The Ellimist Chronicles

Animorphs #47.5

by K.A. Applegate, Katherine Applegate

Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

He is called the Ellimist. A being with the ability to alter space and time. A being with a power that will never be fully understood. He is the reason Elfangor came to Earth. He is the reason the Earth now has a fighting chance. And though his actions never seem quite right or wrong, you can be certain they are never, ever what anyone expects.

This is the beginning and the middle of the story. A story that needs to be told in order to understand what might happen to the future. The future of the Animorphs. The future of humanity. The future of Earth.

He is called the Ellimist. And this is his story . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Fantasy, Childrens, Aliens, Middle Grade

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

also published under the name Katherine Applegate

Reviews

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ellimist doesn’t just meddle with the real life of others, he’s playing a game. And he’s lost many times before.


This reminds me a bit of the Stargate Atlantis episode The Game. It’s quite a strong story and it does give us some very fascinating world building on a whole other level compared to the actual series. The moral questions and the motives of the Ellimist are tackled here. As is said in the beginning by an unnamed Animorph: “who are you to play games with us?” That’s the question this book tries to answer. The character arc of the Ellimist is done really well. I love the importance of music in this story. The more real emotion in the song, the sadder it gets and yet it becomes a powerful symbol and motivator for endurance and hope in the face of hopelessness. Plus, it’s simply a nice treat for the fans to get an origin story for this important side character.


Though it does come at a cost. The thing is, other stories in the series mix the alien with the familiar. This one is completely alien, and for the most part not the kind of alien we’re familiar with in the series. Which already makes this story feel quite disconnected from the rest of the series. But what stands out most to me is that the Ellimist is like a god in the series. He’s an omnipotent entity who watches over the Animorphs. And the mystery surrounding him is a crucial part of his appeal for me. By fleshing him out more and showing who he is as a person, he is pretty much demystified. This hurts his appeal a bit in my opinion. The less we know about him, the more impact he can have in future stories.


I’m a bit of an outlier as most people seem to enjoy this one more than me. I do appreciate this as a standalone story though as there’s a lot to enjoy. And I like that this book is clearly signaling that we’re nearing the end of the series. Which has been a long time coming.

[Christopher Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the absolute best of all the Animorph books I have read. I cannot remember most of the Animorph plots or whatnot, but I will never forget the Ellimist. This book was actually life-changing for me just as a way to think. Doesn't matter if you've never read an Animorph book, this book will open your mind. A must-read. An absolute-read. An essential-read.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I meant to alternate Animorphs books more sparingly with other reading, but I've ended up pushing myself harder to finish them faster instead, like reading on the commute and at home (which I don't normally do). Because we're in the final stretch now, and I find myself just wanting more more more and to find out what happens next.

I hate gif reviews, but I feel compelled to include just one:



My feelings!! I'm marking this book under rereads, too, even though I'm actually... not sure I ever read this one as a kid? Nothing in it sounded familiar at all, and I wonder if I somehow missed this Chronicles completely. Either that, or it's fallen into that haze from the end of the series, where I don't remember much because I never reread them until now.

This book is complicated for me to rank.

As a sci fi novel, it's fantastic: insane worldbuilding in a way that reminds me of the creativity of Iain M. Banks: diverse strange species and biospheres, Singularity-esque developments, ancillaries like in Ann Leckie's novels, a battle destroying entire solar systems. For an author who didn't actually intend to write science fiction, Applegate is freakin' fantastic at it.

And the plot also contains sheer nightmare fuel, because it's horrific -- what Toomin undergoes on Father's moon is absolutely flipping terrible.

As a contribution to the Animorphs chronology and backstory, I'm a bit less sure. Even though I do mourn the loss of the mystique a little, I guess readers would have been even madder if there hadn't been any explanation for where the Ellimist and Crayak and their universe-spanning game came from. (But also, imo it begs the question: how in the world is he trusting Crayak that this is the last game? idk man but I would not take the word of the unholy offspring of a Lovecraftian horror and the Eye of Sauron. He does not seem like an upstanding gent.)

And it doesn't feel like an Animorphs book, because it is just so off-the-charts and interstellar and space opera-esque -- much moreso than the previous Chronicles.

But that said... War is still the key. War and peace. The Ellimist's initial war games, trying to win with the kindest solution. Being the brilliant loser (and is that not the perfect description for the Animorphs themselves, too?). Showing that, once upon a time, he was just an immature wastrel kid too, thrust into a harrowing circumstance entirely beyond him, and that he rose to the occasion. The importance of hope, especially stupid irrational hope against all odds, especially in the face of probable failure. Because that is everything the Animorphs are all about. They're his champions; without knowing it, they stand for everything the Ellimist stands for.

(More children, some live.)

A few extra-spoilery notes about the worldbuilding: I do miss the idea that there might be an entire race of trickster-gods, and that he's just one of them. Although I guess it's also an enjoyable irony that he's technically just one guy but his reputation has become mythic, to the extent that species around the galaxy whisper about him as if he's multitudes. So I can get behind that. I think, mainly, I don't like it tying into the development of the Andalites and the Pemalites. I understand the authorial urge to link everything together, to drop lil' easter eggs and appearances from the species you know and love and recognise -- but I also don't always like my stories being that neat and tidy and showing that the same forces were behind EVERYTHING in the narrative? I can't think of a good counter-example, but it's like the Spider-Man movies retroactively making Uncle Ben's death be at the hands of the Sandman. Some developments should just be sheer accident and stand on their own, you know? Because a lot of stuff in Animorphs is already fated to be, so having some accidents out there would be good. The Pemalites were fine by themselves. I also think if you were going to mention the Pemalites, there should have been some mention of Crayak creating the Howlers and exterminating them; it seemed like a pretty darn important round in their game.

ANYWAY. This is a fascinating origin story, and though part of me wishes the man could have stayed behind the curtain... what you learn about him is so fitting with the ultimate game itself, and he's had a long, interesting road to become the creature we know of as the Ellimist. Plus, at the end of the road, you don't just want to be game-pieces without any explanation behind our suffering; you want to know why. And the foreshadowing is strong in this book in general: Toomin's friend, for example, with his fascination with a game scenario featuring a parasite species, predator species, and symbiotic species.

The last page destroyed me. I went from "I'm okay, this is fine" to immediately crying in the living room next to my roommate. Those last lines, man. God. God.

This was published after #47 The Resistance (which is also when I chose to read this, though Goodreads places it after #53, and some fans argue for reading it before the series or after the series)... but man, can I just say? Applegate writing this book was so so so so cruel. The very first line foreshadows that one of the Animorphs is going to die. It is wrenching to have set it up like this, and to have set it up for this long, because now readers will spend the next several books wondering.

I've said this before, but: Just fuck me up, Applegate.

Also, spoilers for the ending and my thoughts on how it's hinted at: They do leave you with some clues about the death, through process of elimination. The Ellimist says that they were an accident, nothing special, and so I keep coming back to Crayak's you stacked the deck accusation. Which means it can't be Cassie (temporal anomaly), Marco (Visser One's son), Tobias (Elfangor's son), or Ax (not human). Which means it's one of the cousins, Jake or Rachel. Which is also fitting: they're your everyday heroes, the normal average humans who rise to the occasion. And it's so important to have these 'normal' characters represented. It shows that you don't have to be a special snowflake or born special in order to make a difference. It's who you are and what you choose to do that counts.

You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.

UGGGHHHHH I AM LITERALLY GETTING TEARY JUST TYPING THIS UP, UGHAGLKDFLKJGLKDJG. I am wrecked.

Favourite quotes below per usual:

The human child called to me. The human child was dying, and nothing I could do within the rules of the game would change that fact.

The human child, one of those who called themselves Animorphs, asked me to explain. In that final moment, the human wanted to know: Was it all worth it? The pain, the despair, the fear. The horror of violence suffered, and the corrupting horror of violence inflicted, was it all worth it?

I said I could not answer that. I said that the battle was not yet done.

"Who are you?!" the child raged. "Who are you to play games with us? You appear, you disappear, you play with us, you use us, who are you, what are you? I deserve an answer."

"Yes," I said. "You do. To this question I will give all the answer I know. And when you know me, you will ask another question. And I will answer that question, too. And then..."

***

"I'll take the Pangabans, if you choose to accept."

"Gladly," he memmed back. "You underestimate the value of sheer aggression. You're an idealist, Ellimist."

"Oh? Well, step into my lair, said the dreth to the chorkanth."

***

It was wrong to be bitter, but I was. Bitter at myself. I'd steadfastly refused any intellectual specialization. I'd told myself I didn't want to limit my mind by picking one particular discipline. Laziness, that's what it was. I was lazy. I was a day-dreamer. I was a juvie at an age when I could easily be taken seriously as an adult. The only thing I cared about was the game, and I wasn't even good at that.

I resolved then and there to change my life. To turn it around in mid-flight. No more nonsense, I had to bear down, I had to grapple, I had to dock-and-hold. I was going to do it: My shunt was going to burn out from the load of educational memms I would download. I could do it. I had the brains, I just hadn't decided to get serious.

Okay, well, time's up, Toomin. Make some choices. Make some commitment. Right now. Do it!

Only it was free-flight time. The others would be expecting me. I'd told Inidar I'd be there.

Wasn't right to just abandon all my friends just because I'd decided to change. Free flight first, then I'd explain to my friends that they might not be seeing all that much of me anymore.

***

Wormer started talking about a scenario involving a three-way competition among a parasitic species, a predator species, and a symbiotic species. He was the only one who had played it so we listened closely.

***

I said, "You know, the truth is that underneath it all, the game has a set of assumptions. If we could codify these assumptions we could win every game." I was quoting Lackofa and passing it off as my own insight.

***

He sighed again, grumbled inaudibly to himself for a moment, then, sounding like a person who is being forced to confess to a crime, said, "I have developed a morbid curiosity about your failures, Toomin. I'm a biologist so I have access to your DNA map. You are in fact one hundred and ninety-fourth in the rankings -- your loss earlier has bumped you fifteen slots."

"Ouch."

"But in terms of pure analytical intelligence you are very near the peak."

"I am?"

"Yes, and don't play coy with me. You know you'ore smarter than gamers who beat you regularly. You lose games you should win, not deliberately, but stubbornly. You're playing the game at a different level. Not trying to win, trying to win with kindness. Altruism."

I was embarrassed. Amazed that Lackofa had been paying attention to me at a level that I never suspected.

"Anyway," Lackofa said. "We have any number of brilliant scientists, brilliant analysts, brilliant communicators, brilliant theoreticians, brilliant physicists, brilliant techs, and brilliant astronomers on board the MCQ3. I asked myself what we didn't have, and the answer came to me. We had no brilliant losers. So, yes, I sponsored you. Now please shut up, I have work to do."

He closed his eyes and shut me out, this time for real.

Brilliant loser? Was it possible to be simultaneously flattered and insulted?

Evidently.

***

We Four-Effed: flew free, fast, and furious.

***

"This is not a game," Jardbrass said in a freezing voice intended to silence the uppity youngsters. "Yes, it is," Menno insisted, completely unintimidated. "It is a game, and the Capasins think it's a game, and if we don't play -- we lose. It's why they've come. They've come to play. They've come at our invitation."

Jardbrass started to speak. But no words came. He collapsed all at once. The hard set of his face, hi s determined expression, all dissolved. "Twelve crystals?" he whispered pitifully. "It cannot be."

"What does he mean 'at our invitation'?" Farsight asked Menno directly.

Menno didn't answer. He smiled at me, a haunted shadow of the cocky gamer I'd met at the Dance By.

I knew what he meant. I knew what they had done.

***

"Shall we immerse?"

"On the other side," he answered.

"This isn't real," I memmed. "You're dead, Inidar. You died a long time ago."

"True enough, Ellimist," he agreed. "The Capasin killed me. Killed us all. They're here, too, you know. Would you like to see them?"

***

But it mattered little to Father. Even the dead could be used, kept whole, their soulless brains made to function.

How many spacecraft had been drawn to this blue moon? Father was old. He had been old before the first sentient lit his first rocket.

"What do you want with me?" I cried.

Menno said, "It is lonely with only the dead for company. I want to play a game, Ellimist."

***

The pure memories, those that Father created out of my mind, were thin, paltry creatures.

They did only what they had always done. It was a shame I had never known them better. If my memories had gone deeper Father could have made them more amusing.

Where Father had the body and brain he could be far more creative. Aguella and I propagated. We had three juvies. But they were sad illusions, partial, incomplete: I had never paid any attention to young juvies. My mind could not create them, write them fully. They seemed to come and go at random. I would remember them and they would appear; I would forget them and they would disappear for hours or days.

***

He refused. Of course I knew he would. And I knew this about Father: His one weakness was his cruelty. I could use that. He would force me to play this game a thousand times.

Step into my lair, said the dreth to the chorkant.

***

I played a riff. Menno gaped. The audience sat forward.

That's right, Father, I've rewritten the rules.

I played of sadness. I played of loneliness. Despair. Love found and lost. I played of tragic misunderstanding and weary cynicism and defeat. I played of perseverance, endurance beyond all suffering. Endurance in the face of hopelessness, hope when even hope was a betrayal.

My adge spoke of every terrible moment of my life. It spoke of the loss of my people. The loss of friends. Losses and losses.

And yet, though I played so much sadness, the music at the same time denied despair. How could anyone despair while music was being played?

***

But the loneliness was another matter. I took refuge in creating subroutines, simulations of people. I tried to talk to them, tried to... But how can you really talk to your own creation?

How can you talk to a machine you've programmed? It's an exercise in narcissism. It's the beginning of madness.

***

He waited. He knew what I wanted to ask, but he would make me ask it of him.

"How many others... like this?"

"Not many," Crayak said. "No, often you've succeeded admirably. Your solution to the Mamathisk self-annihilation game was brilliant. Subtle. Effective. You redirected them to a life of productive peace. I had to go in and destroy them myself."

I had begun to revive a little as he described my success. Then, his last statement.

"You did what?"

"I reversed the effects of your meddling," Crayak said. "The Mamathisk reverted to cannibalism when they experienced repeated crop failures. A plant parasite. Impossible for them to stop. But as you know, cannibalism is a losing adaptation. The Mamathisk are effectively extinct."

"Are you mad?!" I cried.

"No, I don't think so, Ellimist. I'm just a gamer. Like you. But with a perhaps different philosophy. I don't play the game to save the species, but to annihilate it. I play the game of genocide. This galaxy has even more potential games within it than the galaxy I left behind. I will cleanse this galaxy of all life, too. Then, when no sentient thing is left alive, I will kill you, Ellimist. That's my game. Shall we play?"

***

I had gone there making sanctimonious noises about learning, never really expecting to learn anything new. And yet from these primitive, precivilized creatures I had learned how to defeat, or at least resist, Crayak. More children, some live.

For every race Crayak exterminated, I would plant two new ones.

***

I told the dying human, "Now you know who I am. What I am."

"Yeah. You were a kid. Like me in some ways, a kid who got in way too deep and couldn't get back out."

"A kid."

"You were trapped. You still are. I've been trapped."

"Yes," I said.

"Was I one of your game pieces? Were all six of us just game pieces?"

I considered that for a moment. Who is to say who is piece and who is player? How often had I wondered whether I myself was just a game piece in a still larger game whose players laughed at my pretensions?

"I did not cause you to be one of the six. You are... you were... a happy accident. An unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival."

The human was silent. No begging, no pleading for life. At the end, acceptance came even to this strong, turbulent spirit. "You said I could ask one more question."

"Yes."

"I can't ask if we win, I can't ask if it will all turn out okay."

"I don't know those answers."

"Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I... did I make a difference? My life, and my... my death... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"

"Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."

"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."

A small strand of space-time went dark and coiled into nothingness.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we are, the last of the Animorphs Chronicles books. The impending conclusion of the series feels a lot more real having read this, and not just because the book opens with the Ellimist alluding to one of the Animorphs dying!!111.

Despite the book being set during the final battle of the last book, however, this book was published following #47: The Resistance. Julie, my guru of all things Animorphs, did everything short of threatening me with time-travel–induced regrets if I didn’t read this in publication order. So I capitulated to her superior series-organization logic, and here we are. The Ellimist Chronicles. The story of everyone’s favourite nearly-omnipotent cosmic being of the Animorphs universe.

I remember reading this one as a kid and really enjoying it. And this one is dark. I keep saying that; I keep pointing out how “dark” the series as a whole is becoming. But, I mean … this one involves the destruction of the Ellimist’s entire species followed by the Ellimist’s transformation into a semi-gestalt cyborg that eventually migrates its consciousness into the quantum substrate of the universe. Maybe what I didn’t pick up on when I was younger was how, in some ways, this book is a really strong work of posthumanist science fiction on its own merits. Oh, and it has some real revolutionary vibes when it comes to the Ellimist’s interactions with the people from the Polar Crystal and their overly democratic zeal.

The posthumanist SF themes really stuck with me during this reading, perhaps because since my childhood reading I’ve imbibed enough posthumanist literature that I’m nearly sick to death of it. The Ellimist’s torture by Father and subsequent transformation is almost gory and definitely unsettling. Applegate skirts a lot of the common questions about what it means to be yourself and identity, especially as the Ellimist continually upgrades his technological components. On a moral level, is the Ellimist right to interfere with all these other civilizations simply because he has the power to do so? He might be acting in what he sees as an altruistic fashion. Or is he required to interfere because he has the power to do so? Arguably, Crayak’s arrival on the scene makes this a moot point, as he is now required to interfere if only to balance out Crayak’s interference.

All this just makes me glad I’m not a posthuman.

On a more disturbing note, I’m tempted to make a semi-serious argument that with this book, Applegate basically positions the Ellimist as the God of the Animorphs universe.

Think about it. So much of what is relevant to this series—the Andalites, humanity’s own existence, etc.—was directly influenced by the Ellimist at some point. The series has hinted and even, in some cases, blatantly stated that the war with the Yeerks and the Animorphs’ own existence are all components of this larger game between the Ellimist and Crayak. When you get right down to it, the Ellimist is the ultimate cause of everything in this series, the Prime Mover, if you will. Right down to visiting an Animorph at the moment of their death to essentially help them lay down their burden.

Finally, The Ellimist Chronicles gives Applegate a chance to show us the extent of the worldbuilding done for this series that we don’t always get to see in the regular books. There is so much material here. So much going on. This is a universe teeming with life, with species both spacefaring and not, and the entire series exists within just a small corner of it. This book is a lesson never to underestimate middle grade and YA novels just because their language might occasionally be different from adult novels: the imagination and planning that goes into these series is never less, and occasionally more, stringent.

This book was a lot of fun to revisit. It also left me feeling a little sad. Not just because of the reminder of the Animorph’s death, or the proximity this book has to the end of the series. More so because the Ellimist as a character has all this power, yet he is ultimately as constrained or more constrained than the Animorphs themselves. This is not a breathtakingly original theme, but it’s something Applegate demonstrates well here: with more power comes not just more responsibility but often fewer degrees of freedom too.

Speaking of freedom, next time we see the Animorphs’ greatest mistake come back for vengeance.

My reviews of Animorphs:
← #47: The Resistance | #48: The Return →

[Swankivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some people didn't like this explanation of the Ellimist's origin and how it got sorta preachy at the end, but dear lord, it was so creative and interesting, watching how the Ellimist kinda used to be an alien kid who likes video games, basically. He became this huge powerhouse of nigh-omnipotence but he started as a lost Ketran child, one of a race of people who end up losing their home and finding out how unique their species is when looking for a new one. I really loved this.

Notable moments and inconsistencies:

This book actually came out after The Resistance and before The Return, but because of its foreshadowing and the mostly irrelevant details of its main story, it makes more sense when read after completing a reading of the series.

Interesting that female gamers are rare on Ket. Seems the stereotypical gender roles are still in effect, even in the ancient past in deep space.

The Speaker says that the home crystal and another crystal passing this close to each other is an event that happens only once every nineteen years. Question is, how long is a year for Ketrans? It's unclear whether he's literally saying it's the length of time it takes for their planet to orbit their sun--which could be anything--or whether this is supposed to be basically a translation to humans' understanding of time.

It's not supposed to be revealed exactly who the Ellimist is talking to in the beginning and end of the book, but the Ellimist refers to the dying Animorph as "a strong, turbulent spirit," who also wasn't fated to be "one of the six." It'd be clear to most people reading the series that he is talking to Rachel, which is confirmed in the last book.

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's put it this way: I picked this up off a shelf at the library and didn't even move to find a seat. I stood there, right by the shelf, and read it until I finished.

[Mitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, the nostalgia. I'm not complaining about the state of YA book publishing now versus a bit more than a decade ago, but these books used to come out monthly and as a scifi addicted elementary and then middle schooler I'd read every single damn installment of this series, whether it was Jake's, Marco's, Tobias's, Ax's, or even Cassie's or Rachel's point of view. These books have aged surprisingly well too, rereading this one I'm amazed at how well the plot has held up. Besides a few dated pop culture and technology references, it's still good. Maybe because when these books first came out, they did things YA books before them didn't really do all or talk out, orphans, single parent households, gray morality and dealing with your bad choices. Now, any YA without at least some of these elements would be relegated as a children's book.

And of course, the Ellimist and his adversary, Crayak, were always my favorite two characters, the two chessmasters who were really behind the goings on of the Animorphs universe, almost like two sides of the same coin. Yeah, the point of the main series was always to see how Jake and company were dealing with the stealthy alien invader Yeerks, but I've always wondered who these two behind the scenes powers were and what they had in store for the universe. What's the Ellimist's game and why's he on the Animorphs' side? Who the hell is Crayak and is he really as evil as everyone says? How'd the two of them get so powerful? And this book reveals all their mysteries and grand designs, it's totally awesome for any true Animorphs fan, weird and strange, totally sci fi and satisfying all at once.

I'm sure I'm not the only one completely disappointed by how this series ended, no, I didn't think it was poetic or fitting at all, even if Applegate wanted to have the Animorphs go down fighting, but what a fun ride (ignoring a couple of the Megamorphs and every single one of the Choose Your Own Adventures, obviously). But sometimes I still try to get a Happy Meal with Extra Happy at McDonald's and reread this book that just gets better and better with nostalgia.

[Rachel from Friends · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not me crying over an animorphs book 😭

[Nemo (The ☾Moonlight☾ Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ellimist Chronicles follows the adolescent and later life of Toomin the Ketran – better known as the powerful inter-galactic space weasel the Ellimist – as he rises to power and meets Crayak, his equally unearthly arch-enemy.

The Ellimist Chronicles is one of the most glorious books ever written. It’s short, topping in at just over a regular Animorphs book, and unlike The Hork-Bajir Chronicles and Visser, it was never sold in hardback – which is a pity, because it’s just as good as the Hork Bajir Chronicles.

See the full review on The Moonlight Library!

[Choko · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** 4.44 ***

One of the best books in the series!!! Kind of depressing though....

[Trinity Bernhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Animorphs books. I read them in 5th grade and now 20 years later am reading them all again. This book offers interesting background on one of the most mysterious characters. Who is the Ellimist and why would he care about the human race?

The book starts with a heartbreaking scene as an unnamed animorph is apparently dying. To comfort them the Ellimist shares his story from the time he was a mortal being. An unimportant, young member of an alien race living long before mankind walked on Earth. He shared his interests, his hopes, and his fears. He spoke of tragedy as his species was almost completely destroyed. He shared their quest for survival and their failure. He then shared how he evolved from mortal being to something more. He explained his desire to help newer races and both his successes and failures. Finally be explained how he met Crayak. If the Ellimist can be called a benevolent god, then Crayak is his malevolent counterpart. Crayak decided his new purpose was to destroy all that the Ellimist would build. Until finally their battles drew their attention to a small planet inhabited with a fragile, but potential filled species. The site for their final game...

The Ellimist is a sad tale. Like the rest of the books it shows the physical and emotional costs of war. It is a story full of loneliness and regret, but still some hope. It shows that power cannot fix every problem. A good addition to the Animorph lore, but I missed my favorite characters in it.

[Trevor Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay Applegate I see you, you can write an adult scifi novel… I’ll be waiting

This is literally a tale about a god coming into being, and foreshadowing that I guess one of the animorphs is gonna die and when I tell you that makes me unbelievably nauseous and kinda makes me wanna cry

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried so hard to get into this but I just could not. The goofy names and slow plot and just the bizarre detachment from where we're at in the main series...I had to google the last half of this book. Life's too short to spend on books you don't enjoy and that was this one for me.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

   Oh, this book. Oh, this series. I was conflicted when to read Ellimist Chronicles, do I do it in order of publication as #47.5, or in the Goodreads order of #53.5? I opted for the latter, and with the massive cliffhanger ending of #53, I seriously did not like my choice. But it was too late to go back in time and read Ellimist Chronicles earlier, so here I sat and read Ellimist, the story of Toomin the Ketran, the last of his species. Toomin, the brilliant loser. Toomin, game name: Ellimist.

   The prologue gets you, and tells you almost exactly what you already knew was coming at the end of #52. Which initially made it all the harder to get into Toomin’s story – that, and all the world-building practically-info-dump style of the first fifty or so pages. But then, BAM! Toomin’s life and world are rocked to the core, and I was sucked right in completely.

   The building of Toomin’s entire society, and every other society and being we meet along Toomin’s journey, is so different, so interesting, so new. It is awesome science fiction, complete and thorough and imaginative. Plus as Julie points out, Father’s moon is the stuff of nightmare fuel. And that is not even the half of what happens in this book, though that might very well be the greatest tipping point in the Ellimist’s story. It is the rough equivalent of the Animorphs time-hopping using the Time Matrix, and how his/their entire lives were irrevocably changed completely. What was once is no longer, and what is now is what it always was – but now, they each understand the difference, they understand the war, the game. They understand what they are doing in the larger sense of the word, and what they must do if they are to survive, to win.

   Throughout the entire book, events, phrases, moments in time – so many links to the future of Animorphs, so many little foreshadowings and set-ups of how the Ellimist’s life will play out. Yet, still it was surprising. It was a rocky ride, but everything flowed, everything echoed. This entire book, in my opinion, is an echo of the things to come and which happened with the Animorphs. Almost too perfect, really. Despite all these echoes, and more importantly, I felt fulfilled with this revelation of “Who is the Ellimist?” So often a book or series introduces a nearly-all-powerful being, and when they go back to do the beings back story, it falls through, it falls apart, it weakens the being. But not The Ellimist Chronicles - no, the Ellimist is all the more rich, all the more nuanced, all the more impressive once we learn what he went through to become who we know him to be.

   (I have to say though, the Ellimist’s story begs the question for me: If this is how the Ellimist came to be, then how in all the universes did Crayak come to be?)

      You make what you can of the life you have, I suppose.
and
       You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.

Quotes and selected comments:

   The human child called to me. The human child was dying, and nothing I could do within the rules of the game would change that fact.
   The human child, one of those who called themselves Animorphs, asked me to explain. In that final moment, the human wanted to know: Was it all worth it? The pain, the despair, the fear. The horror of violence suffered, and the corrupting horror of violence inflicted, was it all worth it?
   I said I could not answer that. I said that the battle was not yet done.
   “Who are you?!” the child raged. “Who are you to play games with us? You appear, you disappear, you play with us, you use us, who are you, what are you? I deserve an answer.”
   “Yes,” I said. “You do. To this question I will give all the answer I know. And when you know me, you will ask another question. And I will answer that question, too. And then …” – page 1

   “You underestimate the value of sheer aggression. You're an idealist, Ellimist."
   “Oh? Well, step into my lair, said the dreth to the chorkant.” – page 7

   “You have to learn to avoid naïveté, Ellimist. It’s not the good and worthy who prosper. It’s just the motivated.” – page 12

   Pity is never very comforting to the pitied. – page 30

   [Lackofa said,] “But in terms of pure analytical intelligence, you are very near the peak.”
   “I am?”
   “Yes, and don’t play coy with me. You know you’re smarter than gamers who beat you regularly. You lose games you should win, not deliberately, but stubbornly. You’re playing the game at a different level. Not trying to win, trying to win with kindness. Altruism.”
   […] “Anyway, we have any number of brilliant scientists […brilliant everyone else, etc.] I asked myself what we didn’t have, and the answer came to me: We had no brilliant losers. So, yes, I sponsored you. Now please shut up, I have work to do.”
   He closed his eyes and shut me out, this time for real.
   Brilliant loser? Was it possible to be simultaneously flattered and insulted?
   Evidently. – page 33 – Ah, that most dangerous types of people: the ones who are too kind, who are altruistic. Also, this sets up quite nicely for the path Toomin/Ellimist’s life is going to take from here on out.

   As if in slow motion the face in the window turned. It had only two eyes, both forward-looking. Blue. Almost pretty. The blues eyes watched me, and then widened. What alien emotion? Fear? Derision? Amazement? – page 61 – Like Rachel’s blue eyes? I sense a link between this Capasin and in the future Rachel in the future Ellimist’s mind.

   “The only win is a kill,” I said. “That’s the game. It’s their game. They didn’t disable the home crystal, they annihilated it. Their game, their rules.” – page 82 – And so, games begin to become Toomin’s reality, further shaping who he will become as the Ellimist.

   People are what they are. They have their limits, I guess. I was trying to be philosophical, but it was getting hard. – page 86 – Oh, the echoes in Toomin’s life to the story of the Animorphs!!

   “[We’ve come] A long way,” I agreed. We had lost our world because the Capasins thought we were aggressors when we were not. What was the moral of that story? That we should be prepared for violence at every turn? Right or wrong, that was the lesson we had learned. We would never be unprepared again. – page 106 – Again, wishful, hopeful resolve.

   [After having been taken in by Father and playing thousands of games with him.] But it was more than the loss of illusions that motivated me to play. It was that I had nothing else. Nothing but the game.
   The game and the tiny flicker of undying hope.
   What a sad, desperate illusion. How ludicrous to cling to the hope of escape. And escape to what? Where would I go? What would I be? I was part of Father. There was no Toomin, no Ellimist. There was only Father.
   And yet … I still lived. I still played the game and made my own gaming decisions. – page 121 – Hope. The driving force behind so much. No wonder the Ellimist has a soft spot for the Animorphs – they remind him of him.

   You make what you can of the life you have, I suppose. – page 122

   But it was Aguella who was in my thoughts as I raised the adge’s mouthpiece to my lips. It was Aguella who made the music possible for me, and the lack of an Aguella, or anything like her, that would doom poor Father. You needed love to win at the game of music. – page 127

   Could I ask permission? Of a person dead for decades? It was a mockery. She would give the answer I sought. Her will was long gone, long since flown away.
   “I am making you a part of me, Aguella. Do you understand? I am downloading you, your thoughts, your knowledge. All that you were. Are.”
   “I was always a part of you, and you are a part of me.” – page 132 –(emphasis added) I can’t help but think of Tobias and Rachel and their love for each other. That, and the moral debate the Animorphs have about acquiring other humans/sentient creatures as morphs. (I also teared up here, for Toomin and Aguella…)

   Race after race. I emptied each dead mind into my extended brain, my biological-mechanical-synthetic construct, all free again.
   So much knowledge, so much. And yet, when the flood was calmed, only I was truly alive. It was all me. I was still alone. – page 144 – (emphasis added)

   Time meant nothing to me, I was in no hurry. But the loneliness was another matter. I took refuge in creating subroutines, simulations of people. I tried to talk to them, tried to … But how can you really talk to your own creation? How can you talk to a machine you’ve programmed? It’s an exercise in narcissism. It’s the beginning of madness.
   […] A Ketran – any sentient species – is only his free will. Freedom and sentience are inseparable. The captive, programmed mind is no mind at all. – page 146 - (emphasis added)

   It was not that I confused game with reality. I simply saw these two objectionable species as fools trapped in a pointless hostility. Didn’t I have the right to intervene? Of course I did.
   I was not Menno, I was Toomin. I was Ellimist: the brilliant loser. But now I knew so much more. My wisdom was deep. My powers were vast. – page 152

   "Are you mad?!" I cried.
   "No, I don't think so, Ellimist. I'm just a gamer. Like you. But with a perhaps different philosophy. I don't play the game to save the species, but to annihilate it. I play the game of genocide. This galaxy has even more potential games within it than the galaxy I left behind. I will cleanse this galaxy of all life, too. Then, when no sentient thing is left alive, I will kill you, Ellimist. That's my game. Shall we play?" – page 161

   I had been in space for millennia now. Thousands of years had passed since I had defeated Father. Thousands more years since I had last encountered another free, rational, equal being – aside from Crayak, and could he be called rational?
   I was lonely, desperately lonely.
   I no longer had a body in any true sense of the word. I was vastly more machine than creature. And now, in the depths of despair, with disillusion poisoning my mind, with a crushing sense of my own weakness, haunted by guilt, I craved the simplicity and comfort of companionship. – page 168

   In the end what I placed inside the creature was me. Toomin. The Ketran gamer.
   I kept the child me. Strange, but all these years later, all these battles later, it was Toomin I valued most. – page 169 – You seem to always value children the most – like the Animorphs.

   It made me sad, somehow, to really see myself from the outside. In my mind’s eye I was still a Ketran male. To any other eye I was a terrifying device of unrivaled power. – page 171

   I was no longer lonely. I no longer bore the weight of the galaxy on my inadequate shoulders. – page 177 – Hm. I think Ellimist’s little foray as an Andalite is what introduced thought-speak into their genetics. Which is all well and good, and could work for establishing him as a mythical being with the Andalites (maybe), but it is a little too perfect. Was there no one in the ‘verse we know who was not affected by the Ellimist or Crayak at any point in their evolutions? Other than the Skrit Na, that is, and they hardly count.

   More children, some live.
   For every race Crayak exterminated, I would plant two new ones. – page 179

   I aimed and fired [at Crayak] with everything I had. […] “You’ve grown,” Crayak sneered.
   “And you have not. Life has advantages over death.”
   “Only the most temporary advantages, Ellimist. Life is short. Death is eternal.” – page 182 – (emphasis added)

   Something was happening. Something…
   […] And still I lived.
   How much time had passed? Unknowable. I was no longer within time. I could see time as a series of interwoven strands, a trillion trillion strands of possibility.
   Was I dead? Was I in some sort of afterlife?
   Dead, no. The dead do not see, and I saw! I saw things no living creature had ever seen before. I was deep within the structure of the universe, I was within the code of creation.
   There was nothing left of me, nothing that anyone could see or touch. I was gone, and yet I lived. – page 188-189 – What a description! Just, wow…

   Seriously, don’t read this if you haven’t read the book, or #54. Enter at your own peril to the last two pages of The Ellimist Chronicles. I told the dying human, “Now you know who I am. What I am.”
   “Yeah. You were a kid. Like me in some ways, a kid who got in way too deep and couldn’t get back out.”
   “A kid.”
   “You were trapped. You still are. I’ve been trapped.”
   “Yes,” I said.
   “Was I one of your game pieces? Were all six of us just game pieces?”
   I considered that for a moment. Who is to say who is piece and who is player. How often had I wondered whether I myself was just a game piece in a still larger game whose players laughed at my pretensions?
   “I did not cause you to be one of the six. You are … you were … a happy accident. An unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival.
   The human was silent. No begging, no pleading for life. At the end, acceptance came even to this strong, turbulent spirit.
   “You said I could ask one more question.”
   “Yes.”
   “I can’t ask if we win, I can’t ask if it will all turn out okay.”
   “I don’t know those answers.”
   “Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I … did I make a difference? My life, and my … my death … was I worth it? Did my life really matter?”
   “Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.”
   “Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then.”
   A small strand of space-time went dark and coiled into nothingness. – page 200 –(emphasis added) *bursts out crying* Rachel, a strong and turbulent spirit. Rachel, the brave. Rachel, the strong. Rachel, the good. She mattered.

[Joe Kessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This final Animorphs companion novel is a risky departure even by the standards of the Chronicles sub-series, which has previously left the teenage morphers behind solely to flesh out backstory periods of galactic history whose species and major events are already known to the audience as deeply impacting the present. It was important to see those prequels up-close, in a way that doesn't feel as immediately evident for the Ellimist's origin. He's a nearly-omnipotent meddler locked in a universe-spanning conflict with his opposite, theoretically wanting to help against the Yeerk invasion but bound by the rules of his ineffable game to only effect the subtlest interventions. That's always been a reasonable enough concept within the genre of science-fiction, and learning more about how this particular being got to that position isn't especially necessary or rewarding to our understanding of the canon, beyond the tidbit that he was once a youth suddenly thrust into battle himself.

So this story is a bit adrift, vaguely paralleling our customary heroes inasmuch as any YA protagonist would, but largely painting upon a brand-new canvas. We're millennia in the past and lightyears away from anything familiar for the bulk of this plot, so it really has to stand on its own far more than any other release in the extended Animorphs saga.

Luckily, in the confident hands of author K. A. Applegate, the project still more or less succeeds. The space opera worldbuilding is inventive and fun, following the protagonist's unusual journey from daydreaming gamer to warrior, refugee, last surviving member of his people, tortured prisoner, cyborg gestalt, and on into the vast consciousness that exists beyond space and time as we've known it before. These shifts between "lives" are sometimes rather abrupt, but it's altogether a neat transhumanist fable (despite the character never being exactly human in the first place). And I do love how this book functions to open up the setting, recontextualizing the massive drama that we've witnessed from Andalites, Hork-Bajir, and humans in all their heartfelt and hard-fought blood, sweat, and tears as ultimately occupying one small corner of an unimaginably big reality.

Where the Ellimist's account falters for me is when it does finally bump up against that existing framework, awkwardly shoehorning in too many coincidental connections. In a crisis of faith, the narrator hides out among the residents of a random planet, who happen to be early Andalites. As he reemerges to thwart his eldritch enemy Crayak, it's with the fate of earth in the era of dinosaurs on the line. Earlier, he personally creates the Pemalites, a species formerly unlinked to him in the mythos. It's all a little hard to accept, particularly without the go-to excuse of a higher intelligence -- aka, the Ellimist himself -- that can usually be posited to explain away plotting contrivances. While no single one of these individual elements is out of place here, they seem odd as they stack up without any overt discussion of destiny or repercussions. We're apparently meant to ascribe no deeper meaning to the recurrences, which is not the most satisfying writing choice.

I also think the war with Crayak, which occupies the last quarter of the text, misses the opportunity to incorporate things already associated with it, like that creature's servants the Howlers or the Drode. The former represent a particularly baffling omission: previous entries have established that the Pemalites were killed off by Howlers, that the Howlers are Crayak's prized legions, and that Crayak and the Ellimist are rivals. This title explicitly connects the remaining side of that square by naming the Pemalites as children of the Ellimist, but doesn't so much as mention the shock troops opposing them.

Like many Animorphs volumes, then, this is a strong but not a flawless work, and I'd certainly call it the low point of the generally-outstanding Chronicles run. It's distinctive in focus, but it tends to pull its punches in the rare moments when it doesn't need to be. As much as I've enjoy the read regardless, I feel frustrated to recognize the shape of the potential better story we could have gotten instead.

All that's left to address is the framing device of its start and end, which reveal -- spoiler alert -- that one of the Animorphs is dying, and reaching out to the Ellimist for the boon of reassurance that the fight was worth it. Upon publication alongside #47 in the main series, that constituted a flash-forward surprise, although this book could probably be picked up just about anywhere, especially on a reread. Strictly speaking, the child soldier isn't identified by name or gender, but the context clues narrow it down to being presumably Jake or Rachel, "an unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival" (in contrast to Tobias and Marco with their family ties and Cassie as a temporal anomaly, all of whom were confirmed chosen by the Ellimist in Megamorphs #4). And I guess in a continuity with time-travel and alternate realities, we can't know for certain at this juncture that that death is genuine and irreversible. But it's a moving sequence nevertheless, and one that casts a dark cloud of foreboding over the upcoming final stretch, in addition to adding a touch more weight to the proceedings here. That's enough to cement a four-star rating, for me.

[Content warning for body horror, genocide, and gore.]

This volume: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★★

Volumes ranked: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles > Visser > The Andalite Chronicles > The Ellimist Chronicles

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[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

And now we've reached not only our final Chronicles book, but our last special edition for the series. We're in the end game now....literally, there's a section called Endgame. This time we finally get the lowdown on our favorite omnipotent sugar daddy, the Ellimist. And oh boy the results are interesting, and hard to talk about weirdly enough.

The Ellmist has been a mixed bag for me. When he was introduced, I thought he was out of place and odd, being a literal god and all. And his new few showings didn't convince me too much, but around when Cryak came in, I started to warm up to him. I saw what they were going for and it was interesting how their game operated. So knowing he had his own book, I became excited. Hopeful this would put the final cap on him and help me truly understand him.

It...both did and didn't do that. To start at beginning, the framing device here is that, one of the Animorphs is dying for real, and Ellimist shows up to explain his backstory after they ask for it. That's it. But the reveal that someone's gonna die is wild, no one knew at the time but spoilers it happens in the final book and I know who it is. You can even figure it out with a callback to Megamorphs 4 we get.

Anyway, it's hard to explain from there. Basically he started as just a normal guy, a Ketran named Toomin. He was a gamer with Ellmist as his game name, playing with others in a game of Alien Civilization. Yes, they even say gamer a lot. Yet at no point does anyone say the N word on stream, 0/10 for not being accurate.

Their world ends up ending and they must move on, and along the way Toomin becomes a god or something. This book is weird. I don't think I full "understood it" From the start they throwing out words left and right, both made up and real that happen to be obscure. The vocabulary gets bumped up again but now we have way more made up words they barely explain.

We don't get too much description of the worlds and such here, which I can't tell is clever given the cosmic cope it all, or just a bit weak. It works during the grand scale segments. This has a huge scope, like it takes literally about a million years to get to Earth right as dinosaurs existed. Wonder if it happened to be during Megamorphs 2.

It's weird, it actually was easier to plow through than usual for these despite it being confusing. The nature of it largely works, but it can be a bit too out there. Compared to the others, this lacks a big "wow" moment, or fresh reveal. We come close to that a bit near the end but it's not much. I don't think we needed it per say, Hork Bajir didn't have as much of that easier.

So it comes more down to the story and characters. We have yet another love interest for these and she's not much, it's not as focused on and but i think if it was gonna be a thing at all, it should be developed beyond the surface which isn't quite the case. As for the man himself, I grew to like him as we see his humble beginnings, and the wild things he goes through.

He's not super deep here which I guess makes sense given where he ends up. I feel like I get him better, and why he does this with the Cryak. It takes over 150 pages to get ho him BTW, which I didn't mind as much given what we have to do get there, and it was the highlight for me. That said, does it make me truly get the guy and see why he exists?

Eh, kinda? Not as much as we needed I think. I think it's almost there, there's pretty solid stuff as we explore some deeper bits. It just doesn't always go that extra mile. It's more there on a base level, we see how he came to be someone who wants to help out and why he doesn't magically fix everything. That said, some small bits made me see him as morally ambiguous, which this book basically ignores.

I think maybe we could have used more, to give this a bigger impact. Ah well. The scant few reviews I've looked at for this are split. I get why, it has enough to open your third eye with how vast it is, but it also can be a tad undercooked compared to the Chronicles. That said, while it wasn't perfect and I wasn't "into" it as the others, I did end up liking it more than I expect.

It's not great and not even super ideal, but it's good enough. The scale alone makes it worth it, it can be fairly confusing which can be an issue but by the end it works in expanding this universe. By the end everything we've been following feels so...unimportant it's wild.

Overall, the weakest Chronicles by far, but it has enough wild Sci-Fi stuff to make it interesting. It's easy to forget it's Animorphs, and maybe could have worked as a stand alone, which I see as a positive, generally. And...yeah that's it, hard to explain but that's how I felt with this one.

That closes the special books as we get close the end. Next week is our finale break, and when we return, Jake starts the final cycle with one I am...curious about. See ya then.

(This book has an ad for 48 The Return so I guess you were meant to read this after 47 but they came out the same month or so, so whatever, plus I like reading these in-between cycles anyway so whatever lol)

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hauntingly beautiful sci-fi book explaining the back story of the Ellimist, an advanced being that plays a big part in the animorphs series. Even though this book is meant for a younger audience and is my 3rd time rereading it was still hard to put down.

[Grapie Deltaco · Rating 5 out of 5]

We begin with a prologue involving an unknown member of the Animorphs dying before entering the origin story of the Ellimist.

The origins almost remind me of Ender’s Game but if the game was just playing God.

It’s an absolute fever dream of a novel with games of war and annihilation, absorbing minds, time as a meaningless and fluid thing, and pure power.

“I had been a wastrel Ketran gamer. I had been a survivor of mass destruction. I had been a Z-spaceship captain. I had been a helpless captive, forced to be a new type of gamer. I had evolved into something the galaxy had never seen before, a melding of many technologies, the minds of many civilizations, all flowing in and through a matrix of music.”

The epilogue hurts and fills me with dread.

CW: war, mass murder, violence, death, grief, slavery, murder, genocide

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow this makes the ending of the main series hurt even more, but I'm glad I read it.

[Orangummy · Rating 5 out of 5]

hey. hey. hey. what the fuck did that last paragraph imply. no. absolutely not. what. NO. WHAT.

ummm so this book was a trip! I understood nothing and everything at the same time. If a nine year old (target demographic?) read this and fully comprehended it....

I don't know what to say. Kudos to the author for pulling this off.
---

reread//

Last time I read this I was on 36 hours of no sleep and generally slept only about 3 hours TOTAL in an entire week. I think that is why I was struggling so hard to understand this book. Like, this was already intended to be kinda beyond comprehension in a way, the whole cosmic horror angle and all, but the no sleep realllyyyy amplified that.

Anyways I re-read it and THIS WAS FIREE... I'm so unbelievably sad, I remember the way my heart absolutely dropped at the prologue and the epilogue when I first read it, and the same feeling still carries. I loved that the entire book was structured around the idea of a game. Different games, different rules, but in the end, it's all still a game. The First Life was so sad, especially on a reread, because Toomin was genuinely just a normal gamer loser kid, and youhave the knowledge of how his life will spiral out of control eventually. The Second Life was so haunting, I did not realize how vivid the descriptions got ... And I cannot believe they managed to explain the whole "oh ummm I can't interfere teehee" ideology IN A WAY THAT MADE SENSE. like of course the ellimist can't directly interfere!

Ughhh ugh ugh ugh.

edit: after thinking about it and comprehending this book with a functioning brain I'm bumping up my rating :>

[Bon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure why, but I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as everyone else seemed to. It took me ages to get through this. The epilogue, though....not looking forward to that. Also, I know he can't exactly interfere and all that, but the epilogue really made it seem like instead of doing something to save whoever is dying in front of him he just shared his life story. Kinda funny, ngl

[Muffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry to be a hater but I am one book from the end of this series, the last thing I want is to have to learn about a bunch of new aliens that ultimately don’t make any difference in the story so far. The first page the Ellimist is like “I have three names” I’m like “oh Christ.” I was never that into the Ellimist to begin with so I did not feel the need to learn about how he used to be a teenage videogamer. Excited and nervous to read the end of the series!

[Amalia Dillin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one totally out of order, but I actually feel like it was a better ending than #54, ultimately. It gives you a really cosmic view of the greater conflict, of which the Animorphs vs Yeerks is just a micro expression, and a stronger sense of the Ellimist himself, who has "intervened" time and again to help them without helping them.

[Josh T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard this wasn't that great a book. It's not a 5 star, mostly because for the first while I didn't really care much about it or its characters, whom I wasn't familiar with. I read this after book 53, technically out of order, but it worked better because book 54 seems to take right off from the ending of this book.

This ending... wow...

[Isaac · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick revisit to a series I devoured when I was young.

I really enjoyed it. Applegate knows how to keep a plot moving, and her characters are deep enough to draw you in. In terms of pure story, I was inexorably compelled to read.

Thematically, her Animorphs series (as I recall) also tackled some significant issues. She wasn't afraid to explore the battle between good and evil in very (for a YA) confronting way. The reality of suffering and war were explored in as authentic a way as you could hope for in YA sci-fi. Whether the stories had the moral framework to handle that well is another question, and as a Christian I think not (more on that later).

This particular story is especially interesting. It tracks the journey of a youngling from an alien species and his journey into becoming an incredibly powerful being ultimately existing in a non-physical dimension of reality. You can't help but wonder if she's exploring the nature of God in what she's doing here, although from that perspective it is and has to be pitifully idolatrous (read Isaiah 46 to see what I mean). The Ellimist also has an equally powerful opponent in Crayak - who is in all things similar bar his inclination to evil (I feel his manifestation as an "eye" was a tip of the hat to Tolkien).

The big problem with this book, and the entire Animorphs series for that matter, is Applegate's worldview. Good and evil are ultimately presented as two equally powerful but opposing forces, and vaguely conceptualised at that. Good, as personified by the Ellimist, is merely presented as the idea that life, peace, and progress constitute the essence of virtue. Evil, on the other hand, is both present in the impersonal hardships of the evolutionary process and in the person of Crayak. There is no recognition that the real problem with evil resides in our own hearts. There is no concept of human guilt here, and thus no need for redemption. Just the unexplained existence of the struggle between the two, and the basic notion that good must win without any underlying rationale beyond conscience. Her impoverished conception of evil is a problem, and her notions of good too shallow to be of great use. It could be a lot worse, but the quality of her worldview coming through is not robust enough to be recommend-worthy for your kids IMHO. Life is too short, and there are other books they would benefit much more from.

All that said, one other great strength of this story is Applegate's willingness to explore the bounds of the possible. To my mind, way to many sci-fi books merely use the genre to give the story a good setting for action or imagery. The real power of sci-fi, to my mind, however, is that it provides a setting for exploring progress, hope, and the potential of God's creation. Good sci-fi is thought provoking, and Applegate does better here than most in the pop-YA arena I think. Given, she does it from a godless perspective, but it's still quite original, engaging and thought-provoking. She asks questions that draw one's attention beyond the mundane to a higher level. That said, you've still got to be willing to completely suspend any idea of credibility. The fantastical plot-elements in the story allow her to progress it well, and they are inventive, but utterly incredible (and in this sense perhaps it's bad sci-fi). I mean (*spoiler*), a giant seaweed creature capable of preserving biological matter from decay? The Ellimist's melding of body and technology? His incarnation as an Andalite? And: black hole + lasers and destruction = transcendence to a higher spiritual plane of existence? Fantastic... but laughable.

Also (*spoiler warning*), I was really annoyed by the fact that the Ellimist seemingly had the opportunity to annihilate Crayal (after he "transcended" and before Crayak did), and it didn't even cross his mind. I can accept a fantastic world on it's own unbelievable terms for the sake of a story, but when characters do dumb things it's just inexcusable.

Tempted to re-read the Animorphs series for old times sake, I know I'd enjoy them, but I think I need to invest my time elsewhere. This was still a nice trip down memory lane though!

[Wolverinefactor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rated this as an Animorphs book.

It’s too clean and tidy. I didn’t care for any of the characters. The different species introduced felt silly at times (YOU KNOW WHICH).

The intro and ending are the best part but honestly it feels more like a spoiler than a tease.

I was just bored reading this and I hate that it just makes everything a game.

In a sense I feel like the Animorphs have zero say or action they can do that’s free will. It makes it all feel preordained.

IMHO I say skip this entirely until done with the main story and read it curious after the fact.

[Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhhh.
Once I hit the second part, I could not put this down. The Father creature is one of the best sci-fi/fantasy creatures I've ever read about, and the motivation and backstory to the Ellimist is not at all what I expected, but it's perfect and so creative. Overall, this is an amazing standalone book, and the way it ties into the Animorph series is so cool.

But the prologue/epilogue is TERRIFYING

[Tim S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at least half a dozen times when I was in middle school, and it's still one of the coolest sci-fi stories I've ever read.

[Eric Wrightson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will always be my favorite book from this series. We get to see into the mind of the Ellimist, the very powerful being who helps the Animorphs from time to time. It really is a great work of science fiction.

[The Library Ladies · Rating 5 out of 5]

(originally reviewed at thelibraryladies.com )

Narrator: Toomin/Ellimist

Plot: I only read this one once as a kid, and now I remember why…

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That prologue! That epilogue! Just..nooooo!
There will be spoilers for the end of the series in this one for sure! You have been warned.

Bam. An Animorph will die. Just right there, in your face in the first few sentences of this book. I can’t remember my reaction as a kid, but it had to have been terrible. Especially since at that point the books were still being released so I didn’t know how many were left, whether it would happen in the last book itself or the very next one or when at all! Now, having a firm grasp on the few precious books we have left with dear Rachel, it’s not much better. And I had completely forgotten that these small bookend scenes were even part of this story, so that was sure a joy to discover when I picked this one up!

The story starts out in the nebulous unknown with a recently killed, unnamed Animorph questioning the Ellimist about the meaning of it all. Not having a succinct answer, the Ellimist lays out his story.

Long ago, he was born a member of the Ket race, an advanced alien life form that lived on crystal formations that the winged Ket kept in the air through shared lift duting. A young Toomin has lead a happy life of community and, importantly, gaming, where he goes by the gamer tag “Ellimist.” He and his friends regularly participate in a complicated game called “Alien Civilizations” which has complicated scenarios in which players try to control the outcome of alien races throughout time. In the midst of all of this, the Ket are preparing to launch their first Z-space ship to explore the greater galaxy. Toomin is lucky enough to be sponsored and drafted as non-essential crew for this ship.

In the months leading up to its launch, Toomin and his friends (he’s especially pleased to hang around more with the attractive female Aguella) visit another crystal colony where he meets another gamer named Menno. Menno describes how their crystal has recently adapted a democratic system of governance, doing away with the traditional form of following the leadership of an older member of the Ket. His mentality of chasing change crosses over to his approach to gamesmanship. Toomin is both fascinated and distrubed by Menno’s attitude.

As Toomin continues to learn about the ship and his impending trip into space, he and Aquella (also drafted to the crew) are brought into the secret that the Ket race had recently discovered a new species and part of their mission will be to reach out this new race. A few days before the launch, however, a mysterious ship shows. With brutal efficiency, it uses a host of weapons to take out Toomin’s home crystal, killing thousands. Toomin and about one hundred others happen to be on the ship at the time and so escape immediate death. Using a crystal shard, Toomin is able to take out the small alien ship, but as the Ket ship makes its final escape, they trap the now disabled alien ship in their force field. Out in Z-space, Toomin and the others discover that the alien is a member of the race that they had been planning to visit. They know they must head back to their planet to see if they can find any other survivors.

But when they get back, all they find are empty skies. They do manage to find one crystal however: Menno’s crystal that is using cloud cover to run away from the chasing alien ships that are leisurely hunting it. Toomin and the others land and meet up with Menno and the leadership of this crystal. They discover that Menno and the others, so proud of their embrace of change, sent out videos of themselves playing games in “Alien Civilization.” But the real disaster is they sent no explanation for what is being shown in the videos, leaving it to look like the Ket are a race of beings that simply play with the fates of others species for the fun of it. Menno and a few others make it onto the ship before the other aliens blow up that crystal as well.

Over the next 60 some years, Toomin and his crew scour the galaxy for a new home world. Menno, who Toomin makes his second in command to appease the Ket from the other crystal, pushes for them to accept their reality and adapt their own biology to become a land-based species. Toomin, Aguella (the two have now bonded into a pair but are waiting to have children until they can find a home), and the others resist this idea, insisting that they are beings of the air. As they continue their search, they discover a blue moon. Toomin heads up a crew of a handful of Ket who pilot a smaller ship into the ocean that makes up much of the moon. Once there, the ship is quickly destroyed.

Toomin “awakes” to find that he is the only member of his crew that is still alive (Menno and the original ship tried to save them after seeing the exploratory ship being attacked). He has been assimilated, essentially, into the living being that essentially makes up the entire moon and calls itself Father. Using plant-like tentacles, Father attaches himself to the bodies of all the beings trapped on his planet, using their knowledge to build himself up. Over the course of a century, Father insists that Toomin play games with him as a form of entertainment. Toomin continuously loses (something that he was also famous for doing back on his home world when he tried to play there, often focusing on trying to find the most moral route through scenarios). But at one point, Father introduces a new game that involves something called music. This new art form opens Toomin’s mind in a completely new way and he begins to win. As he wins more and more, Father retreats in a huff. While he’s away, Toomin reaches out and begins “downloading” the essences of all the trapped,dead beings around him, including his former Ket crew. When Father finally notices, Toomin has grown strong enough to over throw him and he does so, finally killing his captor.

With all the knowledge and power that Father had now in his control, Toomin “downloads” everything into his own mind and builds himself an advanced ship that incorporates his physical Ket body into it as well as creates a massive “brain” of sorts for his greater being to reside. He destroys the dying moon that was Father and takes off into the world. He wanders for a long time before finding his calling as an all-mighty do-gooder, interceding in the affairs of various civilizations throughout the universe to establish peace and order. After centuries of doing this, he returns to the site of his first “intercession” where he prevented two warring planets from continuing their conflict. He discovers that the change he caused to stop the war inspired one side to discover a new method of warfare that allowed them to completely destroy the species on the other planet. And then, without that conflict driving them, the winning species slipped backwards in technological advancement and is living a primitive life. As the Ellimist watches on in dismay, another all powerful being arrives who calls himself Crayak.

Crayak says he has been searching for this inter-galactic do-gooder and is pleased to finally meet the Ellimist. Crayak shares that he has an opposing goal: where the Ellimist wants to bring order and prosperity, Crayak simply wants to exterminate. And so begins another game, with Crayak racing ahead creating manipulative and cruel “games” with the lives of entire species and forcing the Ellimist to always play what turns out to be a losing hand. Slowly, Crayak begins winning and more and more life begins to disappear from the universe. Eventually, the Ellimist despairs and races away to a far corner of the universe.

There he discovers a primitive race of grass-eaters and he creates a body for himself and goes down to live among them. He calls these aliens Andalites and throws himself into his new life there. He marries a female Andalite and has a child, but is devastated when that child dies from a disease that he knows he could have prevented (though he has learned caution about how far he can/should intercede with the lives of species.) He is shocked when his wife comes to him later saying she wants to have another child. Over time, they have 5 children, two of whom live. It is through his wife’s vision of hope that he finally discovers a way to beat Crayak: where Crayak destroys, the Ellimist will create. Some may die, but others will live. He leaves the Andalites and goes about doing this, spreading life amount the stars. One of his favorite creations is a species called the Pemalites who he sets out to spread life as well.

Eventually, Crayak catches up to him, but by this point the Ellimist is even more powerful. As centuries go by, the Ellimist begins to win their battle of extinction and creation, with more of his lifeforms thriving than Crayak can exterminate. On this high of success, the Ellimist finally confronts Crayak himself. The two engage in a massive battle that takes place across the entire universe, crushing planets and civilizations in their wake. The Ellimist slowly gains on Crayak until, in a bout of over-confidence, he is lead into a trap and is sucked into a black hole. There, somehow, while his entire “body” is destroyed, the vast being that is now the Ellimist survives, even managing to gain control of new abilities like managing time itself. He continues his work against Crayak subtly but is eventually discovered. Now past the point of being able to be physically destroyed by each other, Crayak and the Ellimist strike a deal for one last game with a final winner and loser. It will be the last game and it will need to have rules. And so it has been playing out for millennia.

Back with the dying Animorph, the Ellimist ends his story. The Animorph knows that they cannot ask whether they will ultimately win or lose and the Ellimist agrees that even he does not know that. But the Animorph has one last question: did they matter. And the Ellimist says yes, yes they did.

Ellimist/Toomin: Oof, as per the usual for our “chronicles” characters, Toomin leads a rough life. He essentially has a few happy years as a child and then is thrown into a millennia of existential horror. From the loss of his entire home world, to a few short years (relatively speaking) of aimlessly wandering the galaxy looking for a new home, to witnessing the ultimate destruction of the sole survivors of his race, to being trapped in some mind game scenario surrounded by his dead friends for centuries, to getting caught up in another horror scenario with some random force of evil that tracks him down, to ultimately getting sucked into a black hole during his one brief moment of almost-triumph, to finally, another game that he’s been stuck playing for who knows how long. I mean, what part of any of that sounds like a good time?

In this light, we see how important it must have been for him to have that brief life span as an Andalite where he married and had kids. And even that was tragic, with the loss of his kids, while knowing that he could have saved them!

Of course, the running theme of the book is around his being a brilliant loser, so we have to see him do a lot of just that. And the story does do a good job of highlighting the importance of those few relationships he had to building up his identity and giving him enough strength to persist in what can often feel like foolish optimism in the face of impossible odds. It’s also interesting see all of this “losses” in the light that, from our perspective, we’ve only seen the Ellimist come out ahead, winning all of the smaller skirmishes that he’s been involved in with the Animorphs.

Poor, doomed Animorph: In the prologue, there’s really no clues as to who this Animorph could be. I’d say be the way he/she is written to speak, we can pretty easily write off Ax and Cassie, but other than that, the remaining four would all work. But then once you get to the epilogue, it gets narrowed down quite a bit. The Ellimist refers to the fact that this Animorph wasn’t one of the one he’s selected, but a lucky addition. From what we know from the fourth Megamorphs book, that leaves us with either Rachel or Jake. And, I guess, you could probably make a reasonable guess that Jake wouldn’t be the one to be killed off since that would essentially end the series in a lot of ways. So, without being told as much, by the end of the book, I think it would be fairly reasonable to be confident that Rachel is the going to be the one to go. And, obviously, we know that’s the case. I don’t remember making this connection as a kid, but I think I was so busy being in denial about the whole thing that I didn’t spend much time really thinking about it and putting the pieces together.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: There are quite a few bad body horror moments in this book, really. But the worst has to be Father and the way that he is essentially a living graveyard, with his tentacles twisting in and out of the millions of dead beings trapped on his surface. Toomin’s brief looks into reality (when he’s not pulled in the gaming mind zone with Father) are pretty stark. He’s surrounded by his dead friends, some of whom are torn up by their deaths, and he can see the tentacles going through his own original body as well. Pulling himself out of all this when he finally escapes is pretty gross, too.

Couples Watch!: We see Toomin/Ellimist form two major relation
If Only Visser Three had Mustache to Twirl: Crayak is obviously the primary villain in this book, but in some ways I feel like we almost got more from Father than from him. At least with Father, by the end, we understood what he was: essentially a moon-sized sponge the built itself off everything that was caught in it. His motivations were also clear. Crayak…is just kind of evil for evil’s sake? And the main problem in creating an entire book that gives a backstory to an all-powerful, godlike character is that it raises a lot of questions about how another can also exist. There were millions upon millions upon millions of odds that had to play out just right to end up with the Ellimist gaining the abilities he had by the end. It’s hard to imagine a similar order of events playing out for the creation of Crayak. And, if so, I’m just as curious about those as I was am about the Ellimist, if not more so. Not only how did he become as powerful as he was, but why does he have the destructive goals that he does? It all just raises more questions than it answers, ultimately, and Crayak really exemplifies the worst part of this.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Like I said, the “chronicles” characters always have a tragic story it seems, and the same goes for this. I mean, it’s pretty hard to choose a crying moment when you have genocide and then the loss of not one but two spouses. I think though that the saddest part has to go to the loss of his first Andalite child. Not only is the loss of a child horribly tragic, but you have to add that on to the fact that the Ellimist knows that he could have easily prevented the disease that killed his child. And he’s having to choose not to do this. And, of course, this tragedy leads to his greatest realization about how to beat Crayak, by putting his weight behind creation in the face of destruction.

What a Terrible Plan, Guys!: I mean, the worst plan has to be Menno’s. I have to think that Applegate pulled inspiration from Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” with the whole misunderstanding of aggression between alien species and how that leads to a war.

We had lost our world because the Capasins thought we were aggressors when we were not.

But man, isn’t it fairly obvious that blasting out videos of your species essentially playing god with entire civilizations and worlds without any explanation that it’s just a game is just a terrible idea?? And it’s definitely interesting that more aliens than just the ones that conquered the Kets must have seen these videos, because this is the exact perception that Ax has about the “Ellimists” as a species when they first encounter the Ellimist: that they’re all-powerful gods that play with other species just for the fun of it.

Favorite Quote:

This quote highlights both the arrogance at the heart of what gets the Ellimist in trouble at various points throughout the story, but still, even at the end, the driving force that moves him as he plays out his “game” with Crayak.

Boldness allied with restraint and a minimalist aesthetic, all in the service of moral certainties: that peace was better than war, that freedom was better than slavery, that knowledge was better than ignorance. Oh, yes, the galaxy would be a wonderful place under my guidance.

Scorecard: Yeerks 12, Animorphs 15

No change!

Rating: I really liked re-reading this book. Mostly because it read so differently this time around as it did as a kid. When I read it the first time, I was pretty not into it to be honest. So much so, that I was actually dreading reading it this go around, as all I could remember was being extremely bored. And really, I can see why I didn’t love it as a kid. This is the most “hard sci-fi” book in the entire series. Not only do we have a ton of alien species thrown at us, with very little explanation for them all, but there are a lot of “high concept” theories being tossed around throughout the story. It’s less one of action and what happens, and more the slow moral development of this godlike character’s approach to creation, destruction, and balance. Expand this book out a bit more, and it would fit in perfectly in the adult science fiction section at the bookstore. But as a kid, there was not enough from our main characters and much of the greater questions and theories either went over my head or were simply not interesting to me at that point.

I do still question whether it really adds something to the Animorphs series as a whole. Like I said, it’s only a few steps away from being a good stand-alone science fiction novel on its own. But as part of this series? I’m not convinced. In many ways, I think it introduces more questions than it answers and there’s almost too much “neatness” in the way that other aspects of the series are all tied together with the Ellimist’s journey (his creation of the Pemalites, his time as an Andalite, etc.). Bitter moment: the fact that this book exists makes me even more angry about the introduction of “the One” in the final book and the weirdness of whatever other godlike creature was at work in Jake’s book a few books back during his period spent in an alternate universe where the Yeerks had won.

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(Full review on blog)