Author Country United States Series Animorphs #5 | Illustrator David B. Mattingly Language English Genre Science fiction | |
The Predator, published in 1996 and written by K. A. Applegate, is the fifth book in the Animorphs series. It is narrated by Marco.
Contents
Plot summary
Ax wishes to return to the Andalite home world, and to do so, he needs a ship. He intends to build a communicator to broadcast a Yeerk distress signal and lure in a Yeerk ship which he can then hijack. He goes to the mall to buy the equipment to build a communicator. He finds the food court and runs wild sampling food left over on tables. He is chased by security guards and, frightened, demorphs in the middle of the mall in front of many people. He, Jake, and Marco run out of the mall and into a nearby grocery store where they are chased by Controllers. They morph into lobsters and hide in a tank. They later escape.
Ax builds his device, but needs a zero-space transponder. Mr. Hedrick Chapman regularly communicates with Visser Three from his basement, so the Animorphs morph into ants and retrieve the Z-space transponder that he uses. As they are returning from Chapman's house, they are almost killed when attacked by ants from another colony. They are able to demorph in time.
Ax completes his device, and broadcasts the signal, but the Yeerks have changed their distress frequencies, and, sensing a trap, they set one of their own. The Animorphs are captured (in animal morph) and taken aboard the Yeerk mother ship, where Visser One is visiting. Visser One confronts them and her host body is Marco's mother, who is alive after all. The Animorphs are put in a cell, and they are freed by one of Visser One's Hork-Bajir; Visser One and Visser Three are rivals, and Visser One wanted to disgrace Visser Three. The Animorphs reach an escape pod and return to Earth.
Marco's father returns to work. Marco asks Jake, the only one who had previously met Marco's mom, not to tell any of the others about Visser One.
Contributions to the series' story arc
TV adaptation
The Predator was adapted as part of the Animorphs TV series, which aired on Nickelodeon and YTV between the fall of 1998 and the spring of 2000. The fifth book was covered by the fourteenth and fifteenth episodes, "The Leader" (Parts 1 and 2), along with plot lines from The Stranger. The TV episodes did not follow the books faithfully, altering many aspects of the characters' roles within the Animorphs, the events in the war against the Yeerks, and added plot lines that were not present in the books.
Re-release
Scholastic re-released The Predator with a new lenticular cover in December 2011.