Review - Animorphs (SPOILERS) | ryuuzaki's Blog

I normally only review things that have just come out, but the fact that I have now almost completed my collection of Animorphs books has inspired me to review the series.  You probably don't care, but there may be some spoilers in this review.  I say that you probably don't care as I think that these books are now out of print so the likelihood that you are currently reading them is minimal.

Before I begin, I should admit that this review will be slight biased.  I read the Animorphs books from when I was about 10 years old.  I was bullied badly as a kid and reading was my way to escape.  Thus, I still get the warm fuzzies when I think about this series today.

So, what exactly was the Animorphs series?  Well, the main series consisted of 54 short novels.  Each of these novels was told in first person by either one of the five Animorphs, or their Andalite friend (Aximili). On top of this, there were four specials called the Megamorphs books.  These were slightly longer texts but really bore little difference to the actual Animorphs stories, other than the fact that they were narrated by all of the characters (each take it in turn to narrate a chapter).  There was another series of four specials as well called the Chronicles.  These were four texts told from the point of view of different alien species - The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Visser and The Ellimist Chronicles.  Finally, there were two Alternamorphs books.  These were told in the second person, placing you in the adventure, and the choices you made in the story are what determine the ending.

The story of the books was simple.  Five kids of a non-specified age meet up to walk home after dark.  Each of these kids had a very different personality.  Jake had all of the qualities of a good leader.  His cousin, Rachel, was very brave and acted more like a warrior.  Cassie was calm and empathic (and also good with animals).  Marco was a bit of a joker and, although he sometimes seemed cowardly, was also a good tactician.  Tobias was the one who seemed to have less of a personality and instead was slightly angsty and melancholic.

Anyway, these five kids are walking home and they take a shortcut through a construction sight.  There, they witness the crash of a UFO and meet the alien that was piloting it.  The alien is an Andalite named Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and he tells them that the Earth is in great danger.  A parasitic species called the Yeerks has already begun to infest the planet, taking human bodies as their hosts.  If they weren't stopped soon, then all humans would become slaves to the Yeerks. 

Elfangor is dying, but offers some Andalite technology to the kids so that they can continue the fight the Yeerks.  This is the power to morph - to become any animal in order to hide their identities and save the earth.  The only restrictions on this power is that they must first touch an animal to acquire its DNA in order to become it (though once acquired, they have that morph forever) and that they must never stay in a morph for more than two hours or else they will become trapped in the animal body forever.  While in animal form, they also become aware of the animal's natural instinct and so had to be careful that they were not overpowered by the mind of the creature.

So now you have the basic formula for an Animorphs book.  Animorphs find out some Yeerk plan in ever installment and head out to stop it.  Usually, they have some kind of minor success but often at a loss.  For example, in one of their first battles Tobias becomes trapped in a morph.  Although he later manages to get his morphing ability back, through the pure might of the Ellimist - Animorphs biggest deus ex machina - he does spend a large chunk of the series as a Red Tailed Hawk and never fully gains his human form again.

The Animorphs also had some incredibly cheesy installments.  Volume 28 The Experiment involved Yeerks taking over a meat processing plant in order to genetically modify the produce to make humans more docile.  Ergo, the Animorphs had to morph into cows to infiltrate it.  There was also volume 24 The Suspicion in which microscopic aliens shrank Cassie, Marco and Tobias down to their size.  I also seem to remember one volume had the Yeerks infesting sharks for some reason, but I don't seem to be able to find out which one that was.  Perhaps that's a good thing, as it was literally jumping the shark.  And let's not even get started on the one where Cassie somehow ends up in Australia (volume 44 The Unexpected).  That was just pointless...

So, what did this series have going for it?  Well, the characters did actually evolve throughout the series.  Although it was harrowing for my little undeveloped mind, I did always appreciate this piece of realism.  Although Rachel was originally praised for her bravery, she eventually becomes alienated from her friends due to her blood-thirst and, Jake begins to crack under the pressure of being the leader and falls into depression.  By the end of the series, Cassie is arguably the only one to escape the war completely undamaged.  The series also never reaches a full conclusion.  I was grateful of this too, as rounding everything up with a big happy ending would have destroyed the impact of the six years that the Animorphs were fighting.

My favourite book of them all, however, was The Hork-Bajir Chronicles.  I thought that all of the Chronicles were fantastic (except possibly The Ellimist Chronicles.  I could fill an entire blog about how much I hated that character).  Although you learn a lot about the other alien races in the actual series, the Chronicles really did help flesh out their world.  The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, for example, was set long before the series and explained how the Yeerks became the scourge of the universe due to the compassion of one Andalite.

There's not really a lot of point in me recommending this series.  It's really not one for adults.  If you can find the first volume and know a kid who's aged around 10-12 then I'd recommend getting it for them though.  It truly is a wonderful series for that age bracket, and well worth introducing to them.