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mondoweirdo's review against another edition
5.0
The Animorphs are growing up! I was shocked with the sudden jump in maturity with the themes and ideas in this book. Heady stuff for children’s lit—makes me wish I had been more thorough in reading this series back when.
tresdem's review against another edition
2.0
This was not a great book for me. Inn fact I think it was kind of terrible and unnecessarily dark, even for Animorphs. The concept itself was an interesting one but entirely too big and complicated for what the book can actually cover. If they just went back to one time period, fine, but going back to so many and time noodling all over the place? And I get that that's part of it, like the Visser doesn't know what he's doing and they don't know what they're doing and everything is confusion and chaos but... to what end?
They learn about war and pain and loss and hard decisions and dying? Well that's not something they have to learn, they do that anyway on their day to day basis. Even the set up is confusing. They end up screwing with history anyway in the end and who is to say they didn't miss something vital in that. They are just kids. Also the whole title and setup is kind of a bait and switch. Elfangor's secret is not actually about Elfangor. Jake dies but so what he comes back. I mean they had to work for it but he still came back... and it wasn't as if they knew he'd come back either.
In the end I just didn't like this book. Great high concepts but messy, uncertain execution and nothing that we haven't seen before.
They learn about war and pain and loss and hard decisions and dying? Well that's not something they have to learn, they do that anyway on their day to day basis. Even the set up is confusing. They end up screwing with history anyway in the end and who is to say they didn't miss something vital in that. They are just kids. Also the whole title and setup is kind of a bait and switch. Elfangor's secret is not actually about Elfangor. Jake dies but so what he comes back. I mean they had to work for it but he still came back... and it wasn't as if they knew he'd come back either.
In the end I just didn't like this book. Great high concepts but messy, uncertain execution and nothing that we haven't seen before.
tachyondecay's review against another edition
3.0
It’s another Megamorphs, and more time travel! This time it’s not the Ellimist who sends them back but Crayak, of all entities, via the Drode, because a Yeerk got its hands on the Time Matrix, and ain’t nobody wants that. Of course, Crayak has a “price” to enlisting the Animorphs: one of them must die!
This book is dark in a way few of the previous Animorphs books have been. And its darkness is more meditative: this isn’t the slick and slimy evil of the Yeerks, or the awful supercilious negligence of the Andalites; it’s Applegate’s portrayal of the cold and cruel evils of humanity. As is often the case in this series, the Yeerk villain de jour merely gets the plot rolling, after which the story is more about what the Animorphs learn about themselves as they work madly to stop the Yeerk from winning.
The neverending struggle between good and evil is central to this series. At first, of course, it seems like the Animorphs represent good while the Yeerks are pure evil. As the books went on, however, Applegate reveals more complexity: there is evil within the hearts of our heroes; there are Yeerks who want to do good. Additionally, the series demonstrates why evil tends to have the upper hand: it does not have to pull its punches. Good, by definition, is more constrained in its approach. It’s almost a truism that in fighting against evil, good has to worry about losing itself to that evil by “lowering” to its level. We see that here in Elfangor’s Secret, as each of the Animorphs must act on their worst selves.
Reading this now, as an adult, there is little impressive about the plot. It’s a romp through history, like many other time travel stories, and not particularly well done at that. They go to Agincourt, Trafalgar, Princeton 1933, D-Day, etc. At each juncture, the Animorphs try to stop the former Visser Four from re-writing history to make humanity easier to conquer. Along the way they stumble into various historical figures and situations. I can imagine that for younger readers, however, this would be a pretty solid story.
As with most time travel stories (regardless of audience age), the ending relies on some paradoxical time travel trickery. I don’t think “clever” is the right word for it, but it’s appropriate, I guess? Probably the best thing about it is how Cassie is the one who takes it upon herself to find out where John Berryman’s parents met (I love how they assume he knows how/when his parents met, and that the Time Matrix can just wibbly-wobbly plop them down in the exact right spot at the right moment—it’s certainly no TARDIS!). Cassie, who is always about saving lives, working not just to end one but actually prevent one from ever being born.
And this is where I’m going to get nitpicky: would this solution even work?
I mean, so that particular host is never born. Visser Four would still be demoted. Visser Four would still be stuck on Earth in some human host. Presumably they would still find the Time Matrix and have this same idea, just in a different human body. (It’s not entirely clear whether Berryman was the Yeerk’s host when it was still Visser Four. So I suppose there is an argument that it’s Berryman’s particular disposition and memories that inspired the Yeerk in its time travelling gambit.)
I guess it’s a moot point. The time travel stuff itself is dumb, as is typical for a lot of Animorphs plots: what matters instead is the way the characters confront the moral questions in the story. And much like the previous Megamorphs outing, they don’t actually come off that great. Applegate affirms that in war, the good guys sometimes cannot avoid lowering themselves to the level of the “evil” that they fight. As usual, I appreciate the complexities that she brings to this audience and to the series itself.
Next time, Marco’s mom is in trouuuuuuuble.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #29: The Sickness | #30: The Reunion →
This book is dark in a way few of the previous Animorphs books have been. And its darkness is more meditative: this isn’t the slick and slimy evil of the Yeerks, or the awful supercilious negligence of the Andalites; it’s Applegate’s portrayal of the cold and cruel evils of humanity. As is often the case in this series, the Yeerk villain de jour merely gets the plot rolling, after which the story is more about what the Animorphs learn about themselves as they work madly to stop the Yeerk from winning.
The neverending struggle between good and evil is central to this series. At first, of course, it seems like the Animorphs represent good while the Yeerks are pure evil. As the books went on, however, Applegate reveals more complexity: there is evil within the hearts of our heroes; there are Yeerks who want to do good. Additionally, the series demonstrates why evil tends to have the upper hand: it does not have to pull its punches. Good, by definition, is more constrained in its approach. It’s almost a truism that in fighting against evil, good has to worry about losing itself to that evil by “lowering” to its level. We see that here in Elfangor’s Secret, as each of the Animorphs must act on their worst selves.
Reading this now, as an adult, there is little impressive about the plot. It’s a romp through history, like many other time travel stories, and not particularly well done at that. They go to Agincourt, Trafalgar, Princeton 1933, D-Day, etc. At each juncture, the Animorphs try to stop the former Visser Four from re-writing history to make humanity easier to conquer. Along the way they stumble into various historical figures and situations. I can imagine that for younger readers, however, this would be a pretty solid story.
As with most time travel stories (regardless of audience age), the ending relies on some paradoxical time travel trickery. I don’t think “clever” is the right word for it, but it’s appropriate, I guess? Probably the best thing about it is how Cassie is the one who takes it upon herself to find out where John Berryman’s parents met (I love how they assume he knows how/when his parents met, and that the Time Matrix can just wibbly-wobbly plop them down in the exact right spot at the right moment—it’s certainly no TARDIS!). Cassie, who is always about saving lives, working not just to end one but actually prevent one from ever being born.
And this is where I’m going to get nitpicky: would this solution even work?
I mean, so that particular host is never born. Visser Four would still be demoted. Visser Four would still be stuck on Earth in some human host. Presumably they would still find the Time Matrix and have this same idea, just in a different human body. (It’s not entirely clear whether Berryman was the Yeerk’s host when it was still Visser Four. So I suppose there is an argument that it’s Berryman’s particular disposition and memories that inspired the Yeerk in its time travelling gambit.)
I guess it’s a moot point. The time travel stuff itself is dumb, as is typical for a lot of Animorphs plots: what matters instead is the way the characters confront the moral questions in the story. And much like the previous Megamorphs outing, they don’t actually come off that great. Applegate affirms that in war, the good guys sometimes cannot avoid lowering themselves to the level of the “evil” that they fight. As usual, I appreciate the complexities that she brings to this audience and to the series itself.
Next time, Marco’s mom is in trouuuuuuuble.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #29: The Sickness | #30: The Reunion →
aseaoftomes's review against another edition
Definitely my favorite in the series so far. Its insanely good!
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