The Forgotten

Disclaimer: If you've heard of Animorphs and you're thinking "Aww, how cute," maybe you should read my introduction to the first book to see how wrong you are.

THE FORGOTTEN

Animorphs #11
by K.A. Applegate

Summarized Plot:

Jake is having unexplained hallucinations of being at other times and other places. During the investigation of a Yeerk plot to cover up a Bug fighter crash at a grocery store, the Animorphs decide to steal the ship to help expose the Yeerk threat, but in the process end up causing an accident during a battle with the Blade ship that gets them sent back in time and crashing into the Amazon rainforest. There, they discover that the two Yeerk ships firing at each other at the same time has caused a rip in space-time called a Sario Rip, and there is only one way to get back to their own time while the clock ticks toward total annihilation. However, Jake discovers that actually, there may be TWO ways. . . .

About this book:

Narrator: Jake

New known controllers:

• None

New morphs acquired:

• Jake: Monkey (spider), jaguar
• Cassie: Monkey (spider), jaguar
• Marco: Monkey (spider), jaguar
• Rachel: Monkey (spider), jaguar
• Ax: Monkey (spider), jaguar

Notable:

• It's clear when the first chapter opens with timestamps that something important is going to come up regarding the time of day; this is the first book that has done this so it gets your attention.
• After flying out to the mission at the beginning of the book, the kids demorph and discuss their next course of action. But somehow at this point Jake is wearing a watch, which he checks for reference. (Cartoon physics: people wear watches in cartoons only if someone's going to need to know what time it is at some point. Then the watches disappear.) As they make such a point all the time of only being able to morph their skin-tight morphing outfits, having on a watch might be impossible, though watches are pretty small and pretty tightly attached to a wrist when they're worn, so it's possible that morphing a watch wouldn't be hard. However, this was never clarified, and having the ability to take a watch would have come in handy on a few missions. And speaking of which, Cassie uses strips from a tee shirt as bandages shortly after a morph as well, which makes no sense since she shouldn't be wearing a shirt that could be torn into strips if she's standing around in her morphing outfit which is NOT a tee shirt.
• The book mentions having to depend on Marco for some translation because the Spanish words he knows are close to the words the native population they meet is using. But Andalites are supposed to have a translation chip if they're in the military, which is how Ax is able to speak/understand English (supposedly). After hearing enough of the language, Ax's chip should have helped him be a flawless translator. Not that it really mattered since they understood everything they needed to.
• For the first (but not the last) time, the Animorphs meet natives in an extreme location who immediately and naïvely believe them to be animal spirits in accordance with local tribal beliefs. The tendency for this to happen with stereotypical "natives" has not gone unnoticed, and is taken as offensive by some. It's at least odd that nobody would consider these folks a security risk just because they were Amazon Indians.
• Another creature from another world--something called a Lerdethak--is identified by Ax when Visser Three morphs into it. It's a creature from the Hork-Bajir home world.
• This is the first time any morphs the group acquires are "undone"; because of the Sario Rip, the monkey and jaguar morphs "didn't really happen," so they don't have the DNA they acquired during that experience.

Best lines:

Jake: "Everyone okay?"
Marco: "Aside from the fact that I make myself sick?"

Ax: "I can take you to the monkeys. I believe they are close relatives of yours."

Next book: The Reaction, Animorphs #12