#animorphs 2020 reread

[july-19th-club]

READ IN 2023

TOTAL LIST LENGTH: 532 BOOKS LONG (jesus)

NUMBER OF BOOKS READ:  52, but like 18 of them were Animorphs books

The dates are from when I started the book to when I finished it, so sometimes there’s a considerable gap if I picked the book up, took a break, and put it back down again. Sometimes the gap is two or three years. Don’t worry about it.

TITLES & DATES:

Last Smile in Sunder City (Sunder City #1) – Luke Arnold (July 2020 – BREAK – February 2023)

Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman (reread; September 2022 – January 2023)

The Farm – Joanne Ramos (December 2022 – January 2023)

Leech – Hiron Ennes (December 2022 – January 2023)

Late Eclipses, October Daye #4 – Seanan McGuire (December 2022 – February 2023)

Close Range – Annie Proulx (reread; January)

A Head Full of Ghosts – Paul Tremblay (January)

The Pallbearer’s Club – Paul Tremblay (January)

“Red Ballooning,” short story – Aimee Pogson (reread; January)

The Visitor, Animorphs #2 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Encounter, Animorphs #3 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Message, Animorphs #4 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Predator, Animorphs #5 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Capture, Animorphs #6 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Stranger, Animorphs #7 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Andalite’s Gift, Animorphs #7.5 – K. A. Applegate – (January)

The Alien, Animorphs #8 – K. A. Applegate – (February)

The Secret, Animorphs #9 – K. A. Applegate – (February)

The Android, Animorphs #10 – K. A. Applegate – (February)

The Forgotten, Animorphs #11 – K. A. Applegate – (February – March)

The Reaction, Animorphs #12 – K. A. Applegate – (March)

Dark Places – Gillian Flynn (January – March)

Gather the Daughters – Jennie Melamed (January – February)

The Woman in the Wall – Patrice Kindl (reread; February)

“Through This House,” October Daye short story – Seanan McGuire (February)

The Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado (February – March)

Bunny – Mona Awad (February – March)

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead – Tom Stoppard (March 23)

Let The Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty – Maurice Chammah (March – April)

Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie (March – April)

Feast Your Eyes – Myla Goldberg (March – May; skimmed to finish)

One Salt Sea, October Daye #5 – Seanan McGuire (March – December)

When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead (reread; April)

The Twyford Code – Janice Hallett – DNF April

Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous – ed. Ellen Datlow (April – June)

Sex Cult Nun – Faith Jones (April – July)

Some Desperate Glory – Emily Tesh (April – July)

American History – Alexandra Petrie (June)

The Andalite Chronicles, Animorphs #12.5 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Change, Animorphs #13 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Unknown, Animorphs #14 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Escape, Animorphs #15 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Warning, Animorphs #16 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Underground, Animorphs #17 – K. A. Applegate – (June)

The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee (June – August)

Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings – Shirley Jackson (July)

The Well of Sacrifice – Chris Eboch (July – August)

Plato & A Platypus Walk Into A Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes – Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein (July – August)

Babel – R. F. Kuang (July – October)

Boredom, Death Note #1 -Tsugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata (reread; August)

Confluence, Death Note #2 – Tsugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata (reread; September)

Hard Run, Death Note #3 – Tsugumi Ohba/Takeshi Obata (reread; October)

I Sing the Body Electric – Ray Bradbury – DNF October

Nickel & Dimed: On Not Getting By in America – Barbara Ehrenreich (October – December)

i actually can't find the ask game i thought i'd had last year and i might have just made that up in my head but if you want my opinion on any of these books please throw it in the ask box and i will do my best to answer :D

[sunlitglycerin]

books of 2023

key:

🌔 reread

🪹 no thoughts no praise

🌊 i have to emotionally recover from this

💥 many thoughts not all praise

🌷 enjoyable

🫧 lovely

january

1. annihilation by jeff vandermeer 🌊

2. the uncoupling by meg wolitzer 🪹

3. the interestings by meg wolitzer 🌔

4. sorrow and bliss by meg mason 💥

5. the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger  🌷

6. brown girl in the ring by nalo hopkinson 🌷

7. astrid parker doesn’t fail by ashley herring blake 🪹

february

8. little eyes by samanta schweblin 🌷

9. we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson 🫧

10. fight club by chuck palahniuk 🫧

11. salt fish girl by larissa lai 🫧

12. a visit from the goon squad by jennifer egan 🌊

13. wintergirls by laurie halse anderson 🌊

14. oryx and crake by margaret atwood 🪹

15. severance by ling ma 🌊

march

16. olga dies dreaming by xóchitl gonzález 💥

17. the hating game by sally thorne 🌊

18. second first impressions by sally thorne 🌷

19. american royals by katherine mcgee 💥

20. the worst best man by mia sosa 🌷

21. my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh 🌔

22. the change by kirsten miller 🫧

23. sealed with a diss by lisi harrison 🌔

24. fledgling by octavia butler 💥

25. the road by cormac mccarthy 🌊

26. intimacies by katie kitamura 🫧

27. le divorce by diane johnson 🌊

april

28. it happened one summer: a novel by tessa bailey 💥

29. fifty words for rain by asha lemmie💥

30. all my puny sorrows by miriam toews 🌔

31. speak by laurie halse anderson 🌔

32. the queen’s gambit by walter tevis 🫧

33. you will know me: a novel by megan abbot 🌷

34. the virgin suicides by jeffrey eugenides 🌔

35. the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse by charlie mackery 🌊

may

36. beautiful world, where are you: a novel by sally rooney 🌷

37. conversations with friends: a novel by sally rooney 🌊

38. a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith 🫧

39. emergency contacts by mary h.k. choi 🌔

40. i’ll give you the sun by jandy nelson 🌔

41. if i never met you: a novel by mhairi mcfarlane 🌷

42. the girls by emma cline 🌊

43. confessions of a shopaholic: a novel by sophie kinsella 💥

44. second place: a novel by rachel cusk 🌊

45. convenience store woman by sayaka murata 🌔

june

46. the black presidency: barack obama and the politics of race in america by michael eric dyson 🫧

47. i’ll be you by janelle brown 🪹

48. the best american short stories (2020) 🌊

49. crazy rich asians by kevin kwan 🌔

50. the suitors: a novel by cécile david-weill 🌷

51. monster high by lisi harrison 🌔

52. elegance by kathleen tessaro 🌔

53. monster high: the ghoul next door by lisi harrison 🌔

54. monster high: where there’s a wolf, there’s a way by lisi harrison 🌔

july

55. monster high: back and deader than ever by lisi harrison 🌔

56. thin girls by diana clarke 🌊

57. eileen by ottessa moshfegh 🌷

58. china rich girlfriend by kevin kwan 🌔

59. composing a life by mary catherine bateson 🌷

60. in every mirror she’s black by lọlá ákínmádé åkerström 🌊

61. the invasion by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

62. less by andrew sean greer 🌊

63. the visitor by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

august

64. when katie met cassidy by camille perri 🌷

65. the message by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

66. the predator by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

67. the capture by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

68. the stranger by k.a. applegate (animorphs) 🌔

69. david kibbe's metamorphosis: discover your image identity and dazzle as only you can by david kibbe (who could have guessed) 🌷

70. the most fun we ever had by claire lombardo 🌔

71. earthlings by sayaka murata 🫧

72. pageboy: a memoir by elliot page 🫧

73. diary of an oxygen thief by anonymous 🌊

74. bridget jones’s diary by helen fielding 🌷

september

75. idol, burning by rin usami 🫧

76. cleopatra and frankenstein by coco mellors 🌷

77. kitchen by banana yoshimoto 🫧

78. addiction by design by natasha dow schüll 🌊

79. the fellowship of the ring by j.r.r. tolkein 💥

80. smashed: story of a drunken girlhood by koren zailckas 🌊

october

81. american psycho by bret easton ellis 🌊

82. all the lovers in the night by mieko kawakami 🫧

83. peace, love, and baby ducks by lauren myracle 🌖

84. if i had your face by frances cha 🌊

85. milk fed by melissa broder 🪹

86. legally blonde by amanda brown 💥

november

87. seven ways we lie by riley redgate 🌖

88. even the stars look lonesome by maya angelou 🫧

89. airhead by meg cabot 🌖

90. being nikki by meg cabot 🌖

91. runaway by meg cabot 🌖

92. wuthering heights by emily brontë 🌊

93. slouching towards bethlehem by joan didion 🫧

94. the heart principle by helen hoang 💥

95. in the shape of a human body i am visiting earth, edited by ilya kaminsky, dominic luxford, and jesse nathan 🌊

96. good for you by tammara webber 🌖

97. here without you by tammara webber 🪹

december

98. breasts and eggs by mieko kawakami 🌊

99. ender’s shadow by orson scott card 🌖

100. girlfriend in a coma by douglas coupland 🌊

101. altered states by anita brookner 🌊

102. i don’t know how she does it by allison pearson 💥

103. the hunger games by suzanne collins 🌖

104. catching fire by suzanne collins 🌖

105. mockingjay by suzanne collins 🌖

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs Re-read 2020 The Message

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book Four: The Message

Since I make no secret of my dislike of Cassie what I'm about to say may sound strange but this is one of the best of the early books and it is hands down the best Cassie book in the entire series in my opinion. Now in hindsight all the normal problems with Cassie are there but at this point in the narrative they haven't grown into real problems. At this point it could have been part of the arc that she should have had.

An interesting thing to observe about Cassie in this opening of this book is her tendency to decide on a course of action that is flawed and stick to it appears fairly early. Her turning into a squirrel to find out what is taking their birds is heavily flawed and nearly gets her eaten by Tobias and/or a Fox and just like her later bad ideas it some how works out.

Another interesting bit is one of the strengths folks point to in an attempt to defend Cassie is how well she reads people and this book does show she has some talent in that area. Though it also shows it as very superficial she does clue in on how people are very well but only on a surface layer. Honestly just enough to manipulate them. All of her observations of her friends are technically accurate but just scratch the surface even with so little in the way of seeing them.  Which is just another example of how a character like Cassie who wasn't a creator's pet could have been very interesting because that skill set can be wonderfully helpful or downright dangerous often both at the same time and that is never acknowledged by the narrative outside of incidents where other character praise her for it.

We also get our first dose of Cassie's moral dilemmas that aren't moral dilemmas at all in her reluctance to morph Dolphins. Now It does show an interesting facet to her character that isn't actually intentional. She likes Dolphins and thinks they are smarter than other animals so it's wrong to morph them. Yet she ignores that Gorilla's and elephants are also highly social intelligent animals that show awareness of things just like dolphins.  Hell even wolves are highly social and show traits like mourning so if she's going to have this faux moral delima about turning into a dolphin she should have it about nearly everything but she doesn't she rates the importance of animals on her feelings about right and wrong not on any objective measurement. Of course part of that is simply author ignorance on things but that only applies out of universe in universe Cassie is just biased.  Which in a competently written arc could have been a really interesting character flaw.

Instead it just eventually turns into a major annoyance.  It isn't as pronounced here so it's more tolerable as long as you tune out any knowledge  you have of later works. Now I like that the message is transmitted as dreams and connected to the morphing tech but frankly I once again get a bit too annoyed with only Cassie and Tobias receiving it. Again I'd have been fine with others getting them later but once again it is Cassie is special and this was back when Tobias was going to be important before that went away so they are the only two who get it.

I suppose now we need to address the standard sci fi plot of whales and dolphins being even more intelligent than we actually think they are. The Hollywood whales and dolphins are a bit annoying the dolphins are too nice(read up on real dolphins some times) but since it's standard sci fi fare it's forgivable even though I think their inclusion is probably the weakest part of the book.

Now let's discuss Marco's near death and the conversation Cassie has with him. Taken just by itself it's almost touching but combined with knowledge of later books it really reads like Cassie needs him to make her feel better about things. That's the biggest issue I keep having in this reread I can tune out a lot of what's to come but the parts that really irritate me stand out.  Cassie and Marco's dynamic here in a competent arc would have been a real asset to the series but it was never allowed to grow realistically instead becoming what it eventually becomes.

Now let's discuss two final bits the first is the introduction of Ax who will be an important character in the series even if I get slightly annoyed at the set up for the two biggest annoyances. The Prince Jake don't call me Prince bit which gets repeated way to often and then the everyone is wierded out by Ax's human form bit. I wouldn't have minded it if he faded but they keep harping on it constantly.

Still Ax's introduction does help bring home more of the stakes to them which again in a competent arc would have led to folks like Cassie developing like the others do but that was never allowed to happen.

And now the very end when Cassie sneaks out to play with the Dolphins. This ending is meant to be cute and all but it bugs me. She's risking discovery by Security to go play with the Dolphins. Anyway that's book four done.

[queerhollyleaf]

books: 9, 28, 43, 121?

thank you! just going to first say that i do not have a great memory at the moment & i really haven't read many books in the past few years. i'm going to be scanning my bookshelf for this lol.

9. your favourite book of 2020

tbh i'm sitting here trying to remember which books i actually read in 2020. not a great year for my book reading lmao. think i might just share a couple of books i actually read in 2020.

first i'm going to have to give a warriors book, and that is a shadow in riverclan. very good book, i definitely enjoyed it. i do get why people say that it seems more like it was thought of in mind for stormfur and not feathertail based on tnp characters, but it was still a good read and reinvented their characters in a good way. better than other changes in character they've done.

animorphs: the invasion graphic novel. i never read this series as a kid because i was always scared away by the covers, but in 2019 or 2020 (can't remember) i got into it. then i preordered the graphic novel. i'm really looking forward to more graphic novels being released for animoprhs, since it'll be cool to see how they handle certain parts.

now i'm trying to think of if i actually read a book that's not a mange/graphic novel. i mostly read fanfic. there is one book that was technically from 2019 but it was late enough in the year i'll count it. a house in the sky by amanda lindhout. i listened to her speaking about it, bought her book from her, and then read it in my small bit of free time during the conference. read it very quickly, cried, it was good. it's about her becoming a solo reporter, then her her 15 month captivity. it's a rough book, even after you've listened to her talk about her experiences and know what will happen.

28. a book you wish you could read as a beginner again

honestly, i can't think of any at the moment. i know there has to be at least one, but my mind is blanking. if i think of one i'll find this ask again and reblog it!

43. a book that you have read more than 3 times

into the wild. as the first warriors book i've read it quite a few times at least during rereads of the series. and then with the amount of aus & rewrites i've read? oh it feels like i've read it way more than i actually have lmao.

don't want any answers that are just warriors, so i'll share a book that i got as a kid that's still sitting on my shelf. it's less than 10k words and has that good ol' old book smell. have no idea how old my copy is, the only date it says is 1964. unfortunately the only info about the library it's from has been sharpied over. the book is tawny the mountain lion by rhonda leonard. it's the first book i remember reading that had a bittersweet ending. tawny died, but he did so in protecting his family.

121. a book that makes you nostalgic

can't necessarily pick one book, there's an entire genre of books that makes me nostalgic. that genre is kids horse books, especially the series. the main series i can remember is the phantom stallion. i really enjoyed those books. there was also the phantom stallion: wild horse island, misty of chincoteague, the black stallion, and heartland (which had/has a show that i was incredibly disappointed to learn was about romance and not horses).

i really want to get some of these books and reread them someday. i'm not sure how they'll hold up, but they were a huge part of my childhood and i read some of these series repeatedly. also the only one i remembered without googling was the phantom stallion. i want to go back to the kids section of my favourite library at some point and ask someone about the horse books there or just browse since i'm sure there's more i've forgotten. if anyone can think of any more you're welcome to let me know!

[dragnew]

Animorphs thoughts!

Upon having read nearly every Animorphs book over the last 4 weeks.

Cross-posted from Facebook:

I've not really achieved much in lockdown. I've done my job (often 6 days a week), but for the most part my brain has just been all gummed up with a kind of a general harsh brain-static.

But what I HAVE achieved is re-reading about 75% of the Animorphs books (I skipped some of the more dire ghostwritten ones) over the last four weeks. Whoo boy, what a ride that was. They were probably the first series of books that I can remember loving and reading serially as they were coming out(I read a lot of Enid Blyton, et al, before Animorphs, but they don't really count in the same way).

What did I learn from this re-read? Well, let me tell you! First off, holy shit, how did KA Applegate and co get away with some of that? They're at least as dark and fucked up as you remember them being, possibly even moreso. Seriously, those kids go through some SHIT. And the books grapple with some pretty serious moral dilemmas, too. I think the ultimate thematic question of the books comes down to "How far into savagery is it okay to descend when you're fighting a war of defense?", and it never really gives a satisfying answer to that, because it's not something that you can answer. They absolutely commit war crimes. It ends with some of them never recovering either. I read somewhere that Applegate was heavily inspired by the works of Tolkien, and I can see that. It treads similar thematic ground there. Except in the case of Tolkien, Frodo gets to go off and live in Literal Heaven afterwards. The surviving Animorphs go and throw themselves into another suicidal war and the final book ends with the very real possibility that they're about to die fighting a fucked up space god alone in the deep reaches of space.

You know. Like all good kids' books.

Another great thing that came out of the reread was that it showed me where I first came to love a bunch of tropes and other narrative elements that still influence what I read and write to this day. Also, Rachel/Tobias was the first ship I was ever Ride-or-Die for (and speaking of shipping, I'm also kinda on board with Marco/Ax now. Marco moves in with Ax! In the woods! They're the original odd couple!). But more generally, a group of young people fighting a desperate war against the odds, with basically-magical-powers and the intervention of random godlike beings is 100% still my jam.

It's quite interesting to note that the series ended in May 2001, just in time for all the kids who grew up reading it to be thrown into the nightmare world of the 21st century, with the impending collapse of society, America's forever war in the Middle East, and all that jazz. The series is definitely a period piece now, and basically doesn't work if it's not set in the 90s. A lot of it is fundamentally underpinned by the 90s-style End of History ideology, and it's very interesting seeing how the American view of themselves, and America at war, not knowing that they were on the cusp of... *gestures at everything that's happened since 2001*.

On a different note, you know what's fantastic? The Chronicles books. Every single one of them (plus Visser, which is basically a Chronicles book) is a legitimately good and interesting sci-fi book about weird aliens. I mean, they're still for kids, but if you're reading kids' Sci-Fi, you could do wayyyy worse than these. Honestly, they might even be worth a read as standalones. They're the best kind of prequel/backstory novels. They flesh out the setting, but still tell an interesting story and don't fall into the bad-prequel trap of making the universe feel smaller. Where there's big coincidences, it's usually because there's a time god pulling the strings.

Man, that's a lot of words about Animorphs. Are they worth reading for the first time in 2020? Maybe. I'm not sure how well they'd hold up for 50 books without nostalgia. Are they worth re-reading? 100% yes. So I didn't get through any of my Quarantine Reading Pile. It was just too much to read something new. But I am really glad that I revisted this series that meant so much to me as a kid.

And finally, Ax is still the best. 100% the best. He's the sole reason I love cinnamon buns as much as I do now. He is my weirdo dorky alien son, and I will fight anyone who doesn't appreciate him an appropriate amount.

(If anyone wants to go back and see my live thoughts, you can scroll through the last month of my tweets, because I would randomly tweet out Animorphs Hot Takes as I read, but I post a lot of dumb shit so it might not be worth it. https://twitter.com/Cptn_Dr )

[mouser26]

Book List 2020

SO I fell short of my goal this year in that I did NOT reach a minimum 52 new books

In fact my overall total was only 73 but in looking at previous years...that’s actually not too bad and even better than 2016 (66)  or 2018 (67) so it seems even years are just my weakest

*Toads and Diamonds* *The Swan Maiden* *Bingo Love: Jackpot Addition vol. 1* *Deadpool vol 1 Mercin’ Hard for the Money* *Prudence* *The Mammoth book of Warriors and Wizardry* *Echo North* *Soulless* *Reflection* *Changeless* *Once Upon a Time (Bill willingham)* *No.6 Myths and Legends* Saiyuki vol 1 Saiyuki vol 2 Saiyuki vol 3 Saiyuki vol 4 Saiyuki vol 5 Saiyuki vol 6 Saiyuki vol 7 Saiyuki vol 8 Saiyuki Reload Vol 1 Saiyuki Reload Vol 2 Saiyuki Reload Vol 3 Saiyuki Reload Vol 4 Saiyuki Reload Vol 5 Saiyuki Reload Vol 6 Saiyuki Reload Vol 7 Saiyuki Reload Vol 8 Saiyuki Reload Vol 9 Wild Adapter vol 1 Wild Adapter vol 2 Wild Adapter vol 3 Wild Adapter vol 4 Wild Adapter vol 5 Wild Adapter vol 6 *No.6 Reunion* *I signed up to be the substitute familiar of a struggling witch to pay my bills and I’m just now realizing what I got myself into* *Spinning Starlight* We Goddesses *Animorphs #18* *Blameless* *Animorphs #19* *Heartless* *The Ancient Magus Bride #3* *HALO: New Blood* *Timeless* *Meat Cute* *My Mother’s Daughter* *Romancing the Inventor* *Etiquette and Espionage* *Curtsies and Conspiracies* *Waistcoats and Weaponry* *Manners and Mutiny* *The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn't* *Imprudence* *Our Dreams at Dusk vol.1* *Competence* *Romancing the Werewolf*  *Reticence* Black Lagoon vol 10 *Black Lagoon vol 11* Black Butler vol 26 *Our Dreams at Dusk vol 2* *Our Dreams at Dusk vol 3*  *Our Dreams at Dusk vol 4*  Black Butler vol 27 Black Butler vol 28 *Black Butler vol 29* *Jack Frost: The End Becomes The Beginning* *Fortune’s Fool* The Adventure Zone #2 *The Adventure Zone #3: Petal to the Metal* *Halo: Oblivion*

*New*- 44 Reread-29 Total- 73

[superborb]

My AO3 reading history

~Inspired~ by the end of year memes, I was curious what my actual AO3 reading history was like. These data were directly scraped from the history page, so they're only as accurate as that. Namely, AO3 only gives you the date you last opened a fic and dynamically updates things like word count; also, some fics I might have opened without reading all the way through etc etc. So pretty fuzzy here.

Some interesting graphs for my own edification:

The number of works that I've read this year looks like a substantial increase over previous years, BUT remember that only the most recent visit "counts," so if I had a long fic that I most recently read in 2020... (I say to myself to make myself feel better.)

If you look instead at word count, what the actual fuck. Apparently I've opened / read 60 million words this year GOODBYE.

Word count by fandom:

I divided the word count equally among fandoms when multiple fandoms were present.

My top 10 list was:

1.9M words: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

1.3M words: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)

405K words: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

140K words: Hockey RPF

136K words: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngshiù

126K words: 琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)

124K words: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate

120K words: 魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)

103K words: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

94K words: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)

Actually, I'm very surprised by this, because I didn't think I had read a lot of Hockey RPF this year? But I looked at the fics, and they were all longer fics that I had first read years ago, so I probably didn't remember it bc I didn't reread the whole thing. Ditto with Harry Potter.

However, the top slots all belonging to MXTX and related fandoms makes sense haha.

Word count by character and relationship:

For these, I didn't divide the word count, so numbers are not going to add up. I felt like it was a more fair comparison point though!

27.4M words: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

4.4M words: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

3.4M words: Jiāng Yànlí/Jīn Zǐxuān

3.2M words: No relationship

2.8M words: Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū

2.6M words: Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén/Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo

2.0M words: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén

1.8M words: Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén & Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī

1.5M words: Liǔ Qīnggē/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū

1.3M words: Original Shěn Qīngqiū/Yuè Qīngyuán

27.0M words: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

26.8M words: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī

18.8M words: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín

17.2M words: Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén

13.6M words: Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī

11.3M words: Niè Huáisāng

11.1M words: Jiāng Yànlí

9.7M words: Wēn Níng | Wēn Qiónglín

8.2M words: Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán

7.9M words: Wēn Qíng

No surprises there, based on the top fandoms! I'm surprised there's so much Xicheng though, since I don't think I read very much of it.

Since 2013, I've encountered 539 deleted works. Feels like a lot, it's really a tiny fraction!

Technical notes:

I forked my AO3 code from @/regretsonmain, who also answered my extremely confused cookie questions (thanks again!). I added a bunch of parsing to get more info out of the history, and you can peek at the code here: https://github.com/superborb/ao3.

It turns out the AO3 timeout, when you load too many works at once (aka AO3 jail, thanks @/musikologie for that excellent term) is not as much a problem if you are just looking at your reading history! I thought this would be the main issue with scraping, but it was not. The code does handle it correctly and sleeps for a bit before trying again.

Anyway, I'm not sure what other interesting tidbits might be in this data... I'm very much not a data scientist haha. I got a bit bored of the data and didn't finish up the tag canonization checker which might be where more interesting stuff lies? But my conclusion from this is really that the reading history is not very informative about my reading habits, since it doesn't track what I reread most often, just what I click on.

[lilacsolanum]

Fanfic asks: C, I, and/or M?

I'M GONNA BLUSH, I GOT TWO ASKS??? I love you, Sparrow.C: What member do you identify with most?I swear, everyone in the Animorphs fandom either identifies with Tobias or Marco. I'm a Marco. He's been my fave since I was 10, and his "Why not laugh instead of cry?" philosophy has followed me since childhood. Though I'm definitely a Marco who is 30-years-old, and has learned that it's easier to just have a metaphorical sitdown with metaphorical Cassie and express your feelings than it is to metaphorically morph hybrid animals. I've ascended. I've evolved. Still, there were multiple times while I rereading the series that I had to put the book down and stare at the wall in bemusement/exasperation because Marco was reminding me of my twenty two-year-old self. Bless that boy. I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?OH JEEZE I'm new to this fic game so it's all very exciting to me. I HAVE combed through the hurt/comfort tag a bit. Back when I role-played as a Teen, pretty much every other plot point was "Character A gets sick and/or injured and Character B has to take care of them!" I'm a sucker for sappy caregiving and I'm an even BIGGER slut for comedic caregiving. Give me a drunk character stumbling home to their partner screaming "I know you couldn't go out tonight because you weren't feeling well so I GOT YOU THESE BALLOONS!" "These balloons are not even inflated. They're still in the package. But uh. Thank you." "DON'T DIE ON ME."M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?Ooooh well I definitely want a "Cass and Recreation", which is a post-war fic about Cassie fucking shit up in the government. Post-war Cassie headcanon is Leslie Parks meets Michelle Obama meets KICKING ASS. I also adoooore thinking about the "Earth AU" where Yeerks and space tech get dropped on Earth overnight. I definitely want to dig into some 100k political drama that explores a post-Invasion world, but I don't feel solid enough in my ability TO write politics to do it any time soon. I'm not a very political person, I'm definitely your "The world is on fire? Best excuse for brunch I'VE ever heard! Dayyyyyy~ drinkiiiiing~" kinda girl. I plan on following politics and watching/reading political dramas while I write The Rachel so I can write what I'm calling One Woman Army as a sort of partner fic. I'll see y'all in 2020.

[jonathanpongratz]

Book Review: Animorphs #29, The Sickness

Good Evening,

I can't seem to get enough reads in this weekend, so I'm just rolling with it! I'm rereading my childhood favorite series Animorphs, and this time I finished #29, The Sickness. 

Cassie's been known to get the crap plots in the past, but I really think this one redeemed that. Great plot, plenty of twists, and lots of tension. 

Can't recommend more if you want some 90's nostalgia. 

How about you? What are you reading right now?

https://jonathanpongratz.com/2020/04/20/book-review-animorphs-29-the-sickness/

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs Re-read 2020 The Capture

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book six The Capture

So here we are the second Jake book and it's also the first book where the Animorphs series really starts to hit it's stride. If you compare the start of this book to the first book in the series it becomes obvious how much being the leader is beginning to affect Jake. This book also shows a very real flaw in Applegate's writing that doesn't get talked about as much as the other flaws in the series. Namely that she and the others involved in this series cannot write romance.  The attraction between Jake and Cassie is front and center in this book but it isn't handled well at all. The problem is that it doesn't matter which pairing it is every one written in animorphs follows the same pattern. Whoever narrating gushes about them some what and we told they like each and that's about it.  There isn't much in the way of actual chemistry and honestly they still act more like friends than people actually interested in romance. Part of it of course is the age the books were aimed at but I've seen books aimed even younger that manage to at least give the very real impression that two folks are actually attracted to each other in a way the animorphs series never does. It's very much a told and not shown situation. It makes the chemistry that occaisionally shows up between characters not meant to show any attraction to each ohter stand out so much more because it's unintentional but reads better than the canon romance.

But leaving aside the stilted teehee, let's talk about the situation with Jake spying on his brother. When you consider that earlier Jake was against using his brother to spy on the yerks but is now doing it. You begin to see the leader Jake will become and the sacrifices he'll make. His dream of stalking his brother and his brother turning into him as he attacks is a pretty good metaphor for his mental state.  The roach bit and getting stuck behind the fridge is the standard comedy bit in the book so there isn't much to say. The discussion at the barn is interesting though it does have shades of Cassie is so special which makes it a bit irritating. Though as usual I'm left wondering if it's really that irritating or is my knowledge of later events making an innocent interaction of Cassie being worried about her friend into something it isn't. That's a very big problem with doing a re-read you know what happens later.

One of the most interesting bits of this section is that Jake is already considering the potential for how their war can harm Tom and how it might be necessary no matter how much he doesn't want it. None of the others have ever even approached that idea and Cassie flat out rejects it. Which without knowledge of future events just reads as a kid who doesn't get that war isn't pretty but with them is a glaring neon sign about how selfish she is and how she prioritises the effect on people she cares about over any strategic thinking.

The roach spying sequence is up next and I rather like it because Visser three actually shows a bare minimum of competence realizing that the bugs could be spying on them. The poisoned Jake sequence is also tense and horrifying without being over done.

Then we get what is clearly meant to be a break with Jake, Cassie and Rachel at the mall but it just reads far too much like "hello fellow kids" so I'm not going to talk about it.  So let's move onto the far more interesting hospital scenes.

This is when the book really begins to shine and I have to admit watching Jake boil the yerks to death in the Jacuzzi is always interesting given how the writing in the final books treated similar situations. As harsh as it was Jake made the right decision those yerks were going to be used to enslave folks agianst their will. It is especially interesting because Jake gets infested right after this and we see first hand what being a Yerk host is like.  The later books attempt to make you feel sorry for the Yerks always kind of falls flat just on concept alone but this book shows exactly why it fails.  One of the most chilling things about the interaction between Jake and the Yerk is that this spells out that Gedd's are aware, they have names. The Gedd's get glossed over a lot even the Andalites write them off. I've always been really uncomfortable with the tone the series takes when it comes to intelligence, you see it with the Hork Bajir and you see it with the Gedds. They are more simple so they don't rate the compassion that is awarded even to the Yerks but those are discussions for other book posts.

The other sequences between Jake and the Yerk as also very interesting. It sheds light on how the Yerk's see things and the fundamental difference between most Yerks and Humanity. Yerks will not fight a loosing battle the species has a fatalist streak which plays into how the final conflict is resolved even if the writers like to imply a certain act wasn't necessary.  Now let's talk about two final points first leaning more about how Tom got infested is tragic and seeing how broken he is by the whole experience once again makes the later shift to let's pity the yerks irritating as fuck.

Then there is the first appearance of Crayak though we won't learn anything about him until later it is a chilling moment and does work well as a could it be important or is it just a bit of wierdness.

Anyway that's it for the capture up next The Stranger.

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs Re-read 2020 The Encounter

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book Three: The Encounter

Ah yes the first Tobias book which are some of the most interesting but also some of the most cringe inducing as you see just how broken bird boy is. This one probably starts out with him in the healthiest mental state he'll ever be in. Yes he's stuck as a hawk but he's willing to accept help.

We start of course with him and Rachel freeing a Hawk from a cage. This sequence is interesting in that it is only there to set up the  conflict in him and allow him to spot the Yerk tanker ship. I have to admit I absolutely love the description of the cloaked ship. It is one of the more interesting takes on a cloaked vehical since it's still detectable by it's effect on the environment  if you look closely but most would look past it. Far more believable than a perfect camouflage that some how avoided disturbing anything.

We see more of the gang's early dynamics with Marco being able to see the big picture but wanting to avoid it and Cassie playing peacemaker when it suits her. Which now we need to talk about something that bugs me about this book. Jake's attempts to make a space for Tobias are interesting but raise a really big red flag. Namely it is perfectly understandable for Jake not to know how best to take care of Tobias and for Tobias being Tobias not to tell him he's doing it wrong.

However, Cassie the girl raised in an animal rehab clinic should have known and should have been involved in making arrangements for Tobias. I mean I know the real reason is that the writer never thought about it and needed the situation in Jake's house to be unsuited to him being there so he'd go semi feral but real world reasons don't apply when you deal with in universe situations. Which means I am left wondering why Cassie didn't supply any help at all for Tobias dealing with his situation.  At the very least she should have supplied diet information and where they could get proper nutrition for him. He might not have gone feral if his nutrition needs were being met. The most generous interpretation is that she just didn't think about it though that brings up some disturbing implications but it's still less disturbing then some of the others.

But moving on now we need to discuss Tobias break down and temptation by the female hawk. Both are signs of how this situation is causing Tobias to unravel and lose mental stability. What makes Tobias situation so stark and hopeless is that while there are ways to help him adjust the others never think to offer them and he refuses to ask for them. He basically gas lights himself by the end of the novel into thinking he's now something neither human or bird as a survival mechenism. It's understandable but creepy to watch. Even more so knowing what's coming in later novels.

Of course we'll cover all of that in future novels so now let's discuss the plan our heroes come up with to find out what's going on. Morphing the wolves was smart but I can't help but notice shades of out dated ideas about wolves lurking around. Which leads to them discovering what the Yerks are doing and Marco seeing a way they could use this to their advantage which leads to a really good idea and a horrible plan. It makes sense that they'd fail to see how the ways it could go wrong at this point in the story but it is very clear that they got damn lucky getting out of this situation.

On the surface their plan works and is pretty good for inexperienced child soldiers but none of them even consider the idea that the tank might be sealed. Or all the other ways it could go wrong. It was only sheer luck that Tobias managed to damage the ship in a way that got them out alive.

Now let's talk about the ending and sets up what could have been a really interesting dynamic that isn't allowed to be explored sadly. Tobias is beginning to see the world like a predator that could have been a really interesting perspective to bring to the discussions but sadly it rarely gets used and when it does it is usually set up so someone can disagree and be proven right.

In the end The Encounter is pretty good as story of one kid slowly unraveling and less good as an action story cause they only got out of there by luck.

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs Re-read 2020 the Visitor

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book Two: The Visitor

So Book two it's not as strong as the first one but it does have one of the most powerful illustrations of the effect of the Yerk Invasion on folks not involved in teh fight. The opening of this book has the kids being kids and since it is Rachel's first turn Narrating we get to see her view point for the first time.

I mentioned last time that they read like the type of friends only young kids form. The ones based on proximity and time spent together.  I'm sure everyone has friendships like that in their past and it is very obvious here. Rachel talks a lot about the others in the beginning when they are playing around as birds but at the same time it reads more like a group held together by proximity instead of real friendship. The only one she talks about having things in common with is Jake.  Everyone else she talks about just mentioning a few generic traits. It's an interesting question if they'd have remained friends without the sheer forged in fire banded together by the fight nature of what happened over the next few years.

She was already drifting away from Melissa because of being unaware of the stress in Melissa's life. Whose to say it wouldn't have eventually happened with Cassie as well. Speaking of Cassie this is an interesting book because her actions in the book are helpful and actually playing the peace maker she's often said to be with on real evidence. However, knowing what comes later and how she'll eventually come to think of Rachel it adds an edge of manipulation in how I read her words. She's quick to agree with Jake and Marco and then soothe Rachel's ego about the stunt with the creep.

Which let's talk about the creep following a teenage girl and trying to get her into the car. To the kids it's a fun sequence where Rachel scares off someone to an adult reading it well it's a lot more chilling since the odds are very good if he'd gotten her in the car she'd be in for a bad time and very possibly dead.  Strategically it was stupid to spook the guy but it was understandable.

Speaking of strategy we get our first look at Jake's talent for seeing the big picture and Marco's strategic thinking. Marco is the one who sees how exactly reckless Rachel's actions where and Jakes has already figured out that Tom is expendable to the Yerks and realized they can't use Tom to spy on the Yerks.

Which now brings us to the adventures in cat catching. I get that this is meant to be a light moment in the book but it goes on a bit too long. Though it does show how out of touch Cassie is about things she keeps recommending her friends get a rabies shot which is a good idea but she seems completely out of touch at how difficult that would be for folks not living and working on a wildlife rehabilitation clinic. I mean they could take turns turning into an animal and biting each other to get the shots(by saying a stray bit them) but otherwise there would probably be questions and at least it would need parental permission if they showed up at the doctors asking for them.

This brings up a point completely unrelated to this book but Cassie's parents are by far the least involved of all the parents in their kids lives. In the previous book Cassie didn't come home to eat Dinner and her parents were really chill about that. Their twelve/thirteen year old kid didn't come home and a friend called looking them and no alarm bells. In some ways they almost seem more like plot devices to supply animals than actual people. Sure all the parents are out of focus but hers are even more so.

Anyway back to the get the cat sequence. The whole shrew bit is really just for flavoring about morphing and of course there's the mistake where Cassie says Rachel has more morphs than any of them when she only has the same amount as Jake. Of course screw ups like that are all over the series and are something you just have to deal with.

We then get one of the series lovely nightmare sequences culminating in a rather enlightening scene involving one of Rachel's siblings. This moment begins to show how the animorphs are drifting away from their families and gave a hint of how close Rachel was to her siblings before this. It does fit with how I see Rachel as someone who needed to be needed.

Then we get to school and see the beginnings of the reveal about Melissa's life with her breaking down just after Jake and Rachel bond over having nightmares after morphs that have gone wrong. Next we get a skip over a few days and then it's time for the mission. Rachel of course is warned not to get cocky with her natural confidence mixed with a cat's attitude.

The sequence in the basement is a very well done one tense but in a realistic way. The fact Visser Three several times admires cats of various sizes has always amused me. It is one of the most human for lack of a better word moments with him.

We follow that up with the first real show of how the Yerks under him hate his guts and the signs that he's completely and utterly incompetent. We also then get the absolutely heartbreaking moment where Rachel finally understands what has happened to Melissa. This moment is also telling because we see Rachel's sense of justice and how she's willing to do whatever it takes to end the threat. A moment that foreshadows the rest of her arc very well.

Of course next is the meeting where Marco is clearly in full deflector mode and we get the second time in the book when Cassie actually does what her defenders claim she does. This time doesn't have the manipulator vibes that the other scene does to me as this one feels far more natural.   Or it does until she clues in that Rachel is hiding something and then definitely goes manipulative. It's one of those moments that again remind you of how things could have gone if Cassie wasn't a creator's pet that was never allowed to be wrong. Because Cassie would have been far more interesting if the series acknowledged her dark side.

So next we get the Jake as a flea and Rachel getting caught sequence all in all it's interesting but not really worth discussing. What is worth discussing is the moment with the Real Chapman and his wife fighting to keep their daughter from being infested. It is one of the few moments that truly brings home how horrible the yerks are and makes the track the books occasionally take about the yerks should be pitied really hard to take seriously. It is also why I absolutely hate the inclusion of Chapman in the Andalite chronicles as one of the ones at fault for the invasion but that's a rant for when I get to that book.

The ending action sequence is again pretty good but not stellar outside of the human Chapman getting to tell off Visser Three. Then after they escape we have the ending where Rachel leaves the note for Melissa. I some times think Melissa should have eventually become more involved in the plot but sadly she just drifts away which is it's own way is realistic.

Anyway I don't like The Visitor as much The Invasion but it's still over all a good book.

[owxanimorphs]

After the First cycle of Narrators

Obsidianwolf's Animorphs 2020 re-read Thoughts so far

Okay so I've finished my re-read of the first Five books and since book six is the first with a repeat Narrator I thought I'd give my thoughts so far on the first five.

The main plot is very well established and we get some absolutely heart rending moments such as when Mellissa's parents fight against the Yerks for the sake of their daughter and the real Chapman even tells off Visser Three to his face. We also get a rather rosy picture of the Andalites, yerk politics and see how the kids started out.

The books do have some obvious weak points though, I mean  early on they get out of messes far to much by out side factors.

As to the Animorphs themselves

We see Jake as a slightly more mature ordinary teen who gets shoved into the role of leader.

We see Rachel and how a strong sense of justice and a need to be needed will make her do whatever it takes to defeat the yerks.

We see Marco who desperately doesn't want to get involved but keeps getting dragged in anyway.

We see Tobias and find out how deeply fucked up he already was and see that it is only going to get worse.

We see Ax and see glimpses of how naive he can be, how arrogant he can be about his people.

We see Cassie and see that she's empathetic but we also see shades of how manipulative, reckless and self centered she can be. Traits that will get more prominent in time and be excused by the narrative constantly.

Before I begin the next Cycle of Five in my re-read I will be taking a brief break to read one new book and re-read at least one favorite that has nothing to do with Animorphs.  If I don't then I'll very quickly burn out on them and not finish my re-read.

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs Re-read 2020 The Invasion

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book One: The Invasion

So I've finished the first book in my 2020 re-read and well it reminds me why I originally fell in love with this series and why at times I'm incredibly frustrated by it. Since Jake is the first narrator we get his view of the others and a brief glimpse of their pre-animorphs lives.  It is very apparent that most of their initial relationships were family and school yard friends based on proximity. They weren't old enough yet to really drift away from the friendships they'd formed in earlier years and start basing them on things other than proximity and initial meeting.  Jake and Marco were clearly childhood friends and so where Cassie and Rachel. Family ties then had Rachel and Jake hanging around each other enough that Jake had time to form a crush on Cassie and Rachel most likely had one on Marco.

The only one who didn't fit into that mold of family or school yard friends was Tobias and he was quiet clearly the bullied kid who gravitated to the kid who stood up for him.  Though the first book still shows how utterly broken he is since it very heavily implied he got himself stuck as a Hawk on purpose. Now it's possible he didn't mean to do it but on some level he wanted to be a Hawk forever but didn't really think it through.

I said in my before the re-read post that Jake ended up the leader because he was slightly more mature than the others and I still feel that way. The most telling about that is his interactions with Marco in this book because while Marco is far more world wise and aware of how bad things can go he’s still immature enough to think he can ignore the problem.  He is the only one that really gets what they are risking not just for themselves and their families but he refuses to grasp that the Invasion is on going and ignoring it won't make it go away. For all his if Tom is a controller you might have to kill him gotcha was meant to make Jake back off. Jake was mature enough to eventually accept it and agree with Marco. He like the others was very much a kid but he was the only one actually weighing the risks in any capacity outside of just emotional response. So it isn't that surprising that the others pretty much made him the leader by default.  

Moving onto to the girls Rachel often gets pigeon holed as gung ho eager for combat but I suspect it was more that Rachel has a need to be needed. You don't see it as clearly in this book but in the next few it is obvious that Rachel is very popular but tends to be very loyal and tries to be what her friends need. I imagine it had a lot to do with her parents being divorced so she had to be the good girl picking up the slack as her parents were fighting. She got into the habit of being what folks needed her to be and unfortunately the other Animorphs need someone to be the aggressive one, the gung ho one, the violent one.

Cassie in the first book shows a lot of her major issues as a character. She decides she knows better and follows Jake to the Sharing Members only meeting and gets herself noticed. There was no reason for her to do that it wasn't like he was gone long enough for it to be worth the risk and I doubt she told the others were she was going. She acted unilaterally. She also most likely killed the Controller who targeted her or at the very least set back while he died. The fact it's never brought up again is a major disappointment.  She also very clearly romanticizes their struggle as if they are fighting for Mother Earth. Cassie being naturally gifted at morphing at first seems like just a way to avoid the naked kids/teenagers problem but in hindsight feels more like an early warning sign of her creator's pet status. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just her starting out with a higher natural aptitude and the others get better in time but instead it was a rare and special talent even among the race that created morphing.

You also very clearly see the conflicts that each of them should have had to face moving forward start to form. Some of them will face moving forward. Rachel and Cassie should have had to come to grips with the reality of war. Rachel does and Cassie most assuredly does not but the narrative rewards Cassie and punishes Rachel. Marco had to find a reason to fight and eventually does. Jake had to deal with being the leader and dealing with the very real fear of never getting Tom back and lastly Tobias had to deal with being no longer physically human and finding his new place in the world.  Jake does and even makes the hard choice to end his brother's life. However, Tobias never really does and it's sad but thematically appropriate unlike what happened with Cassie and Rachel.

My absolute favorite sequence in the book is Elfangor's arrival and the aftermath in the unfinished construction site. It works absurdly well for establishing things in a way that makes sense to the reader while also bringing an actual sense of urgency. It does a very good job of establishing the mood of the series and the nature of the enemy. The fact it's followed up on with the cop and Tom bits works very well.

The biggest disappointment of the book well it has to circle back to the cop. It's partially hindsight talking but it's pretty clear that Cassie had something to do with his death. However, it never comes up again and Cassie will later care more about a freaking termite queen then she did this human being enslaved against his will. It does fit the pattern I mentioned in my before the re-read post about how Cassie places value on others by how much she empathizes with them. She felt for the bug because she'd been a bug and pictured herself in it's role. The cop was just a threat to deal with. Which if she'd had an actual arc could have been great but it's just the earlist example of her hypocrisy and knowing where it leads in later books bugs me.

I suppose I could talk about the errors but I've long sense learned to ignore the errors in mid grade books churned out by scholastic. I can either fan wank it or just ignore it. So I mostly ignore the little errors and fan wank the others away to my satisfaction.

All in all I still really enjoy the book.

[owxanimorphs]

Animorphs re-read 2020 The Predator

Obsidianwolf X Re-Reads Animorphs 2020 Book Five The Predator

So now we come to the first Marco book and the turning point where his arc really begins. Before this Marco was just dragged along with the others after this well he's got a reason to be involved. The opening also does a nice job of showing his character. He barges in to save the guy and then when the guy is frightened and turns on him he grumbles about it. Which does a good job of summing up Marco’s character. He’s actually a lot more selfless than he wishes he was but he is going to complain non stop about it.

We also get his first glimpse of how he sees the others and it's mostly the same old same old though he's clearly in denial about Cassie being manipulative. He jumps to the she's not manipulative statement way to fast which means he's probably thought of it and dismissed it because she's genuine and nice. Which is a blind spot a lot of folks have even though someone being manipulative has very little bearing on if they appear nice or not. Hell people can manipulate folks they genuinely care about either consciously for their own good or unconsciously because they are just manipulative by nature. Cassie is selfish enough and convinced of her own righteousness so she can easily be read as the t ype to manipulate others for their own good or whatever Cassie says is their own good.

You also see his chemistry with Rachel which in another life might have led to the two having a relationship but again the war and what it did to them destroyed any chance of that. However, the most interesting thing is how he views Tobias because his reaction to Tobias flips the script to the others they see Marco as trying to make Tobias feel better with his still joking around but this makes it clear the joking is to avoid thinking about how it could happen to him.

Now let's move onto the main thrust of the book which is Ax's plan to steal a ship to get home. I have to admit it is refreshing to see the Advanced alien as the more naive one. Ax is clearly a kid and hasn't started to change like they have yet. His head is full of Andalite propaganda and he's convinced of his people's own righteousness.  Now in later books Ax's fixation on taste and bouts of Andalite arrogance are irritating at times especially when he's not the main character. He can be irritating when he's narrating but as a side character it can be even worse because it'll be his only real role in the book. Once I finish my reread I'll decide which character tended to have the most irritating ax. I can remember clearly that he was the most likable in the Marco and Tobias books but as to the other three I can't fully recall which narrator had the most irritating version of Ax.

Anyway the mall scene ends badly and they have to become Lobsters this is one of those horrifying vignettes that's meant to set up later troubles namely the ant morph. Now the ant morph bits are truly horrific and one of the first big signs of the series tendency to include a lot of body horror at times. Sure the early books have featured some but the ants are where it really starts to shine. It also introduces the creepiness of the hive mind phenomenon which is an interesting take on things.

So they get the transmitter and nearly die. Which brings us to the big action peace of this their attempt to steal a bug fighter that blows up in their faces when none of them ever consider that their trap might go wrong. The fact they only escape cause Visser One wants to embarass Visser Three is something I am torn on. It works in it sets up the conflict between the Vissers and yerk politics but at the same time it's a bit of an ass pull that they got out it. Still it's not that bad so I can roll with it.

But now let's get to the best part of the book Marco's journey from ready to quit to full support brought on by him learning Visser One's hose body is his mother. The whole story is wrapped up in how he isn't as selfish as he wishes he was. His worry about Ax's family and relating it to his situation with his dad and mom is why he was even there to find out. In a lot of ways it shows how Marco is more selfless than a lot of the ones that some fans insist is the heart of the team. He also shows an awareness of what to come how the war is going to break them some day.

Anyway good book and the last of the first cycle of Narrators.