Always makes me shudder, when the gang is inside the ocean acquiring some monster.
Especially giant squid, Reading sphere at 10 years old or however old I was terrified me.
Pretty horrifying when they're all half drowning trying to demotph and remorph in the ocean.
12 Comments
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 45d
Literally just finished this one 10 seconds ago.
A few thoughts while it's fresh:
I love a Chee story, and we got two in a row!
I was fully not expecting evil black-green Runplestiltskin in the service if Crayak. That was unexpected!
I'm honestly a little surprised that the ghost writers were allowed to do a major ellemist story and then the very next book introduce a new character that's that important to the overall plot. That's wild. I wonder how much oversight K.A had? Maybe they sketch the story out first?
Excited to be able to comment on these as I go through.
I'm doing the audiobooks, and they're organized as one long book, so I can see my percentage of the series completed. The end of this book/beginning of the next marks 54%. I can't believe I'm more than half way through! !<
Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 43d
woo! nice, congrats.
Applegare and Grant had a ton of oversight and story control, so they would plot out the key plot points and the ghostwriters had almost no creative control as far as the overall plot, and i think there are even certain important passages in the ghostwritten books that are written by Applegtae and Grant.
I think that was for the better because the quality stays near peak the entire series.
The only reason there are ghost writers at all was because the schedule, Scholastic demanded was so insane. 54 books in about 5 years, so an entire book every 5 weeks or so, and that's leaving out the chronicles books, and the mega morphs, which are definitely worth reading, especially the Chronicles.
totally crazy, but Applegate and Grant were determined to specifically make a successful series no matter what, and they just threw themselves completely into it, and when buck wild for half a decade, creating this universe.
Apparently, they didn't even realize anyone really cared about the books, just that the series had been successful enough that they could continue to write what they want it to write.
Somewhere in 2010, they began receiving fan mail that never got through scholastic before and realized how much the series had touched so many people and have expressed a lot of gratitude since then.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 43d
Several of my friends from Richard's Animorphs Forum met both KA and MG, and said they were amazing in person. Goom, the one I mentioned that led the charge to get RAF back, has met her multiple times. Recently, he gave her a small 3d printed yeerk (he brought it to a book signing, and she asked him if she could have it!). Our friend from RAF, Dino, designed it, I printed it out, gave it to Goom, and Goom have it to KA. Pretty cool pedigree on that little piece of plastic. Haha. I've talked to them both (and their daughter, who I won't dead name, and I don't know the post transition name of), and they're just amazing people.
That was off topic, but just to say, KA and MG, and their daughter, are genuinely fantasticly fun people to talk to, and it was so obvious how much they loved the series they had created, and the fans that love it.
RAF almost for shut down once because we hosted all of the ebooks for the series, and scholastic tried real hard to shut us down even after they were removed. KA and MG joined the forum at that time, and helped us stay alive, even though we had hosted pirated ebooks of their work (many of which, iirc, were hand scanned, and some even hand typed, because ebooks did not exist of the series until then). They're just such fantastic people. I wish all authors of beloved YA series were as amazing as them.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 43d
cool, was their daughter with them at signings, how'd you talk to her?
And do you have any pictures of that 3D printed yeerk? post them uuuup.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 43d
That's the only one I can find. The model is designed to be printed much larger, but I was in a hurry before a trip to see my friend, and I printed a bunch of animorphs stuff all at once, so I had to reduce the size of everything to fit on the print bed haha
Our friend, DinosaurNothlit, designed the yeerk, and so much else. She's an amazing modeler.
here's her thingiverse link if you want to print any animorphs stuff
Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 43d
Oh wow, great designs, the hork-bajir and iskoort are very cool
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 43d
Yeah, she's pretty freaking badass. I have no idea how she does it
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 43d
I've never been able to go to any of the signings, so I'm not totally sure. But their daughter was on RAF for a while, and was pretty active. I spoke to her many times. Iirc, she was fond of the forum games lol
I'll find a pic and post it
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 49d
Currently on 25 in my reread. I never did finish the series back in the day. Got somewhere into the mid to high 30s. I checked here to see if you had done one of these for 25, and when I saw 27 was the earliest one, I couldn't resist risking the spoiler since I'd read it years ago. Lol.
I'll try to go through and check these as I finish reading them
Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 49d
haha yeah for sure, i'm a bit crazy about spoiler avoidance myself.
enjoy! its a great reread, the entire series really holds up and has a great ending. It'll be even better reading them as an adult.
Feel free to post your thoughts and ideas as you go through the books, no pressure of course.
It's just nice to read one of these books and go 'holy shit, that was also amazing!" and someone says "it is amazing" back, haha.
That was my inspiration for the community.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 48d
I'm excited to start commenting on these as I get caught up to your posts. The series really does hold up quite well. My friend informs me that I am on the first of the ghost written titles right now, and honestly, I can't tell so far. Marco is very consistent haha
Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 47d
oh wow i thought the ghostwriters started way earlier, i didn't know the first confirmed is 25. dang, 25 is great, i wouldn't be about to tell either.