Animorphs #1: The Invasion Plot: Sometimes weird things happen to people. Ask Jake. He may tell you about the night he and his friends saw the strange light in the sky. He may even tell you about what happened when they realized the "light" was only a plane -- from another planet. Here's where Jake's story gets a little weird. He and his friends are told the human race is under attack, but they're given the chance to fight back. Now Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias and Marco have the power to morph into any animal they choose. And they must use that power to outsmart an evil that is greater than anything the world has ever seen...

Main Plot Points:

• Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco and Tobias encounter an alien, an Andalite prince, who warns them of an invasion by a race called the Yeerks. To fight them, he gives them the morphing technology. However, Visser Three soon arrives and, hidden and helpless, the kids watch him kill Elfangor with one of this morphs. They barely escape with their lives.
• The Animorphs all experiment with their new morphing powers.
• Jake discovers that his brother Tom is a Controller. Another prominent Controller is their vice-principal Chapman.
• The Animorphs attempt to break into the Yeerk pool and free all the involuntary Controller "hosts," but are largely unsuccessful.
• Tobias has been trapped in the form of a red-tailed hawk permanently.

Characters Introduced:

• Jake, a normal, basketball-playing, pretty much solid kid
• Rachel, Jake's cousin who looks like a supermodel but has a hidden side . . .
• Marco, Jake's best friend since they "were in diapers"
• Cassie, Rachel's best friend and Jake's crush
• Tobias, a kid Jake rescued from some bullies and has made friends with
• Elfangor-Sirinal-Shamtul, an Andalite prince who came help Earth
• Visser Three, powerful Yeerk general, only Andalite-Controller and Earth Invasion leader
• Hork-Bajir, a race who were once bark-eating pacifists but are now Yeerk shock troops
• Taxxons, giant cannibalistic worms who surrendered to the Yeerks
• Tom, Jake's brother, a human-Controller
• Chapman, vice-principal of Jake's school, one of the most important Controllers

Morphs:

• Anole lizard, pet dog, tiger (Jake)
• Elephant (Rachel)
• Horse (Cassie)
• Gorilla (Marco)
• Pet cat, red-tailed hawk (Tobias)

Personality Conflicts:

• We're just meeting the characters for the first time here, and this is the starting point, so there isn't much personality-driven stuff going on. However, it should be noted that Jake is torn apart by the fact that Tom is a Controller, and Tobias, who is discontent with his life, sometimes wishes he could "stay as a hawk forever." He got his wish.

Notes and Observations:

• Morphing isn't some magical alien power; it's a technology that's bound by strict rules and boundaries. One of these is that one can't stay in a morph for more than two hours or they will be trapped permanently. Another is that you can't morph from one form to another, though that is taken for granted here. It also give you some thought-speak abilities, although they usually only work when you're in morph -- later it is explained it's the Z-space connection.
• There is no way to tell if someone's a Controller or not (unlike the TV show, where they act weird and/or have That Look).
• Jake was somehow able to thought-speak to Tobias even though he wasn't in morph at the time. There were several theories about this, but I think we can all agree it was a KASU --she changed her mind about the thought-speak thing, probably so the Animorphs wouldn't also have the problem of going around with telepathic abilities. One possibility, though, is that since morphing is made for Andalites with their thought-speak and all, and is thought-speak activated (equating to concentrating on what you want to morph) it might have some effects when it's just been acquired and still adapting to the morpher's biology. If this is true, Elfangor knew that it would probably give even humans the ability to thought-speak for a short time, because when they ask if Visser Three, being telepathic and all, can hear their thoughts too, he says he can't as long as they don't project them to him. Though he could have been talking about morph thought-speak in general.

Unanswered Questions:

• Concerning Yeerks: What percentage of humans are Controllers? How long has the Earth invasion been going on? For that matter, how did a bunch of slug-like creatures go flying through space, anyway? (some answered later in the series)
• Concerning Andalites: Where are the Andalites now, since the fleet Elfangor came from was destroyed? How long will it take the main forces to get to Earth? Is this the first time Elfangor has been to Earth? (answered later)
• What happened to the blue cube used for transferring the morphing technology? Was it blown up in the site explosion or did it somehow remain intact? (answered later)
• Jake noted that only a single woman escaped from the Yeerk pool. What happened to her? Did she go back to her normal life and try to stay hidden from the Yeerks? Or was her absence noticed and she was recaptured? Did she try to tell anyone?

Comments:
Like most people, this was the first ANIMORPH book I got a hold of. I skimmed over it, and I liked it, but dismissed it as a reincarnation of Goosebumps, though I was intrigued. When I found #2, which looked cool because it had a girl morphing a cat (I love "girl power" and cat stuff), I read it.  In other words, it's good, but believe me, they get better. Though since it's the first, it's a must-read for Anifans; it sets the scene and you could end up embarrassing yourself if you haven't read it yet!

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