The Familiar / The Journey / The Test / The Unexpected (Animorphs #41-44)[November 1, 2024]

[Yanique, Thread Master]

This is a Buddy Read for Animorphs Boxset: The Familiar / The Journey / The Test / The Unexpected by K.A. Applegate starting on November 1, 2024.


Happy Reading!

[Choko]

Spot!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

This month is gonna be wild... just read the blurbs:

41 -- Jake -- wakes up 10 years in the future and the Yeerk War went bad for humanity

42 -- Rachel -- Helmacrons are back, and they're inside Marco... time for some Magic School Bus action...

43 -- Tobias -- captured by the Yeerk who tortured him again, but she says she's with the Peace Movement now?

44 -- Cassie -- stuck in Australia with Visser Three somehow, and nobody knows she's there...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The Art:

#41) The Familiar





#42) The Journey





#43) The Test





#44) The Unexpected





All the cover models except Cassie changed around book 40 and the last Megamorph book... they aged up and went away to college/etc... most new cover models look similar enough, but Tobias went from dark hair to blond...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Read #41, The Familiar, while shopping after work today...

It's Halloween, last day of the reading competition, and I only want to read things I know I can finish before bed right now... so no starting Oathbringer today...

Anyway... I have alot of feelings about this one...

(view spoiler)[I thought it was a pretty good story on it's own merits, helping set the stage for the assuredly hard decisions to come for Jake in the finale of the series, as the war with the Yeerks continues to heat up... between this and Megamorphs 4, we've had 2 books in a row start with rough battles that didn't go particularly well for the Animorphs/Jake... things are heating up, and Jake needs to step up, to face them... rough as that may be for a teenager...

The actual plot reminded me a bit of Terminator and Sisters Grimm, and basically any story with a grim future witnessed... also a bit of Scum of the Earth, actually...

My first main question has to do with the back-to-back nature of this and Megamorphs 4, and hitting Jake so hard... the plots are kinda similar, bad mission, Jake makes a tough decision, and we see a world where the Yeerks win...

Also, the alien that triggered this book plot is unexplained and never revisited according to the wiki, so it's another one-off random plot device... said alien reminded me of the Outworlder from Marvel (the celestial entity from he What If? animated show) (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Read #42: kinda silly… also felt like a truly shared book between Rachel and Marco… used both narrators…

[Nirkatze]

Read #41 The Familiar and #42 last week. Enjoyed both of them... The Familiar also forcefully made me of the most recent Megamorphs--(view spoiler)[ but in the opposite direction. Why was it called "The Familiar" though? I couldn't figure that out.

It was rather wild seeing what could happen to each in the future... or at least, a future where the war never stopped...

I really like @Iain's analysis, of how the pressure is ramping up with battles that haven't gone well for our heroes... (hide spoiler)]


As for #42 The Journey I thought it was pretty funny that the said "journey" was (view spoiler)[ a journey into Marco's body... and I was not expecting the book to be shared narration between Marco & Rachel.

I am just going to take a moment here to acknowledge how awesome these narrators are, right? No matter which book and which narrator, each individual does the others' voices so well it never breaks 4th wall for me. And they aren't even narrator names I recognize. Bravo, folks.

Anyway, the tiny aliens were rather annoying, but the "journey" caused by them was fun and fresh--I liked the science information too, and the tension caused by the miscommunications and dangers of morphing. I also liked the explanations at the end for Marco's behavior. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "Read #41 The Familiar and #42 last week. Enjoyed both of them... The Familiar also forcefully made me of the most recent Megamorphs-- but in the opposite direction. Why was it called "The Familiar"..."

I think it was called The Familiar, because everything looked Familiar, but slightly different?

Re: Rabies: (view spoiler)[the wiki points out that rabies takes alot longer than a few hours to set in and cause mental incapacity, but I didn't really care and ALSO liked it as an explanation... (hide spoiler)]

I recognize some of the narrators, but mostly because I looked them up...

Jake = McLeod Andrews = Reckoners trilogy by Sanderson, Sandman Slim, Illuminae Files, Misfit Soldier, Cal Leandros (read all these before, only tried Cal Leandros #1 a bit at some point, and maybe just the ebook it was so long ago I forget)...

Rachel = Emily Eliet = truly new to me, altho I have Between in my Audible library...

Marco = Ramon de Ocompo = Reborn as a Demonic Tree, Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians, Defekt (Alcatraz was the only one I read before Animorphs) = also an actor, did 4 episodes of 12 Monkeys, was in xXx with Vin Diesel, etc...

Cassie = Sisi Aisha Johnson == another new to me narrator, not many adult book credits, mostly seems to narrate kids books for kids younger than the Animorphs target audience... I thought I knew her, but I guess I was thinking of the character from New Girl with Zooey Deschanel...

Tobias = Michael Crouch (not to be confused with the author) = Chain Gang All-Stars. Stillhouse Lake #4, Warm Hands of Ghosts, Nightfall Saga

Ax = Adam Verner = Daniel Faust, some Middle Falls Time Travel

Ellimist = Scott Brick = Orphan X, Dune, Michael Crichton, some Malazan I think, Jack Reacher, and alot more I'm sure...

Overall, I was more likely to know the male narrators, altho some more than others...

[Nirkatze]

Only one or two of those books are ones I've listened to--Defekt, Warm Hands, and Orphan X/Dune.... would not have recognized Scott Brick from those though...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Read #43 today, The Test, Tobias book... HEYO... we actually revisited some plot elements/characters from #38 here...

Altho, mostly, this just led me to tons of questions about how morphing works with haircuts & other body modifications, that are just kinda ignored in most books of the series...

People on reddit have come up with explanations that work, but are headcanon more than official canon...

[Choko]

I actually read all of them... They were good while feeling down 🙂...

I really enjoyed Marco's book. Those tiny aliens are hilarious and ferocious at the same time. The whole book reminded me of a kid's movie from the 90's, where the main characters made themselves small and travelled with a microscopic spaceship through a person's body... I don't remember particulars, but the idea was the same:)

Jake just has it rough. It's weird, because when I read the different POVs I always have a feeling that no matter what, Ax, Cassie and Marco are going to be OK, but Jake and Rachel, this life is taking a heavy toll on them and their psyche... I feel for them and I hope they don't become victims of this war...

The Australian adventure was fun! I loved how the aboriginal family took her abilities totally in stride!

I am still really enjoying this series. I can't believe we are in the last leg of our read...

[Nirkatze]

I also blitzed through the last ones in this group and the next several for December all in a day... #43 The Test didn't make much of an impression on me--other than what Iain said, about revisiting old plot lines... like in preparation of tying things up..

#44 The Unexpected I really loved... reminded me of that one where they end up in Alaska and make friends with an Inuit who just takes it all in stride... (view spoiler)[And it's interesting how the team is starting to become less secretive about their abilities...

It was really interesting getting a bit of Australian Outback in there--and I love how Cassie ended it, sending a postcard that said just "no worries." (hide spoiler)]