The Attack (novel)

''The Attack'' is the 26th book in the ''Animorphs'' series, written by K.A. Applegate. It has the distinction of being the last book in the series written by Applegate on a regular schedule; with '' The Separation'', the final two books in the regular series; '' The Answer'' and '' The Beginning'', two Mega morphs books; '' Elfangor's Secret'' and '' Back to Before'', and the chronicles; '' Visser'', and ''The Ellimist Chronicles'' being the only other Anamorphs related books written by her after this was published. It is narrated by a character named Jake.

Plot summary

When the Anamorphs attend a performance of ''The Lion King'' at a school assembly, the Ellimist freezes time and appears to enlist their aid. He tells them there is another force as powerful as him, the Crayak. The Ellimist reveals that this creature is the blood-red eye Jake saw when the yeerk in his head died in the sixth book, '' The Capture''.

The Ellimist tells the kids that when the Crayak first appeared, the two of them waged a war which destroyed a tenth of the galaxy. They realized their fight needed to be much more subtle. That is why the Ellimist is only allowed or only allows himself to give the Animorphs tiny bits of help so far.

The Crayak is targeting another race, called the Iskoort, and that interferes with the Ellimist's concealed agenda. The fate of the Iskoort will be determined through a proxy battle with rules of engagement. The Crayak and the Ellimist will each choose seven combatants to face off on the Iskoort homeworld. Crayak has chosen seven of his shock troops, the Howlers, members of the race which destroyed the Pemalites.

The Animorphs choose Erek King as their seventh, and they are taken to the Iskoort world, huge metropolis miles above the ground. While the Iskoort turns out to be bizarre and grating, they are not actually evil. The Animorphs and Erek enlist a young Iskoort trader named Guide to show them around.

Eventually, they run into one of the Howlers. Even alone, it proves to be completely superior in battle. They barely survive the fight, while the Howler quickly recovers from its injuries. Regrouping, they buy copies of Howler's memories with Guide's assistance. (Ax determines that the Iskoort homeworld is sufficiently isolated from Yeerk influence for this transfer of information to be of negligible risk to Animorph secrecy on Earth.) Erek watches the purchased Howler memories, revealing all the massacres the Howlers have committed. They determine that the Howlers were created by Crayak, and that they have collective memories, giving them each thousand of years of battle experience. There are no memories of the Howlers ever being defeated.

The Animorphs find a new safehouse as Guide mentions a personal errand: A function of Iskoort physiology requires the Iskoort to separate into two halves, the Isk, the body, and a slug-like entity, the Yoort. The guide continues to explain that every three days, Iskoort must separate so the Yoort can feed. Upon recognition of the similarities to the Yeerks, chaos ensues, interrupting Guide, and violence is narrowly averted. The guide explains early Iskoort history, closely resembling the Yeerks' current existence of conquering and enslaving alien races. The Iskoort ancestors disliked their evolved biology of parasitism, instead employing genetic engineering to create a primary host, the Isk, and additionally altered Yoort physiology to become true symbiotes in order to maintain the established standard of living but removing the necessary violence. At this point, the relevance of the Iskoort to both the Ellimist and the Crayak is revealed. Should the Yeerks ever interact with the Iskoort, the Yeerks would learn of the possibility for nonviolent existence. Since the Yeerks are conquerors, the desired nonviolence of some Yeerks and dissidence within the Yeerk Empire would delay Crayak's goal of dictatorship over the galaxy and ultimately, the universe. Even worse (in Crayak's view), the Yeerks could abandon their current imperialistic nature, forcing Crayak to find new conquerors to unite the galaxy under his rule.

After several narrow escapes, Jake and a Howler both fall off a building towards the ground below. Jake acquires the Howler and quickly morphs to peregrine falcon, pulling to safety with a spiteful quip as the Howler plummets to its death. Back atop, Jake reunites with the others. Jake and Cassie run to each other and kiss, prompting Rachel to say that "it's about time".

Jake morphs the Howler under guard with the others under strict orders to kill him if he loses control to the instincts of a killer created by Crayak. He finds no such things. Instead, he discovers that Howlers have the personalities of little children: the Howlers consider their battles to be fun and exciting games and have no perception that they are hurting real people and annihilating entire civilizations. In addition, they realize that while the Howlers' collective memory shows no memories of ever being defeated, it is unrealistic to believe that the Howlers have been at war for thousands of year without ever losing. They deduce that Crayak must intervene when the Howlers are in danger of losing in order to prevent their collective memory from being tainted.

The Animorphs, along with Erek and Guide make their own memory recordings. When the Howlers next attack, the Animorphs use Jake in Howler morph to stun one of them and force the entire combined memories of the eight of them (the Animorphs plus Erek and Guide) into the Howlers, along with the knowledge that the non-Howlers are real beings. Crayak is forced to destroy all six Howlers before the memories can contaminate the collective memory. The Animorphs win the standoff on behalf of the Ellimist.

The Ellimist transports the Animorphs to n-dimensional space in order to talk with Crayak face-to-face in a way that the Animorphs can see. Crayak concedes defeat and agrees that the Iskoort will live. Jake morphs the Howler in order to determine the effectiveness of the Animorphs' "memory contamination" attack. He finds nothing in the collective Howler memory relating to the Iskroot homeworld; however, a single incident has penetrated the collective memory: that of Jake and Cassie kissing.

Taking his warriors back to Earth, the Ellimist talks with the Animorphs further. He reveals that in a few months' time, on the next Howler raid, the Howlers will attempt to kiss their targets. The contaminated Howlers are no longer useful as Crayak's shock troops. The Ellimist also reveals that in three hundred years' time, the Iskoort will meet the Yeerks.

The following night, Jake tries and fails to turn his dreams from the Howler he sent to its doom.

Morphs

{{DEFAULTSORT:Attack
Animorphs books
1999 American novels
1999 science fiction novels
Novels set on fictional planets
Novels about genetic engineering
Fiction about interracial romance
Fiction about death games
Hive minds in fiction