It's Animorphing Time: Book 5 - The Predator

Chris Hansen was not called but Marco's brain is broken.

After the wild rescue of the Andalite, Ax (or their full name: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill), from their crashed ship at the bottom of the ocean, the gang decides that they need to get the word out there (into space) that The Yeerks are planning a full takeover of Earth. 

The Predator follows the perspective of Marco - the wise cracking friend who lost his mother to a drowning incident a couple of years ago. Marco’s father now is deeply depressed and works odd jobs to pay the bills and does nothing but watch TV when he is home. 

At the start of the book, Marco is walking around when he sees a couple of “punks” trying to rob an older man. Feeling as though he needed to do something about it, Marco morphs into a gorilla and absolutely wrecks their shit. The unfortunate part is the man who Marco saved was, understandably, terrified of his primate savior. This thankless moment causes Marco to play with the idea of what it means to be a hero, what the right thing is, and the extent of the morphing power. 

The gang gets together in a field with Ax (in his full Andalite form) and Tobias flying around keeping a lookout to devise a plan. They plan on stealing a Yeerk ship so that Ax can get backup to fight off this mounting invasion. In order to do this, the team is required to get parts to make a device to call down said Yeerk ship. So where do they plan to go in 1996? That’s right. THE MALL. 

Reading the chapter where the gang goes to the mall, I was hit with a “haha that’s so funny and I’m so old moment.” 

Good-looking girls carrying bags from The Limited.

Your basic Saturday at the mall.

“Okay, where is Radio Shack?” Jake wondered. 

“I don’t know,” I said. 

“Is it up on the second level? You know, down by Sears?”

“Is that it? Or is that Circuit City?”

Upon reading this I realized that I read all 4 DEAD BUSINESSES without blinking an eye. I did a double take when the words actually sunk in and I laughed and laughed and felt incredibly old. In the 2011 re-release of this book, they edited these stores out to be replaced with “computer store” and the like. Shame! ERASURE! 

Never Forget

After acquiring most of the required parts from Radio Shack, Ax makes a fool of himself by trying to act human and causes a scene. This in turn leads to a chase from the mall cops. Marco, Jake and Ax end up in a store where they run out of escape options - until they see lobsters in a tank. This lobster section is what gave inspiration for the cover that was on most editions outside the United States. Odd! 

Morphing into Lobsters, the 3 await their fate but are taken out to be boiled which leads to another, and not final in this book, body horror moment. Marco and company to avoid being cooked alive, morph back into people before the eyes of the cook at the store.

I grew rapidly, becoming a baby-sized creature half-covered with hard cuticle, half flesh. Human eyes grew in place of the useless stalk eyes. The antennae sucked back into my forehead. I heard a grinding sound as my spine reappeared inside me.

With a desperate surge of energy, I tumbled over the side of the pan and landed flat on my shell-back, atop the stove. I was looking up into a stove hood.

I rolled away from the heat and fell. 

But the fall wasn’t far, because I was now the size of a toddler, more human than lobster. I was one nasty-looking kid, though, the eight legs growing from my stomach and chest. 

WHAT IN THE JOHN CARPENTER! I thought of that scene with the head in THE THING. 

With the materials needed for Ax to create a frequency to call down a Yeerk ship, they were still short of a transponder which was not a thing they could just buy. The gang decides they will break back into Vice Principal Chapman’s house to get what they needed. We were at his house previously when Rachel was trying to sort out her friendship with Chapman’s daughter. We also learned that Chapman became a controller to save his family. 

To get into the house, they decide to become ants. Once again, the absolute horror of this. Becoming ants almost makes Marco and company lose their minds due to the hive mind chatter they find themselves in. They barely pull their minds back to being human to sneak into the house. 

What’s even more disturbing is after leaving the house again as ants carrying the transponder together, they are attacked by the other ants for being seen as imposters. 

“My leg! They bit off my leg”

“Oh! Oh! Oh! My neck! Oh, help me!”

There were three of them on me. They were pulling me, trying to force me down so they could tear me apart.

Tear me apart! 

A fourth scampered over my head, brushing my antennae. He locked his mandibles on my narrow waist. He was trying to bite me in half. 

There was no defense. We could not win. We would all be dead in a few seconds.

They were machines. Absolutely without fear. Unstoppable.

This harrowing moment left me uncomfortable. It’s violent, unhinged and vivid!

The final part of the book is the usual where the opposing forces arrive to clash with the Animorphs. 

Before this all goes down, Marco confesses to Jake that he does not want to do this anymore. Too many close calls and he doesn’t want his dad having to visit 2 graves. A sobering moment for the reader realizing that yeah, these kids could die. 

Using the signal to call down the Yeerk ship - the Animorphs face off against Visser Three (evil Yeerk that looks like an Andalite) who knew about this attempt to steal a ship. Trapping everyone, Visser Three takes them to the Yeerk Pool Ship above and awaits the arrival of Visser One who is the only Yeerk to take on a human body and guess who it is? THAT’S RIGHT IT’S MARCO’S MOM - HOLY SHIT! But like, it’s not really his mom but a slug alien that has taken over her brain and body. Marco knows there is hope now - that she can be changed back! 

Visser One calls Visser Three a bitch for letting these kids escape all the time but then the kids go and escape again anyway so who’s the bitch? 

The book ends with Marco and his father visiting Marco’s mom’s grave. And like a villain arc, it ends with Marco wanting his revenge and getting his mom free of Yeerk control. 

5 books in 5 months, y’all! What fun. The train keeps rolling and I hope you stick with me! 

Until next month…