Megamorphs #1: The Andalite’s Gift
Publishing Date: June 1997
Narrator: All
My rating:
In the first Megamorphs, the ‘companion’ series (not quite a spin off, not quite a continuation), the Animorphs fight a morph-hunting alien made of dust while Rachel has amnesia.
This companion series is special because the covers don’t follow the norm, the books are slightly longer and the narration switches between all the Animorphs – including, for the first time, Ax. Which is awesome, because narration from the point of view of aliens is often poignant and funny.
Anyway, in this book the Animorphs are terrorised by this giant dust monster with blades and many eyes and teeth and are convinced it’s figured out they’re humans, but it takes them a while to realise it’s hunting them only when they morph, and as the team is split up and morphing all over the place this leads to a lot of getting-away-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth. Finally Ax figures out it’s a morph hunter, and Cassie comes up with this plan to destroy it, because gentle Cassie is often the one who figures these things out.
There’s not much else in this book. It’s light on plot and big on mystery, terror and running, especially with Rachel missing. It’s also the first instance of one of the Animorphs morphing without really realising it. Rachel morphs a bear while she has amnesia. She doesn’t have to concentrate and will it and put a lot of mental effort into the morph like in other times. And no, she’s not sick. That comes later. This is one thing I don’t really like: we’re always being told and shown how difficult morphing is, how you need to concentrate, and here Rachel morphs a bear almost accidentally. (Of course, I have a much longer rant in response to a much later book, but we’ll get to that.)
Join me for a review of Book #8: The Alien next week!