VISSER

by K.A. Applegate

Another good one! Like The Andalite Chronicles, it fills in a ton of backstory about the Yeerks invading Earth. This one jumps around between the present narrative and the past, because it's Visser One being on trial for multiple counts of treason, and having to explain herself- recounting how the Yeerk Edriss first discovered Earth and realized humans might make good host species, how they took their first hosts to explore the possibilities and learn about humans, how the Sharing was initially set up, how Edriss and her companion Yeerk went through several different hosts until Edriss ended up in Marco's mom, and so on. Half of this is Edriss simply telling it, the other half is "memory transfers" where everyone gets to view exactly what went on, revealing some details Edriss would have rather kept secret. All the time Visser Three is there- goading her and spouting anger and at risk of being put on trial himself, as Visser One takes every opportunity to point out his mistakes. At one point someone dumps a tiger and a bear into the group- as a distraction?- to make them think it's the Animorphs but later someone let the actual Animorphs know where they are and they face a real attack. It was actually cool to see the Animorphs through their enemies' eyes. Also to see how humans appeared to them- kind of a character study on the human race. As in The Departure, this one lets the reader see things from the other side, making Visser One not exactly sympathetic, but definitely more of a gray character- you can see why she was driven to do the things she did, but she readily displays her ruthlessness- for all she appears to have developed fond feelings for humankind (living among them in disguise for over a year before any more Yeerks came to Earth), she has no qualms about killing children to meet her ends (and that's just one example). Visser Three, on the other hand, remains thoroughly himself the whole time in this book- angry and blustering and bloodthirsty. Not one of the funnier books, but definitely intriguing and laid a lot of things out. Incidentally it was difficult at some points to tell who was talking, or who could hear whom using thought-speak though, when the narrating Visser One was communicating with her host or someone else, or they were in one of the memory replays- but I skimmed past some of that muddle regardless. As a trial it's all one huge farce, because in the end the Vissers evade the death penalty and carry on- with some warnings is all. If you're interested, do check out some of the other reviews I linked to below. Some of them go into a lot more detail than I cover here.

Rating: 4/5                      220 pages, 1999

more opinions:
Arkham Reviews
Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales
the Library Ladies