A Question About The Animorphs

[Super Hero Guy]

I've been getting back into The Animorphs lately, and I ws wondering. You know how they always say they don't know whether their family members are controllers, well, why didn't they ever have Ax or Tobias follow their parents around (disguised in morphs of course) for three days and see if they ever disappeared into a Yeerk Pool?

[ocelotrevs]

When did they say that. They knew that Tom (Jake's brother) was a controller. This came out in the first book. When he got freed but went back to rough house The Sharing, but got reinfested.


I dunno how far you've gotten, so I won't spoil it for. But if you want more details I can give them to you.

[Super Hero Guy]

Details are great. I think its in the fourth book Cassie mentions she can't tell her parents because even though she doubts it they could be Controllers.

[Chevan]

I think part of the danger wasn't just whether they were Controllers at that time, but that they might be Controllers in the future. If they were ever captured, and they knew about their son/daughter's abilities, it's game over.

[Silent Phantom]

Did this series ever end? I use to read all of them, but stopped after around #30.

[MKTerra]

Did this series ever end? I use to read all of them, but stopped after around #30.It did end, around #52 or so IIRC. It... wasn't such a great ending, though.

[Silent Phantom]

It did end, around #52 or so IIRC. It... wasn't such a great ending, though.

Darn, I really liked it. Despite the ending, is it worth buying the rest of the series?

[MKTerra]

Darn, I really liked it. Despite the ending, is it worth buying the rest of the series?From what little I remember, I'd say it was pretty good right up till the endgame, yeah :)

[ocelotrevs]

MKTerra got it right
From what little I remember, I'd say it was pretty good right up till the endgame, yeah :)

I thought that as well, missed quite a few issues, because I mainly borrowed them from the library, but most of the last books of the series weren't that great.

K.A. Applegate started another series after Animorphs ended called Remnants.
I kinda left that after a few issues, but it seemed ok.

[Solaris]

I gave up on Animorphs after maybe book 12 (I was reading my kids' copies) because it looked like she was going to take forever to wrap up the series, and I didn't want to buy that many books. Given that she went to 53 of them, I think I was right. I liked the general storyline, etc., but it wasn't worth that much shopping or reading to me. By book 12 I was getting tired of saying to myself "when is she going to wrap this up?". :)

[DrewTheXenocide]

Anybody wanna fill me in on what happened in the end? I'm eighty five percent sure I read it.. I just don't remember.

[jadegiant77]

I wanna know too!

My only exposure to Animorphs was the unfortunately short lived Nickelodeon TV series, which I loved! Those two girls on the show were hot! 'specially the blonde.

[MKTerra]

Z-Man wrote a great summary of the ending a while back, but I can't find it now :( I really wish I'd saved it...

[Super Hero Guy]

Bah, the tv show was horrible. It should have been animated.

[MKTerra]

I watched the show's first episode, but it didn't look so great. Kids too old, Visser 3 looked cheap, Yeerks not slugs. On the plus side, they made the morphing progress unevenly.

[Super Hero Guy]

I was always annoyed that they morphed clothes...

[DrewTheXenocide]

Hey, at least they had to be skintight. Sometimes, that could be worse than butt-nekkid.

"Hmmm....let me stand here in skintight clothing next to this hot blonde."

[Hiromi]

It did end, around #52 or so IIRC. It... wasn't such a great ending, though.

Likely cause, as I understand it, its one of the only books she actually wrote(most of the series was done via Ghost Writers). Still...I enjoyed the series, followed it from book number twelve to the end.

[Super Hero Guy]

Actually, I think only a handful of the books were ghost-written.

[MKTerra]

Hey, at least they had to be skintight. Sometimes, that could be worse than butt-nekkid.

"Hmmm....let me stand here in skintight clothing next to this hot blonde."I forget, did it have to be skintight on the show, too? Or is that just a book limitation?

[Super Hero Guy]

Book limitation. On the show they could morph with any clothes on.

[DrewTheXenocide]

Likely cause, as I understand it, its one of the only books she actually wrote(most of the series was done via Ghost Writers). Still...I enjoyed the series, followed it from book number twelve to the end.

What's this now?

I was actually just checking out the Wikipedia pages for Animorphs just now, and I saw a whole bunch of these species that I've never heard of, or at least don't remember. I've gotta reread some of these Chronicles I have lying somewhere around here.

[Hiromi]

What's this now?

I was actually just checking out the Wikipedia pages for Animorphs just now, and I saw a whole bunch of these species that I've never heard of, or at least don't remember. I've gotta reread some of these Chronicles I have lying somewhere around here.
From what I've heard animorphs was either largely or partly done by Ghost Writers, Rowling was more focused on her other line, The Tower series or something similary named.

[DrewTheXenocide]

I want Cinnamon Buns.

[MKTerra]

Ooh, hello, I found a post at ToonZone (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=98738) that describes what happened to the members in the last book, though not the actual plot convolutions involved.
I loved this series!

...

...

Until the horrible final book. I felt tottaly gypped by the entire last book.

Rachel and Tom killed each other, Visser was captured and put on trial, and if I remember correctly, put in some kind of prison for the rest of his life. The Andalite he was using was freed somehow.

Jake's last name was revealed to be Berenson. While Marco cashed in on the Animorph's popularity, Tobias disappeared because Rachel was gone. Cassie met some new guy while Jake become somewhat depressed and embittered. He became some kind of teacher for the military.

Ax became a general for the Andalites, who made friends with Earth and the two began to share their cultures with one another. About four (?) years later, Ax is captured by some new alien race, who took control of his body, apparently disfiguring him in the process.

Jake, Marco, and Tobias reunited, leaving Cassie on Earth with her new boyfriend to go into space with some other Andalites and humans to rescue Axe. The book ends with Jake and the crew's ship encountering the new aliens' ship.

Jake commands the ship to ram the other ship and...]

That where the book ends. Literally. I felt horribly ripped off after that.

Edit: Oh yes, and K.A. Applegate wrote an open letter responding to criticisms, too:
Dear Animorphs Readers:

Quite a number of people seem to be annoyed by the final chapter in the Animorphs story. There are a lot of complaints that I let Rachel die. That I let Visser Three/One live. That Cassie and Jake broke up. That Tobias seems to have been reduced to unexpressed grief. That there was no grand, final fight-to-end-all-fights. That there was no happy celebration. And everyone is mad about the cliffhanger ending.

So I thought I'd respond.

Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever. Often relationships that were central during war, dissolve during peace. Some people who were brave and fearless in war are unable to handle peace, feel disconnected and confused. Other times people in war make the move to peace very easily. Always people die in wars. And always people are left shattered by the loss of loved ones.

That's what happens, so that's what I wrote. Jake and Cassie were in love during the war, and end up going their seperate ways afterward. Jake, who was so brave and capable during the war is adrift during the peace. Marco and Ax, on the other hand, move easily past the war and even manage to use their experience to good effect. Rachel dies, and Tobias will never get over it. That doesn't by any means cover everything that happens in a war, but it's a start.

Here's what doesn't happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt. Life isn't a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don't do a lot of celebrating. There's very little chanting of 'we're number one' among people who've personally experienced war.

I'm just a writer, and my main goal was always to entertain. But I've never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn't going to do it at the end. I've spent 60 books telling a strange, fanciful war story, sometimes very seriously, sometimes more tongue-in-cheek. I've written a lot of action and a lot of humor and a lot of sheer nonsense. But I have also, again and again, challenged readers to think about what they were reading. To think about the right and wrong, not just the who-beat-who. And to tell you the truth I'm a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I'd wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping. Wars very often end, sad to say, just as ours did: with a nearly seamless transition to another war.

So, you don't like the way our little fictional war came out? You don't like Rachel dead and Tobias shattered and Jake guilt-ridden? You don't like that one war simply led to another? Fine. Pretty soon you'll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents.

If you're mad at me because that's what you have to take away from Animorphs, too bad. I couldn't have written it any other way and remained true to the respect I have always felt for Animorphs readers.

K.A. Applegate

[DrewTheXenocide]

Ooh, hello, I found a post at ToonZone (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=98738) that describes what happened to the members in the last book, though not the actual plot convolutions involved.


Edit: Oh yes, and K.A. Applegate wrote an open letter responding to criticisms, too:
Man... I've got to reread the last couple of books.

[jadegiant77]

Oh, snap! We got served!I love it when ppl slam a writer for a shite story and the writer comes back with a really stupid, over the top reply. She basically said(SPOILERS!) that war stories don't have happy endings and that someday the young readers would be of draft age and then see how they felt when they were in a war. WTF??? Talk about overreacting. I mean, yeah, war is hell, but this is FICTION. That means it doesn't have to play by the rules of a real war. Geez, take a chill pill, lady.

[MKTerra]

Oh, snap! We got served!I love it when ppl slam a writer for a shite story and the writer comes back with a really stupid, over the top reply. She basically said(SPOILERS!) that war stories don't have happy endings and that someday the young readers would be of draft age and then see how they felt when they were in a war. WTF??? Talk about overreacting. I mean, yeah, war is hell, but this is FICTION. That means it doesn't have to play by the rules of a real war. Geez, take a chill pill, lady.Among other things, I think the execution just didn't work. Yeah, wars don't end well, but the Animorphs were doing okay right up to the end, and then things just went down the crapper. It seemed contrived and, y'know, sucky to let them come so far and then screw up in the endgame.

[jadegiant77]

well, guess i'll pass up reading those then! :p

[Dubbilex]

I have to disagree with everyone here. I thought the ending was great, for very much the same reasons as the writer talks about in her letter. Yes, it's fiction, so it doesn't HAVE TO progress like a real war, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't, not if it makes for a better story.
I felt her response was appropriate considering that the complaints she was addressing boiled down to, "The ending wasn't happy enough." That's a valid preference, but it's only a preference, not a criticism of some flaw in story structure or whatever, as the offended fans seemed to believe.

Anyway, to the answer the ghostwriting question, for a good while of time, every book in the series was written by the author. Somewhere in the middle (I can't recall when exactly), it start getting partially ghost-written, with the ghostwriters working off of her plots. During this period, she still fully wrote the oversized specials in the series. Finally, towards the end, she returned to being full writer instead of merely plotter.

Sorry, geeked out there for a moment. :o