If this is your first time dipping into the Animorphs Re-Read, I strongly suggest you head back to the beginning and start there unless you’re already familiar with the books. Alternatively, check out the Animorphs Re-Read tag page for a list of every post in the series.

And we’re back with yet another Thursday Animorphs post! Does anyone even remember when these things went up on Wednesday? It seems like so long ago…

Before we get started, I’d like to direct your attention to this incredible Reddit thread where K.A. Applegate is asked questions and then answers those questions. She’s remarkably candid for a published author, which I think is awesome. Highlights include, but are not limited to:

• Confirmation that books 25-52 were ghostwritten. (Which you should already have known if you read this series/are a fan of the books. Interestingly, the series’ Wikipedia page has gone back and forth on whether to mention the ghostwritten books, with at least one editor arguing that there wasn’t enough evidence to support such a heinous accusation.)
• ‘Hork-Bajir’ is pronounced ‘Hork Buh-jeer’, which is more or less how I’ve always said it. Score.
• All of the long books (the Chronicles and side-stories and what have you) were written by K.A. Applegate, which I actually didn’t know; I just assumed at least a few of them were ghostwritten. This probably explains why they’re all so good.
• ‘K.A. Applegate’, as a pseudonym, incorporates both the woman herself and her husband. I always knew he was involved in the series, but I didn’t realise how great that involvement was. Applegate consistently uses plurals when referring to the writing process, so I guess they must have genuinely co-created it?
• Both Applegate and her husband started off as ghostwriters. It sounds kind of gruelling from the way she describes it

Anyway, that’s enough Reddit-summarising from me! Now on to Animorphs #14: Cassie’s Horse Adventures.

That's what it's called.

Cassie. Can’t tell last name. Brain aliens. Cassie x Jake 4 eva. You know the drill by now.

Remember how Cassie’s parents are both vets? Well, her dad wants her to go with him to see someone called ‘Crazy Helen’ who lives in the ‘Dry Lands’ because she has a ‘horse’ which is ‘sick’. I think Applegate missed a major opportunity here by not having Cassie narrate the rest of the chapter as an extended Cormac McCarthy impression. Although I guess it would be difficult to do an entire chapter without using commas. (Zing.)

Rachel, Cassie and Cassie’s Dad go to investigate Crazy Helen’s horse woes. It becomes pretty obvious what’s going on when a Yeerk crawls out of one of the horse’s ears. Clearly, the Yeerks were trying to infest some unicorns, but accidentally got a few regular horses instead. (Unicorns are really powerful, you see. You’d take over the whole goddamn Universe with a few of those things.)

Yes, My Little Ponies are in this post. I HAD TO.

Some Dracon beams fire from somewhere and Cassie gets knocked unconscious. She wakes up in Crazy Helen’s Crazy Trailer, which is full of alien paraphernalia. (Man, say that a few times fast.) Helen’s explanation for what happened is ‘exploding alien rocks’. The aliens are apparently kept in the nearby ‘Zone 91′ (cough cough) and…uh, put exploding rocks around, I guess?

The kids have a mission briefing session the next day, during which Marco makes some more incredibly dated pop cultural references:

“Excuse me,” Marco said, “but I do not use ‘Studboy’ as my screen name. Give me some credit. I use BaldwinBoyFive. You know, the missing fifth Baldwin brother. The really cool-looking one.”

I have no idea who he’s talking about here, but I do know that the days when you could impersonate a celebrity in some random chatroom and have even a remote chance of fooling anyone are long over. Real celebrities hire expensive PR companies to meticulously curate their online personae, thank you very much.

And look, it’s Tobias! At the mall! In human form! (Oh, judging by that Reddit thread, Tobias is widely considered to be the best character in the books. DAMN STRAIGHT.)

The gang goes to investigate the Horse Controllers (that is the most hilarious phrase) the next day, minus Jake because he has to celebrate his dad’s birthday. They fly over to the Dry Lands and oh look, another pop culture reference:

<Yeah, right, Agent Mulder,> Rachel grumbled. <Earth is the crossroads of every passing alien. We’re the McDonald’s next to the highway of the galaxy.>

‘Agent who?’ all the twelve year olds in the audience say, in perplexed unison.

Anyway, it turns out that trespassing on a secret government base isn’t the best idea in the world. Cassie, Rachel and Marco all immediately get arrested by some military police guys. Anyone want to give me odds on whether Marco will make a ‘getting sent to Guantanamo Bay’ joke here in the rerelease? I’LL BET YOU REAL MONEY LET’S DO IT.

They get brought into an ominous little room with a poster for The Gardens on a bulletin board (remember, that’s where Cassie’s mom works). They all give fake names to Captain Scaryguy, which leads us to yet another dated pop culture reference:

“Cindy Crawford?” Marco demanded. “What are you, nuts?”
“Me? Me? How about you?”
“Every guy in the country knows who Cindy Crawford is!”

I don’t D:

They turn into cockroaches and escape via Tobias Airlines, at least until he accidentally drops Cassie and she gets run over by a tank. Luckily, cockroaches are kind of hard to kill. Just as they’re about to leave, they confirm that The Horses Are Not Normal via some hilarious deduction. See, a bunch of horses do their horse business nearby, except one of them goes behind a tree to do it. It’s a modest horse. Which means it’s a Controller!

Adam West’s Batman would be proud.

Anyway, they go to a nearby racetrack to get some horse morphs (horse adventures what I did tell you), but of course, things go wrong. Cassie accidentally acquires and morphsa thoroughbred champion stallion called Minneapolis Max. Can you see where this is going? I’m sure you can see where this is going. Yes, she ends up in the race and I’m just going to come out and say it: somebody, somewhere, has written disturbing fanfiction about this. We’re just going to have to accept that and move on with our lives.

Oh, and she wins the race. HORSE ADVENTURES!

Man, I know jack squat about My Little Pony. I guess they come in all different colours? And some of them are unicorns? HELP.

Horse morphs acquired, they go to investigate Zone 91. The Horse Controllers (hee hee) have been fitted with universal translator speech synthesiser dealies. They’re speaking a kind of interstellar lingua franca, which lets Ax translate. Apparently they’ve been sent to investigate something in Zone 91, which they promptly do. The Animorphs tag along and discover that the military has an Alien Thing in a bunker, but none of them recognise it. It’s not a ship, anyway, and the Horse Controllers (XD) look depressed while leaving.

And with good reason! Visser Three is furious with them for not identifying the Thing In A Bunker and expresses his anger in the only way he knows how: by killing the leader of the mission. As you do. Then he tells his Hork Buh-jeer guards to kill ‘those other horses’, AKA the Animorphs. They escape, and Ax tells them that the Bunker Thing is an Andalite Dome Ship’s toilet. A primitive toilet, at that.

Whee.

They all go home, thinking that the entire endeavour had been a waste, until Cassie realises something that should have been obvious immediately: the Thing is a toilet, yes, but it’s an alien toilet, which means that the US government has a piece of what is undeniably alien technology in their hands. They know that aliens exist, something Visser Three would obviously want to fix. Based on a throwaway remark of his back at Zone 91, Cassie works out two things: that he’s going to infest the base personnel, and that he’s most likely going to do it at a trip to the Gardens. Why the Gardens? Because that’s where the base staff is going for a base-organised trip. (Remember the poster?)

Damn, that’s some quick thinking.

The kids all go to stop Captain Torrelli (real name Captain Scaryguy) from getting infested. The Gardens is split into a zoo and amusement park, and the Zone 91 people are going to be in the latter. Unfortunately, Captain Scaryguy recognises them all, leading to some humorous misunderstandings and also near death situations. They all end up in the House of Horros, where Cassie notices something odd: a fake Grizzly bear with a fake Red-Tailed Hawk perched on its head and fake Rattlesnake wrapped around one of its legs. Except they’re all breathing. And oh look, a fake Hork Buh-jeer!

The horse poop hits the fan pretty quick. Someone throws rattlesnake Ax at one of the Hork Buh-jeer, which is the best combat tactic ever. The whole menagerie of aliens and also some animals goes running out into the park and straight into a convenient fancy-dress parade, providing some good cover. What I love about this scene is how absolutely insane it all feels. Applegate has always been great at getting across just how chaotic things get when the Animorphs’ plans go off the rails, and it’s in full effect here.

They save Captain Scaryguy, thus proving two things: that Horse Adventures are the best kind of adventures, and that Friendship really is Magic.

I can't believe I almost forgot to include this.

The end! Come back next Wednesday (yes it will be Wednesday shut up) for Animorphs #14:The Escape. It has sharks in it.

(SHARK ADVENTURES!)