Animorphs Reread #5-8 (and MM1)
Apr. 26th, 2026 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penwallaLot of great stuff in these volumes, so let's get into it.
#5 The Predator
This is really the formative Marco book, and it's got so much great stuff in it.
Marco is an interesting character to me because he's the team's strategist and its ruthless pragmatist, but also a lot of his character moments are about moving away from that pragmatism. Both his initial desire to quit the Animorphs and his motivation to fight are purely personal: first his dad, and then his mom. Because Marco's mother is Visser One, the highest ranked leader in the Yeerk Empire. Visser One being Marco's mom creates a great conflict for Marco throughout the series: does he serve the greater good and take her out, or does he risk everything to save her?
We also get to see some interesting interteam dynamics in this volume, which we'll see going forward. Jake and Marco are best friends, and Jake relies heavily on Marco, in part because Jake hates being leader and abdicates responsibility whenever he can. Marco helps Jake make hard decisions, and in turn Jake cuts him slack--he covers for Marco when he doesn't want the group to know Visser One is his mother.
#6 The Capture
God, this is a great installment. The Animorphs commit their first mass murder, boiling the Yeerks in a hot tub! We get to see what being a Controller is like! The tension of this book doesn't really come from whether Jake will escape, because it's clear from the onset that he won't. It's about the horror of being controlled, the absoluteness of it. We get to see firsthand that it is not a matter of weakness, that Jake cannot overcome being controlled by willpower.
This is also the first time we are introduced to the idea of Yeerks as individuals. This is critical to Animorphs--even your enemies are people!--and we'll see it over and over again.
And of course, Crayak. Great set up for later books.
#7 The Stranger
Again this is really the formative Rachel book, where the foundation of her character is set. Rachel fights because she believes strongly in doing the right thing, and she is brave because she understands the others need her to be brave, because if any of them deviate from their roles on the team the team falls apart. And yet you can see her start to lose herself in the violence here. The tragedy of Rachel is that she can't ever walk away, even as it becomes increasingly clear throughout the war that the violence is eroding some part of her.
Also, Rachel's relationship with Tobias is really sweet. In a real way he's the only one who understands her, and she lets down her guard around him a little.
MM1: The Andalite's Gift
The main plot of this book is fine, just a longer version of the same kind of stuff we see in the mainline books, but where it shines for me is in the Rachel amnesia plotline, which carries forward the last books' themes super well by showing us what Rachel is like when she has no memories (she's brave as hell). The rotating POV in these books is so fun. I really love the moment at the end where Tobias carries Cassie as high up as he can so she can morph into a whale and kill the Veleek, and he admires her bravery even as he knows she is calling herself a coward.
#8 The Alien
Ax POV! Ax is such a weird little guy. He's just alien enough to be interesting but also so much a teenager, like the others. He wants to be as cool as Elfangor so bad, and he's so clearly too young to be a soldier. Ax's internal monologue reveals a lot about Andalite society, too, which I enjoy.
Ultimately I wish we got more detail about how the Yeerks went from getting tech from Seerow to conquering the galaxy by force, because the book makes it seem like the Yeerks are just inherently colonists and slavers, and we know that that isn't true from later books. In this book alone we get a Yeerk who defies Visser Three to help Ax assassinate him. I would love to read a history of the birth of the Yeerk Empire and how it changed Yeerk society forever.
#5 The Predator
This is really the formative Marco book, and it's got so much great stuff in it.
Marco is an interesting character to me because he's the team's strategist and its ruthless pragmatist, but also a lot of his character moments are about moving away from that pragmatism. Both his initial desire to quit the Animorphs and his motivation to fight are purely personal: first his dad, and then his mom. Because Marco's mother is Visser One, the highest ranked leader in the Yeerk Empire. Visser One being Marco's mom creates a great conflict for Marco throughout the series: does he serve the greater good and take her out, or does he risk everything to save her?
We also get to see some interesting interteam dynamics in this volume, which we'll see going forward. Jake and Marco are best friends, and Jake relies heavily on Marco, in part because Jake hates being leader and abdicates responsibility whenever he can. Marco helps Jake make hard decisions, and in turn Jake cuts him slack--he covers for Marco when he doesn't want the group to know Visser One is his mother.
#6 The Capture
God, this is a great installment. The Animorphs commit their first mass murder, boiling the Yeerks in a hot tub! We get to see what being a Controller is like! The tension of this book doesn't really come from whether Jake will escape, because it's clear from the onset that he won't. It's about the horror of being controlled, the absoluteness of it. We get to see firsthand that it is not a matter of weakness, that Jake cannot overcome being controlled by willpower.
This is also the first time we are introduced to the idea of Yeerks as individuals. This is critical to Animorphs--even your enemies are people!--and we'll see it over and over again.
And of course, Crayak. Great set up for later books.
#7 The Stranger
Again this is really the formative Rachel book, where the foundation of her character is set. Rachel fights because she believes strongly in doing the right thing, and she is brave because she understands the others need her to be brave, because if any of them deviate from their roles on the team the team falls apart. And yet you can see her start to lose herself in the violence here. The tragedy of Rachel is that she can't ever walk away, even as it becomes increasingly clear throughout the war that the violence is eroding some part of her.
Also, Rachel's relationship with Tobias is really sweet. In a real way he's the only one who understands her, and she lets down her guard around him a little.
MM1: The Andalite's Gift
The main plot of this book is fine, just a longer version of the same kind of stuff we see in the mainline books, but where it shines for me is in the Rachel amnesia plotline, which carries forward the last books' themes super well by showing us what Rachel is like when she has no memories (she's brave as hell). The rotating POV in these books is so fun. I really love the moment at the end where Tobias carries Cassie as high up as he can so she can morph into a whale and kill the Veleek, and he admires her bravery even as he knows she is calling herself a coward.
#8 The Alien
Ax POV! Ax is such a weird little guy. He's just alien enough to be interesting but also so much a teenager, like the others. He wants to be as cool as Elfangor so bad, and he's so clearly too young to be a soldier. Ax's internal monologue reveals a lot about Andalite society, too, which I enjoy.
Ultimately I wish we got more detail about how the Yeerks went from getting tech from Seerow to conquering the galaxy by force, because the book makes it seem like the Yeerks are just inherently colonists and slavers, and we know that that isn't true from later books. In this book alone we get a Yeerk who defies Visser Three to help Ax assassinate him. I would love to read a history of the birth of the Yeerk Empire and how it changed Yeerk society forever.
