The Invasion / The Visitor / The Encounter / The Message (Animorphs #1-4)[January 1, 2024]

[Yanique, Thread Master]

This is a Buddy Read for Animorphs Box Set: The Invasion / The Visitor / The Encounter / The Message by K.A. Applegate starting on January 1, 2024.


Happy Reading!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

This is going to be pretty freeform... they're short enough you could do them all in 1-2 goes, or break it up weekly:

Invasion -- January 1st
Visitor -- January 8th
Encounter -- January 15th
Message -- January 22nd

When these originally came out, it felt a bit like a golden age of reading/publishing... a book came out monthly for about 5 years, for the run of the series, with some campanion books and the Megamorphs, that were a bit like Avengers movies with multiple POVs and bigger plots instead of the usual 1 per book...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

My main memories of the series are a mix of what I remember from reading (I re-read the first 6-13 about thirteen years ago, when I first got a Kindle) and from the TV show, which was pretty accurate to the books, for the most part, while it lasted...

So... I remember the opening sequence, (view spoiler)[with the walk through a construction site leading to alien discovery... magic powers gained... and alien murder...

I remember Cassie living on a farm and having a veterinarian for a parent, and giving access to some interesting Morphs...

And a variety of scary/horrifying scenarios throughout the series, where the MCs get in over their heads, or fail to grasp what being a creature will entail... like the time in book 1-2, when Jake enters an ant hive... (hide spoiler)]

The rest is more mega-spoiler plot twists from later in the series, like (view spoiler)[reading these might color enjoyment/change perspectives as a first time reader, but I think it's mostly revealed in the first 10-15 books? (view spoiler)[Tobias being the son of the alien Elfangor that gave them the super powers... from a sequence of events revealed in the Andalite Chronicles around 12.5, that caused the Yeerk invasion in the first place... and that Visser One, the head of the Yeerks, is hosted in the body of Marco's mother, who was presumed drowned several years ago, and led to Marco's bad home life with a drunk dad... (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

The series is honestly kinda riddled with dark stuff like that, for what is marketed as a Middle-Grade / YA series... there are some interesting write-ups online, from journalists revisiting their childhood nostalgia, the way I want to...

Between Animorphs & Ecco the Dolphin, I feel like I lived through a time of horrific/wild/trippy childhood entertainment...

Ecco the Dolphin is a crazy Sega Genesis game to try and explain, revolving around aliens stealing the world's ocean life, and the one dolphin spared, who goes on a mission, deals with different aliens, finds Atlantis, uses sonar time travel, visits the dinosaurs and the previous time aliens raided Earth, and enters the Mothership to rewrite history... and there's a sequel...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

For the real childhood reading experience, here are the flip book gifs I found online... these were included in the bottom right corner of each page of the book and could be flipped to see the transformation/etc:

Invasion:



Visitor:



Encounter:



Message:

[Nirkatze]

Oh cool!! Thanks for sharing those Iain!!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The more the merrier...

[Nirkatze]

Indeed! Welcome Meagan!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Started the year off strong with my personally anticipated Animorphs BR / re-read...

Read the first one today, planning to do one a week strategy...

Definitely has a bit of a different feel, with a narrator doing character voices (and fixing all the alien pronunciations I made up as a kid)...

I listened to some superfan podcast, a few months ago, of the first 2 books, so was already pretty refreshed on the events of this book...

Solid first book, nothing too cringey (always a fear, when revisiting a childhood favorite, especially when you have different opinions about YA/Middle-grade storytelling tropes these days...

Already hints of the darkness to come (view spoiler)[with the grisly death of Elfangor, Tobias stuck in hawk form, the first fights with Yeerks, and many close calls... and the body horror of being an animal with animal instincts (eating spiders, losing your lizard tail, etc)... and the therapeutic potential of just being a happy dog... (hide spoiler)]

[Nirkatze]

Read #1 The Invasion today too. I didn't read these as a kid, but I could tell I would have enjoyed them... right now, I'm feeling kind of similar to Sisters Grimm... I'm curious, but not really interested, and definitely not engaged (yet).

Mostly, I found the setting nostalgic--a time when parents were considered strict for having no TV during dinner, and kids hung out at the arcade after school... do kids still go to arcades?

I had zero previous knowledge of this series (besides knowing from the title, duh, that there is animal shape-changing involved). (view spoiler)[With the covers and flip books, I was expecting each character to only be able to turn into one animal, so that was a surprise.

I like what Iain said about "body-horror"--those moments did stick out in memory. I wonder if they will eventually find a way to cure/save Tobias? Kind of makes me think of Dragonback series, where the human/dragon pairing were able to do things the other pairs were not... maybe humans with morphing abilities aren't the same as the nice aliens? Or maybe not everything is known yet.

Also wondering if we're going to stay with the same group of MCs for the series, or how they'll go about recruiting others... how they're going to de-infest people... lots of questions. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Lots of things will be explored in the series... including giving a name/term to (view spoiler)[Tobias's condition... nothlit, I think...

Also... the series runs long enough to go off on tangents, and explore things... additional alien species and cosmic entities, and deus ex machina, (view spoiler)[providing your guess of a semi-solution to Tobias, among other things (hide spoiler)]

Also, as is inevitable in a series, alot of coincidental backstory connections to weed out, like Tobias's parents, and Marco's mother, etc etc etc...

Pushing forward with the overarching story his it's initial hiccups, until the kids get used to their powers and situation... so many close calls... also, the aliens have a serious headstart...

I've always compared the series to V, the lizard people invasion show from the 80s I think, that got a reboot in the 00s/10s with Morena Baccarin... similar setup using a community group to ingratiate themselves... (hide spoiler)]

Hopefully you stick around for a bit... the books are definitely a bit dated, but also super short...

[Nirkatze]

Unless they start to annoy me I'll stick around... I am curious...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Fingers crossed... the author is pretty explicit/defensive in interviews that these books were about exploring the consequences/PTSD of war, and not sugarcoating it, in a YA setting... things get dark, and twisted...

The last arc of the series, in the 40-54 range, when things start escalating and building to the finale, veer pretty close to war crimes, if not outright war crimes, and what the characters are willing to do to win/save the world... (view spoiler)[giving crippled people morphing powers, and the chance to move again, and then using them as cannon fodder in the war, etc...

Rachel starts to become a bit of a sociopath... etc etc etc... (hide spoiler)]

On the front end, the first 6-8 books really setup the series... you get a book in each of the main character POVs, including the one you haven't met yet, that appears sometime in the first 5 books... and you get the first multi-character book (altho largely considered one of the weaker ones, I think... not a good example of the format)...

[Nirkatze]

Enjoying your commentary & breakdown too--makes me think more on the themes...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I blame that article I've read twice now, where a childhood fan binged all 54 books in a week, and the superfan podcast that did alot of series discussion, even while reading the first 2 books... the podcast is almost longer than the audiobooks... especially since I speedup audiobooks more than podcasts... the podcast has a 2hr limit that fits the book plot rules well :D

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "Read #1 The Invasion today too. I didn't read these as a kid, but I could tell I would have enjoyed them... right now, I'm feeling kind of similar to Sisters Grimm... I'm curious, but not really in..."

Body horror and questions of identity, have definitely become buzzwords for me, in my reading, over the past 4 months, since discovering Thundamoo/Natalie Maher... I think about it alot more, in my reading, than I did before...

[Tonari no Emily]

Oh yeah Natalie Maher definitely has some things that make you think! After Vigor Mortis 3 maybe we should try Bioshifter: Volume 1

[Tonari no Emily]

I'm trying to decide if I want to start this or One for the money today... I'll probably do one of these to knock it out lol

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "Oh yeah Natalie Maher definitely has some things that make you think! After Vigor Mortis 3 maybe we should try Bioshifter: Volume 1"

I definitely want to try it... and hopefully her 3rd series reaches audio sooner than later... the cosmic superhero war one...

And Vigor Mortis 4/finale... not sure if there's enough material for Bioshifter Volume 3 on Royal Road yet... the superhero one was patreon only, when I heard about... still pretty new, I think... should hit Royal Road then Audible eventually... Vigor Mortis has been completed on Royal Road since at least last summer...

[Katie]

My book is finally shipping! Yay!! Should be able to start reading soon! I may not be as speedy with the tight reading schedules. lol But I'll chime in when I can to discuss all of the animorph goodness. Gosh. I'm having tv show flashbacks XD

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Katie wrote: "My book is finally shipping! Yay!! Should be able to start reading soon! I may not be as speedy with the tight reading schedules. lol But I'll chime in when I can to discuss all of the animorph goo..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py7ty...

[Katie]

omg!!! I forgot that was Shawn Ashmore!!! Love this <3

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Katie wrote: "omg!!! I forgot that was Shawn Ashmore!!! Love this <3"

Practicing your intro credit move? :D

I really like that interview, how personable he is, and teaching the interviewer that 90s style intro :D

[Nirkatze]

LOL I didn't even realize it was a TV series... that was very informative.

Was it like--one book one episode?

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "LOL I didn't even realize it was a TV series... that was very informative.

Was it like--one book one episode?"

It was heavily inspired, but didn't last long enough to do the whole series... it was also optioned pretty early in the series publication... when the show started airing, only about 15-20 of the books had come out, and by the time it was cancelled, only about 30-35 had come out (they came out monthly from 1996-2001, and the show aired 1998-1999...

Wikipedia lists which books share similarities to episode plotlines...

[Tonari no Emily]

Timelord Iain wrote: "Tonari no Emily wrote: "Oh yeah Natalie Maher definitely has some things that make you think! After Vigor Mortis 3 maybe we should try Bioshifter: Volume 1"

I definitely want to t..."

Is Vigor Mortis 4 supposed to the final one?

[Tonari no Emily]

I read The Invasion a couple days ago. I actually quite liked this for a Middle Grade! It didn't really shy away from violence surprisingly for the target audience. Pretty good first book in a series!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Tonari no Emily wrote: "Oh yeah Natalie Maher definitely has some things that make you think! After Vigor Mortis 3 maybe we should try Bioshifter: Volume 1"

..."

Yea... it resolves the main character storyline, but leaves open the option of revisiting the world in the future... probably on a different island/continent, from what she said...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "I read The Invasion a couple days ago. I actually quite liked this for a Middle Grade! It didn't really shy away from violence surprisingly for the target audience. Pretty good first book in a series!"

That's definitely a trend of the series... happy to hear you liked it...

[Tonari no Emily]

I wish I read these when I was younger, I would have eaten them up!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

This is basically my childhood... definitely my most memorable Middle-grade reading experience...

Before this, there was the Magic Treehouse books...

After this, I quickly moved into more adult fiction...

Along the way I tried a bunch of the old standbys like Hardy Boys and Boxcar children, but never stuck with them...

[Nirkatze]

Trying to remember what I read in middle grade years... some Nancy Drew, some Bruce Coville... Jean Craighead George, Avi... I didn't really get into reading until 3rd grade, and by 5th grade I was mostly reading adult fiction... I did most of my classics reading 5th-6th--Austen, Asimov, Dune etc... always been meaning to get back to those, I'm sure it's a vastly different experience as an adult...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I moved around alot as a military kid... reading became my focus, instead of the constant re-socializing...

[Katie]

Oooooh! Nostalgia read talks! Love it! Gosh....lets see. Boxcar Children and Magic Tree House were definately some of my favorites! I did some Nancy Drew...oh! And the babysitter's club! Anything with a good mystery!!

I was actually watching some "let's plays" of the old Nancy Drew PC games from back in the day. I always thought Nancy was a blonde? But she has red hair??? Apparently there was a misprint for one of the books and her strawberry blonde hair had more of a reddish hue. The fans liked it so much that they changed it with the character too. The red heads have all the fun XD

[Katie]

Timelord Iain wrote: "Katie wrote: "omg!!! I forgot that was Shawn Ashmore!!! Love this

Practicing your intro credit move? :D

I really like that interview, how personable he is, and teaching the interviewer that 90s ..."

omg that 90s head nod intro was great! They always did that in sitcoms XD

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

YES... I started the guilty pleasure reads at a young age :D

Babysitter's Club was a big one... I think I read all of them... at least up through Sunny moving from Connecticut to California?

I read the first Outlander book in high school...

And one of my mom's Harlequin romance novels out of curiosity, since she read dozens/hundreds of them...

[Nirkatze]

Aww... that's so sweet... one of my biggest sad points in growing up was that neither of my parents were big readers... I did get my mom into Harry Potter, but that's about it... my dad loved Cormack McCarthy but that was about it, too...

[Tonari no Emily]

I really loved Goosebumps in middle grade before that was Magic Tree House, also read a few classics... I really want to reread Jane Austen's works. Loved them in middle school/high school!
In Highschool was when I really got into fantasy, binged WoT my Sophomore or Junior year and kept up with the Sanderson releases after... Also got into Forgotten Realms and read all of the Drizzt novels that were published

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I definitely read some Goosebumps, including them Choose Your Own Adventure ones...

Wayside School is Falling Down

I tried Wizard's First Rule and Wheel of Time in high school... retried Wheel of Time in college and read the first 6... finished Wheel of Time after college... tried some Shannara... found Dresden Files... and the rest is history...

I read a bunch of John Grisham in high school... dabbled in Jack Reacher and some Lincoln Child standalones (remember the amusement part one with a guy named Dr. Pepper)...

Revisited Jack Reacher and fell down the Harry Bosch rabbithole, when I got my Kindle, before jumping headfirst back into Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance I discovered with Dresden... that was 12 years ago now, and led to the rabbithole that led me to Goodreads in 2013 and audiobooks in 2014...

[Choko]

I read a ton of science fiction and harlequin novels... Never really had children's books. We also read Alexander Dumas and everything Karl May, a German author who wrote about the Wild West, and every kid in Europe was in love with Winnetou, the native American character...

Nope, I just lied, we did read a children's book, and it was The Mary Poppins Series. I thought it was magical!!! And, of course, we all read the Faerie Tales from different countries. But I personally couldn't wait for the weekly sci-fi subscription we had, which included a book a week, never longer than about 240 pages. My dad would read it first and then it was a brawl between everyone else whose turn it would be:))) Good Times!

[Choko]

Just started. I had not even heard of this series before Iain, so I am excited to dive in!

[Nirkatze]

Aww, I love how your family all passed around the SF subscription... that's such a cool story in itself...

[Choko]

Nirkatze, every week when we would receive the book, it was better than Christmas!!! I will never forget it!

Finished The Invasion #1 ... I agree with everyone - I wish I had fallen onto this series when I was younger! I would have devoured and obsessed over it for sure. I still enjoyed it and would like to see how it goes:)

(view spoiler)[ I feel really bad for Jake's brother. They were so close to freeing him from the Yeerks, but alas... Jake's book voice reminds me a bit of the way Percy Jackson was written, which is always fun:) I also like how realistic all the doubts and the insecurities of the kids are written. (hide spoiler)]

Jumping straight into the next book:)

[Saar The Book owl]

I've totally forgot about the series! I might join in.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I think Magic Treehouse ignited my love of time travel, and this ignited shapeshifting… which lead to shifters/werecreatures in UF/PNR…

[Katie]

I love how everyone has their own favorite books from their childhood. Makes me smile~

Just got the first book yesterday from the library. My gosh. I'm so disappointed! This copy doesn't even have the little animation at the bottom of the pages?! How could they!!

[Nirkatze]

Sacrilege! Seriously!! How could they do a reprint without that?? I wonder if they didn't have a license with the artist when it switched publishers, or something?

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Katie wrote: "I love how everyone has their own favorite books from their childhood. Makes me smile~

Just got the first book yesterday from the library. My gosh. I'm so disappointed! This copy doesn't even have..."

I guess that's exclusive to the original release?... that sucks...

[Choko]

Finished The Visitor #2 ... I actually liked this better. It felt very intimate, being in the girl's head and the way she perceived the alienation of her friend's parents and how that affected her life. The friend was very sad:((( However, our girl is fierce and I loved her as the tomcat:))) I also love how when the kids shapeshift, they experience some of the characteristic reactions of the animals, before they are able to take control of their new bodies...

I am on a roll and am jumping into the next one...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Choko wrote: "Finished The Visitor #2 ... I actually liked this better. It felt very intimate, being in the girl's head and the way she perceived the alienation of her friend's parents and how that affected her..."

Loving the enthusiasm and momentum...

Melissa Chapman is definitely a tragic character...

[Choko]

She is!!! My heart was breaking for her when she was talking to the kitty and crying, and when her dad was taking it away...:(((