My name is Jake.
Just Jake. I can't tell you my last name.
My name online is Bball24. At least, that's close to being my real online name. I have to be careful, even about that. See, nothing is safe from the Yeerks. I could give you my actual screen name and they could find me.
That would be the end of Jake and Bball24. All my friends. And, just maybe, the entire human race.
Synopsis
Jake discovers a chat room dedicated to discussing the Yeerks. Discussing it with the rest of the group, they are divided on whether it's a trap or a chance to find allies. Deciding the allies would be too helpful to risk passing up, they decide to break into Web Access America, an expy of AOL, so that Ax can hack in and obtain the identities of the people chatting. They decide to get a flight to the headquarters, which involves morphing into flies and boarding a plane. While on the flight, Jake is squashed and almost dies, but is carried away by the others and demorphs in the airplane bathroom. Once at the WAA headquarters, Ax and Marco hack into the mainframe while the others supply a very unsubtle distraction.
They discover that one of the people in the chatroom is none other than the head of Web Access America. Deciding to investigate him rather than keep a small child from confronting his father who is probably a Controller, they morph birds and head for his mansion. The window they fly through is trapped and knocks Rachel unconscious, and the guard dogs capture and retrieve Ax. The others escape. Jake has a crisis of confidence, but eventually comes up with a plan. He and Tobias head to the gardens and he acquires a rhino morph, which proves very *very* effective at tearing down the walls of the billionaire's mansion. They break in, and come face to face with the man himself.
He reveals that he is a Controller, and that the Yeerk - Esplin 9466 lesser, Visser 3's twin brother, banished to Earth and made the controller of a telephone worker - worked with the human to gain fame, fortune, and all the information about everyone who uses WAA. The chatroom is a ruse to locate other Controllers so that he can kill the host and turn their Yeerks' bodies into a nutrient paste that eliminates the need for Kandrona rays or a Yeerk pool. Jake - against Cassie's protests - agrees to let him live and continue his serial murder, in exchange for the lives of his teammates. Jake also threatens that if they ever meet him outside of his mansion, that he's toast.
Plot
Man, you can tell this book was written in 1998. For one, Ax complains that the humans don't have internet speeds in the millions of bits per second. That's the sort of speed I get now, and my internet is *slow*. I feel like Andalites should probably have better internet speeds than a rock in the middle of the ocean. For two, the book takes a lot of time to explain things like chat rooms (remember those?) and usernames and technologies that are now common place. The emphasis on how people on the internet aren't necessarily who they claim to be is especially funny in the age of oversharing on social media and cookies and trackers following your every move. If this book was set now, they'd be able to find a smorgasboard of information about Y33rksSuck.
But for three, this book was written pre-9/11, and features planes and airports. I can imagine someone reading this book in 1998 finding the section of the plot featuring a group of people walking off of a plane without any security, baggage or ticket checks, or questions totally reasonable. I, however, cannot help but read it with a fond smile and a sense of skepticism. (As an aside, this book solidifies for me that any suggestions that the story ought to be remade set in the modern day would fundamentally change the flavour of the story.)
The passage of time aside, the plot is very much a story of two halves: the first a classic romp with a little bit of intrigue and action - including the plan involving a distraction in the form of a bear, a tiger and a hawk mopping the floors at Web Access America, which felt out of place in a story that has frequently emphasised subtlety and the number of eyes watching them - and the second a hard turn into world-building revelations, moral quandries, and a deepening of the Animorphs' willingness to do take actions they consider evil but necessary to fight a greater evil. Leaving Esplin 9466 lesser alive is unambiguously going to lead to innocent hosts being killed, and the decision felt like it came out of nowhere and the weight of it was examined after the fact. It was almost a good way of emphasising that danger could come for the Animorphs at any moment, but the absurdity of the early half of the book meant that simply didn't hit for me.
Characterisation
Jake is the de facto leader of the Animorphs and feels anxiety about this. This does feel somewhat undermined by the other very serious situations he has already put the team through, and we are beginning to retread ground we've already explored, though it is good to see that ground in more detail from the perspective of the man himself.
It is also interesting to see the developing relationship between Jake and Cassie, and the care they show for each other contrasted with the friction of Cassie as the moral compass against Jake as the more pragmatic leader.
Part of the whole
This book initially felt like a lighter, more comic story, despite the danger. There was even a moment for some in-depth toilet humour.
But the handbrake turn into the revelation of Visser 3's twin brother put a dampener on that. This is important information for later, but perhaps more important is the emphasis placed on Jake's willingness to do evil - or at least not to stop those doing evil.
Final Review
If you were born in the 90s, this will likely be a thoroughly entertaining nostalgia romp. Otherwise, while there are some enjoyable lighter moments and some intense action, it is let down by a yo-yoing atmosphere, and slightly too many plot contrivances.