Series Re-read #41 The Familiar

[buffyangellvr23.livejournal.com]

Jake is just a normal kid. Well, as normal as possible considering he can morph animals and he's in a war against parasitic aliens. But as unbelieveable as it sounds, something even stranger has happened. One morning Jake wakes up and he's 25 years old.

Okay maybe it's some kind of wierd hallucination. Maybe it's a nightmare. Or maybe Jake's just lost it for a while and misplaced a few years. And there's another problem. The world Jake-the-kid went to sleep in has changed, and it's ruled by Yeerks. Jake has to find out if the other Animorphs and Ax are still around. Still somehow fighting. Or if he's really on his own.

I like this one because I'm a sucker for dystopian novels. A lot of wierd things in it though. You can't tell if it's a dream, hallucination, or what.

Why do you think the end is left ambigious? What was Jake's choice? I think he saved the world, there wasn't really any other choice. I have to break the rule about not going ahead this time. Was the voice at the end of the book The One, or someone else? Some people think it was.

And why didn't Cassie or Rachel either one morph?

I'm pretty sure the Aftermath game(http://www.animorphsafter.proboards.com) was at least partly inspired by this. *inserts blantant plug lol*

Prompt...dagnabit I can't come up with one this time. But I'll edit later if one comes to mind.

Comments

[kon-no-yume.livejournal.com]

Rachel being a cripple annoyed me, becuase she should have been able to fix any injuries through morphing. So that was an annoying inconsistency.

I thought the differences between this yeerk controlled future and the one in book 7 were interesting. This one seemed more like a "normal" society. Once the yeerks were no longer waging a war, they developed their own culture and civilization.

On the whole I both like and disliked this book. The idea and the alternate world was fun. But at the same time, since it didn't really connect to any of the other book plot lines (In that it all took place in a weird future that didn't relate to anything), I felt a bit like it was a "KA is running out of ideas oshit here's some filler" book.

[janinedog]

I definitely think Jake saved Cassie. There's the whole "save what should be valued above all else" line, and then he calls her as soon as he's back in the real world. In the end, I think Jake had to listen to his heart and save the girl that he loves.

[frenchroast.livejournal.com]

I loathed this one. To me it seemed completely pointless, especially since nothing in it really connected to anything else in the series. If he'd had this dream about the future and later remembered it for something important in a later book (like what happened with the Ellimist in #7, just delayed a bit), then I'd have liked it a whole lot more.

I didn't have a problem with Rachel as a cripple because I figured perhaps the morphing injury fix didn't work for some reason, the way Tobias stayed injured in Megamorphs #2.

[kletta.livejournal.com]

I might not like everything about this book, but I really like that Jake tells Justice that the people Justice doesn’t know are other people’s friends. I think that idea might have deep philosophical implications.

[embergryphon.livejournal.com]

AU: Cassie is hot, Rachel notsomuch.
Fo' shizzle. I had the biggest girlcrush on Cassie through this one. ;-;

I actually did like this book. I mean, yeah, it was filler material, but I thought to concept of ELF was pretty rad (pro-freedom terrorist group is determined to do whatever it takes for their definition of the greater good. Delicious shades of gray. 83) and I liked that, in this book, as in the end of the series, Cassie learned to compromise morally, Marco became a mainstream success, Rachel was destroyed, and Tobias became cold, distant and inhuman. It had a distinct foreshadowing flavor. ^_^

[kletta.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of how, in the last book, Tobias' not being human could've meant his being Andalite (or Hork-Bajir), but didn't.

[geritar.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually reread this book. I just skimmed through it to the interesting parts, lol. I remember that I didn't care for it very much because of it's overall detachment from the series, but as I skimmed, I realized that, in some ways, this book does foreshadow A LOT for the end of the series. And it also gives some insight to Jake's leadership-induced depression in #54 by explaining a lot of his guilt.

Obviously Jake keeps the memory of the events, at least enough for them to fuel his desire to call Cassie, but oddly enough, does not ever mention them again, particularly as they might relate to events that happen later in the series.

(WARNING- RANDOM TANGENT)
The Rachel not morphing thing kind of bugged me, and did Tobias become a nothlit or did he just remorph to an Andalite every two hours?
This question spawns two(hundred) other related questions-
If he WAS a nothlit, why did he become one? Did he not want to be with Rachel?? If that's the case, then why did her dying in #54 bother him so much? Also, if he didn't want to be with Rachel, why not?? Because she's a cripple?? I mean, she loved him while he was a bird, and he can't love her too, regardless of her physical condition? (of course, this is assuming that they would have worked out as a couple in all other aspects, haha) But it makes me question his character.
Vaguely Related Question Number Two is more complicated. Let's say Tobias is a hawk. How long does that hawk last? I mean, everytime he morphs, he restores his DNA. Does the time actually spent as a hawk count towards the life span, or does the entire amount of time of the being count? I mean, does he age at all? Wouldn't restoring his DNA restore him to the same age? Obviously it doesn't, because all of the others continue to age... KASU? Or, let's say that it doesn't- what if his hawk body died while he was in another morph, assuming that's possible. Would he be unable to morph back, or would he morph back only to die instantly?
Weird questions...

But anyway. I think that Jake, at this stage in the game, would have saved Cassie. However, I think as the series progresses, particularly after the events of #49, I think Jake would have saved the world.

Also, I guess it would have to be THE ONE if it's not the Ellimist or Crayak. I commented about the bolded words in #45, which appear more often in Jake's next book, #47.

Which frustrates me. Because KA just did not give us ANY information about The One, but it seems like she spent more than one book setting it up. ARRRGGGH.

[acts_of_tekla]

KAA stated in an interview that a morph ages the amount of time you spend in it, so Tobias aged as a hawk, and if he became an Andalite nothlit (seems likely due to the age of his Andalite body and the fact that the hawk would be quite old after 12-odd years) he'd physically be a bit younger than Ax.