Book Review: The Attack by K. A. Applegate

Book #319 of 2021:

The Attack by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #26)

A whole twenty volumes after Jake saw a vision of a malevolent red eye turning his way as the Yeerk inside him starved to death back in book #6, we finally learn something of this terrible presence. His name is Crayak, and he is the arch-nemesis of the Ellimist, that more familiar all-powerful being who has alternately meddled with and subtly helped the team on several occasions now. These two ancient forces are locked in some kind of galaxy-spanning conflict, and for their latest skirmish they have agreed to pitch two small groups of champions against each other on a distant world. On one side, the six Animorphs are joined by their android ally Erek; on the opposite, they face seven of the Howlers, the race that massacred the Chee’s creators and are actually Crayak’s private shock troops. (Monstrously, it turns out they are like children and view all the slaughter as a game without consequence.)

That personal connection is important, as for a while here, the stakes can feel somewhat abstract. Our protagonists have been sent lightyears from home to a planet where no one has ever heard of Andalites, humans, or Yeerks, nominally fighting on behalf of the obnoxious local species there but mostly just getting into outmatched battles with their opponents and barely escaping with their lives. We want them to win because we don’t want them to die, but it’s hard for us or them to care all that much about the fate of the Iskoort early on. The backstory that the Howlers are responsible for killing the Pemalites helps deepen the contest, and Erek himself is a neat addition to the typical battlefield calculus, still programmed for pacifism but able to act as a barrier and project out helpfully misleading holograms. It’s also a nice change of pace to be in a setting where everyone can morph and demorph freely, without having to worry about keeping their identities a secret from any onlookers.

Nevertheless, I’m glad this title doesn’t maintain its air of inscrutability towards the mission throughout, placing Jake and his friends in the position of “an ant wandering around a chessboard,” in the narrator’s own words. They do eventually discover why the survival of this particular people is so significant to the struggle back home, and it deepens the storytelling considerably. I’m a fan of how the heroes manage to win in the end too, given that they initially fail in a six-on-one ambush and spend the rest of the novel narrowly fleeing from the Howlers again and again. In light of such odds, the intuitive plan Jake devises to save the day is exceedingly clever.

It’s a good outing for him overall, really. He’s the only Animorph who manages to dispatch one of the relentless enemies, tricking it into chasing him in bird morph off the edge of a platform high above the ground. But not content to simply watch the alien plummet, he dives down too, returning to his own form to acquire its DNA in free-fall and then restoring his wings at the last second to avoid likewise smashing upon the rocks below. Jake’s also the only one who’s encountered Crayak before, although he didn’t have a label for the thing which has apparently been stalking his dreams for months saying merely “Soon.” And perhaps most momentously, this is the story where the teen leader and Cassie finally kiss, a fact that I admittedly noticed less on this adult reread but remember being a pretty big deal when I was younger.

Due to all the trauma — which accumulates further here for certain — I think it’s sometimes easy to forget that these are middle-school kids waging their hopeless guerilla war, and to assume that our lovebirds, having expressed their feelings for one another some time ago now, would have already had this tender first exchange of physical intimacy, even if ‘off-screen’ between volumes. But no, it takes a surprise return from apparent death on the other side of the galaxy to send Cassie into the arms of her love interest, and the moment is decidedly more meaningful for that delay. (I don’t know if it fully registered with me back in 1999 that theirs is an interracial relationship as well, but I’ve seen interviews with author K. A. Applegate highlighting the importance of writing that romance for a young audience not necessarily inclined to accept it, and comparing this specific development to Star Trek’s famous primetime Kirk/Uhura kiss.)

Nothing happens with the wider Yeerk plot; the victors emerge from their self-contained adventure with no interruptions to regular life. But we’ve moved a central character dynamic forward, met a new recurring foe, experienced some horrifyingly deadly combat, and uncovered a few intriguing details in the grander series mythos. I’d call that a worthwhile excursion, and I can see why Applegate didn’t use a ghostwriter for it, as she had for the previous entry and would again for the next several to follow.

[Content warning for body horror and gore.]

★★★★☆

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