Animorphs that when they morphed smaller animals than their own body mass, all that extra mass was extruded into z-space and just sort of chilled out there until they resumed their human forms? And remember how he also said that spaceships also roam z-space? And that there was an infinitesimally small chance that said spaceships might hit their extruded mass? And that no one knew what would happen if they did? Well.

Turns out what happens is a great story that is one of my favorite yet in this universe. I always love mythology and space-heavy installments anyway, but this one also does a particularly nice job with Ax's character (his loyalties are tested, as is the faith in his people), along with giving us cool action scenes and intrigue and aliens and space battles. It's also nice that for a change the Animorphs (and the Andalites, et. al) actually win a pretty big victory in the war against the Yeerks. It's not just the Animorphs constantly being tested morally and physically and coming away more and more hardened. It's also that sometimes when you fight, you win.

I only have two complaints about this installment, and they're pretty minor. The first is that Ax is very bothered by Visser Three having a morph that could only have been acquired on the Andalite homeworld, and this is supposed to be a message to him and us that the Yeerks have made headway onto that homeworld, a hint that maybe not all Andalites are as good and pure as they professed. Only . . . how did no one think the obvious here. Visser Three's host body is an Andalite. Who grew up on that homeworld. And who had the morphing power long before Visser Three took him for a host. So . . . . I know later some of the Andalites mention that most Andalites don't actually have that many morphs due to cultural/practical restrictions, but it's still entirely possible, and the fact that Ax or the others never even point it out as a possibility really bothered me.

Also, it just wasn't long enough. In scope, this feels similar to the story told in The Andalite Chronicles but is only given 1/3 of the length to flesh it out. I wanted to see more of internal Andalite politics, more of the battles and tactics, more of the Leeran homeworld, more of Ax reconnecting to his people and learning that he's maybe changed too much to fit in with them the way he had in the past.

Next up, the second Megamorphs. Dinosaurs!

[4.5 stars]

Come check out my 4 hour 35 minute deep dive into reading every single Animorphs book for the first time on YouTube. I recap and review all of the books from the main series: https://youtu.be/H8kUM2q3CIU

Original review at Jaunts & Haunts

5/5

I gave this fantastic book five blood-sucking stars!

I. Loved. This. Book! It very quickly became one of my favorite so far in this series, and for good reason.

This time around, we are in Ax's POV, one that we don't see enough if you ask me.

Anyways, the Animorphs are moseying along when an ally uncovers a dangerous development that could once again seriously threaten humankind. True to form, our animal-morphing friends jump into action to save the day when the impossible of impossibles happen.

Remember that whole Zero Space explanation Ax gave some books ago? You know, how while in a morph, your actual body is floating around in that void? Yeah, well the Animorphs are mid morph when they're catapulted to Zero Space in their bodies.

Luckily they're saved, but now they've been thrust into the middle of a war for Leera, the home planet of our psychic squid-looking allies. Together, Ax and the others must figure a way out of this mess. Should they get involved? Can they really deal a crushing blow to the Yeerks? But most of all, does Ax even want to return to Earth when this is all over?

This book was everything to me.

It started off with some laughs, as usual. Ax always gets into trouble when in human form, and I loved the intro humor. All of the Animorphs got plenty of pagetime, so that was very well-balanced. I especially enjoyed the interactions between Jake and Ax this time around.

The plot? Oh man, the plot was so riveting! The stakes are usually quite high, but this was all-out war! I loved the taste that I got of what was really going on galaxies away where the real war was being fought. It was depressing, inspiring, and heartfelt all at the same time. The darker concepts of this series were definitely present, but that's what made it so great.

I honestly can't think of a single con, that's how hooked I was.

Adventure, war, and scifi galore made this book an instant favorite, and I can't wait to continue reading this series!

Ax if you act all high and mighty again you’re gonna drop to Cassie levels of annoyance

*** 4.25 ***

Ax and the amphibious alien empathic creatures. 👍

One of the more surreal Animorphs books. All kinds of weird stuff happens when the characters accidentally go to Z-space while sucking blood (as mosquitoes, not vampires!), and they meet Andalites and psychic frog people.

Notable moments and inconsistencies:

In a previous book, the planet of the Leerans was mistakenly referred to as "Leeran" (repeatedly). Now in this book (and from then on) it's referred to as "Leera."

It seems odd that Ax is so perplexed at one point that Visser Three has a kafit bird in his morphing repertoire. After all, Visser Three's host body is Alloran, an Andalite military officer, and that guy probably had plenty of morphs before he was infested. Ax's own brother had a kafit bird to morph into because it was a morph offered in training; why would it be so odd that Alloran (and therefore Visser Three) had been exposed to it? However, Ax suddenly being obsessed with "what if the Yeerks have been to my planet?" seems a bit silly when considering that in a previous book Alloran used his brief seconds of freedom to tell Ax that the Yeerks had "infiltrated the home world."

When Visser Three morphs a kafit bird, it's unclear what happens to a Yeerk if it uses a host body to morph something with a head smaller than a Yeerk. Is the Yeerk being somehow shrunken and incorporated bodily into the animal that's being morphed? If the creature is too small to fit a Yeerk inside its head, it seems like the Yeerk shouldn't be able to morph it, though if the Yeerk itself had morphing powers that would be different. Ax's narration also mentions that the kafit bird has six wings, but in another book it's said that it has six pairs of wings.

It's odd that DNA can't be acquired from a dead animal, but it can supposedly be acquired from blood that's been removed from the source. It's not clear why that is or where the dividing line is between when a part of someone is a good source for acquiring DNA or when it's no longer useful because it's "dead."

Ax decides to use himself as a diversion at one point, thinking he can distract Controllers by appearing as an Andalite. But when he flies into a hospital room in harrier morph and begins to morph back to his natural form, the sleeping human in the hospital bed near him wakes up and sees him. This seems like an unusually foolish thing for Ax to do; in a hospital run by Controllers, it was certainly possible for anyone who's been admitted there to have been infested. It turned out this kid had not been, but it still seems like unnecessary risk in exchange for a silly joke (where Ax tells the girl, who thinks he's a fairy, that he's an Andalite).

Leerans apparently have a deity named Cha-Ma-Mib.

An Andalite tactical officer named Harelin gets his tail sliced off in a battle, and Ax comments that he's sure the guy would rather die than live without a tail. Perhaps it's just unclear overall, but it seems like it was established that all Andalite military get the morphing power. Since the Animorphs have repeatedly used it to heal their injuries, it seems that as long as this T.O. could live long enough to morph where he wouldn't be seen, he could heal his wound and regrow his tail. Why would Ax be assuming this guy was going to "live without a tail"?

It also seems odd that the T.O. would blow up a hundred Andalites when theoretically some of them also could have morphed and escaped to fight.

The aforementioned T.O.'s full name was Harelin-Frodlin-Sirinial, but the first couple times he was mentioned, his name was written as "Hareli," without the final N.

The Leeran thought-speak is normally relayed in underlined, italicized text instead of the greater-than/less-than brackets usually used to indicate Andalite and morphed creatures' thought-speak. However, even though this underlined/italicized text convention was used the first time a Leeran-Controller showed up in a previous book, Yeerks piloting Leeran hosts in this book used normal thought-speak until it was the actual Leerans speaking to their shark-morphed saviors. Ax's narration identifies this thought-speak as different, but there's no explanation for why it wasn't "different" when the Yeerks were speaking to them using the Leerans' telepathic speech.

Leerans are capable of regenerating body parts.

A continuity glitch: At one point everyone demorphed and so the only person who should have been able to use thought-speak was Ax. (Tobias wasn't there.) Despite that, Jake was twice quoted as relaying his words in thought-speak even though they'd just been ordered to demorph and no one had re-morphed anything else.

The doctors weren't optimistic at all for the revival of the Secret Service agent in a coma. And yet for some reason he wakes up out of the blue while the Animorphs are biting him as mosquitoes. It's unclear how doctors could think someone was irreparable and then he'd awaken with full consciousness and no lingering after-effects.

Okay, this is probably my favourite this far and I admit all. I have a huge weakness for Ax, and I always love his point of view. The bits of (dysfunctional) Andalite culture also worked for me. When did they stop being these sort of silly aliens? I actually got the chills at several points. The plot was also more to my taste than the couple of previous ones.

These poor kids I swear to god 😭

Rating: 4.5

This is one of my favourites in the series so far, probably behind only Tobias’ first POV book and that one with the Ellimist. I’m finding that I tend to enjoy the more scifi-heavy entries in the series far more than the ones that are more focused on what’s going on in the human world.

This is my first time reading an Ax book other than his first one which was more on the comedic side, and I was surprised by how dark it got. Not in a bad way though of course, I’m always impressed whenever this series addresses more serious topics (albeit in a simplified way since it is for younger readers). I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I really love that the kids in this series sometimes have serious disagreements over their personal ideals instead of just behaving like a hive mind and always being on the same page just because they’re the heroes of the story.

My only real complaint is that I feel like the book wrapped up way too abruptly, but I guess that’s a hazard of only getting some 150 pages to tell a story.

extremely very good

(Originally reviewed at thelibraryladies.com.)

Narrator: Ax

Plot: And we’re back with another Ax book! And surprising no one, we open with a scene of humor and horror as it appears that Ax has now become confident enough to morph human and wander around the mall all on his own! Seriously, it’s like the Animorphs are his parents and he’s now this toddler who’s been set loose on his own. It’s just irresponsible! Of course, Ax is found in one place and one place only: the food court where he attempts to get a job to fund his Cinnabun habit. But by “clearing tables” he hears “eat everything on the table, regardless of whether or not the person who bought it is done with it.” The whole thing ends with Ax causing a huge scene and needing to be bailed out by Marco who zeroes in on the commotion and has a sinking suspicion about who could be behind it.

Our real story then begins when the Animorphs get wind that the Yeerks might be up to their hospital infestation plans once again. And really, one has to wonder why the Yeerks don’t always use this plan, it just seems like such an easy way to create new Controllers. Erek, our friendly residential Chee, is the one to alert the Animorphs of this particular danger: an upper level man in the Secret Service will be in the hospital and the Yeerks are planning something.

They all decide to scout out the hospital, taking up a rotation of seagull morphs to keep an eye on things. During his shift, Ax sees Human!Visser Three show up at the hospital. It turns out that the Secret Service man has slipped into a coma and is now unusable as a Controller, so Visser Three decides to acquire him instead. But before he can, Visser Three, who is now at LEVEL RED suspicion of all animals he ever sees, spots a few seagulls outside, decides to morph a Kafit bird (the Andalite homeworld bird that we saw in “The Andalite Chronicles”) and attacks them. Ax and Visser Three go on a chase of that ends with them both back in Andalite form on a rooftop ready to go to battle. Visser Three, in his typical cowardly manner, chooses to flee the scene rather than fight Ax. Ax has many emotions about once again failing to avenge his brother.

At this point, the Animorphs decide that their best option is to essentially copy Visser Three’s plan (which was to acquire the DNA of the Secret Service man so that he could pose as him and gain access to every secret ever). So what if one of the Animorphs was to morph him, walk into the Secret Service, and then morph and prove that there is an alien invasion happening! After the usual debate about the ethics of morphing humans, the team decides to go ahead with the plan, except they know that the Yeerks are now on high alert. Cassie’s animal knowledge comes to the rescue again and she suggests that there may be another way to get the DNA of this man without being human and acquiring it in the usual manner. They will all morph mosquito and get blood that way.

The team all morph mosquito and are in the midst of biting the man when…poof! They are suddenly somewhere else! Specifically, floating around in space and not fully formed? Panicking and without air, Ax frantically thought speaks towards the Andalite ship he can see in the distance. They are caught in its wake and he calls to them to save them. He blacks out, only to wake up in the medical bay of the Andalite ship surrounded by some very confused Andalites and concerned Animorph friends. An Andalite scientist is going crazy with their appearance, suggesting that it is a miracle of science, proof that the theory about extra mass going to Z-space when one morphs a tiny animal must be true! And that the passing Andalite ship had somehow sucked Ax and the Animorphs through as it passed their “mass” in Z-space.

The Captain and T.O. (technical officer) of the ship order the human Animorphs to stick to their room and call Ax to the main deck. They then inform him that their ship is en route to the Leeran home world where a massive battle between the Andalites and the Yeerks is brewing. They don’t have time to return the humans, and Ax is now a member of the ship’s crew and must follow their orders. Ax is both thrilled and afraid to know that he will now be in the midst of a real battle.

But as the ship begins to descend, he and the T.O. realize that something is wrong. They are landing behind the Yeerk lines where they will be completely at their mercy! It turns out that the Andalite Captain is a traitor! The Captain attacks the T.O., cutting off his tail. Ax panics and frantically tries to warn the other Animorphs. Turns out, they’re already in the room in fly morph, having disregarded Ax’s (and the Captain’s) orders to stay in their room. Cassie begins to de-morph while on the Captain’s shoulder, providing a distraction. Ax tries to fight him, and is saved when the T.O. recovers enough to shoot and kill the Captain with a Dracon beam. Knowing that the ship is doomed, the T.O. orders Ax and the Animorphs to flee, and sets the ship to auto-destruct in a hope to do as much damage as possible.

They all morph fly and flee the scene. As they run, Ax mourns the loss of so many Andalite warriors and grapples with his new reality where Andalites can be traitors and join up with the Yeerks willingly. The rest of the Animorphs struggle to forgive Ax for so quickly abandoning them once he was back among his own people. But their anger takes a back seat when they see the rest of the Andalite forces retreating, seemingly accepting that the battle is lost. This isn’t good for the Leeran home world or for the Animorphs themselves. As was explored a few books ago, psychic Yeerk Controllers would spell doom for the Animorphs’ cause.

As they flee the battlefield once again, they realize that Tobias is missing. It seems as if he disappeared before their very eyes. Frantic and scared, the group tries to orient themselves and decide on their next steps. As they work through it all, Ax stumbles upon a theory for why the Andalites retreated as quickly as they did. Leeran is made up of almost entirely water, with only one large continent. The Leeran people live in their oceans and don’t need this continent, but it is paramount to the land-based Yeerk invasion to use as a base of operations. Ax theorizes that the Leerans and Andalites plan to blow up this continent, striking a critical blow against the Yeerk forces that are all now gathering on the planet in their seeming victory.

They get to the ocean, morph shark, and promptly run into some Leeran!Controllers. Luckily, they realize that they can essentially bite the Yeerk right out from the Leerans’ heads without killing the Leerans themselves. The newly freed Leerans direct them to a Leeran city where they meet up with some more Andalite leadership. This time, Ax presents the group and insists that Jake is his Prince and the one whom he will be taking orders from going forward. The Leeran/Andalite forces have run into a problem with their plan; the remote detonator on the bomb beneath the continent has been failing to activate for the last several hours. Someone will need to go down and manually arm it. The Animorphs volunteer. At this point, they have also lost a few more of the group, who also seemed to just disappear out of nowhere. Before sending them off, the Andalite scientists theorize that these disappearance may be some sort of “snap back” that is flinging them back either to Z-space (where they are now dead) or hopefully all the way back to Earth and their original mosquito morphs. It is likely that it will happen to them all. With this happy thought in mind, the remaining group sets off.

Some hi-jinks and battles ensue, but ultimately it is down to Ax and Jake racing through an underwater tunnel to get to the bomb in time, both worried that they will “snap” away before completing their mission. Jake disappears, and it is up to Ax. When he reaches the bomb, the Yeerks are there too. He manages to arm it and relays back to the Andalites not to wait, but to set it off now, with him next to it. Luckily, he snaps away right as it goes off.

And suddenly they’re all back in the hospital, biting the Secret Service man while in mosquito morph. No time has passed at all, and they all re-appeared at the same time, regardless of when they snapped away from the Leeran planet. Bizarrely, mosquito!Ax’s bite wakes up the Secret Service man from his coma, and the Controllers in the room flee, not knowing what to do. The story quickly wraps up with Ax making peace with the fact that sometimes your people aren’t the same species as you, and that’s ok. And he needs to go eat more Cinnabons immediately.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: This is a big book for Ax and his emotions/loyalties. Finally back among his own people, he goes through a lot of emotional legwork from the beginning to the end. Not only is he confronted, again, with the fact that the Andalite high ups want him to take the fall for giving the humans their morphing abilities (to save the legend of Elfangor), but he has to figure out his own connection to humanity, and the fact that the Andalites are also a flawed species.

It’s pretty clear at this point that arrogance is the primary downfall of Andalites. Not only can Ax not even comprehend the fact that one would be a traitor, but the Yeerks themselves are seen here to construct their entire strategy for taking over Leeran by counting on the fact that the Andalites don’t play well with others, and thus they and the Leerans, while on the same side, seem to be fighting separate wars with the Yeerks. So it goes a long ways for Ax to see the Captain turn traitor. Not only does he now have a more healthy understanding of the strengths and, importantly, weaknesses of his own people, but he sees the full advantages of working together with his human friends during their war on Earth.

At the same time, he is constantly worried about striking a balance between becoming close and comfortable on Earth, but not losing himself or his Andalite roots. After Jake snaps at him to get it together when they’re all essentially wandering around aimlessly on the planet after the ship self-destructs, Ax manages to find a kind of peace with things. But even that peace is difficult.

I felt strangely at home. As though, despite Prince Jake’s anger and Marco’s sneering and Rachel’s outright suspicion, I belonged with them. For some reason at that moment, even with the images of death aboard the Ascalin fresh in my mind, I saw myself far away, in a very different body, eating delicious cinnamon buns with a mouth. I wanted to be back there. I wanted to be back on Earth. Captain Samilin had sold out to the Yeerks. Was I selling out to the humans?

The really big moment for him is when they meet up with the Andalites again in the underwater city. Ax steps up to the plate this time, claiming Jake as his one and only Prince. It’s a big moment for him, and for the whole team’s relationship with him.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake shows his leadership skills a lot in this book. Notably, he finds a way forward amidst much fear, anger, and confusion once they find themselves essentially alone on a strange, alien planet. Rachel and Marco are furious at Ax. Tobias and Cassie don’t know what to think but are each too passive to move forward. Jake has to find the middle ground and re-focus the group on moving forward and not spiraling into finger-pointing and more suspicion of Ax’s motivations and loyalties. We also see, for the first time, Jake not reject the “Prince” title when Ax introduces him to the Andalite leaders in the underwater Leeran city. He knows that is important for Ax to have this moment cementing his loyalties and that the Andalite commanders will not respect a human “Prince” who would immediately undermine his own followers. He’s also the last Animorph to snap away and gets the farthest with Ax in the mission to defuse the bomb.

Xena, Warriar Princess: As we saw in Ax’s last book, Rachel and Marco were the slowest members to warm up to Ax, so it’s not surprising when they both react the mostly strongly at his abandonment once he’s back with his people. They are both very harsh with their language, but I can see their perspective in this situation. Add to this the fact that Rachel doesn’t handle unknowns well. At her core, she’s a weapon that needs to be aimed, and if she doesn’t have a target, she will drive herself mad with inaction. Whatever one thinks of the harshness of her reaction to Ax, the one time she really pushes him and he reacts without thinking by striking at her neck with his tail blade, she’s unflinchingly brave, not batting an eye lash and standing firm behind her opinion. This show of bravery and strength does strike a chord with honor-obsessed Ax, even while he is hurt by her ongoing anger and distrust of him.

A Hawk’s Life: As Ax’s closest friend, it’s no surprise that Tobias comes to Ax’s defense after everything goes wrong on the Andalite ship and Rachel and Marco come after him. Even earlier, while they’re still on the ship, he sends Ax a private thought speak message to consider carefully who is people really are. This doesn’t hit home with Ax until later, but Tobias’s quiet support and nudging of Ax is clearly important. But, again, poor Tobias gets side-lined early in the book, this time being the first to be snapped away. There’s no winning for a hawk who just wants to be a part of the team!

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie’s animal knowledge is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that she’s always the one to think of an animal morph that will accomplish a seemingly impossible goal (bats to fly in a safe room, moles to tunnel to the Yeerk pool, and here, mosquitoes to get DNA). It’s a curse that often these same solutions are almost always completely horrifying. Not only is morphing a mosquito, like all bugs, pretty disgusting, but the knowledge of WHY they’re doing it….to literally suck the blood of some random guy is equally gross. She also is the one to put together the dots that they should use a shark morph on the Leeran home world since they knew from Marco’s last book that the Yeerks had planned on using sharks in their invasion.

The Comic Relief: Marco is almost as harsh as Rachel in his attitude towards Ax’s quick abandonment of them on the Andalite ship. Marco, especially, values loyalty and it is clear that he views Ax as having failed a very important test in this instance. I will harp on it once again, but it’s always interesting to see how often Marco and Rachel end up on the same side of things when the bigger questions are being asked. Yes, they bicker and tease each other. But philosophically, they are the most alike in their approach to this war and when it gets serious, we often see them united in their opinions.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The description of their experience in Z-space is pretty bad. Not only is the entire concept disturbing, as was discussed when Ax first clued the team in on what happens to the “extras” when they morph small things, but while they are floating around out there, Ax describes being able to see through everyone essentially. Like some type of gross kaleidoscope, with random organs and body bits all mashed together and see-through. Not to mention the suffocating thing. It’s all pretty bad.

Couples Watch!: Not a lot here except for the fact that Tobias being the first one to get zapped away doesn’t do anything to help Rachel calm down. She was described as alternating between crying and raging after they first noticed he was gone. I think she gets snapped away as well before they even realize what might have been happening. At first, they’re almost sure that Tobias must have been shot and killed.

If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three is only in the first part of the book, but he does bring up a couple of interesting points. One is the fact that now that all of the Animorphs know what his human morph is, you’d think he’d change it. Seems pretty silly to keep walking around with one he knows they can spot. Second, with the kafit bird, Ax is sure this is a sign that Visser Three has been to the Andalite home world and is very upset by it. The fact that the Andalite Captain is later revealed to be a traitor I think is meant to justify this concern. But how does it work with Alloran’s original morphs that he had before he was taken over by Visser Three? All Andalite warriors practice their morphing ability by getting a kafit bird morph, so Alloran would have this one. So wouldn’t Visser Three, too? Without needing to go to the Andalite home world? Also, the fact that Visser Three is a complete coward is no surprise to us, but Ax is very disturbed by the fact that Visser Three ran away from their fight on the roof.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: You have to feel bad for Ax. The poor guy is trying so hard and the hits just keep coming from every angle. You can’t blame him for losing his head when he gets back among his own people, but then these early errors of dismissing his friends so quickly bite him in the butt in the worst way when the Captain turns into a traitor. Then he’s got to deal with his friends who are furious with him, while questioning everything he thought he knew about his people. It’s a lot.

What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Most of their “main mission” plans are good in this one. Mainly, that the rest of the Animorphs ignore Ax and the Andalites and barge onto the bridge in fly morph. It would have been the end of the series if they’d followed orders like good, little soldiers. But, at this point, they’ve been fighting this war for a while so it makes sense that they wouldn’t sit back and be content to stay out of things just because some Andalite higher ups said so. But the original plan with the mosquitoes and proving there is an alien invasion happening thing has all of the usual flaws of these ideas. I mean, if they ever wanted to really go through with this whole concept, there are easier ways to do it.

Favorite Quote:

Of course, Ax’s naive evaluations of his own ability to pass as human are always great for laughs.

I am very good at passing for human, if I say so myself. I have learned the customs and habits perfectly so that I seem entirely normal.

“Do you want to order something?” the human said to me.

“I require money so that I may exchange it for the delicious cinnamon buns,” I explained.

The human blinked his eyes. “So … you do want to order, or you don’t?”

Obviously this was a less-intelligent human. “I wish to perform labor, lay-ber, lay-burrr, and to have you give me money. Then I wish to use that money to acquire delicious cinnamon buns. Bun-zuh.”

Also, a good example of Jake’s leadership skills when he’s talking Ax out of it when he’s essentially breaking down after the deaths of all of the Andalite warriors in the ship.

“Now, listen up, Ax. I know you’re feeling bad. For lots of reasons, probably. But you feeling bad doesn’t let you off the hook. Look, we got Andalites shooting at Yeerks. We have no humans in this fight except for us. Maybe you’re not the big expert, but you know more than we know. So snap out of it.”

Scorecard: Yeerks 4, Animorphs 9

A point for the Animorphs! This is a big win, not only just saving an entire species/planet, but the fact that Leeran Controllers would have most likely spelled the end for their own fight back on Earth.

Erik, a Chee who helps the Animorphs informs of a plot orchestrated by the Yeerks to infest Aldershot as a way to get to Jane Carnegie, the Secret Service's first-in-command, and get her infested.

But since when do plans ever go to plan? Almost never.

However, Aldershot's injuries have seriously affected his brain stem, placing him in a coma, and then Visser Three comes up with plan B and instead, he will acquire and morph Aldershot in order to get to Carnegie.

Animorphs work towards sabotaging this by morphing into mosquitoes and acquiring his DNA.

But - it didn't work and that pulled them into Z-space, coming across an Andalite assault ship Ascalin, transporting the six Animorphs to Z-space, where they are rescued and brought on board the Ascalin.

Do you think it will be smooth sailing from there? Nope! Animorphs finally meet another group of battle-seasoned Andalites against the war but we learn that there is some division amongst the ranks and one key member of the Ascalin has turned spy willingly for the Yeerk Empire just when Ax is ready to abandon his friends for his own species.

As hell is breaking loose, Ax and the Animorphs find themselves on Leera, the Leeran homeworld, where Andalite forces are struggling to prevent Leera from being overtaken by the Yeerks. After a time Tobias mysteriously disappears, which causes Rachel to cry and become enraged, only for her to disappear soon as well.

This of course distresses the remaining Animorphs to this phenomenon as they question where their friends are, if they're alive or worse, dead. The disappearances are explained to be a snapback effect of their mass being in Z-Space and they would eventually return to Earth.

"I'm a member of the highest circles, so I know all about your escapades on Earth. Yours and Elfangor's. Very disappointed in Elfangor. Although, by the galaxy, your brother could fight! I don't know how you came to be here with these humans of yours, but it is a stroke of luck! We need you."
―Prince Galuit to Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

He enlisted the help of Jake, Ax, Marco, and Cassie to prevent Leera from being controlled by the Yeerk Empire by detonating a series of explosions within the City of Worms in Leeran morphs, in the end, it's left to Ax to denote the bomb which he manages before being snapped back to Earth.

What I find interesting to watch unfold as the Animorphs experience firsthand, appearances aren't all that they seem, and realize that they are not as heroic as they were led to believe, since Ax blindly followed Andalite doctrine without question whereas his human friends are more suspicious, leaving Ax to be conflicted over his divided loyalties, home sicknesses when he's forced to make a choice.

His human friends are more guarded towards the new arrivals and their suspicion not to sit tight proves spot on the mark which saves Ax's and the other Andalites who ARE still committed to fighting against the Yeerks.

It was fun to explore that it's not all black and white but also feel some sort of sympathy towards Samilin-Corrath-Gahar and wonder what made him a turncoat. Can only speculate on the possibilities and his motives for it or simply he was a coward and wanted to go where it looked like the winning side as means of self-preservation?

I don't know what repercussions there will be for that since a handful of Andalites are aware of this, including a handful of free Leerans who are now aware of the truth of Animorphs' identities which could be an asset or hindrance in the future.

Guess we'll see how it all plays out for the Animorphs as it's been YEARS since I last read this so I can't remember but at least they succeeded in handing a serious blow against the Yeerk Empire by joining forces with Prince Galuit's efforts to save Leera from the Yeerks

When they returned, they found that Aldershot had awakened of his own accord. He was presumably infested after awakening from his coma but it's silly that the Animorphs left Aldershot to his fate which seems silly as I feel that this is gonna come back and bite them in the ass, yeah ok they saved Leera but in the end, they left the guy they initially went to save in the first place is left to become a Human Controller, like seriously?!!?

I've never been a big fan of the Ax books

sh*t just got WILD again girl

3.5
One of my favorite Ax books so far!
Definitely a lot of fantastical, perfect-moment Ellimist stuff, such to the point that it was a little distracting and I felt that the stakes dropped really suddenly, but not bad.
I was pleasantly surprised by how gripping the introduction was this book, and I thought this entry was a good follow-up on the Leerans as a species.

Ax books are fun: I always enjoy the angle of humans being described as aliens for an alien audience. The Decision has an extra layer of alien, too, as we’re transported across the galaxy to the Leeran homeworld. (Have the Animorphs been off the planet before? Besides that time they were in Earth orbit in a Yeerk ship?) The space-sci-fi setting has the same draw as The Andalite Chronicles, in that we get to see new, imaginative worlds and experience them for the first time along with the humans.

This Ax installment isn’t as comedic as The Alien (though it did have its moments; e.g. “I am very good at passing for human”). Instead, it delves more into Ax’s dual allegiances to the Andalites and the Animorphs. His internal conflict is brought to a head in a moving scene in which he is the only survivor as hundreds of Andalites sacrifice themselves to prevent being taken by the Yeerks. In his panic and indecision, you're reminded that he too is just a kid.

We see more intra-Animorph conflict in this book too, which we first saw come to the surface in The Warning. Fear and the stress of war seem to be reducing the Animorphs’ empathy for each other. In this book, Rachel tears into Ax viciously as he’s processing the aftermath of a tragedy. Especially on the heels of the previous book, Rachel is really becoming more of a butt. But you can’t blame her – not with what the Animorphs go through. It’s fascinating how the characters are being shaped by their ongoing trauma.

The plot (and the editing) in The Decision felt a little sloppier than usual. The initial hook of trying to morph a high-ranking Secret Service agent is dropped abruptly, and it’s never really picked back up or resolved. And the twist of an Andalite being a traitor for the Yeerks didn’t really make sense. What did the traitorous Andalite have to gain from this arrangement? Why would any Andalite work with the Yeerks? He just seemed like a bad guy for the sake of being a bad guy. And then Ax’s preoccupation with Visser Three having a kafit bird morph seemed silly. Wouldn’t Alloran have had a chance to acquire a kafit morph before becoming host to Visser Three? In The Andalite Chronicles, Elfangor explains that Andalites use the kafit morph to train their morphing skills. Ax would know that too, surely. Near the end of the book, it’s explained that most Andalites don’t usually use the morphing technology, but that doesn’t preclude Alloran from having done so in the past. It just seemed like such a nonsensical hang-up.

Other thoughts:
-I did like the Leerans and the experience of their psychic connections. It was a poignant moment when Ax lamented the Animorphs closing off their minds to each other.
-I can’t stop noticing that these books won’t use the word “kill”. There are so many instances of the Animorphs talking about “destroying” someone. I assume it’s some rule in children’s publishing. But it’s silly.
-I love Tobias. I love how he’s grumpy. And I love how he sticks up for Ax.

Brought to you by The Moonlight Library!

Ax and the Animorphs morph mosquitoes in an attempt to steal an important guy’s blood and morph him while he’s in a coma arranged by the Yeerks. While in mosquito morph, their excess mass in Zero-Space falls into the wake of a passing Andalite ship on its way to participate in the war on Leera. You remembers the Leerans from Book #15, where the Yeerks attempted to infest hammerhead sharks so they could take on the Leeran underwater world. They’re psychic amphibians.

The Andalites rescue the Animorphs, and Ax immediately transfers his allegiance to his own people, much to Jake’s annoyance. Turns out the Andalite captain is a traitor and the Dome ship is destroyed (the Animorphs escape, obviously), so while Rachel and Marco are raging and Tobias and Cassie come to Ax’s defence, Jake gets all “so what do we do?” on Ax’s ass. And Ax hates being a leader. But he’s clever enough to figure out what the Andalite plan is, so the Animorphs have a mission after all.

Also, Visser Three morphs a kafit bird (one of the compulsory morphs for any Andalite in the military) and Ax for some reason thinks this means Visser Three has been on the Andalite home world, not that it’s one of the first morphs Alloran ever did. Hello, Elfangor totally morphed on in the Andalite Chronicles. Ax would have the morph as well. Yet he can’t think that Alloran would have it? Totally weird, Ax, totally weird.

The Leerans are a race of psychic amphibians. They can read each other’s thoughts. When the Animorphs morph Leerans, they turn off their psychic sense. Ax remarks that it’s very lonely, being a psychic with no power. His loneliness really revolves around this entire novel, because he gets to be among his people again and declares that Jake is no longer his Prince. Harsh. He does revert his loyalty, because he’s come to realise that he no longer knows who his own people are. Are they the Andalites who betrayed him, that have heard of his exploits but haven’t sent any help, or are they the humans with whom he lives?

Because this novel deals with an outer-Earth conflict, it’s relevance to the overall plot of the Earth-based war is minimal. However, as it is a continuation from the events in Book #15, and as more about the Andalites in general are revealed, including the confession that soldiers don’t really morph and the technology is usually only used by spies so the Animorphs are the only ones with capable morphs to save the day, I think that makes this book one of the more important ones in the series and it shouldn’t be missed. Besides, it’s Ax. He’s hilarious in his own unassuming, dry way.

Spring 2020 (Animorphs Read 2020 / April);

3.5 Stars. (My second now!)

I really am pleased to see more from Ax's point of view, honestly.

My own downside to that: I feel like it's lacking in a lot of contextual references to his self, culture, and thought process in any ways that would make him not exactly like all the other 'normal' Earth children in the rest of our band of merry heroes. I know this is done mostly because the whole series is for young children, and they wouldn't be able to integrate that as easily into early level reading, but as an adult who teaches a whole lot of literature for a living, it feels like a massive cop-out to a great addition of flavor, language, culture, and insight that could be added through Ax.

Also, like last time commenting on how this round of the POV's is all about group dynamics and roles, we predictably got to watch Ax wrestle with where he belongs (Andelite or Human; Warrior or Animorph), and who to answer the orders of most. Even though we all knew going into that debate what the answer would be, I was very satisfied with the struggle and the journey displayed to get there.

I was super glad to see some actually Scifi hijinks come up, dragging all of the group first into Zero Space, second into Animorph spaceships and crews, and third, to the beautiful planet of Leera, currently being attacked. Yes, please, I would like more space in this alien invasion book series. This absolutely hit the space-spot.

This is one of my favorite Ax books, but also just an amazing series-as-a-whole story. It's far more serious than a good chunk of the books till now have been, brings us to a new world with new characters and morphs and politics. It's fleshed out incredibly well for what it is, especially while keeping to the length of a normal Animorphs book. And by the end, you're flipping pages as fast as you can, hoping they can make it, hoping they can do what they set out to do...

Just, really love this one. :D

The Animorphs get zipped into a war on a whole other planet. This book is action-packed, expands the scope of the war beyond just the usual earthly setting and delves deeper into the morphing technology. And Ax is always a fun point of view. The Andalites are also further explored and it’s clear they also have their flaws, which is appreciated. That said, I think the plot could have used a few more pages to make it a bit more breathable.

One of the best Animorph books yet! A gripping page turner! Anything I say will spoil the story, so I will leave it at that.

November 22, 2021 audiobook review here.

November 8, 2020 reread:
I’ve done the recap of the plot in my 2015 review, so jumping right into my reactions with this read-through: I appreciate how torn Ax feels about his loyalties between his own Andalite people and the Animorphs. I appreciate even more how we get to see that not all Andalites are as good and true as Ax and Elfangor are. We get to see more of the flaws we were introduced to in The Andalite Chronicles, with Alloran especially. Getting to see Ax among his own people, and the surprises they have for him/us, is also interesting too, and a theme that will be carried through his books. Who are Ax’s people after all, his blood family (Andalite) or the family he has found on Earth in the Animorphs? Which one is more important to him, and should he give more importance to? I also liked the touches where Tobias reaches out to Ax, reframing Ax’s point of references such as what it is like to be cut off from one’s people, and how Ax responds. It’s made all the more poignant since we as readers know that they are actually related, though they don’t know it yet.
Though I have to say, reading this, as much as I love the personal dilemmas Ax deals with and the continuity of such things with the other Animorphs as well, it makes me wish we got more of the intergalactic Yeerk/Andalite war, at least more references to it. I love how we have such a good focus on the Animorphs and Earth, but books like this really show just how big of a picture is going on. And that one small corner of the universe can be a turning point for an entire war… There’s so much room here for fan fiction exploring the machinations of the other Vissers (Vissers Three and Four are buddy-buddy? What about Visser Two? What will Visser One’s next project be for the war?), of the Yeerk/Andalite battles, what exactly Andalite intelligence does with their morphing abilities, why Andalite warriors rarely acquire morphs let alone use them… Besides, how DID the Yeerks manage to infest any Leerans to begin with? What other species are they going after at the same time, or next? There is so much potential here!

Along with my sporadic keeping tabs on alien and morphing facts:
Too much protein keeps me awake. – page 30 – So protein is like caffeine for Andalites!

< Diseases cannot be transmitted during acquiring, > I said quickly. < The acquiring process absorbs only DNA, and that DNA is isolated, encapsulated within your own bloodstream in a super-low temperature – and thus very stable – naltron molecule sphere. You see— > - page 42 – This makes me wonder, if there is only say 1 sphere of DNA, if when in your natural body you bleed and that sphere happen to be near the wound, can the DNA leave you? At this point in the series this is a valid question, though having read to the end, it seems there is another answer around book #48: the Yeerks get a sample of Tobias’ human DNA, presumably from a battle wherein he was his red-tailed hawk self, which is how they can track him down, yet Tobias is still able to morph his human self. This would imply that the naltron sphere… maybe stays in a location that rarely bleeds? Maybe the various DNA naltron spheres … make a chain just hanging out inside the heart or something, and don’t actually move around the body? But then how could Tobias’ human DNA be found in his hawk’s blood? Does the naltron sphere duplicate the DNA so it’s dispersed throughout the entire circulatory system to enable morphing? Is that why morphing is so unpredictable? Maybe the more naltron spheres there are in an area, the more/quicker changes happen in that spot?

Favorite quotes: (which I either didn’t note in the 2015 read, or want to extend the content of a quote from then)
[Tobias explained how he felt the first time he met Andalites:] < Elfangor was an alien. He was unfamiliar. He didn’t scare me. Visser Three did. Not because of what he looked like, but because I could feel something coming from him. Like a dark cloud. Like a smell, almost. This feeling, I don’t know any other word for it. Like I was looking at something that needed to be destroyed. He was evil. I felt it. And I had this horrible understanding, this knowledge, that one way or the other, that evil was going to touch me and change me. So I just cried. > - page 33

< Maybe you need to think about who your people are now, > Tobias said in a private whisper that no one else heard.
< I'm not you, Tobias. I'm not a nothlit. I'm not one species trapped in the body of another. >
< No. But I don’t think you’re just a lowly aristh anymore, either. And whether you like it or not, you’re one of us. >
I didn’t answer him. He was wrong. -- page 75-76

Typo:
Hareli-Frodlin-Sirinial – page 66 – but in the other instances of his name, it’s Harelin (page 84, 86, 87, 88). Side note: Frodlin definitely seems a derivative from “Frodo,” keeping with the LotR references! Side side note: We see Sirinial and Esgarrouth appear in two more Andalite’s names in this book, making me wonder just how Andalite naming conventions work. After all, Ax and Elfangor don’t share any names in common, despite being brothers/having the same parents.

Original Review: July 14, 2015

You remember how Ax mentioned the very small, tiny, infinitesimal chance of something running into their extra mass bodies in Zero-Space when they morph a small creature? Well, it seems the Animorphs had to have some bad luck somewhere, and here it is. All it took was for them to morph into mosquitoes for it to happen. (They are quickly running through bug morphs which they will never want to do again...)

This means that they find themselves onboard an Andalite ship bound for the planet Leera, where there is about to be a big battle of Andalites and Leerans versus invading Yeerks. Ax is faced with a choice: does he continue to follow Jake's orders as his "prince", or does he follow the orders of the Andalite prince? His loyalties are questioned, in a way that few people have their loyalties questioned. And his decisions will affect the Animorphs' role in the saving of Leera, not to mention his relationship with the Animorphs.

Free people who get together to defend freedom are never weak.

< What's up, Ax-man? > [Tobias] called down from the darkness above.
< Are you awake? >
< Yeah. I have this slight tendency to wake up when big, blue, scorpion-tailed alien centaurs go crashing around in the woods like a herd of ruptured elephants. >
Tobias is sometimes harsh when awakened. It is a human characteristic that he has not lost. -- page 32-33

And let us not forget: Humans, for all their faults, have created the cinnamon bun. Some day, after the war, there will be pilgrimages of Andalites streaming to Earth to morph into humans for a day and do nothing but eat cinnamon buns. -- page 37 -- I think this is pretty self-explanatory.

< That speculation will never leave this room, > [Captain Samilin] said harshly. < It was Aristh Aximili who foolishly gave the morphing power to the humans. But between us, I'll say this. I served under Prince Elfangor. I was his T.O. at one time. And anytime Elfangor did something, it was for a good reason. > He looked right at me and said, < Elfangor was my friend as well as my prince. I'll believe he broke the rules. I'll never believe he did wrong. > -- page 71 -- This really makes the later revelation even more unexpected.

< Maybe you need to think about who your people are now, > Tobias said in a private whisper that no one else heard.
< I'm not you, Tobias. I'm not a nothlit. I'm not one species trapped in the body of another. > -- page 75 -- Ouch, that's a bit harsh, Ax.

It's a terrible thing, living when so many others have died. It's terrible because no matter what you do, a single thought keeps popping up in your head: I'm glad it wasn't me.
I was glad it wasn't me. -- page 93

< [...]All I can say is that none of you knows what it's like to be completely cut off from your own people. > [Ax said.]
< One of us does, > Tobias said quietly.
< All I can do is say I'm sorry. And I will consider Jake my prince until he says otherwise./ I turned to face Prince Jake, focusing all my eyes on him. /You are my prince until you, and only you, say otherwise. >
For once he did not say, "Don't call me prince." -- page 95 -- Double comment here: Ax not too long ago pointed out that Tobias was a nothlit, and now he's not recognizing that Tobias is cut off from humans too. Maybe not as completely as Ax is cut off from Andalites, but he is cut off regardless. Does Ax's disregard for Tobias' feelings have any deeper meaning than a superficial one? Because this is twice in this book alone that he has slighted Tobias.
But then, Ax has it tough this book too -- he's been considering Jake his prince as there were no other Andalites whom he could consider his prince, but now when he is presented with a prince, he goes along with him. He is realizing in this book just how important the Animorphs are, and have been, to him. And not just because they are fellow fighters of the Yeerks, but because they have become his friends and taken him in when he had no one.

Clothing is pliable fabric designed to cover the human body. Sometimes as protection against the cold. But mostly, as I understand it, because humans believe much of their body to be unacceptable. They are right, of course, but they cover all the wrong parts: There is nothing uglier than a human nose. -- page 99 -- Great observations, Ax, haha!

< Hey, great war! You can't tell who's on what side, > Marco yelled. < What is this, Vietnam? > -- page 119 -- Another reference I'm fairly sure I would not have gotten back when I was 10 years old. Though, I think it's also a little bit dated for Marco, too...

< Free people who get together to defend freedom are never weak. > [Marco said.] -- page 125 -- Powerful words, Marco. And spot on.

But I guess each species feels most comfortable when they are just themselves. And for humans and Andalites, secrets and lies and the loneliness of privacy are natural. -- page 127

< We have few Andalites here on the planet now. And none who possess the wide array of morphs you have, > Galuit explained. < All Andalite warriors are morph-capable. But few acquire morphs or use them. That is mostly done by our people in intelligence. Spies. > -- page 136 -- That answers that question! Maybe the Andalites will even learn a lesson from all this -- that maybe their warriors should acquire morphs and use them to fight with? It could even help turn the tide back against the Yeerks as a whole.

< You know, Ax, there's just the two of us now. We could probably drop the whole "prince" thing. > He paused, then added, < You could just call me "The Jake formerly known as Prince." > -- page 147 -- Another joke I probably did not get when I was 10 but I get now, haha.

I was an Andalite, all alone, far, far from home. Far from my own people. Except that sometimes your own people are just not the ones who look like you. Sometimes the people who are your own can be very different from you. -- page 161 -- (emphasis added) Wise words, Ax, and a great message to all kids (and adults).

This one is from Ax's point of view.

While trying to stop a plan from the Yeerks, the entire group morphs mosquitoes. But suddenly their mass in Z-Space gets dragged into the flightpath of an Andalite ship and they get yanked into Z-Space. The get saved by the Andalite ship on route to the planet of the Leeran (amphibian, telepathic aliens, that are under attack from the Yeerks). Ax abandons his friends and affiliates with the Andalites. Then they start landing in Yeerk territory and the captain turns out to be a traitor. They manage to destroy him, but the ship is lost. The Animorphs can flee, but the other Andalites selfdestruct. They decide to try and get back to the other Andalites on the planet, because Ax thinks he knows their master-plan. On the way, some of them start to disappear. They catch up with the main army and get told, that they rigged the entire landmass with explosives, but lost the ability for remote detontation. The remaining kids take it up to go to the trigger and activate the bombs. At the end only Ax remains everyone else disappears (the found out, that they get yanked back to earth). He almost gets killed, but can trigger the explosion and then gets yanked back.

For one thing, this one was really thrilling. I liked their little excurse into space. It felt a little bigger, because of the all out war and the suicide mission and last hope of the planet, etc. I also liked Ax's development in this one. He already started to question his loyalty and the beliefs of his people. Now he finally made a decision. Even though I normally dislike his point of view, because of his slight arrogance.

Favorite sentences:
Prince Jake shrugged. (Wow, they're getting kinda cynical)

"Exept that sometimes your own people are not just the ones who look like you. Sometimes the people who are your own can be very different from you."

Now this is a space war!
Plenty of Animorphs’ books are wild rides but this one keeps it all together with Ax’s inner dilemmas and longings. Sweet arslith Aximili, who is really good at pretending to be human, is really having a time deciding who to trust when reunited with fellow Andalites. His confusion and regret was really vivid, and made my heart hurt thinking about how YOUNG he is.
The action on a new planet was interesting, the description of the oceans and the Leeran brains being bitten in two stand out as highlights, while the rest blends into a wash.
This book was definitely Ax focused, I want to see more of his interactions with the team. Tobias and Ax should talk. Jake and Ax should talk. They both struggle with inhumanity and duty, respectively.
Also are we ever going to get an Animorphs ending that doesn’t feel rushed? I’ll take what I can get.
Really liked this one- I am partial to aliens.

There's a huge amount going on in this book, and it's handled pretty well. I appreciate that it picks up previous worldbuilding elements; elaborations on Andalite culture are never particularly interesting, but everything else--from the speculative elements to the alien ecosystem of the water planet--is. The Andalite Chronicles, The Warning (Book 16), and The Decision (Book 18) are part of an ongoing conversation about ethics, particularly Human vs Andalite ethics (and social politics, and racial hegemony in the face of the Yeerk threat), and it dovetails nicely with Ax's identity crisis and his dynamic with Jake. It's tainted by the necessary but unsuccessful humor that frames this book (I just can't buy that Ax is this bad at comprehending/mimicking human behavior), but the overall thrust is surprisingly tense and nuanced.

So after reaching last week's book, I started watching the Animorphs Tv series and have been doing a Twitter thread reacting to it. Even though I am more middling on than anything else, it's still very nice to get back to the actual books. And the even better news is that it's another Ax one. His first outing is still my favorite book so far, so another round with him is exciting. Since that book, he has been relegated to just comedy and exposition, and in the last couple the jokes with him were starting to get old.

I think Ax works better when we get stories about him, since stories made for him give him more of a chance to tap into his deeper character. Andalite's are all about honor and Ax's books put that to the test, and more Andalite's more complex in the process.

At first, the plot sees them finding out the Yeerks plan to infest someone in the secret service, so they can get to the president. The Yeerks get him injured but that just puts him in a coma, whoops, so Visser 3 now wants to acquire him instead. The Animorphs wish to do this s they can tell the goverment about everything more easily.

But he is still fairly guarded and they must be in their normal form to do this. However, Ax tells them you can get DNA from blood alone and so their plan is now to morph Mosquito and get the blood that way. This in spite of that fact that you need to again, be in your nature form to acquire people. This is never brought up since the plan fails for other reasons but this weird contradiction bugged the crap out of me. I tend to either nor notice or not care about things like this, but their big plan hinges on it and they don't really realize the problem with it.

Thankfully, the real plot involves Z Space. See, in The Android we find out that when they morph anything smaller than themselves, their extra mass goes in this void called Z space. However, ships go through when going light speed. So their a small chance a ship could bump into their mass. And that is what happens to them while in morph, although it's more like they get caught in the ship's gravity.

The ship picks them up and it happens to be full of Andalite's on their own way to a mission to a planet the Yeerk's are going after, the home planet of the Leerans we found out about in The Escape. Ax is finally among his people again, and he has to decide if he wants to stick with them as they are his "people" or continue to align with the Animorphs.

Everything from then onward is all really good. We continue a lot of what we saw in The Alien. The idea of Andalite's being perfect breaks down, and here it's a bit more complicated. We see they can be arrogant and all that, but we see the positives of them being bound by honor. It brings out the heroic side in them. There's a bit with them saying they think working on their works best, but one guy eventually sees the value in working together.

There's a rather dark and effective moment around that point that works in showing their positive side in a sort of complex way. I will say that there isn't much of a decision per say. It ends up being made for him once something goes down, more than him waffling. Granted, there is some of that given what we does right after finally joining his people once again but still.

Oh and at the start, he kind of gives away a reveal that happens, whoops.

The stuff before that is fine in setting things up, Visser 3's appearance works well here for the same reason in The Capture, we get it out early. It's just that everything in act 1 is just an excuse for them to morph something small and that's kinda end. When they get back, it ends abruptly from there since again, not the focus. We get a good final bit where Ax sums up the message but it could have been a slightly more drawn out ending.

Little things like were a bit buggy but nothing too bad. Otherwise, the core is really good and adds further complexity. We also get bigger scale action with them on another planet fighting this battle. Some great bits in here with hope seeming lost. Good mix of character stuff and action here since we get bigger stuff, kind of like in a special edition book.

Let me tell ya, I kinda wanted to be able to rate this higher as it would be funny if it was the Ax books that were the key. But upon thinking it over and getting the end, I can't do that. I feel like The Alien also had things to pick at, the stuff to pick here was just slightly more annoying. That side, I can see some liking this more due to the higher stakes it gets to and the nuanced way it approaches the Andalite's this time around.

So there's wiggle room on the rating but I'll stick with what I have. A few things to pick at but the core is really good, and adds in some cool stuff. Plenty to love here and it's a good rebound from the last book. It's hard to explore Ax more when he isn't a plot that calls for it, so it's good to get these where we see more to him.

We're entering a big period now. We switched on and off in regards to filler books, out of necessity. But this was important, and from what I know, the next many are important. Next is a return to Cassie for what is supposed to be her best outing, and then comes a certain infamous trilogy, and THEN a Chronicles, which was put out alongside a Tobias book which I know has him finding out a certain reveal from before.

That's a lot of heavy hitters in a row, more than usual. That means there needs to be fluff somewhere, and that's where next week comes in. Next up, before we get to 19, we have our second Megamorphs to deal with. I am hoping for an improvement on the format, but given certain people's reaction...well, we'll see how I feel.

See ya then.

It has been interesting reading these kid's books with a different perspective.
These human children are fighting a war alongside their alien friend and they have to make so many morally ambiguous choices.
I like that the character development has been consistent so far. They don't tend to forget what they just learned a book ago.
Personally I could do with less re-capping at the beginning of each book and maybe a briefer description of the actual morphing.

Zero-space, time travel, and new alien allies.

And all from my favorite Andalite’s perspective <3

Despite reading from Ax’s perspective, this felt more like a story that was made for Jake and just why Ax considers him his prince. We ALSO get new aliens in the mix and see the group move on step closer to having the fighting power necessary to take on the Yeerks.

CW: war, violence, slavery, grief