Animorphs

Animorphs is a science fiction romance cycle by Katherine Alice Applegate . It is about the adventures of five youngsters who were given the ability by a dying alien to transform themselves into any animal they touch for a maximum of two hours. They fight underground against an invasion of parasitic aliens, the Yirks , who turn their victims into unwilling slaves, so-called controllers .

The first volume of the series was published in the USA in June 1995 by Scholastic Inc. and was very successful there. It took more than a year to complete the second volume, after which new episodes and special volumes were published every month until the series was completed in May 2001. From November 1998, Ravensburger Verlag published the first eight volumes of the series in German-speaking countries . When these were quite successful, the translation of the series continued. In mid-2003, however, the series was discontinued after 30 volumes without any official reasons being given.

Place, time and narrative perspective

The books are told in the first person (so-called first-person narrators ). The narrators claim to be truthful and therefore withhold place and family names. All persons named by their full name, such as politicians, stars or celebrities, are fictional, but can also be interpreted as allusions to real people.

Which member of the Animorphs acts as the narrator rotates according to a fixed scheme. The narrative perspective of the volumes changes in the order Jake, Rachel, Tobias / Ax, Cassie and Marco. In the third place in this order, the "Tobias volumes" alternate with the "Ax volumes". In the megamorph volumes, the perspective of each chapter changes; here, however, not in a fixed order.

The series takes place on the west coast of the USA in southern California , as is always clear from the description of the landscape . Mainly the action takes place in a big city by the sea, besides in a nearby national park in the mountains (possibly the Yosemite national park ) and in other places. The time of the action is the present.

The framework story

There is war going on between alien civilizations. The Yirks , a naked snail -like species have the ability to penetrate their victims in the head and on parasitic control type whose brain. Beings controlled by the Yirks in this way are called controllers and represent a host for a Yirk. Since the Yirks are in their host body outside of their natural habitat, they have to leave it every three days in order to get food from the liquid-filled Yirkpool and absorb so-called Kandrona rays .

On the other hand are the Andalites , an ancient, wise and highly developed species who, like centaurs , look like a mixture of a blue deer with a human upper body, a second pair of eyes on stems and a scorpion's tail . As the story goes on, it was only with the help of the Andalites that the Yirks managed to leave their home planet and enslave entire planets expansively. Because of this responsibility, the Andalites are now leading the war against the Yirks.

The next destination of the Yirks is the earth. The invasion has been going on for decades and is quite advanced. A network of Yirkpools has already been set up, as has a scout- like cover organization called " The Friendship Club", which recruits volunteer hosts. With the death of the Andalite prince Elfangor in the first volume of the series and a lost space battle behind the moon , the balance threatens to topple. This is where the book series begins and describes the struggle of five young people against the invasion.

To fight the Yirks, the animorphs will transform into animals for a limited time whose DNA they have taken over by touch. That's what they call morphing . They obtained this ability when they collided with the Andalite prince Elfangor, who - illegally - gave them this ability through an Andalusian device, the escafilator or the bluebox . Each animorph collects several morphs in the course of the book series , which are important in the fight against the Yirks.

The word "animorph"

Animorph is a suitcase word made up of animal ( English for animal ) and morph ( English artificial word for transform, cf. Metamorphosis ). It is invented by Marco in the first volume and has been used as the name for the group ever since. In the parlance of the Yirks, the animorphs are referred to as Andalusian bandits , as the Yirks do not know the true identities of the animorphs.

Characters

The animorphs

Jake

Jake Berenson (his last name is revealed in the last volume) is 13 years old at the beginning of the series and a perfectly normal teenager who enjoys playing basketball and video games, eating fast food and hanging out in the mall. His best friend is Marco. Jake lives with his parents and his older brother Tom in a normal residential area and owns a Golden Retriever named Homer . Rachel is his cousin. In the course of the series, a love affair between Jake and Cassie emerges.

After meeting Elfangor, Jake quickly becomes the unofficial leader of the Animorphs. Ax refers to Jake, because he is the leader - according to the Andalusian tradition - always as Prince Jake . Jake's unsuccessful attempts to stop Ax from doing this are running gags of the series.

In combat he often uses a Siberian tiger as a morph . The fight with the Yirks also has a personal component for him: his brother Tom is a controller, so Jake has to try to save him in order not to have to fight his brother.

Rachel

Rachel is Jake's cousin and is described as tall, blonde and beautiful, as well as brave, brave and adventurous, so that Marco compares her to Xena right from the start . Rachel lives a few blocks away from Jake. Her parents are divorced, she lives with her mother and her two little sisters. Rachel shows special feelings for Tobias, who is bullied at school . In combat, Rachel prefers to morph into a grizzly bear or elephant. In the last volume the Yirks acquire the ability to morph and Rachel, after killing Tom in the snake morph, is killed by a Yirk in the shape of a polar bear with a swipe of the paw. Before she dies, the Ellimist tells her the story of his people. She dies at the age of 16.

Tobias

Tobias is little known to Jake and his friends at the beginning of the plot. Tobias is an orphan, his father was officially killed in a car accident. He lives with his aunt and uncle, between whom he is constantly passed back and forth. Later, however, it turns out that the Andalite Elfangor was his father and his mother is also still alive, although she has been blind since the car accident. Tobias is bullied at school, he is considered a "loser". Once Jake helps Tobias when he is mistreated, which is why Tobias decides in the first volume to accompany the clique home.

Tobias exceeds the two-hour limit when morphing and therefore has to spend the rest of his life in the form of a red-tailed buzzard. In the course of the series, however, he gets his morphing ability back from the Ellimist and also has the opportunity to regain the DNA of his human form, so that he can show himself as human again for two hours at a time. Tobias' life is made more difficult by his point of view between humans and animals, since as a red-tailed buzzard he has to kill, for example, which he would never do as a human.

Cassie

Cassie is a rather short black girl who lives on a farm out of town and has little interest in the urban lifestyle of her friends. Cassie's father runs a game preservation station where Cassie likes to help, her mother works at the Gardens , a mixture of zoo and amusement park . Cassie is Rachel's best friend, but her feelings for Jake grow stronger as the story progresses. She knows about animals and is considered a "talent" in morphing. She fights in the shape of a wolf .

Marco

Marco is a slightly funky youngster of Spanish descent. He hides his suspicious nature behind superficial sarcasm , which, however, often cheers up the group. His mother has officially had a fatal accident on a boat trip for years. His father withdrew after the death of his wife and is only slowly beginning a career as a software developer again . Later it turns out that Marco's mother is still alive but is in the hands of Visser Eins.

Marco fights mostly in the form of a gorilla .

Allies of the Animorphs

Ax

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill , called Ax is an Andalite and the little brother of Elfangor. Ax crashed into the ocean with a supply spaceship and is saved from an attack by the Yirks by the Animorphs. Ax first has to get used to human civilization and often offends - in human form - because of strange behavior. Later it turns out that Ax - as Elfangor's brother - is an uncle of Tobias. Ax always fights in his Andalite form. He knows best about the Yirks.

Elfangor

Elfangor-Sirinal-Shamtul is an Andalusian prince , a warrior. He has been fighting the Yirks for years, but one evening his luck fails. His spaceship crashes on an earthly construction site, the Yirks are hot on his heels. He has no choice but to equip the young people who watched his fall with the morphing technology with the morph cube before he falls in the fight against Visser 3. It later turns out that the Ellimist orchestrated this encounter. In the course of the series, Elfangor turns out to be Tobias' father.

Erek

Erek King is a djee , a robot created thousands of years ago by the Pemalites , a friendly and pacifist alien race, as servants and comrades. After the Pemaliten from the Howlers were exterminated, the Djees fled to Earth and disguised themselves as humans. Erek keeps helping the Animorphs due to the non-acceptance of the Yirks' aggressive expansion.

The Free Hork Bajirs

The free Hork-Bajirs are a group of Hork-Bajirs formerly enslaved by the Yirks, who have lived in a valley undiscovered by the Yirks since their liberation. Sometimes they help the animorphs as fighters.

The Yirks of the Peace Movement

The Yirks of the peace movement are Yirks who have changed their attitude towards life and have come to understand that it is wrong to rob living beings of their will. These Yirks either do without a host or they live in a kind of cooperation in their host. Since these Yirks do not have the same goal as Visser Drei, they are pursued by this one.

David

David , also called Dave , is a 12 year old boy who accidentally discovered the blue box one day , the very device that gives living beings morphing powers. This makes it "interesting" for both the Animorphs and the Yirks. The animorphs save him, but he loses everything: his home, his parents, his normal life. David wants all of this back and takes a stand against the Animorphs. David shows an overtly speciesist attitude in the course of the plot. He is of the opinion that he does not have to answer for his deeds in animal form ("I didn't break the window, that was a golden eagle. Sergeant, arrest this bird."), And murdered a small bird on its first flight for no reason . Later he treats Ax very condescendingly because he is not a human. When he turns against the Animorphs, he tells Rachel that he is not a killer and that he would never kill a human. That is why the animorphs are safe from him in their human bodies. But as soon as they are morphed, he hunts them mercilessly, knowing full well that they are not real animals. He is locked in a rat shape and released on an island. He has a particularly strong dislike of Rachel because she was the most rude on him. In volume 48, David returns to the city of animorphs with the help of Crayaks to seek revenge: together with the Droden and 2 strangers, Crayak tries to blackmail Rachel by giving her the choice of whether she would prefer unlimited power or a rat body like David . He gave David back his morphing powers for a short time so that he would ensure that Rachel would come to his side. When this fails, Crayak makes it clear that the agreement with David would also come to an end, and Rachel could now decide whether she would kill him or he would live as a rat on the small island again. David asks Rachel to kill him as it is better for him than continuing to live as a rat. Which decision Rachel makes in the end is not shown.

Aftran

Aftran is a female Yirk, and a friend of Cassie's. In volume 19 the two meet when Aftran is still in the body of the little girl Karen. Aftran tells Cassie that not all Yirks are as bad as the Andalites say they are. There are many among them who are reluctant to enslave living beings. The other alternative is worse for the Yirks. In their natural form, they are almost blind, almost deaf, and can barely move. They also want to be part of “paradise”, to be able to see, smell, taste, hear and feel. Aftran and Cassie strike a deal. Aftran releases Karen as the host if Cassie voluntarily stays in the guise of a caterpillar and becomes an Nothlite. Both keep their promise. However, by fortunate circumstance, Cassie can morph back after her caterpillar body turns into a butterfly. The two meet again in Volume 29. Aftran has since founded the peace movement among the Yirks. Visser Drei tries to torture Aftran to find out the identities of the other members, but Cassie is able to save her, and afterwards Aftran saves Ax, who is about to undergo dangerous brain surgery. She then asks Cassie to kill her, as a violent death is preferable to an end to Kandrona starvation. But Jake has a better idea. The animorphs give aftran morphing skills, and this becomes a voluntary nothlite in the shape of a humpback whale.

Toby

Toby is a female Hork-Bajir, and the daughter of Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak. It was named after Tobias, to whom the Hork-Bajirs credit the largest share of the fact that they can live in freedom again. Toby is a "seer" which means that she is unusually intelligent for a Hork-Bajir. She is also the leader of the free Hork-Bajirs. In the storyline she helps the animorphs several times.

Auxiliary animorphs

In Volume 50, the Animorphs decide that they want to equip more people with morphing powers. At first they are undecided, as the experience with David has taught them that their new allies can quickly turn against them and get to the "dark side". But then they put their project into practice. They choose children who are physically handicapped as the likelihood of them being controllers is very low. They then create several auxiliary animorphs who later refer to themselves as the lieutenants of the original animorphs. Their names are: Colette, James, Kelly, Timmy, Julio, Erica, Ray, Tricia, Craig, Jessie, Liam, Judy, Elena and Pedro. None of them oppose the animorphs like David did before. In Volume 53, almost all of them are killed in the attack on Visser Drei's blade ship. Only Elena and Pedro survive. Elena later lives in the valley of the free Hork-Bajirs, but what became of Pedro is unclear.

Yirks & Controllers

Yirks in their natural "form" are large nudibranchs that wrap around and take over the beings' brains. The enslaved beings are called controllers. There are Gedd controllers, Hork-Bajir controllers, Taxxon controllers, and human controllers.

Visser 3

Visser 3 is the only Yirk who has managed to take possession of an Andalite (named Alloran-Semitur-Corass) as a host. For this merit he was promoted to Visser , a top-ranking Yirk. Visser 3 leads the invasion on earth and therefore comes into regular contact with the Andalusian bandits .

Visser 1

Visser 1 is another high-ranking Yirk who is not responsible for the earth. However, he often gets into a conflict of competence with Visser 3. His host is Marco's mother, believed to be dead.

Tom

Tom Berenson is a controller and Jake's older brother. Tom is involved in the Friendship Club , a front organization to recruit new Yirk hosts. Towards the end of the plot, he becomes a close confidante of Visser Drei and even takes over his command ship when he is captured by the animorphs. Jake's greatest goal in the fight against the Yirks was to free his brother. However, although he inflicts serious damage on the Yirks several times in their invasion plans, he does not achieve this goal. In the end, Tom dies at the age of 19.

Chapman

Chapman is the assistant principal of the high schools the Animorphs attend. He is also a senior controller and has an equally important role in the friendship club. He volunteered to be enslaved to protect his daughter Melissa.

Other people

The Ellimist

The Ellimist is a mysterious, oversized being who knows the future , the past and possible parallel universes and can manipulate reality and the space-time continuum almost at will. In several places he comes into contact with the animorphs, mostly in a helping role. Initially, the Ellimist introduces himself as a representative of a highly evolved species superior to lower things and instincts, but as the story progresses in the Animorphs books he disproves himself. Primitive individuals of several species, including his own, have become godlike , from a human perspective, all-powerful beings united, similar to Crayak, who like "the" Ellimist is a kind of god and his bitter opponent. However, the two fight their power struggle according to established rules. For example, they are not allowed to interfere directly in what is happening, but have to try to get their way through detours. The Andalites completely distrust the Ellimists, as they often perceive indirect interference as betrayal and deceit, even though their own progress is firmly linked to the Ellimist's help.

Both in terms of his being and his character, the Ellimist is reminiscent of Q from the Star Trek universe.

The book 'The Ellimist Chronicles' deals mainly with the person of the Ellimist and the Crayak. Applegate reveals several of the Ellimist's secrets in the book, as the Ellimist himself tells his life story to Rachel, who is dying in the last volume of the series. The book is narrative based on the books from the series.

The Ellimist goes through several stages of existence during his life, as he begins his life as the average ketran. The original name of the Ellimist is Toomin in the English original; 'Ellimist' is a name he took on a video game. Initially, the Ketran are on the verge of making interstellar travel possible, however almost the entire population of Ketran will be eliminated due to extraterrestrial misinterpretation of subspace messages. For the remaining Ketran, including Toomin / Ellimist, an odyssey across the galaxy begins. In the course of the story, his mind merges on an alien celestial body with that of the 'father', an alien type of sponge, who artificially connects alien life forms on his moon with his mind. As the last of his kind, he not only absorbs the knowledge and information of his fallen Ketran, but also that of the other, alien life forms from the neural network of the 'father'. After the Ellimist was able to successfully escape into space, he repeatedly gathers new knowledge on his journey through space. Little by little he is replacing his original body with technology. Due to his tremendous mind he is able to help other species like god, which he finally sets as his goal. During this journey he meets the Crayak, whose desire is to destroy all life. A power struggle begins and the Ellimist and Crayak often change their strategies to achieve their goals. In the end, both beings are stuck in a kind of black hole that was originally a trap of the crayak. From here both are able to exert their supernatural powers on the universe.

Crayak

Crayak is comparable to the Ellimist and also protrudes beyond the three dimensions that can be grasped by humans . He is a kind of opponent of the Ellimist, but tries to become so powerful in this galaxy that he can destroy his actual opponent in another galaxy. In addition, as a kind of henchman of the Crayak and thus an opponent of the Animorphs, another being called Drode appears, who appears to the Animorphs mostly as Crayak's deputy. He has a special interest in getting Rachel over to Crayak's side. Crayak is the creator of the Howler and appears as a giant red eye.

In the book 'The Ellimist Chronicles' one also learns that the Crayak has already extinguished all life in another galaxy. At the time of the Animorphs he has already lost his physical shell like the Ellimist and is with him in a kind of black hole, from which the two opponents direct the events. Crayak very often reveals sadistic traits when competing with the Ellimist, for example, the Ellimist is forced to choose to survive either of the one or the other species without opening a solution in which all species were spared.

species

Andalites

Andalites are semi-humanoid beings. While her upper body is humanoid, her lower body is more like that of an ungulate. Andalites have no mouths and ingest food by their hooves. They have four eyes, two of which are on stems on their head, and can be turned in all directions. Their whole bodies are covered with blue fur and they have seven fingers on each hand. Your most powerful weapon is the tail. This is curved over your back, similar to a scorpion, but at its tip there is a blade with which you can strike at lightning speed. Andalites are very intelligent. Ax proves more than once that his mental abilities are way ahead of those of the human animorph. However, it is unclear whether he is an average and intelligent Andalite, or is also smart for their circumstances. Many Andalites behave arrogantly because of their intelligence, and despite their sophisticated technology, they are very traditional. However, this is by no means the case for all of them. Over time, Ax develops a kind of sense of humor in which he presents himself as a particularly snooty Andalite, even though he is actually not like that ("You are more than primitive people. You are primitive people with Andalusian morphing technology.") ("Actually the difference would have to be even bigger, because the gap between the technology of humans and that of chimpanzees is not that great. "). Andalites also have other abilities. You can determine the exact time and direction. Since they have no mouths, they communicate using thought language.

Djee

The Djee are a species of androids. They were once created by the Pemalites as their playmates. After the Pemalites were destroyed by the Howlers, they fled to Earth. With the help of holograms and force fields, they create the illusion of being human. The Djee are programmed for pacifism. Once, Erek changed his programming so that he could fight. In the course of the ensuing battle, he killed about 40 Human Controllers and Hork Bajir Controllers in ten seconds. Horrified by his act, he changes his programming back to pacifism. In the course of the plot he provides the animorphs with information about the Yirks, with whom he has sneaked in as a spy. As androids, the Djee have a very long life expectancy. Erek makes several observations that he already lived on earth in the time of Moses. In addition, the Djee have a special affinity for dogs, as they are the essence of their former creators, the Pemalites.

Gedds

The Gedds are humanoid, but not very intelligent. They are simple, clumsy beings with pretty bad senses. The average Gedd is about three feet tall and looks like a cross between a gorilla and a gremlin. The Gedds were the first hosts of the Yirks because they arose on their home planet.

Hork Bajirs

Hork bajirs are over two meters tall. They look a bit like dinosaurs, have a snake-like head and a mouth that looks almost like a bird's beak. They also have horns on their heads. Male Hork-Bajirs have three horns, while female Hork-Bajirs have only two. Compared to humans, Hork-Bajirs are quite strong and enduring, although they are not as strong as the majority of terrestrial mammals. In a battle, each of the animorphs can almost always defeat a single, unarmed Hork-Bajir in their battle morph. Their skin is dark green to brown. And they have blades all over their bodies. On the wrists, elbows, knees and forehead. Her tail is also armed with spikes. They also have great self-healing powers and a high pain threshold. In Volume 13, Jara Hamee slits her head open to show Tobias, Jake and Ax that there is no Yirk there anymore. As soon as he presses the wound edges together, they scabbed off. Even if Hork-Bajirs look so terrifying, they are i. d. R. meek and peace-loving. They are herbivores who used their blades on their home planet to peel the bark from trees and eat them. However, they are not very intelligent. Compared to humans, Hork-Bajirs are about as smart as young children. Your language has about 500 words. The low Hork Bajir intelligence is apparently also a problem for Hork Bajir controllers, since when they talk they usually use a mixture of words from human language and the language of the Hork Bajir. The Hork-Bajirs have no technology, and their entire species has been enslaved by the Yirks. They are the shock troops of the Yirk Empire and pose a threat to Andalites in battle. Over time, however, some Hork-Bajirs are freed by the Animorphs, who in turn liberate Hork-Bajirs, so that in the end there is a large colony . There is a special type of hork bajir. They are called "seers" and are genetic exceptions. While the average Hork-Bajir are not very intelligent, their seers can measure up to humans or even Andalites in terms of cleverness.

Leeraner

The Leeraner are amphibians. You live on the planet Leera. They look like human-sized, upright-walking frogs, except that they have four tentacles instead of front legs. However, their hind legs look like those of frogs and are webbed too. They are predominantly yellow and have rough skin. The Leeraner have a fairly large mouth and two bulging eyes that appear to be bright green. They are also gifted telepathically, in a way that goes much deeper than thought language. For example, a Leeraner recognized Marco as a morphed person in volume 15 and told Visser Eins that she had no Andalite in front of her. In Volume 18, too, several Leeraner controllers recognize the animorphs in their animal bodies. The Yirks can only invade Leera openly. Since the Voiders are telepathic, they will immediately recognize when one of their own is a controller. For this purpose they wanted to use mutated hammerheads. However, this plan was foiled by the animorphs on Earth. Your planet is 90 percent water and has only one continent. The Leeraner used this to lay their eggs in the past. But now they no longer need it, as they now mainly live in their underwater cities and can also reproduce there.

Taxxons

Taxxons look like giant centipedes and are about ten feet long. They are usually yellow, orange, or ocher in color. The taxxons hold up the front third of their bodies. In this third of the body, the legs become more and more like scissors, similar to those of a lobster. The front of their body is a head with a mouth that looks something like that of a lamprey, but with much more sharp teeth. Four bulbous, red stalk eyes are arranged around the mouth. Taxxons live in a state of perpetual starvation. They are predators that compulsively eat whatever meat they can get. They usually eat animals that are smaller than them, but when they see larger creatures that are injured, dying, or even dead, they will eat them too. Even the Yirks who are in the bodies of Taxxons cannot control this hunger. If another controller is injured in combat, even another Taxxon controller, then the remaining Taxxons almost always pounce on him and eat him alive. In one case, a taxxon is cut in half by Ax and one half of the dying taxxon eats the other. When Tobias turns into a Taxxon morph, he notices that this morph is even more difficult to control than the ant morph. All Taxxon controllers are volunteer hosts. In the Andalite Chronicles it is shown that the Yirks had made an offer to the Taxxons. When they become their hosts, they will get large quantities of fresh meat from across the galaxy. And most of the Taxxons agreed because apparently it is more important to them to have enough to eat than to be free. Exceptions were the members of a small group of Taxxons, led by the Andalite Arbron caught in the Taxxon morph. They fought a long guerrilla war with the Yirks. Taxxons are excellent swimmers and are probably as intelligent as humans. There is also a special type of taxxon. Taxxon trackers, which, like sniffer dogs, can track down their prey over a large distance.

Yirks

The Yirks are the main enemies of the Animorphs and the Andalites. In their natural form they look like rat-sized, green nudibranchs with antennae. Then they are almost blind and deaf and can barely communicate with each other. However, when they hatch into a host body, they usually crawl through the auditory canal into the brain, and can see, hear, feel, smell and taste just like the host. In addition, they have the complete knowledge of the host, who then no longer has any secrets from "his" Yirks, and he reads all his thoughts and feelings. In addition, they control this host completely, and it can only defend itself with great difficulty or not at all. The main weak point of the Yirks is that they have to leave their host body every three days to refuel Kandronas rays. Later the Yirks find ways with which they can permanently occupy a host body. But only either through cannibalism (Volume 16), or at the expense of their intellect (Volume 17). Yirks cannot host living things that are smaller than them, or whose brains they cannot wrap themselves around. The Andalites gave the Yirks the technology they needed to leave their homeworld and expand into the galaxy. At this point it was not clear to the Andalites that they would turn into a nuisance. The Yirks prefer volunteer hosts as they are much easier to control. On Earth, they recruit volunteer hosts with the Friendship Club.

Book title

Translated into German

Volumes 1-9

Volume 1: The Invasion (The Invasion)

Jake, his cousin Rachel and his friends Cassie, Marco and Tobias want to go home that evening and take the shortcut via an abandoned construction site, where they see an alien spaceship crash. A seriously injured being survived the crash, outwardly a mixture of human, deer and scorpion (an Andalite ), who reveals himself to be Prince Elfangor . It warns them of the invasion of the parasitic Yirks and gives them the power of morphing , the ability to take in the DNA of animals by touch and to transform themselves into the respective animal for two hours. Shortly thereafter, Elfangor fell victim to an attack by the Yirks and their officer Visser 3 .

The youth now want to use the newly acquired ability to fight the Yirks. After equipping themselves with the DNA of various animals, they begin their fight and soon find that they can no longer trust anyone, not even teachers, friends and family members. Via Jake's brother Tom, they discover a Yirkpool under the school. You spy on him and try in vain to save Tom. The attack fails after the intervention of Visser 3 and none of the hosts can escape. The animorphs survive, but Tobias remains trapped in his red-tailed buzzard morph.

Volume 2: The Visitor (The Visitor)

The Animorphs have found out that their deputy headmaster, Mr. Chapman, is a senior controller. They want to get to Chapman through his daughter Melissa in order to gain further information about the invasion. Rachel sees it as her personal duty to spy on Chapman, as she and Melissa were once close friends. Transformed into Melissa's house cat Fluffer McKitty , she sneaks into the Chapmans' house and puts herself in mortal danger when Chapman sees through the infiltration, takes the cat prisoner and tries to hand it over to Visser 3 on the construction site. Only the irascibility of the Vissers, who takes revenge on incompetent subordinates rather than pursuing the animorphs, ultimately saves Rachel.

Volume 3: The Encounter (The Encounter)

Because Tobias had exceeded the two-hour limit, he could no longer transform himself back into his human form. He now has to spend his life as a red-tailed buzzard and is mentally faced with the conflict between human feelings and the existence as a predator and threatens to break apart from this conflict.

In addition, the Animorphs find out that the Yirks use a camouflaged spaceship to supply the mothership, which is somewhere in orbit of the earth, which in the national park refuels with fresh water and clear air in order to supply the ship. The attempt to stop this fails, but Tobias develops new self-confidence through the rescue operation and learns to make the best of his situation.

Volume 4: The Message (The Message)

Cassie has had eerie dreams lately: she dreams of the sea and a mysterious voice that desperately calls for help from the depths. The animorphs must get out to sea before the yirks do. But Cassie knows the right animals she can transform into: dolphins .

In the sea they find another crashed Andalite spaceship, which is home to Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill , the brother of Elfangor . They can save Ax from the Yirks and let him fight by their side from now on.

Volume 5: The Rape (The Predator)

Marco is concerned about fighting the invasion because he is afraid of dying. The 2nd anniversary of his mother's death is approaching, and Marco doesn't want to burden his father with the death of his son as well.

The Animorphs meanwhile want to steal a Yirks spaceship so that Ax can return to the Andalite homeworld to call his people back to earth. This is to be done via an emergency call sent with a specially built Z-room transmitter , which is answered by the Yirks by sending a so-called combat drone . However, this plan is seen through by the Yirks, who lure the animorphs into an ambush at the drone's landing pad, capture them and bring them to the mother ship stationed in Earth orbit. Marco sees there that his mother is not dead, but is the host for Visser 1 , the highest ranking Yirk. The animorphs then escape from the spaceship because Visser 1 lets them free, only to then accuse rival Visser 3 of inability.

Volume 6: The prey (The Capture)

The Animorphs discover through Jake's brother Tom, who was promoted to controller, that the Yirks are infiltrating a hospital in order to turn patients into controllers as part of a treatment. With the state governor planning a visit to this clinic in a few days' time, time is pressing to destroy the hospital's local pool.

However, the unthinkable happened: Jake is a ricochet unconscious, sinks into the Yirkpool and is attacked there by a Yirk. The Animorphs, especially Ax, soon notice this fact and have to hold Jake prisoner for three days, so that the Yirk eventually dies and the group remains undetected. This succeeds, and Jake receives additional motivation for the fight against the invasion through his insights into the nature of the Yirks and the existence of the controllers.

Volume 7: The Stranger (The Stranger)

In a further attack on the Yirkpool, the Animorphs encounter a mysterious being called "Ellimist". The Ellimist announces that the fight against the Yirks is hopeless and offers the Animorphs a chance to escape to another planet. To back up his offer, the Ellimist lets the Animorphs see the future after the Yirks win. But after this "future" shows inconsistencies, the Animorphs draw hope to prevent this terrible future. In particular, it turns out that despite the alleged hopelessness of the situation and his announcement that he does not want to intervene in the fight, the Ellimist secretly tries to help the animorphs. Thus, the Animorphs achieve an important victory by destroying a Kandrona crystal , which was vital for the Yirks and which was installed in a high-rise building. Interestingly enough, they learned the hiding place of this crystal on the basis of the vision of the future they had previously experienced.

Volume 8: The Alien (The Alien)

By chance, Ax discovers that he can communicate with his home world by manipulating the software of a radio telescope . So he can report on his situation, but receives a mission from the Board of Governors to avenge the death of his brother Elfangor and to kill Visser 3. He receives unexpected help from a controller, whose Yirk is also pursuing such a plan about the death of his girlfriend, whom Visser 3 considers "unimportant". The assassination attempt carried out by means of a rattlesnake morph fails because the Yirk escapes from the poisoned host body into a stream and also attacks the Visser's bodyguard. However, since the other animorphs stand by him and fend off the attack, the dividing gap between the two cultures can ultimately be overcome.

In the course of this volume, an Andalusian law called Seerow's Goodness , which forbids the transfer of information and technology to other species, is discussed in particular . In addition, the unfamiliar human civilization with all its achievements such as cinema and fast food plays a role.

Volume 9: The Secret (The Secret)

Cassie is appalled that the Yirks want to cut down a wooded area to build a new base. The animorphs can't let that happen and she even plays the surrogate mother for little skunks .

Volumes 10-19

Volume 10: The Android (The Android)

Marco and Jake spend their time as dogs at an open air concert. Marco accidentally recognizes his old schoolmate Erek , but cannot perceive any odor on him with his dog's nose, whereas this nose can even distinguish certain types of perfume in other people. Erek subsequently turns out to be a Djee , a robot made by a dog-like, extinct alien race, the Pemalites . Since the Djees are invulnerable and could offer unlimited resistance to the Yirks, but were programmed for pacifism, Erek asks the Animorphs to steal the Pemalite crystal from the Yirks, with which the Yirks want to build the most powerful computer in the world and with which Erek themselves could reprogram.

Volume 11: The Uncanny (The Forgotten)

Jake has eerie visions of being in a dense jungle. But that doesn't stop him from continuing to lead the animorphs. They manage to steal a crashed modified Yirks combat drone that they use to expose the Yirks invasion in Washington DC by landing the drone in the garden of the White House. But it comes to a fight with the Yirks, the drone crashes in a dense jungle. Jake's visions seem to come true ...

Volume 12: The shock (The Reaction)

The Animorphs find out that the Yirks are interested in a TV star. Once he's a controller, he can promote the Yirks' front organization to people on television. The animorphs want to prevent this, but Rachel loses control of her morphing powers under spontaneous emotions for this star ...

Volume 13: The Metamorphosis (The Change)

Tobias is fed up with living on as a bird of prey and longs to be human again. He has to help his friends to save aliens who have fled from the Yirks. When Tobias is rescued by the Ellimist in a hopeless situation and regains his morphing powers, he is given the opportunity to fulfill his dearest wish.

Volume 14: The Uncertain (The Unknown)

The Yirks are interested in Zone 91 (probably a reference to Area 51 ), a secret military base that is said to be storing a crashed UFO. They try to get to the area with wild horses as new hosts, which the animorphs have to prevent, after all, after all, a UFO wreck is solid evidence of the existence of aliens. So they morph into horses to thwart the Yirks.

Volume 15: The Escape (The Escape)

Marco still can't believe that his mother, believed dead, is the host of Visser 1. The fight Leera , distant one, of frog-like creature, the Leeranern inhabited ocean planet who want Yirks meanwhile with hammerhead decide and controllers and have built up to an underwater station. Of course, the animorphs have to do something. But this plan comes from Visser 1, who is also on the station.

Volume 16: The Warning (The Warning)

Jake surfs the internet and finds a homepage that covers the Yirks. The trail leads to software billionaire John Bob Fenestre (a reference to Bill Gates ), who lives in a city about 1.5 hours by plane to the north (possibly Seattle , Gates' home). Fenestre is also a controller, but tired of the fight and has split off from the Yirks. Cut off from the Yirkpool supply, Fenestre has come up with a macabre way to survive: he eats Yirks ...

Volume 17: The Underneath (The Underground)

The Animorphs rescue a man who jumped out the window of a skyscraper. He is admitted to a mental hospital for talking about an alien in his head. Apparently he knows a way to drive the Yirks crazy: He poisoned the Yirk in his head with a cereal mixture. With the help of these breakfast cereals , the Animorphs now want to poison the Yirkpool.

Volume 18: The decision (The Decision)

Ax and the Animorphs try to prevent a senior CIA officer from becoming a controller, who then falls into a coma in a fit. As mosquitoes they want to break into his hospital room, but suddenly the morphing technology goes crazy: In Z-room they are rescued by an Andalusian ship and now have to decide the battle for the distant planet Leera.

Volume 19: The exit (The Departure)

Cassie has concerns about her life as an animorph. She wants to get out of the group and live as a normal person. But the encounter with a little girl who is a host of a Yirk, Cassie doubts the sense of her exit.

Volumes 20-30

Volume 20: The Discovery (The Discovery)

Volumes 20-22 form a kind of trilogy and do not stand on their own like all other volumes.

The Animorphs meet a boy named David who wants to auction something very special on the Internet: a blue cube that he found on a construction site. But with this cube Elfangor once gave the animorphs their morphing skills. Of course, the Yirks immediately show interest: A fight ensues in which David's parents are captured, only David is saved by the Animorphs. David becomes another animorph despite the shock of his parents becoming controllers.

Volume 21: The threat (The Threat)

With David's help, the Animorphs want to prevent the Yirks from enslaving industrial leaders . But David longs for an orderly life and refuses to support the group led by Jake. Instead, he wants to negotiate with Visser 3 to "trade" the Animorphs for his parents.

Volume 22: The Solution (The Solution)

David has become a serious threat to the animorphs and wants to use his power of morphing to eliminate the animorphs. The animorphs have to stop him because he is still hungry for the Andalusian technology.

With the help of a trick, the animorphs finally defeat David. For their safety, they turn him into a rat - Nothlit and leave him on a desert island. With regard to the politicians' summit, the Animorphs take one last measure beforehand: they devastate the venue and cause the meeting to be demolished.

Volume 23: The heir (The Pretender)

Tobias receives the news that a distant relative, his cousin Aria , wants to take him in and presents his deceased father's will for him. But he and the animorphs remain suspicious because it could be a trap. You have the feeling that Visser 3 is behind it. Tobias will soon find out more about himself.

Volume 24: Suspicion (The Suspicion)

The animorphs encounter the alien helmacrones , which are microscopic but very dangerous because they also want to conquer the galaxy. Smiled at at first, the helmacroons soon become a serious threat because they can shrink any living being to their size.

Volume 25: The Extreme (The Extreme)

This time the Animorphs have to travel to the Arctic Circle to destroy the Yirks' new headquarters. But not only are the cold and the storms becoming a threat, they are also being haunted by a new creepy breed of controllers.

Volume 26: The attack (The Attack)

The animorphs are kidnapped from the school auditorium - by Crayak , an opponent of the Ellimist. He intends to conquer the galaxy with the help of emotionless killing machines, the Howlers . On a distant planet, the animorphs must protect a species of symbiote , the Iskoorter , from the Howlers . Eventually the Howlers are defeated because Jake gives them a vision of a kiss and gives them knowledge of emotions and irrationality .

Volume 27: The Revelation (The Exposed)

The Djees' camouflage program threatens to fail and their discovery would be inevitable. This time the animorphs have to get into the deep sea to get on board a pemalite spaceship and restore the program. Of course, the Yirks also see the chance to eliminate their bitter opponents.

Volume 28: The Experiment (The Experiment)

The Yirks have holed up in a nutrition laboratory: They plan to modify cattle in such a way that the consumption of hamburgers is enough to turn people into controllers. The Animorphs have to break Project Obedience and are confronted with all the abnormalities of a slaughterhouse .

Volume 29: The Parasite (The Sickness)

During a school party, Ax becomes seriously ill with "Yumphut" and threatens to die because his tria-gland threatens to burst. As if that weren't the only problem, the Animorphs also have to rescue a rebellious Yirk. But suddenly the animorphs get sick and only Cassie stays healthy. Not only does she have to save Ax, but also the Yirk.

Volume 30: Die Rache (The Reunion)

Marco still hopes to save his mother. But the Animorphs find that Visser 1 is being hunted by its competitors. Marco feels obliged to master this mission himself.

So far only published in English

Volume 31: The Conspiracy
Volume 32: The Separation
Volume 33: The Illusion
Volume 34: The Prophecy
Volume 35: The Proposal
Volume 36: The Mutation
Volume 37: The Weakness
Volume 38: The Arrival
Volume 39: The Hidden
Volume 40: The Other
Volume 41: The Familiar
Volume 42: The Journey
Volume 43: The Test
Volume 44: The Unexpected
Volume 45: The Revelation
Volume 46: The Deception
Volume 47: The Resistance
Volume 48: The Return
Volume 49: The Diversion
Volume 50: The Ultimate
Volume 51: The Absolute
Volume 52: The Sacrifice
Volume 53: The Answer
Volume 54: The Beginning

Special volumes, translated into German

Megamorphs volumes

The Megamorphs volumes are longer than normal volumes and describe events that are outside of the continuous plot. In contrast to the normal volumes, they are also told alternately from the perspective of all group members.

Megamorphs 1: The Andalite Legacy (Megamorphs # 1 - The Andalite´s Gift)

During a break in the fight, the Animorphs decide to finally have another free weekend. Marco and Jake attend a party, Rachel goes on a trip with her gymnastics group, and everyone is enjoying their free time. But Rachel suffers an accident: mutating into an eagle, she flies into a tree in the forest and loses her consciousness and memory. Rachel has to get back under control and find her way back. In addition, the other animorphs are also in danger, because the Yirks have trained a Veleek , a creature from Saturn , to catch morphing creatures.

Megamorphs 2: In the Age of Dinosaurs (Megamorphs # 2)

As dolphins, the Animorphs want to rescue the crew of a wrecked nuclear submarine . But all of a sudden there is a nuclear explosion. After the explosion, the animorphs find themselves in a prehistoric sea and are attacked by a marine dinosaur that they can still fight and escape. On land, they are amazed to discover that they are in the age of the dinosaurs . They try to survive and find a way home, but not only do they face bloodthirsty predatory dinosaurs, but also two rival races of aliens that have landed on Earth.

Megamorphs 3: Elfangor's Secret (Megamorphs # 3 - Elfangor´s Secret)

The Animorphs spend a seemingly normal day, but times are different: They live in a tyrannical empire , there is secret police , slavery and state terror. The sudden appearance of the droid clears up the following situation: Visser 4 has stolen Prince Elfangor's time matrix and is now trying to change world history in favor of the Yirks. The droid makes an offer to the animorphs on behalf of Crayak: They can chase Visser 4 through all the times to stop him, but Crayak demands one of the animorphs as a victim.

In the course of the plot, the Animorphs take part in numerous bloody battles, first this is the Battle of Azincourt and then the Battle of Trafalgar . While crossing the Delaware, the animorphs also get to know George Washington , who fell here on the Delaware and whose death ended the American Revolution . In this way the establishment of the USA is prevented and the British Empire becomes a world power. Therefore, the Animorphs then experience an alternative version of the invasion of Normandy , in which the British Empire fights against a Franco-German alliance and Adolf Hitler only works as a chauffeur .

Only at the end does the situation become clear: the animorphs prevent the birth of the host for Visser 4 in San Francisco in 1968 and thereby reverse all changes he has made.

Alternamorphs

Alternamorphs 1: The Nightmare Begins (The First Journey)

The Animorphs need one more member to fight the Yirks, and that is the reader himself.

In the multiple choice principle, the reader has to choose his actions and scroll to the corresponding page. Every step can lead to a happy ending, death, or exceeding the two-hour limit.

Special volumes, currently only available in English

Megamorphs and Alternamorphs

Megamorphs 4 (Megamorphs # 4: Back To Before)

The fourth volume was never translated into German, but again represents an alternative world story. This time the Drode gives the Animorphs the opportunity to "try out" a life without the encounter with Prince Elfangor and the fight against the Yirks.

Alternamorphs 2: The Next Passage.

Chronicles

The Chronicles volumes explain the personal backgrounds of all the main alien characters and can be read parallel to the actual series. The following volumes have been published:

Visser
The Andalite Chronicles
The Hork Bajir Chronicles
The Ellimist Chronicles.

Others

Meet the Stars of ANIMORPHS

This book is about the cast of the very popular Animorphs television series.

Implementation of the series in other media

Television series

The book series served as a template for a television series of the same name, Animorphs , which was a hit in the United States. This series has not yet been broadcast on German television. The problem here is the fact that the target audience is younger adolescents, but the proportion of violence portrayed in the series is enormous. Morphing is also rarely shown in the series and is far more child-friendly than the book. Visser three and Ax mostly appear in their human form because they were so difficult to animate as Andalites. The platitude of the characters was particularly criticized: if the animorphs in the books make great efforts and detours in order not to attract attention and always appear disguised as animals , the characters in the television series of the plot are very similar to the recipe for success of a Power Ranger show. The underlying paranoia wasn't really captured either. Similar to the Scooby gang from Buffy , the Animorphs have one main meeting place where they discuss their mission goals - a public arcade .

Radio plays

The Ravensburger Verlag , which had the books translated into German and published, just took the first twelve volumes of the series as radio plays , of which only the first 10 were released on MC and CD. Further recordings were not made and are not planned. Speakers were: Jan-David Rönfeldt (Jake), Jannik Endeman (Tobias), Eva Michaelis (Rachel), Anja-Maria Mahler (Cassie), Tim Knauer (Marco), Christian Stark (Ax) and Gerd Marcel (Visser Three).

PC and video games

In order to do justice to the growing success of the series in written and filmed form, video game adaptations of the series appeared in 2000 . Animorphs: Know The Secret , an action-adventure presented in a child-friendly manner , was released for the PC . In the PlayStation game Animorphs: Shattered Reality it was however, a Jump 'n' Run . Furthermore, a game very similar to the well-known Pokémon was released for the GameBoy Color.

Toys

The American toy company Hasbro had Transformers -like action figures of the Animorphs made. There was also a complex board game designed by Milton Bradley .