Retromorphs: Animorphs #14: The Unknown

Cassie's books so far have been interesting. Her first was a more important book, introducing Ax, while still bogged down by Cassie's ethics about "is it right to morph a sentient mammal?", which has been her one sticking point since. Her second book featured yet another traumatic incident involving an insect morph, and then turned into a story about her maternal instincts morphing skunk mother to take care of the deceased skunk's babies. So, mixed bag's what I'm getting at. And remembering a bit of this one, well, it doesn't get better. It's The Unknown.

After the preamble, we open the book with Rachel begging Cassie to get jeans that fit instead of ones that look a bit to old and outgrown. This argument is interrupted by Cassie's dad who takes the two girls out to the Dry Lands to visit a woman named "Crazy Helen". Her horses are sick with some sort of stomach parasite. Crazy Helen sure seems to live up to that name as she rambles on about aliens and the planet mars. But when they see the horse, it's acting strange. Almost like it's trying to dial the nearby phone. After Cassie's dad leaves to get his supplies, we see exactly what's bugging this horse. A Yeerk in its head. The girls try to run for it, only to be blasted by what appears to have been a Dracon Beam.

Cassie wakes up in Crazy Helen's souvenir shop. Crazy Helen suggests that it was aliens, but since the shop is near an airfield, Cassie's father thinks it must have been a lost bomb or something that the horse hit, which, I don't know, if that were the case they'd have to be picking up chunks of Cassie all over the grounds. The horse has vanished as well. Not like, exploded, but it's just up and gone. Cassie also discovers that Crazy Helen is into something called "Zone Ninety-One", which is this book's take on Area 51. It's the talk of all the conspiracy theory nuts online. You know, before that became for insurrections and vaccine hoaxes. Or maybe it still is. Hold my tongue on that one.

The girls tell the other Animorphs later on, but everyone's confused. Why would the Yeerks be interested in horses, and was Cassie right about it being a Dracon Beam? Ax in particular seems skeptical, but in the end, it's Cassie, Marco, Rachel and Tobias who plan to head off to the Dry Lands and get some clues. But before that, we follow up on that whole new clothes arc as Cassie goes to school the next day and people notice her, but call her Kendra and Carla. So her wallflower status remains intact. Marco, Rachel and Cassie later morph birds and make it to Zone Ninety-One, which is as guarded and dangerous as expected.

The three demorph while Tobias stays unmorphed in hawk form. This proves a bad idea as they immediately get caught by security, including the head of security, Captain Torrelli. Cassie and Rachel try to plead their innocence while Marco is here making it worse by making snide comments about aliens. First chance the three get, they morph cockroach and escape. Though, if the place is crawling with security, would they not have a camera in the interrogation room they were in? Would they not see three kids go full Kafka? Not to mention how three kids in wetsuits and no shoes just suddenly vanished into thin air? I know, I know. Loopholes and whatnot.

The three escape, only for Cassie to fall and get stepped on. But not killed as she survives long enough for them to really escape. They then notice a group of horses, one taking a dump because I guess that needed to be added. But the horses aren't acting very normal. Definitely like there's Yeerks in their heads. So the plan now has to be morphing horses, which means going to the racetrack to acquire unique horse morphs. Though the Animorphs still don't get the endgame with the horse controllers. Only that there's got to be something in Zone Ninety-One that the Yeerks need.

The Animorphs go to acquire horse morphs at the racetrack and it offers some fun bits like them having to hide Ax which fails, then Cassie finding a horse to morph, only for it to be Minneapolis Max, the horse expected to win the race, which she does win, noting it's the only time she's won in anything athletic. But in the distraction, the others got the horse morphs and it's back to the Dry Lands to get some recon. They morph horse and mingle with the controllers who are speaking a language called Galard, which is being translated with some sort of universal translator. 

Cassie, Jake and Tobias go into Zone Ninety-One with some of the Yeerk horses who attack the soldiers, which really this book feels so damn silly at this point. They all manage it to the hangar, but upon seeing what's inside, the Yeerks seem disappointed and just leave with the Animorphs following. Visser Three arrives as we're getting near the end of the book, despite the Yeerks not really knowing what the thing is. Visser Three then tries to get the Animorphs killed, but they escape in time. Ax says that he actually knows what the device is that the Yeerks are seeing. It's not a weapon. It's not a space engine. It's an Andalite toilet. Yep. This whole book is about the fight for an Andalite toilet. Aww, poor Cassie got another filler book. And then Cassie arrives home with her mother thinking she was out late making out with Jake, so all told this night somehow could not get more awkward.

Cassie then realizes why Visser Three wants that alien toilet. Because it's still an alien device, which if it gets discovered could really screw up trying to hide the truth that aliens exist. Kind of puts a wrench in the invasion plan. So the Yeerks need to control some of the security, which coincidentally is heading to The Gardens the next day for a recruitment drive. Oh the painful irony. The Animorphs head to the Gardens, but soon get caught by Captain Torrelli. They manage to escape through the log ride, but head to the House of Horrors where it's dark enough for controllers to strike. 

Visser Three and the Hork-Bajir grab Captain Torrelli and start to drag him to the spaceship when they get interrupted by people in Looney Tunes costumes. Okay then this is definitely Six Flags. Visser Three decapitates Daffy, or at least just the mascot head. Cassie, in wolf morph, attacks the Hork-Bajir which frees Torrelli. With this plan foiled, Visser Three and the Yeerks make a run for it. And so the book ends with Torelli not being believed as the kids gave him fake names, and the Animorphs deciding to leave well enough alone with the Andalite toilet in Zone Ninety-One. 

The Unknown is back to filler form. Though it's more of a mixed bag than our last couple fillers. I liked some of the action, some of the weirder moments like the horse controllers, and the final fight is okay, albeit rushed. I even don't mind that this was really all for naught, though with the book ending with the toilet just being there, really felt like we really had to wrap this book up by 166 pages. So there's definitely a rushed feel to this book than most, which I do feel kind of hurts it in the long run. Like, not the worst filler, and it's kind of a fair comedown after our last book, but it's definitely one of the more "oh right, this one" books we've read so far.

It is an okay book for Cassie, no ethics issues with morphing this time around. Though honestly this plot could be given to anyone and it wouldn't have made that much of a difference. Though the book seems to go into some sort of concept of image issues and Cassie feeling less noticed than Rachel is. Like, even at one point she's mistaken for a boy, which doesn't go anywhere, but also feels like if this book was more about Cassie's concern over her image then it could led to somewhere. Honestly this whole book feels very "ideas not fully realized due to constraints".  But thankfully it's just strong enough to limp to the finish line. So, a just kind of okay book at best. The Unknown gets a C.

And since I've been doing something similar with Fear Street, I'll be adding an end list here because holy moly were there a lot of references in this book. Like, a lot. So, let's debut our reference section.

RELATABLE REFERENCES

 

Stevie Wonder

CDs

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Star Trek: The Next Generation

The X-Files along with Mulder and Scully

Mike Nelson era Mystery Science Theater 3000

Barbarella

Plan 9 From Outer Space

 The Day the Earth Stood Still

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

2001: A Space Odyssey

Noah Wyle as John Carter

Mountain Dew

Xena: Warrior Princess and Gabrielle

Tyra Banks

E.T. The Extraterrestrial

Looney Tunes

Cindy Crawford

Pizza Hut

Beavis

Butterfinger

Mr. Ed

Nick at Nite (written as Nick at Night)

Wal-Mart

Bugs Bunny

Daffy Duck

Yosemite Sam

Tasmanian Devil

Tweety Bird

Sylvester

Pepe Le Pew