Animorphs The Andalite Chronicles

[buffyangellvr23]

We're discussing the first of the four chronicles books this week, The Andalite Chronicles. It tells some of the backstory that happened before the Yeerks came to Earth Animorphs got their power. We meet Elfangor as a young Aristh, and another Aristh named Arbon who we'll meet again later. We also meet War-Prince Alloran and the future Visser Three

Comments

[spiletta42]

I personally loved The Andalite Chronicles, and all of the Chronicle books, because we finally got to see some of the worldbuilding behind the series, and experience more of the alien cultures. I could have read dozens of those.

[rideinthelimo]

I agree. It made the whole world seem much more realistic. In later books, something would happen and you know it is related to something from X's culture.
I wish they had made more!

[anijen21]

I agree. The Chronicles books were my favorite part of the series. I think this was my favorite out of all of them, too

[julygreen]

Agreed. I would have loved another Yeerk book, in particular.

[ex_ellimist]

Let's do 2 a week. It will get done in just over 6 months instead of over a year. :-)

[tygerwulfe]

Ah, one of my all time favorites of the series. My copy is so dog-eared that it looks like it's falling apart. It's actually in worse shape than my copy of The Encounter, if you can believe that

[otakugal15]

Old post, I know. But the ONLY thing I don't like between The Invasion and The Andalite Chronicles is that, Visser Three in The Invasion doesn't REALLY seem to know WHO Elfangor is. He's heard of him, but doesn't KNOW him. In the Andalite Chronicles, he DOES.

But, that's just due to The Andalite Chronicles being written AFTER the first book of the series. Anywho, loved the book anyway. ^^

[almighty_patsy]

Replying to old posts is what the cool kids are doing this week.

The last book on the re-read was #49, and reading that discussion I realised I have a quibble with the black hole/rewriting-time bit that happens in space, too: when Loren returns to Earth as a suddenly-18-year-old, Chapman's still 13, right? And then within two or three years, Loren is pregnant with Tobias. Which means Melissa was born when Chapman was 17, at the oldest. I think I'm going to go with, this was a totally intentional move on the part of the author, and we are meant to see Chapman as a successful teen dad (even if he is a bit of a dick). Because that's awesome.

[otakugal15]

Wow, Chapman as a teen dad? That's quite a MAJOR leap with a kids book series. And if that's what Applegate intended, then props to her. Since that's something that kind of has a stigma in todays world, what with teen fathers leaving the picture or other things, if this is indeed what the author intended, then she put it out there that YES there CAN be some successful cases of teen parents.

Huh. Now I wanna rearead that and all just to put that into more perspective.

[anijen21]

I love this book so much I'll probably end up commenting more than once in this post, so bear with me

[julygreen]

I heart Arbron ... and yeah, I also assumed that he didn't morph because he'd blow his cover and be infested or killed straight away.

I hadn't thought about it until you pointed out but you're right, the black hole and (to a lesser extent) the energy-eating asteroids do seem like plot threads that just kind of got dropped in. Well, the asteroids were cool, but the black hole part was pretty WTF.

The Rolling Stones! That was indeed a cool reference.

Also, we meet Alloran. It's so interesting to compare him to his other appearances in the series.

[janinedog]

We know that Arbron took part in the feeding frenzy, so I assumed that he got trapped because he got caught up in it and basically lost himself in the morph (or perhaps hid away in it because he was so disgusted with himself, but could do nothing to stop it). And by the time he was able to find himself again, and regain control, it was too late.

[anijen21]

well right, that's where they all got separated, but as morbid as this sounds, I don't think one Taxxon carcass would last 2 hours. Even Elfangor would have gotten stuck if the future Visser 3 (I don't remember his rank in this one. 32? Whatever) hadn't taken an interest in him and pushed him out o his own mag-lev train, forcing him to morph while he fell. I don't know what Alloran was doing that whole time but he must have found a hiding spot.

It's been so long since I read through the series...

[peterchayward]

When do we meet Arbon later?

[julygreen]

In book 53, Arbron (now the Taxxon leader) meets Jake, and the Taxxons agree to fight alongside the Animorphs. After the war, the remaining Taxxons become anaconda nothlits, as per the terms of their pact. However, since Arbron is already a nothlit, he has to stay Taxxon - book 54 tells us that he is eventually killed in the Amazon by illegal poachers.
An inglorious end for someone so awesome.