Megamorphs #1; a "special" book in the series Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE ANDALITE'S GIFT

Megamorphs #1
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

Visser Three has managed to train an alien beast from Saturn to be attracted to morphing energy, so every time the Animorphs change form they have to deal with an attack from a giant dust monster. With this setback plus having Rachel separated from the group while suffering from amnesia, things seem pretty hopeless, but get even worse when Ax and Marco are captured by the monster and brought to Visser Three. Clever morphing helps them escape, and the discovery of the alien monster's weakness gives them a clue on how to beat it, but in order to win Cassie has to bring her bravery and her morphing skills to the surface.

About this book:

Narrators: Jake, Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Cassie, Ax

New known controllers:

  • None

New morphs acquired:

Notable:

  • During Jake's narration, he says that Cassie has a theory that Tobias and Rachel like each other. He apparently didn't personally know that and doesn't necessarily believe it, but he believes that if it is true it is sort of sad.

  • The group watches some accident footage after taping it on a VCR. This helps date the books, along with many pop culture references.

  • In a previous book, the narration tells us that the Animorphs' successful destruction of the portable Kandrona was more of a blow than they knew at the time. In this book, we find out that the crazy woman living in a shack in the forest used to be a Controller, and she mutters at one point that the Yeerk in her head died. We can only assume it was one of the casualties of this victory.

  • The fact that Marco is a bad driver comes up in this book as part of the running gag. Why do they keep letting him drive?

  • Ax mentions during a morph that his "hearts" became something else while he turns into a flea, so at this point we know that Andalites have at least two hearts.

  • Ax uses a lot of language that humans would use. Not just a human language, but mainly descriptions or comparisons that suggest he isn't an alien or knows human practices well enough to make analogies using them. This wouldn't be so difficult to believe in general if his narration didn't regularly use phrases like "artificial hooves" for shoes, indicating that he is not supposed to be particularly well informed about humans' ways.

  • Toward the end of this book, Jake thinks Ax and Marco are captured and/or dead. He believes that the Veleek will stop them from ever morphing safely again, and that therefore he and the Animorphs are finished. Weirdly, the feeling of being beaten is a relief to him at this point. It's interesting to see this side of Jake.

  • Sometimes you can tell that these books are written by an adult feeding outdated terms to her teenage characters. An example in this book would be Marco using the phrase "going steady."

  • It's established in this book that Visser Three can get a visual lock on his Veleek while it is in business, so it seems a little risky for the Animorphs to be in close proximity to it while morphing. Since Cassie turns from cockroach to human to whale while the Veleek is targeting her, if Visser Three happened to remotely see the events then he would know who she was. It's strange that no one worried about this, and it's strange that no consequences came of it.

Best lines:

Marco: I'm the smart, cute one. No, seriously. Jake is the bossy one, Cassie's the nice one, Rachel is the stupidly brave one, and Tobias is a bird.

Marco: It was so cool! If you overlooked the fact that it was maybe slightly stupid.

Jake: "Do you hate trash cans? Is that your problem? Do you just HATE TRASH CANS?"

Ax: "That was exciting."
Marco: "Yes, it was. Let's never, ever do that again."
Ax: "Ever."

Jake: "How did you get here? You're alive?"
Marco: "No, I am the ghost of Marco. Fear me!"

Jake: "Cassie said the Veleek carried you away."
Marco: "Yes, it did. And now we're going steady."

Tobias: "Come stand over here, Marco. Stand under my branch."

Tobias: "There's only one way to deal with fear: Be afraid. Be afraid, and then go ahead and do what you have to do, anyway."

Cassie: "Hey, Visser Three! I washed your dog for you!"



Next book: The Alien, Animorphs #8