Name: Animorphs Author: K. A. Applegate Sub-genre: SF Premise: A group of young teens in 90s USA get animal shapeshifting powers to protect Earth from a brain-stealing species of slugs known as Yeerks. Middle-grade series that at first may seem like "Baby-Sitters' Club" levels of "status quo is god," but is full of body horror from the start, and quickly gets into increasingly dark themes about the horrors of war from all sides. Length: ...54 small paperbacks with like ten other spinoffs BUT the purpose of this post is not to convince you to read the entire thing, but rather, to highlight a few relationships in the tag set featuring minor characters and give you the tl;dr of which books to try if you're interested in those dynamics. (There should be PDF copies of the books floating around online and the author has given her unofficial approval at having them circulate this way, let me know if you're having trouble finding anything.)
Aftran 942 & or / Cassie: Cassie is the team's best morpher, a nature-lover and somewhat of a pacifist (inasmuch as you can be when fighting a secret war); Aftran is a rank-and-file Yeerk assigned to the young daughter of a rich banker. Relevant books: 19, 29 Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan/Dak Hamee: Aldrea is an Andalite (ostensibly the Yeerks' enemies and, indirectly, the humans' allies, though it's more complicated than the one-liner) the daughter of an idealistic officer who enabled the Yeerks to have interstellar spaceflight. Dak is a Hork-Bajir (a species that look physically intimidating but are actually pleasant herbivores, and are caught in the crossfire of the war), who is much more verbally intelligent than many of his peers. Relevant books: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles Alloran-Semitur-Corrass / Visser Three|Esplin 9466: Alloran is an Andalite (former officer and sometimes war-criminal); Visser Three is the Yeerk who infests him, the only Yeerk to have access to an Andalite body and morphing technology. ("Esplin 9466" is his given name, "Visser Three" is his title.) Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, maybe #8. David/Marco: Marco is the pragmatic strategist and also funny guy of the team; David is an opportunistic new kid who stumbles across the morphing device and becomes another Animorph, briefly. Relevant books: 20, 21, 22, 48 Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul/Loren: Elfangor is the Andalite who gives the kids their morphing abilities (and is promptly killed off ~40 pages into book 1). Loren is a human who was kidnapped by stereotypical "little green men" aliens and rescued/dragged into the broader conflict by Elfangor in the pre-canon timeframe. Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles Eva & Marco: Eva is Marco's mom, who disappeared and was presumed dead a few years before the story starts; Marco quickly learns that she is the host body for Visser One, a high-ranking Yeerk official. Relevant books: 5, 15, 30, 35, "Visser," 45. ("Visser" is from Visser One's POV and features a little more Eva interiority, the earlier Marco books mostly display her in flashback.) Melissa Chapman/Rachel: Rachel is the risk-taker and "warrior princess" of the team; in some ways she can be stereotypically feminine, but the war reveals her intensely combative side. Melissa is an old friend of hers from the gymnastics team; her parents are both controllers. Relevant books: 2 Alloran-Semitur-Corrass & Eva. See above: both have experience as the hosts of high-ranking Vissers.
...okay this was likely tl;dr but if you've ever been curious about this crazy fandom, hopefully there's a trope or two here that whets your appetite!
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Author: K. A. Applegate
Sub-genre: SF
Premise: A group of young teens in 90s USA get animal shapeshifting powers to protect Earth from a brain-stealing species of slugs known as Yeerks. Middle-grade series that at first may seem like "Baby-Sitters' Club" levels of "status quo is god," but is full of body horror from the start, and quickly gets into increasingly dark themes about the horrors of war from all sides.
Length: ...54 small paperbacks with like ten other spinoffs BUT the purpose of this post is not to convince you to read the entire thing, but rather, to highlight a few relationships in the tag set featuring minor characters and give you the tl;dr of which books to try if you're interested in those dynamics. (There should be PDF copies of the books floating around online and the author has given her unofficial approval at having them circulate this way, let me know if you're having trouble finding anything.)
Aftran 942 & or / Cassie: Cassie is the team's best morpher, a nature-lover and somewhat of a pacifist (inasmuch as you can be when fighting a secret war); Aftran is a rank-and-file Yeerk assigned to the young daughter of a rich banker. Relevant books: 19, 29
Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan/Dak Hamee: Aldrea is an Andalite (ostensibly the Yeerks' enemies and, indirectly, the humans' allies, though it's more complicated than the one-liner) the daughter of an idealistic officer who enabled the Yeerks to have interstellar spaceflight. Dak is a Hork-Bajir (a species that look physically intimidating but are actually pleasant herbivores, and are caught in the crossfire of the war), who is much more verbally intelligent than many of his peers. Relevant books: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
Alloran-Semitur-Corrass / Visser Three|Esplin 9466: Alloran is an Andalite (former officer and sometimes war-criminal); Visser Three is the Yeerk who infests him, the only Yeerk to have access to an Andalite body and morphing technology. ("Esplin 9466" is his given name, "Visser Three" is his title.) Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, maybe #8.
David/Marco: Marco is the pragmatic strategist and also funny guy of the team; David is an opportunistic new kid who stumbles across the morphing device and becomes another Animorph, briefly. Relevant books: 20, 21, 22, 48
Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul/Loren: Elfangor is the Andalite who gives the kids their morphing abilities (and is promptly killed off ~40 pages into book 1). Loren is a human who was kidnapped by stereotypical "little green men" aliens and rescued/dragged into the broader conflict by Elfangor in the pre-canon timeframe. Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles
Eva & Marco: Eva is Marco's mom, who disappeared and was presumed dead a few years before the story starts; Marco quickly learns that she is the host body for Visser One, a high-ranking Yeerk official. Relevant books: 5, 15, 30, 35, "Visser," 45. ("Visser" is from Visser One's POV and features a little more Eva interiority, the earlier Marco books mostly display her in flashback.)
Melissa Chapman/Rachel: Rachel is the risk-taker and "warrior princess" of the team; in some ways she can be stereotypically feminine, but the war reveals her intensely combative side. Melissa is an old friend of hers from the gymnastics team; her parents are both controllers. Relevant books: 2
Alloran-Semitur-Corrass & Eva. See above: both have experience as the hosts of high-ranking Vissers.
...okay this was likely tl;dr but if you've ever been curious about this crazy fandom, hopefully there's a trope or two here that whets your appetite!