The Predator

Book Number:  5
Written By:  Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant
Page Count:  158
Narrator:  Marco

Synopsis

Not to be confused with the garbage Predator reboot from a few years ago...

Marco morphs into a gorilla and saves an old man from a group of thugs, only to have the old man try and shoot him because he's a fucking gorilla in an alleyway.  Jake tries to scold him, but treads lightly because he has something even dumber to propose to the group.  See, E.T. wants to phone home.  The new Andalite Animorph, Ax, has decides that Earth sucks and wants to get back to the Andalite homeworld, so he comes up with a bonkers plan of highjacking a Yeerk Bug fighter by creating a phony Yeerk distress beacon using equipment found at Radio Shack.

Jake, Marco, and Ax morphed in human form set out to get the parts at the mall, which results in quite possibly the dumbest action scene you can shoehorn into a book.  Ax keeps wandering off because he likes coffee and cold food, which somehow results in security guards chasing him, to which Ax responds by morphing back to his Andalite body and running across the street to a grocery store, with Jake and Marco chasing him.  To evade Controllers who have spotted Ax during all of this nonsense, Marco screams about a bomb to empty the store then they morph into lobsters and hide out in a lobster tank.  A lady then buys all three of them and tries to boil them for dinner, to which they morph back and freak her out.

I have no words for this.  Moving on.

Anyway, Radio Shack had all the parts Ax needed for his little gizmo, except a device that sends messages through "zero space" or whatever.  They decide that the best place to get one is at the only place where they know for certain has a Yeerk communication device, Assistant Principal Chapman's house.  They decide Rachel McKitty is a no go this time, so Cassie proposes that they all break in by morphing as ants.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  They morph as ants at Chapman's house, but find the ant's hive mind difficult to control.  Tobias helps them focus while he keeps watch outside, and they sneak into Chapman's basement and steal the thingy.  On their way out, they are attacked by another army of ants, who start tearing them limb from limb until they morph back to humans and Andalite.

THIS IS A CHILDREN'S BOOK.

In the aftermath, tensions are high due to how horrific the ant experience was, and Marco informs Jake that this is his last Animorph mission.  The group execute Ax's plan in an abandoned quarry (if Power Rangers has taught me anything, an abandoned factory or quarry is a good place for a showdown).  They set off the beacon, and Jake morphs his tiger, Marco his gorilla, Rachel her elephant, Cassie her wolf, while Ax stays in Andalite form and Tobias is on standby as hawk with a chip on his shoulder.  A Bug Fighter lands and the Animorphs attack, but soon find them surrounded by Hork-Bajir and Taxxons.  The Yeerks were onto the ruse for some vague reason and set up a trap.  Visser Three then escorts the "Andalite bandits" onto his Blade Ship and flies them to the Yeerk mothership, where he intends them as a gift to his boss, Visser One.

Once there, the Animorphs meet Visser One for the first time, who has Marco's presumed dead mother as a host!

Marco and Jake are floored by the reveal, though Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Ax have never met his mother and don't realize who it is.  Marco tells Jake via telepathic DM to not tell the others for now, and Jake agrees.  There is some wicked sexual tension between Vissers One and Three, who are constantly bickering and insulting each other, and it results in Visser Three ordering the Animorphs to the brig until the Vissers decide what to do with them.  The Animorphs, still in their battle morphs, are defeated and debate how they want to go out.  Then Marco stands up and gives his Mickey from Rocky speech of why they shouldn't give up and they need to keep fighting.

Marco starts to concoct another unpleasant plan involving ants when the brig door opens.  One of Visser One's Hork-Bajir greets them and gives them very specific instructions on how to escape the mothership.  This is the most silver platter escape plan they've ever had, and they realize it's because of space politics.  Visser One wants to embarrass Visser Three and ordered her minions to free the "Andalite bandits."  It's space mudslinging!  Holy shit!  So the Animorphs make a break for it and wipe the floor with every Hork-Bajir and Taxxon in their way, and escape back to Earth in an escape pod.

In the aftermath, Marco and his dad visit Marco's mother's grave on the second year anniversary of her "death."  Marco's dad lets Marco know he's been a hot mess for the last two years and is going to take steps to pick up the pieces of his life.  Marco be like "Cool" as we all wonder why this change of heart happened just as Marco learns his mother's alive.  What a coincidence, it's almost as if it's a preconceived storyline and he were a character in a book!

Observations

If there is one common theme I'm noting about the first five Animorphs books it's that each one is largely about one of the Animorphs coming to terms with what their reason to fight the Yeerks is.  In The Invasion, Jake learns his brother Tom is a Controller and desires to free him.  In The Visitor, Rachel realizes she can't live with the idea that the Yeerks are destroying families and sucking love out of the world.  In The Message, Cassie learns that the Yeerks will no just enslave the human race, but destroy the beautiful nature of the planet.  The one exception to this is Tobias, who has a strong desire to fight the battle that Elfangor left in his lap, but doesn't understand why yet (and probably won't for another twenty books or so).

A reason to fight seems important to these characters, who want to just wash their hands of the war they've somehow inherited, especially Marco, who has gone the longest with the desire t not fight and lets everyone else know it as loudly as possible.  It's part of the reason the character has been mostly insufferable so far, because he's largely been the most whiny character.  He is given reasons for his viewpoint, but for fuck's sake, either quit or shut up.  The Predator is largely his big chance to quit the Animorphs, until he's staring straight in the face the reason why he should continue to be one.

Marco's mother's death has largely been a throwaway justification as to why he doesn't wish to fight the Yeerks, be it being the last family his emotionally unstable father has or just simply being afraid of his own mortality.  In this book, it's revealed that Marco's mother (who doesn't have a name other than "Marco's mom," so this isn't my inability to remember names getting to me) didn't die in a "boating accident" (Richard Dreyfuss meme of "This is not a boat accident!"), but was rather used as a host by Visser One to scout the Earth for the Yeerk invasion.  While the fact that her son became a changeling superhero to combat the Yeerk inside her head is a huge coincidence, the reveal is actually pretty logical and kinda cool.  And importantly, it lights a fire under Marco's ass, which is something he's needed for a long time now.

Though I have to admit that reveal might have been more effective in a book that isn't as disjointed as The Predator is.  The first third of the book is a comedic fetch quest.  The second third is horrific fetch quest.  The final act is obligatory Yeerk fight.  It's a nutty and episodic book, that's told from the point of view of the comic relief character.  It never feels as if it's building to anything at all, let alone an important reveal of any significance.

Other notes:

That anti-90's-ness that I bitched about in the last book is more inconsistent here.  This book has a major plot point where all of the Animorphs have to buy equipment from Radio Shack.  I mean, I guess Radio Shack still exists, but how many are left?  They didn't have the balls to change it to Best Buy or something else?  Or perhaps adding a reworked first act where the Animorphs have to order shit on Amazon, find they can't afford shipping and have already used up that free Prime trial, so they select free shipping and have to wait three weeks for their package to come?

There's a pretty great chapter at the end of the second act, where the Animorphs are so disturbed by almost being dismembered as ants yet they have to go to school the next day.  Rachel is so on edge that she starts a fight in the cafeteria and Marco tries to break it up, but they all get called to Assistant Principal Chapman's office, where Marco tries to ease tensions with both Chapman and Rachel by saying it was his fault because both girls were madly in love with him and were just fighting because of that.  I think this chapter is a great touch because not only does it play with the trauma these characters are experiencing, but also relates how their character relationships can pull them out of a dark place.  This kid's book series can surprise me, sometimes.