Cinnamon Bunzuh! - An Animorphs Review Blog

Fan Art Day 3!

2012-12-01T11:47:00.000-05:00

Via Jenni

As usual, more after the cut.

Well, this seems like as good a place to begin as any to come to a close. Not as many submissions as last time, but hey, whadayagonnado? Anywho, let's relax, unwind, and enjoy us some fan art.

We receive a rather large number of submissions by Lamusiqe13, who seems to have a fondness for MSPaint. These are...certainly something. Have a looksee:

After that, we have some two skeletal drawings of an Andalite and a Hork-Bajir by Annika. I do enjoy me some alien anatomy. Such things are always fun.

And lastly, we received more then a few character studies from Jenni. (You can check out her deviantart over here.) She does a great job of getting each character's personality down, even oneshot characters such as Galfinilan and Mertil.

And that's all! If anyone wants to send me anything else last minute, it shouldn't be too much of a problem putting it up. With that said, I bid you all adieu.

Edit: Logan made a Baby Goes to Z-Space logo. Is that an Iskoort? I think it is.

Ifi's List of Lists

2012-12-01T10:32:00.001-05:00

Note that this is not an authoritative list in any way. This is just one internet person’s internet opinion. Not everything has to be about you, gawd.

I didn't want to spend the whole list saying things I've already said, so if you want to know why I picked each book, you can check out the reviews we've written.

Anyway, lists.

The Ten Worst Books in the Animorphs Series

Honorable Mention: Both Alternamorphs Books
Ifi: If you want to go get a glass of water, turn the page. If you want to get a glass of juice, go to page ten. Whoops, you chose to get some juice. Bad choice! The Yeerks win and everyone dies. The end.
Adam: They could not have missed the point more if they had tried

Ok, if we were going just by quality (or lack thereof), these would actually be at the #1 spot on the list, no question. But since the Alternamorphs aren’t technically canon, it didn’t feel right. I don’t know why. Look, this is my list. I do what I want.

#10: Book Seventeen, The Underground
Ifi: Oh.
Ifi: This is going to be one of those books.
Adam: This is not one of those books
Adam: This is that book

Known affectionately throughout the fandom as ‘that oatmeal book’, ‘the oatmeal thing’ and ‘Jesus Christ wtf was that about’, this book featured the Animorphs learning the ultimate secret weakness of the Yeerks, a substance that drove them incurably insane on contact: store-bought maple and ginger oatmeal. There was also a lot of digging.

#9: Book Thirty-Seven, The Weakness
Ifi: Now, class, here we can see the devolution of a character.
Ifi: Marco, and now Rachel, are rapidly being reduced to a simplistic interpretation of their most prominent traits.
Ifi: From this, we can probably conclude that the author is an idiot.
Adam: You have this down to a science, don't you?

Now, originally I was reluctant to put this book on the list because it contains one of those awesome-but-only-seen-once alien races. Specifically, the Garatrons. Or Garatron, singular. Unfortunately, he’s not quite enough to carry this plane crash (see what I did there?) of a book. Jake goes off on vacation for a few days, and the rest of the Animorphs decide to break character and go completely nuts.

#8: Book 24, The Suspicion + Book 42, The Journey
Adam: Yaaaaaaay
Ifi: No.
Adam: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
Ifi: No.

I’ve stuck these two together as a cop-out. I just don’t like Helmacrons. Adam does, though. And I feel like the fandom is split 50/50 between loving them and hating them, so half of you will agree with this and half of you will disagree.

#7: Book 48, The Return
Adam: What the heck were they on during the writing of this thing?
Ifi: This is like when you get really sick and you're fucked up on cough medicine so everything is weird as hell already and then someone starts talking to you and you have no idea what they're going on about so you just sort of nod and hope they go away soon.

Near the end of the series, David comes back with a rambling and nonsensical story about rat generals. Crayak is there too. He’s all, “Rachel, join me, and we will rule together blah blah I am Sauron.” There was potential here, but the writing was absolutely atrocious. The author could barely manage a scene transition, and it’s unclear in the end what we were meant to believe.

#6: Book 44, The Unexpected
Ifi: This has gone from rather inconvenient to a universal conspiracy
Adam: It is the author deliberately sabotaging her efforts in order to prolong this contractually obligated bad plot.

This was a boring book made possible by Cassie behaving in unbelievably stupid ways. It’s a rather shameless rehash of the Alaska book, which barely avoided making it onto this list itself. At least the Alaska book had the whole team. Half the book is just the author getting Cassie to Australia in the first place. There was one cool part where Cassie does surgery on an old dude, but that’s the only bright spot.

#5: Book 32, The Separation
Adam: What were to happen if they were to take the two Rachels, have them morph seastars again, and repeat the process?
Adam: Would it divide them along different personality traits?
Ifi: Oh God
Adam: So you end up with "Able to balance a spoon on her nose Rachel" and "Thinks she's a pirate Rachel"
Adam: And then the universe explodes.
Ifi: Good riddance to it.

The starfish book. In case you’ve forgotten, Rachel morphs a starfish, gets cut in half, and demorphs as two separate people. The book calls them ‘Mean Rachel’ and ‘Nice Rachel’, and they’re supposed to be Rachel’s aggressive side versus her normal side. But they’re not. ‘Nice Rachel’ is more like ‘Traumatic Head Injury Rachel’ and ‘Mean Rachel’ is more like ‘Pointlessly Cruel and Violent Rachel.’ Neither of them are accurate representation of the two halves of the life that Rachel lives. I dislike this book more than most people seem to.

#4: Book 39, The Hidden
Ifi: On second thought, Cassie might be right. Let’s make the buffalo an animorph
Adam: Like I said
Adam: He's accomplished more in a day then they have in years.

The buffalo book! In which a buffalo somehow manages to give itself morphing power and be more effective at kicking Visser Three’s ass than the rest of the team combined. The moral issues that arise from an animal developing higher intelligence as a result of morphing humans is waved aside when the buffalo is conveniently incinerated from orbit.

That particular gimmick aside, the plot is basically the first Megamorphs book. The Yeerks can track morphing energy, so the Animorphs are running around like lunatics, and they eventually resolve the issue by dropping Cassie-in-whale-morph on the thing that is pursuing them. I might even argue that the buffalo takes the place of Amnesia Rachel.

#3: Book 36, The Mutation
Ifi: I like how you can identify the point where the author started taking hits of acid.

The Atlantis book starts out with an interesting premise. Visser Three wants to go after the Pemalite ship, so he builds an underwater Blade ship and glues some gills to his Hork-Bajir. Not the most effective plan, but okay. Except they never get to the Pemalite ship. They are kidnapped by mutated fish-people who live in an underwater city, ruled by an insane queen. These Atlanteans, for lack of a better term, have a habit of kidnapping sailors, extracting their DNA to make more Atlantean babies, and putting the dissected corpses in a museum.

Though it is evident from the start that this is what the bad guys are also planning to do to the Animorphs, they go along with everything, and even allow themselves to be captured for absolutely no reason. Nothing in this book makes sense.

#2: Book 14, The Unknown
Adam: This is a book about aliens, right?
Ifi: What am I even reading.

The Area 51 toilet book.

I don’t feel like I need to say very much about this one. We all remember it.

#1: Book 41, The Familiar
Adam: I feel like Jake has basically been plopped into the place of some other controller in the situation, with only minor details changed to try and make him fit.
Ifi: Like maybe this was originally a fanfiction, and then the author altered it to suit the needs of the publisher?

One day Jake wakes up in the future. Okay. Except it’s a future that makes no sense. The Yeerks have won, and he’s presumed to be infested, but he’s not. He can’t morph, except when he can. Nobody knows who he is, except when they do. Marco is a Yeerk Visser, Cassie makes bombs, Rachel is in a wheelchair, Tobias is Ax and Ax is gone. Anyway, Cassie wants Jake to blow up the moon so the Yeerks can’t turn it into a Kandrona sun, a plan which is apparently not complete bullcrap in this strange alternate dimension.

About midway through the book it becomes evident that this entire thing is a hallucination on Jake’s part, fraught with inconsistencies regarding everything from Marco’s rank to the weather. This does not make a bad book, just a ridiculous one. See, despite the fact that this is all obviously fake, Jake makes no effort to break out of it. He doesn’t fight. He just allows himself to be pushed along.

In the end, it comes down to Jake having to choose between saving Cassie’s life and blowing up the moon to thwart the Yeerks. We never find out which one he picks. The author doesn’t actually tell us. Nor do we ever find out who is responsible for the trip. Nothing is resolved, gained, or learned.

The Ten Best Books in the Animorphs Series

Honorable Mention: Visser
Ifi:Ow.
Ifi: Right in the feels.

The story of how Edriss got her rank and subsequently messed everything up. It's an oddly compelling tale, and just when you start to feel sorry for her, she goes and blows it by being psychotic.

#10: Book 4, The Message
Adam: Pretty soon, you have people going door to door and handing out pamphlets, asking if you'd like them to teach you about cetaceans.
Ifi: HE MIGRATED FOR YOUR SINS

Despite being unashamedly silly, what with the Jesus-metaphor whale and all, this was actually a good book. We get the introduction of Ax, which is excellent, and the writing was quite good. In all, it was a lot of fun.

#9: Book 8, The Alien
Adam: So, was Ax the only single cadet on this entire ship?
Ifi: Recruitment was pretty low that year
Adam: It seems strange that he was the only one that they sent to the dome at the time.
Adam: Andalites seem the type to have a draft.
Ifi: Well maybe there were other cadets but Ax had to eat them

This was basically a book of Ax’s antics. It was the first book he narrated, and we get to see him reacting to all sorts of crazy earth things, as well as lots of insights to Andalite culture.

#8: Book 45, The Revelation
Adam: That makes no damn sense, but sure, let’s go with that.
Ifi: Eva bends the laws of physics through sheer vengeful spite

After angsting about it for many, many books, Marco finally rescues his mom! It's very satisfying to have something nice happen to him for once.

#7: Book 40, The Other
Ifi: Well that is the hands-down most romantic damn thing I have ever read
Adam: Y'know, the whole childhood romance cliche usually makes me gag.
Adam: But this book is so gosh darn cute, I am okay with it.

My only complaint about this book is that we never see Galf and Mertil again. They were adorable.

#6: Book 18, The Decision
Adam: Can I move here?
Ifi: The only downside is frog-people knowing all your embarrassing thoughts

There were not enough alien planets in this series. The entire Leera plot was amazing, and I'm sad we never got to go back.

#5: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
Ifi: God.
Ifi: Your life sucks.

I didn’t want to include books that were not in the main series on this list, but I couldn’t help it. The Chronicles were just too good. So there.

#4: Book 29, The Sickness
Ifi: If the Yeerks flew their spaceship over the White House and said, "YES HELLO UM WE ARE RECRUITING HOST BODIES. IF ANYONE IS RIDICULOUSLY LONELY, STOP BY AND GRAB AN INFORMATIONAL PAMPHLET" the line would be out the door.

Easily the best Cassie book in the series, in which she rescues Aftran from the pool single-handedly and also does brain surgery on Ax.

#3: Book 26, The Attack
Ifi: This twist was amazing and brilliant and hey guys let's not mention any of this to Aftran, I'm sure she would not be interested in this information.

HOWLERS.

2. The Ellimist Chronicles
Ifi: This is like that part in the horror movie where the whole audience screams "HE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" at the screen, to no avail.
Adam: But enough thinking, we get to go on a spaceship!

Despite having almost nothing to do with the Animorphs, The Ellimist Chronicles was probably the best written book in the series. It was a very close tie between this book and #1...

1. The Andalite Chronicles
Adam: This thing.
Adam: This thing is the best thing

I don't feel particularly obligated to say much else here. Anyway, it's time for the list you've all been waiting for...

The Ten Fifteen Most Fucked-Up Moments in the Animorphs Series

#15. Jake’s death on the Delaware (Megamorphs 3)

#14. Arbron is trapped in morph (The Andalite Chronicles)

#13. Arbron is killed by human poachers (Book 54)

#12. Ant-Cassie (Book 39)

#11. BBQ Tobias (Book 7)

#10. Elfangor's death (Book 1)

#9. Ax in cow morph in the slaughterhouse (Book 28)

#8. Morphing ants (Book 5) + The termite queen (Book 8)

#7. Marco is almost trapped in flea morph (Book 21)

#6. The Saddler Incident (David Trilogy)

#5. Rachel being eaten by ants in bear morph (Book 11)

#4. Rachel getting ground up by the Veleek (Megamorphs 1)

#3. Loren's McDonalds (The Andalite Chronicles)

#2. Genocide by Jacuzzi (Book 6)

#1. Genocide for the hell of it (Book 53)

End-of-Series Retrospective

2012-11-24T08:37:00.000-05:00

Ifi: Ok
Adam: So.
Adam: 54 books, 4 Megamorphs, 4 Chronicles, 2 cruddy CYOA books, 2 hurricanes, 5 fanfics, and lots of emotional trauma and we are finally done.
Ifi: I was honestly not quite sure that we would make it.
Adam: I would have yelled at you until we did.
Ifi: I should have thought before committing to such a large project.
Adam: If everyone went around thinking all the time, where would that get us?
Ifi: More naptime.
Ifi: Do you ungrateful goobers know how many naps I had to cut short to write these reviews?
Ifi: Like
Ifi: At least thirty
Adam: That's certainly a lot of naps.
Ifi: One a day. It adds up.
Adam: I may have stayed up til four in the morning finishing drawings perhaps a little more often then I should.
Ifi: I wasted countless hours of my life on fanfics. Hours that I could have spent on writing my own manuscripts. All for you.
Adam: Practice is practice.
Ifi: Yeah but I never edited them lolz
Adam: Get an intern next time.
Ifi: Anyway, we are not here to talk about me.
Adam: Aw.
Ifi: We are here to talk about this book series thing.

Ifi: There were a couple points I wanted to touch on, and I am sure Adam has his own.
Adam: Indeed.
Adam: Any particular place you would like to start?
Ifi: I think we should start with character
Ifi: One of the strongest points of this series is the diverse and memorable array of characters we're given.
Ifi: And I'm not just talking about the main six.
Adam: One of Applegate's strong points as a writer is being able to give a character a very distinct arc to them in only a limited number of appearances.
Adam: A particular favorite example of mine is Alloran, who grows rather interesting, all in the course of about three books where he has speaking roles.
Ifi: Unfortunately, this happens a lot. We get shown a really cool character, they are awesome for one book, and they are never mentioned again.
Ifi: (This also applies to alien races as a whole)
Ifi: When you consider the sheer amount of filler this series has, it's really sad.
Adam: I mean, when you're on the sort of contract that forces you to churn out a book a month, a large degree of filler is to be expected.
Adam: Which I guess leads back to the argument that the series would have been better if it was something more like the Harry Potter books; Each book longer in length, but far fewer of them, and released further apart.
Ifi: I think that is a good rule for anything. Quality over quantity and all that. But Animorphs was very much a franchise that was all about raking in as much money as possible.
Ifi: As evidenced by all the incredibly bizarre merchandise that was released
Adam: Shall we show show some examples?

Adam: The Animorphs Transformers line was just surreal.
Ifi: Here we see an inexplicably red Visser Three turning into...
Ifi: Jesus Christ I don't even know
Adam: "Inferno Creature"
Ifi: If someone wants to send me all the toys, I will happily review them.
Adam: (Everyone send us things. We like things.)
Adam: Now, the obvious problem here is that when you have a transforming toy, you have the bits of its alt mode hanging off its shoulders.
Ifi: Kibble!
Adam: Indeed.
Ifi: I love robots.
Adam: We know.
Ifi: No you don't get it I LOVE robots *winkwink*
Adam: And when the character is a robot, this looks perfectly fine. It makes the change look like a mechanical process.
Adam: But when the character is human but still has kibble...

Adam: We have a problem.
Ifi: This actually hurts to look at.
Adam: That's not the worst of it.
Adam: Now we get to the Tri-Rex

Ifi: Oh sweet baby Jesus
Ifi: The Tri-rex
Adam: Oh dear sweet whale-jesus
Adam: Yes, the Tri-Rex
Adam: Essentially
Adam: The Aniformers line
Adam: They made a combiner.
Ifi: Let me just read you the official packaging description
Ifi: It is priceless

The Tri-Rex came into existence when Jake, Cassie, and Marco broke into one of the Yeerks' genetic experimentation labs, and discovered a morph so powerful a single human could not hope to take on its form alone. But through the use of an advance morphing technique, each concentrates on a segment of the titanic beast and they merge together to become this powerful Tyrannosaurus rex! A team of one, the Tri-Rex is an unstoppable force, the prehistoric beast from the future!

Ifi: I can't even review that.
Adam: "The prehistoric beast from the future"
Ifi: I can't even REVIEW this.
Ifi: There is NOTHING I can say about this that it does not say for itself.
Adam: Here are what the individual pieces look like in their human forms:

Ifi: For the record, these...things were indeed released by the same company that sells Ifi her Transformers.
Adam: This is why you don't do drugs, kids.
Adam: Especially if you own a massive toy company.
Ifi: You can actually see how the manufacturers threw their hands in the air and said, "Fuck it, kids will buy anything."
Adam: Except this line got prematurely canceled.
Adam: So hurray for standards?
Ifi: I think a lot of them were retooled for some Beast Wars thing
Ifi: But yes, I hear the fandom backlash was wicked.
Adam: Even as a kid, I just found these toys really strange.
Adam: And I preferred robots anyway.

Ifi: Animorphs was very much a victim of capitalist greed.
Adam: (If you send this to Ifi, she'll review it also)
Ifi: (Drunkenly)
Adam: I'm trying to figure out how this game even works

Ifi: There was also, apparently, a TCG

Ifi: Probably trying to cash in on the success of Pokemon
Ifi: But who even knows
Adam: There was a cardgame for everything.
Adam: What on earth is that thing to the right of Rachel, though?
Ifi: She's just tripping out
Adam: Ah, I see.
Ifi: nbd

Ifi: So when we look at all of this...junk
Ifi: It is not hard to understand why some of the books were the way they were
Ifi: Some were excellent, especially the Chronicles. But some appeared to not even have been edited.
Adam: It is the way of the franchise.
Adam: If you hop over to Blogger Beware, you can see that Goosebumps was much the same way, in that respect.
Adam: I'm sure the Babysitter's Club was as well.
Ifi: Goosebumps was worse.
Ifi: Excellent CYOA's, though
Ifi: Some of the best.
Adam: Yes, those were some damn good CYOA's.

Ifi: I guess that leads me into the next thing I wanted to talk about, which was tone
Ifi: Animorphs has been applauded for handling mature themes in a realistic way and subsequently traumatizing an entire generation
Ifi: It has also been critiqued for, among other things, poop jokes, nonsensical logic, and that whole thing with Atlantis.
Adam: A certain degree of this can be pegged on the ghostwriters, but really Applegate was still responsible for the plot outlines, and penned the general synopsis to each book.
Adam: So she's still at fault for the Andalite toilet and the Atlantis books.
Ifi: Atlantis is actually a perfect example of a book that was written for the sole purpose of making money, rather than to tell a particular story or make a point.
Adam: I suppose this comes down to having to balance writing a mature series with the fact that you're working under an editorial department geared to selling as many things as possible to small children.
Ifi: The end result is a series that does not have a very consistent tone until the end.
Adam: it is unfortunate, but this tends to be true of any work of fiction that runs that sort of length while still trying to maintain a continuous plot.
Adam: There are exceptions of course, but it is a general rule.
Ifi: Also, I think we were regularly surprised at how graphically violent and even gory things could get.
Ifi: I think this just shows that you can get away with way more in books than you can on TV. If they made a TV show of the Animorphs that actually followed the books, parents would be livid.
Ifi: But there's this idea that books automatically equal good, so parents don't police them as closely, in my experience.
Adam: There's that, but I also think that violent imagery is just not as inherently visceral if you don't directly look at it.
Adam: Humans are a visual species, so traumatic imagery is not going to be quite as bad if it is only imagined.
Ifi: That is a good point.
Adam: So what you can get away with in a series aimed at children would be the sort of thing you see on an HBO show on television.
Ifi: As writers, we should abuse this mercilessly.
Adam: I have no personal objection to this.

Ifi: The last main thing that I wanted to talk about was plot.
Adam: How delightfully generic a topic! Do continue.
Ifi: Shut up.
Adam: So plot.
Ifi: Plot is important. In Animorphs, we had the overarching plot of "when are the Andalites going to get here/okay the Andalites are not coming what do we do", but also each little mini-plot of the majority of the books.
Ifi: And I know we just said this before, but I want to reiterate it. Most of those books could be cut.
Adam: In a long-running series, ideally a book should carry out and complete its own miniplot, but also contribute something to the overarching story.
Adam: Not all of them did this.
Ifi: Most of the filler books contributed nothing to the overall storyline, and sometimes even undermined the credibility of the characters and their situation.
Ifi: I mean, I am sure there were some good filler books...
Ifi: Though I cannot remember a single one
Adam: I enjoyed book 12.
Adam: The morphing allergy book.
Ifi: Oh come on!
Adam: And while many people may disagree with me, I found the first Helmacron book very entertaining.
Ifi: Them’s fighting words, mister.

Adam: Now, what would you consider a book where it contributes not necessarily to the overarching plot, but is important to someone's character arc, or has its own mini-storyline that is carried out further in the series?
Ifi: Like the Taylor books?
Adam: That's exactly what I was thinking of.
Ifi: The Anti-Morphing Ray was stupid as hell, but Taylor was great. And it did indeed contribute to Tobias' character arc.
Ifi: I approve of that sort of thing, because character arcs are important
Ifi: And everyone had one.
Ifi: Cassie not as much, but that's Cassie for you.
Adam: It seemed a lot like Cassie finished her character arc very early on into the series, and from then on there was only so much Applegate could do with her.
Ifi: So as punishment she got all the most terrible filler books.

Adam: Ah, I found an example of a good filler book.
Adam: Book 40: The Other.
Ifi: Titles are meaningless. Which one was that?
Adam: The one with the exiled Andalite couple.
Ifi: Oh yes!
Ifi: That was great! And it totally shouldn't have been filler, they should have explored it more!
Ifi: Alasss
Ifi: As is the lot of all cool things in this series
Ifi: It is never mentioned again
Adam: They could have easily brought them back, either to try to contact the Andalite homeworld, or after the Andalites finally do show up.
Adam: Alas indeed.
Ifi: Of all the things I regret about the series, I think the fact that Galf and Mirtle never came back was among the most disappointing.
Adam: Or the Andalite suicide squad, for that matter.
Adam: They also had a very interesting dynamic.
Ifi: Well like half of them died, and everyone hated the one chick, so...
Adam: I think the overall consensus we are coming to, though, is that for a science fiction series, it could have really used some more alien protagonists.
Ifi: Hellz yes
Adam: And a Taxxon Chronicles.
Ifi: And what about the Yeerk Peace Movement? I think that's my #1 issue with the plot. They just fell off the face of the earth.
Adam: They got a brief mention in Cassie's last book, but otherwise, yes.
Adam: They were setting up what could have been some sort of large scale Yeerk uprising, and it just never panned out.
Ifi: I have this horrible suspicion that they never got their big moment because it would have interfered with the big, horrible anti-war message that Applegate wanted to send.
Ifi: Also it's my personal headcanon that Aftran never became a whale, that's just the story that the Animorphs circulated to throw the Yeerks off her tail. She is actually a hotshot superspy who blows up Yeerk operations.
Ifi: Just in case you were wondering.
Adam: Does she just remorph into her Yeerk form on land?
Adam: Sounds uncomfortable.
Ifi: No, no, she is still a Yeerk. She has a host. The host morphs.
Adam: Who is her host?
Ifi: Someone awesome.
Adam: Bruce Lee?
Ifi: Yes.
Adam: Okay.

Adam: I would like to discuss the art for a bit.
Ifi: Go for it
Adam: David Mattingly's cover art is always rather hit or miss for a lot of people, but I felt that he did start to hit his stride around book 11 (with the jaguar morph.)
Ifi: That was a cool morph
Adam: Indeed.
Adam: Before that, there is an odd lack of consistency.
Adam: With the first book, Jake is just a photograph rather than a painting, and the mid-morph sections are done in CGI, which is just very strange looking, and the ones after that have a peculiar, brushstrokey look to them, and sometimes the faces were a bit wonky.
Ifi: Uh huh
Adam: Here, look:

Adam: The first two in particular have very different looks then the rest of the series, and not even in the same way.
Ifi: I actually did notice that
Adam: One complain I have coverwise is about the Megamorphs books.
Adam: If you are going to have a big, special addition book, you need a suitably exciting cover.
Adam: But the Megamorphs covers are all mostly just these bland, semi-abstract character art.
Ifi: I always remember them as being the worst
Ifi: Except that awesome dystopia one
Adam: The worst is Megamorphs 2, which has lots of exciting scenes of dinosaur fighting to draw from, but just gives you some floating eyes.
Adam: The dystopia one was the strongest of the four, but it still had a huge disconnect from the actual plot of the book.
Adam: If they had done the "Jake wakes up in a dystopian future" book as a Megamorphs instead, I could see it fitting a lot better.
Ifi: If I had been forced to review that book at Megamorphs length, I would have resigned in protest.
Adam: If it were a Megamorphs, it wouldn't have been ghostwritten, plus Applegate would have had to put more thought into it, meaning it likely would have been more coherent
Ifi: Nothing will ever make me like that book.

Adam: Here are my top 5 favorite covers:
Adam: (Just of the main books, otherwise the Chronicles would take up most of the spots)
Adam: 1) Book 43: The Test
Adam: 2) Book 29: The Sickness
Adam: 3) Book 36: The Mutation
Adam: 4) Book 8: The Alien
Adam: 5) Book 18: The Decision

Adam: If you couldn't tell, I like the alien covers a lot.
Ifi: You got me liking them, too.
Adam: Bwahaha
Adam: The odd one out on the list is the Atlantis book, which had some very interesting cover elements. The land in the background makes it look like Jake isn't just floating in space, and the transition of the pattern on his wetsuit to the orca skin was very interesting, and something I would have liked to see more of on other covers.
Ifi: I think we agreed that the underwater covers were usually the best
Adam: That we did.

Ifi: Now, I know a lot of people were looking forward to all my various lists of various best and worst things from the series
Ifi: But there was SO much stuff to talk about that I am actually saving it all for next week
Ifi: In which I will rant at length
Ifi: About various things that I have ranted about before
Ifi: It's really nothing new
Ifi: Don't even bother reading it
Adam: Yeah, okay.
Ifi: Adam may do his own lists as well
Adam: Yay more lists!
Ifi: If he feels like it
Adam: We shall see.
Ifi: So yeah.
Adam: So, that concludes our wrap-up.
Adam: …or does it?
Ifi: DUN DUN DUN

Adam: I want to give a special thanks to Katherine Applegate, Michael Grant, David Mattingly, Romas Kukalis, all of the many ghostwriters, and all of the unsung editorial staff at Scholastic.
Adam: And a more general thanks to Jake Mates, Hope Chapman, everyone over at tvtropes, and all of our readers.
Ifi: Oh yeah them.
Ifi: Good job everyone. You weren't complete goobers.
Adam: *thumbs up*

Book 54: The Beginning

2012-11-17T09:45:00.000-05:00

The Summary
It is revealed that the entire series has been a heavy-handed anti-war tract and everyone you love dies in order to further Applegate's political agenda.

The Review
Adam: So.
Adam: Here we are.
Ifi: Ngh.
Adam: You have nothing nice to say at all?
Ifi: 54 is the most randomest number to end on
Adam: In the Kabbalah, 4 represents creation (hence the title,) and 2 represents unity, (which we will get to later.)
Ifi: Ok but this is book 54, not 42
Adam: Oops
Adam: 5 is life experience.
Adam: So that works too.
Adam: It's like when they give you your horoscope, and each one is generic enough that it can apply to everyone.
Adam: ANYWAY
Adam: I am sure there is some symbolic meaning behind the number 54 that you can pull out of your bum if you look hard enough.
Adam: And that's truly the greatest lesson of all.

Ifi: This cover is
Ifi: Broken
Adam: This has been pointed out before, but it is a rolling stones album.

Ifi: Yeah, I had no way of knowing that when I first picked up this book.
Ifi: All those years ago
Ifi: In the bookstore
Ifi: Just before I opened it up
Ifi: and read the first few pages
Ifi: and then I shoved it back in the bookcase very quickly
Ifi: and asked my parents to take me home
Adam: And now you know why Ifi is the person that she is.

Ifi: Give us your semi-professional opinion of the cover
Adam: I like that the title is all glowy.
Adam: On a somewhat more serious note, I do appreciate that they did something different.
Ifi: Yeah, they definitely needed the whole team on the cover.
Adam: It would have felt awkward if they just went with a standard "guy turns into a thing" cover or with a blander Megamorphs style cover.
Adam: It works at what it is trying to do.
Ifi: The shrinking heads kinda freak me out.
Adam: Maybe they are growing?
Ifi: Creepy business
Adam: The inside cover, sadly, is just a boring, floating head movie poster image

Ifi: When I was in the ninth grade I took my very first photoshop class in a public school
Ifi: But that was eight years ago and I have no idea what could have caused my brain to flash back to it just now.
Adam: I want to see 14 year old Ifi's photoshop attempts.

Adam: Any other things to say before we start the plot?
Ifi: Mrghfsda
Adam: Yes, exactly.

Adam: So!
Adam: We open this book with Rachel, aboard the blade ship.
Adam: Technically speaking, this is a Rachel book.
Adam: But only technically.
Adam: And well, there is no way to put this lightly.
Adam: Rachel is there on a suicide mission.
Ifi: A pointless suicide mission, I might add
Ifi: Because Jake hates Tom's Yeerk so much that he can't stand to see him get away.
Ifi: There's no tactical advantage here.
Ifi: Just, "He tried to screw us over so we are going to kill him. Rachel you're up."
Ifi: And Rachel is all, "I don't really want to live in a universe where there is no war anyway. Peace out."
Adam: I think the implication was that the Blade Ship would be dangerous to them once they captured the Pool Ship, so Jake sent Rachel to neutralize it as a threat.
Adam: Of course, this could all have been avoided if they just tackled and tied Tom up at the Taxxon rave.
Ifi: This could have all been avoided if they'd made a single good decision in the last four weeks.
Adam: Yes, but that is the past, and now everything is downhill.

Adam: Surprisingly, we get a fairly long recap for this book.
Adam: I'm not sure why it was needed.
Ifi: I have no idea.
Adam: This is going to be totally incoherent to someone who hasn't at the very least kept some tabs on the series.

Ifi: Rachel goes in for the attack, but Tom's entire staff is morph-capable.
Adam: Rachel has far more battle experience than anyone else onboard, and as to be expected, lots of people die.
Ifi: Also, the rest of the team is watching from the pool ship via skype, so they get to see the whole thing.

I faced two lionesses, a cape buffalo, and a polar bear. It was a whole zoo full of dangerous animals.

The polar bear was my equal all by himself. The cape buffalo maybe as well. I could take either lioness, but the combination was going to be rough.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: She just about takes them all out.
Adam: To a nice brunch, and some coffee.
Ifi: Then this

Tom shrieked. I couldn't see him. But I felt something squirming. Like a worm on a fishhook. The snake was impaled on my claws.

<No!> Tom cried in outrage.

I brought my paw to my mouth.

<Sorry,> I said vaguely.

<Jake, stop her!> the Yeerk screamed with Tom's mouth.

I bit down on the snake.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: Tom is dead.
Ifi: I was honestly surprised at this.
Adam: Really?
Ifi: I always assumed the team would pull an Eva and manage a thrilling rescue.
Adam: For a moment, I was thinking of the wrong Eva.

Adam: Oops
Ifi: At least pretend to be paying attention.
Adam: Eh, it's not that too far off.

I could see the viewscreen. I could see my best friend Cassie. Jake. Marco, funny Marco. Ax. Tobias.

He had morphed. He was his human self once more. He'd done that for me. And because he was crying. I understood. Humans cry, hawks don't.

"I love you," I said to the screen.

And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. I tried to smile. For him.

The polar bear said, <You fight well, human.>

Then he killed me with a single blow.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: I
Ifi: don't
Ifi: You know what? I am already done.
Adam: Get your tush back here.
Adam: We are going to finish this thing, and we are going to finish it proper.
Ifi: I have nothing to say that isn't a swear word

Adam: Rachel is dead.
Adam: We have that bit in the Ellimist Chronicles where we learn that one of them dies, but previously it wasn't established who.
Adam: Though based on the dialogue, you could still work it out.
Adam: But yes.

I wanted so much to live. I wanted so much to stay and not to leave. In a moment no answer would matter to me, but just the same, I wanted to know what I guess any dying person wants to know.

"Answer this, Ellimist: Did I…did I make a difference? My life, and my…my death…was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"

"Yes," he said. "You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: After that, the narration goes on to Jake.
Adam: Either unfortunately or fortunately, Jake isn't given much time right away to mourn his cousin, as the Blade ship promptly surrenders to him.

<Jake…> Toby urged.

<Rachel,> Cassie said softly. <Toby, we lost Rachel. And Tom is dead.>

Toby absorbed that, then said, <Jara Hamee, my father, died bravely in battle here today.>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Jara :(
Adam: Named Character Count: 3
Ifi: That's not counting the Auxies
Adam: Just for this book, I mean.
Adam: The previous book was too depressing to contemplate.

<Cassie? Go get Erek. If he wants the Chee secret to be kept he needs to hide himself. We may have guests soon.>

<Anything else?> Cassie asked.

<Like what?> I snapped. <An apology? To that robot? "Sorry we blackmailed you into helping us?" No. He drained off the Dracon beams and because of that the Blade ship got away. Because of that Rachel died in vain. Because of him who knows what will happen?>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Asdghakjsdaklshfajklfffff
Adam: Jake
Adam: Just
Adam: Go sit in the corner.
Ifi: He doesn't do that, he goes and talks to some Yeerks

The sub-visser showed nothing. "Human, you cannot frighten us. We have no hope left and that gives us strength. We will not die of Kandrona starvation—better to die here, now, in battle. We'll kill some more of your people before we do."

I nodded. "Fair enough. You want amnesty, access to Kandrona rays, and morphing technology? You'd accept permanent morphing and relocation?"

"As opposed to slow death by starvation or even a quick death now? Yes."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: "Oh, okay."
Adam: But yes, negotiations go surprisingly easily.
Ifi: Then it is Cassie's turn to narrate
Ifi: Erek is mad and Cassie is mad and everyone is mad

His eyes narrowed. "Then what? He used me, blackmailed me, manipulated my programming to get me to break through the security grid and take control of this ship."

"You drained the Dracon beams."

"What did Jake expect me to do? I had given him control when he needed it. I wasn't going to enable him to kill."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Shut up Erek, just shut up.
Ifi: Maybe if you didn't have the world’s worst possible response to physical violence, your creators would still be alive. Don't pretend to be an authority on the subject.
Ifi: However, he does raise a good point

"Jake did what he had to do."

"Did he? Someone flushed the Yeerk pool into space. Did he have to do that, too? They were unhosted Yeerks. They were harmless."

"We needed a div —" I stopped myself.

"A what? A what did you need? A diversion? You're going to tell me you needed a diversion so Jake massacred seventeen thousand sentient creatures? A diversion?"

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: There was no diversion mentioned in the last book
Ifi: It was just
Ifi: "Oh dudes check it out unhosted Yeerks. Man I hate Yeerks."
Adam: The Earth military and the Auxiliaries getting needlessly massacred was the diversion.
Ifi: Yeah. There's no way around it. Jake draining the pool was done out of spite.
Ifi: And possibly sleep deprivation.
Adam: See, when we're sleep deprived, we end up making increasingly depressing internet reviews.
Adam: Jake kills thousands.
Adam: I guess we need to get our priorities in order.
Ifi: I don't know a thousand people to kill.
Adam: *pats shoulder*
Adam: We'll get there.

Ifi: Meanwhile, Ax and Marco stick Esplin in a suitcase filled with cookies and Alloran runs around.
Adam: Don't you need to stick a Yeerk in water when it's outside of its host?
Ifi: Maybe they're the kind of cookies that stay moist?
Adam: But
Adam: Then they're wasting such perfectly good cookies!
Ifi: What's one more terrible decision in this series?
Adam: This is the worst of the lot.

Adam: Just look at that, and tell me you could stick an alien slug on top.
Ifi: Alloran turns out to be useful, as he knows how to stand up the Andalite military.
Adam: Okay, this part?
Adam: It is the best part of the book.
Ifi: There's not really much competition in that department.

He hesitated and there was a slight, ironic smile. An Andalite smile, of course, which is all in the eyes. <The Dome ship Elfangor.>

Ax swelled about a size. <A Dome ship named for Elfangor. There is no higher honor for a warrior.>

<A well-named ship,> Alloran said. <Now, officer-of-the-day Offeran, you're going to want to contact the captain because you have just captured a Yeerk Pool ship. We will advance at space normal speed to any point you name. All Bug fighters will be deployed around the ship, and as we reach the rendezvous point you will see all Bug fighters self-destruct. At that time we will detach the Pool ship's main engines. All weapons will be powered down. This ship will be perfectly helpless.>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: I am smiling from ear to ear.
Adam: Let's just.
Adam: Give Alloran a round of applause.
Adam: Or at least one of those cookies.
Ifi: One of the ones from the bottom of the pile
Adam: Well said.

Ifi: Anyway, they put some other jerk on the line who wants to incinerate the Earth, but luckily Marco has
Ifi: a plan
Ifi: sort of

Hey, Ax-man," I said brightly. "Is it true the Andalite home world is watching all this? Can I wave to them?" I waved like one of the idiots outside the Today show. "Hi, everyone! Howard Stern rules! Yaaaah!"

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: He sticks the negotiation process up on Andalite youtube.
Ifi: wtf Howard Stern?
Adam: He was popular in the 90's-early 00's.
Ifi: This actually isn't the first time we've seen this
Ifi: Alllll the way back in book 15, the good old days, the book opened up with a silly plot about Cassie wanting to save parrots from the Rainforest Cafe, which was using them for advertising
Ifi: And we got this exchange.

And now, a couple days after that conversation, we were at the mall. And we were right in the forefront of people annoying the parrots.

"Say 'Howard Stern rules!'" a kid urged a bright green parrot.

"Squuuaaaakkk! Amazon Cafe! It's an adventure!"

"No, idiot bird dude, Howard Stern rules, man! Say 'Howard Stern rules!'"

----Book Fifteen, The Escape

Ifi: For the record, I had no idea who Howard Stern was at that age, and neither did any of my friends
Adam: Applegate is a fan
Ifi: He's the dude who yells, right?
Adam: …He's a radio host.
Adam: But yes, he's the dude who yells

So did Alloran. 

Asculan had a mean look to him now. Furious. He was a person in a trap. A powerful person in a trap, not used to being trapped, not liking it.

Jake stepped into Asculan's line of sight. "Captain Asculan, we know that the Andalite fleet is devoted to the destruction of the Yeerk threat. And we know that you must be personally committed to that goal."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: So the population of Earth does not die today
Adam: Asculan makes his biggest "oh shit" face.
Adam: And Earth has basically won the war.

The captain listened to all this impassively. But I could see the steam sort of leaking out of him. By the end of Jake's little speech his eyes were glazed over. He knew he'd been trapped but good, and the truth was, he was probably relieved.

<Who exactly are you?> Asculan asked Jake.

I jerked a thumb at my friend. "This is Jake. Jake Berenson. President of Earth."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: They should make tshirts.
Ifi: Yes
Ifi: Asculan isn't a nice guy though. He flat out refuses to give the Yeerks a morphing cube, no matter what anyone says or does.

But, then, Ax said, <Captain-Prince Asculan, I hereby declare a challenge.>

A dozen Andalites stopped breathing.

I looked at Marco. He shrugged. He had no clue either.

Asculan laughed. <Aristh, you are not in a position to declare a challenge. You would have to be of princely rank or have the support of an Andalite of princely rank.>

Silence.

Then, Alloran said.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Alloran you are the only thing that makes this book worthwhile.
Adam: This is why you shouldn't waste cookies.
Ifi: I don't follow.
Adam: Give them to Alloran
Adam: All of them

It was Ax who answered. <It is the right and obligation of any Andalite warrior to challenge the order of a superior if he believes that superior is violating the fundamental rights of the electorate—the people.>

"You're kidding," Marco said. "How do you people ever fight wars if you can challenge anything your superior officer tells you to do?"

<If my challenge fails I will be harshly disciplined,> Ax said. 

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Andalites are weird as hell.
Adam: Do they have a procedure that will prevent the morphing process from regrowing it, or do they just do this on the honor system?
Ifi: I am going to assume honor.
Ifi: HONORRRRRRRRRRRR

Adam: Asculan backs down.
Adam: And then cool things happen.

Alloran turned his main eyes to me. He gave me a strange look. <I never hoped to be free again. You freed me. I have done what I have done in my life. I am what I am, though I may have gained at least some wisdom through the years of enslavement to Visser One. Just the same, I will always be Alloran, the Butcher of Hork-Bajir. Alloran, the only Andalite to be taken alive by the Yeerks. But, disgraced, even despised, for whatever I am worth, I am yours to command.>

The speech was delivered in a low thoughtspeak tone, all emotion severely controlled. But then Alloran whipped his tail blade over his head, so fast it cracked like a whip. He smiled the subtle Andalite smile and yelled, <Do you know who did that? Do you know who moved my tail? I did. I did. I did it.>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Alloran stop stop being precious I'm gonna cry and then Adam will cry and we will never finish this review.
Ifi: If I start crying now I will never stop
Adam: Alloran gets his own little cottage with an unlimited supply of cinnamon rolls, the end.
Ifi: I actually heard he moved in with Eva.
Adam: We all have our fanons.

<Captain Asculan issues the following orders: Four morphing cubes will be made available to aristh Aximili to use as he sees fit. Aristh Aximili is hereby elevated to the rank of prince. Prince Aximili is appointed liaison between the Andalite fleet and the people of Earth.>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Does that technically make Jake a War-Prince?
Adam: That isn't how promotions work.
Adam: But yay! Ax finally got one!
Ifi: Yay! This totally makes up for everything you have experienced over the last few years and you will definitely NOT be a social outcast understood by nobody once you go home!
Adam: Elfangor wasn't.
Ifi: Yeah and I'm not clear on how he pulled that off.
Adam: It's pretty firmly established that Andalite civilians are a heck of a lot nicer then their military officials.

A sea of microphones and video cameras and flashbulbs. Ax and Jake, and to a lesser extent Marco and I, gave a sort of brief explanation of what had been happening, and where things stood now.

Needless to say, it was kind of a big news day. Tobias was silent throughout. If he even heard the questions he didn't show it. And then, as Marco was telling yet another amusing anecdote, Tobias spread his wings, caught an updraft, and flew away.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: no wait come back Tobias no stop :(
Adam: This is not a happy Tobias book.
Adam: Even with his mom back, Rachel was basically his strongest tie to humanity, so without her keeping him grounded (heh) he doesn't exactly cope well.

The next day an Andalite scout ship reported finding a human body floating in space. Young, female. The Blade ship had jettisoned her body before going into Zero space.

The Andalites brought her to California. Near the devastation that was all that was left of our homes. I was there when Rachel returned. Her mother was there, too. The Andalites treated her body with great respect. She had been wrapped in some sort of soft cloth. I guess it was the Andalite way.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: So now we have Rachel's funeral.
Adam: And Adam cries the whole time.
Ifi: In attendance is everyone ever.
Adam: And then Tobias steals her ashes, and then vanishes off the face of the earth.

Tobias closed his talons around the urn's small handle. He glared fiercely at Rachel's mom. She was crying, had been all along. She sobbed and nodded her head, giving her permission.

Then Tobias looked at me. I said, "Yes, Tobias. She would want it."

I don't know where he found the strength to lift that urn, but he did. He flew away, low at first, then, catching a thermal, he bore the urn away into the sky.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: …Dare I ask what he ends up doing with it?
Ifi: Yeah I really have no idea, nor do I wish to dwell on it.
Adam: Fair enough.

Ifi: Then there is
Ifi: a time skip
Ifi: a whole year

Adam: Marco is up at bat as narrator.
Adam: He is now a corporate sellout.
Ifi: He's Tony Stark minus the suit.
Ifi: And the very definition of selling out.

That first month we owned the world. But that was the easy part: We had a story to tell and everyone wanted the details of how we and our weird alien friend and all our animal morphs had saved the world. The tough part was to keep it going after we stopped being The New Thing.

I had become the unofficial spokesman for the Animorphs. Jake wasn't interested in doing it. Neither was Cassie. And as for Tobias, well, no one had seen him or heard from him since Rachel's funeral.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: This is not okay
Ifi: THIS IS NOT OKAY
Ifi: NONE OF THIS IS OKAY
Adam: What were you expecting, exactly?
Ifi: AAAAAAAAHDASLKSHJKADLKJASHFJKLASJKDSLAJJFFF
Adam: Ah, I see.
Adam: Hey Applegate, I think you broke my friend over here.

I wrote a book, with some help from a ghostwriter. The title was The Gorilla Speaks. Number one on The New York Times best-seller list, number one on the PW list, number one on the Web.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: snort
Adam: Well hey, look what's out now:

Ifi: One of them dies horribly at the end.
Adam: I haven't read it yet.
Adam: =<
Ifi: That was an assumption
Adam: Still
Adam: =<

Adam: Also, there is apparently an Animorphs movie in the works.
Adam: In universe.
Adam: Just to avoid confusion.

I got a gig as "technical advisor" to a Spielberg movie about us. Animorph. Come on, you gotta love that. I did all the shows to plug that deal. Sample dialog: "I loved working with Steven, he is absolutely devoted to accuracy, and I knew he was the man who could be trusted with our story."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Lots of celebrity name-dropping here.
Adam: This isn't actually too far off from reality.
Adam: Audie Murphy, the most decorated war hero in American history, later ended up staring in a biopic about himself.
Adam: They had to tone it down from actual events to keep people from thinking it was unrealistic.

Ifi: There is a coat in your medals.
Adam: Somewhere
Adam: He once held off a Nazi advance by himself from the inside of a tank that was on fire and could explode at any moment, after having been shot.
Ifi: Let's spend the rest of this review talking about him.
Adam: Okay, someone go right a real person fic where he can turn into a jaguar.

Arbron was shot and killed by poachers. It was a big incident for a while. They caught the poachers and put them away. Everyone said how terrible it was. But you know, Arbron was probably grateful. He had saved his adopted people, but he had been a prisoner of that awful Taxxon hunger, and that's no way to live.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: ARBRONNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Adam: D=
Adam: Okay, that is just spiteful.
Adam: And the named character death count is at 4.
Ifi: I think the universe might actually hate him more than Chapman
Adam: You may be right.
Adam: At least Chapman did something horrible to merit it.
Adam: Sort of
Adam: When he was an idiot teenager.
Adam: Arbron…had a bad sense of humor?
Adam: I mean, Marco ended up pretty well, and they were basically different species versions of each other.

Andalite tourism was the coming thing. The numbers were limited—interstellar travel isn't cheap, you know. But the big thing was for wealthy or influential Andalites to come to Earth and acquire human morphs. Then it was off to the mall food courts to raid the Cinnabon and Mrs. Fields.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: And that came as a surprise to absolutely nobody
Adam: There is a Cinnabon in Penn Station.
Adam: I pass by there all the time.
Adam: Where all the Andalites at?

Ifi: And Jake...isn't doing so good.

Every college on the planet tried to recruit him. No thanks. West Point offered him a gig as an instructor in the Tactical Application of Emerging Technologies and Xeno-Warfare. No thanks. If he'd been old enough he could have run for president as the candidate of Democrats and Republicans both. Jake was the biggest hero the world had ever seen because he was a hero for all humans, not one nation. He had saved the lives and freedom of the entire human race. I mean, he could have snapped his fingers and had anything he wanted.

The problem was, he didn't want anything.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: PTSD is a bitch.
Ifi: So Jake, Cassie, and Marco all get dragged up to the Netherlands to participate in Esplin's trial.
Ifi: What a waste of time I mean really?
Adam: I would admittedly like to know how international law ends up getting rewritten in response to this

"[Jake] doesn't put flowers on the memorial or whatever, there are always lots of those. He goes when no one's around, late, after hours. The guys at the gate let him in. He parks and just kind of sits there like he's hanging out with her. I don't think he talks to her. Sad as it is to say, I wish he did. Talking to a dead person is better than not talking at all. He sits there for an hour, sometimes two, stares out at the ocean. Watches the sun go down. Then he leaves. Sometimes I think he's waiting there hoping Tobias will show up."

Tears were welling in my eyes. The image was too sad. I'd been to Rachel's memorial too. But not like that. "Rachel would be so mad at him."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Fuck. Crying.
Adam: Stop that. Rachel would be mad at you too.
Ifi: I DO WHAT I WANT
Adam: Yeah ok

Ifi: So then there is the trial.

Fortunately Ax's people were willing to help. Very willing. Andalite technicians created a Yeerk box. It was about the size of a hardcover book. It contained a miniaturized Kandrona source, a computer-interface, and a voice synthesizer. The visser could hear and "see" and speak. The box, painted lavender for some obscure Andalite reason, sat on a pedestal facing the curved judges' bench.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: The Andalite military needs to stop giving you control of color coordination.
Ifi: I am blackmailing them. I do what I want.
Adam: Yeah ok
Adam: Jake comes up to testify, and one of Esplin's lawyers starts badgering him.

"Your honor, this witness should himself be under indictment as a war criminal. If the alleged war crimes of the Yeerk military officer, Visser One, are to be tried in this court, it must be in the pursuit of impartial justice. Truly impartial justice cannot be applied only against one side in a conflict. If my client is to be tried for his actions in the human-Yeerk war, then so must the actions of this witness. With all due respect to this court, this witness is a mass murderer. A war criminal."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: That isn't
Adam: Relevant
Ifi: That's like, sliding into slander.
Adam: Sliding into?
Adam: It's cannonballing straight in
Ifi: Well there is the small technicality of it being true
Ifi: But still
Adam: Still.
Ifi: lamelamelame
Adam: It isn't relevant right now.
Adam: If Jake is to be tried as a war criminal, he will have his own separate court hearing.

Ifi: Then Marco and Cassie do a stupid thing
Ifi: They dump Jake in the freezing cold sea hoping that he will morph a dolphin and be happy.
Ifi: Instead, Jake morphs a shark and eats them both.
Adam: Happy End!
Adam: No, it works totally.

"I guess you guys think you're clever," I said, squeegeeing water out of my hair.

"More like desperate," Marco said. "You've had your head up your butt for a long time, Jake. Which is your business. Unless it's our business. Like when you screw up testifying against Visser One."

I nodded. I couldn't argue. But if they thought the result was me all happy they were wrong.

"She called me a war criminal," I said.

"She's wrong," Cassie said.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: She was kinda right.
Ifi: Nnnnnggghhhhhhhhhhh
Adam: You're going to give yourself a hernia or something.
Ifi: I loathe this book.
Adam: Anywho, Esplin is found guilty.
Adam: Nobody is surprised.
Adam: Bizarrely, he does not get the death penalty.
Adam: When human war criminals have gotten it for much less.
Ifi: Europe doesn't do that anymore.
Adam: Oh, wait, you're right.
Adam: Netherlands.

Adam: Actually, there is one other point here I want to bring up.
Adam: Throughout this part, they keep addressing him as "Visser One."
Adam: Though logically wouldn't he have been stripped of his rank at this point?
Ifi: Ngh
Adam: *patpat*

Ifi: Two year time skip because Applegate hates you!
Adam: No, just you specifically.

Adam: Ax is now captain of a generically named military vessel.
Ifi: Flying around looking for the Blade ship
Adam: Ax is kind of full of himself.
Ifi: Andalite
Adam: Touche.
Adam: Though he has a bit more effectual of a teaching style, so hopefully when one of his cadets ends up stranded on some strange alien planet, they'll have a clearer idea of how to handle themselves.
Ifi: Anyway he does some generic stuff and that's it.
Adam: Then they find a weird space thing.
Adam: It looks like a giant everlasting gobstopper.
Adam: I'm going to call it the WST
Adam: Weird Space Thing.
Ifi: I assumed it was a Kelbrid craft
Adam: But we never find out, since now the narration goes back to Jake.

Ifi: Jake is teaching morphing school
Adam: He works at area 51
Adam: Basically.
Ifi: Zone 91 or whatever?
Adam: There are a lot of zones, okay?

I spoke to Cassie every couple of months. She was seeing some guy...actually, a good guy. I had met him at one of Marco's parties. I couldn't exactly remember his name. He worked for the governor of California on environmental concerns. He and Cassie spent a lot of time working together with the Hork-Bajir in Yellowstone.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: This is not okay.
Adam: Applegate knows where your OTP lives.
Ifi: Cybertron?
Adam: Yes
Adam: Clearly

<Ax's ship? I mean, excuse me, Prince Aximili's ship?>

<Yes,> Caysath confirmed. <Menderash is the only known survivor of the lntrepid.>

I guess I looked pretty stupid for a minute as that news sank in.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Also not okay
Adam: Esgarrouth?
Adam: Is he Ax's cousin or something?
Ifi: Actually that's the Andalite equivalent of Smith
Adam: Ah
Adam: Anyway, Named Character Death Count: .̪̯͎͗̈5?.̫̫͔̑ͬ͛ͪ̒ͭ̈̚
Ifi: it's ambiguous
Adam: Named Character Death Count: e̷̢̤͍̘̬͊̂̐̊ͅ ̷̦͔̗̭̘̲̜͑ͧ̇ͫf̿͂͋̽ͧͩ͑͛̚҉̛͙̙͘ę̛̱̺̺̹͔̪̣ͬ̊ͯ̎ͣ͊̒͌ͅ
Ifi: Yes
Adam: Nv̛͓͕̬̣̤͇̮͛ͪͮ͌͜͡e̷̹͔̞̓ͮ̏̋̃͛̅̂̕͞amei̸̞͔̬̭ͨ̒ͤ͌d h̴̐̃̀͂ͩ͏̗͓͙̮̟͙͖̝a̙͍̯͍̪͓̭͙̾ͤo̸͂̃̍̎ͮ̍҉͚͓̬͓̩Charactn̸̸̢̩͖̺͕̝͑̌̓ͪͬͥ͐erả̎́̇ͫ͛͌͏̮̲͓̣̜͎̙̰ļ̵̮̭̲͙͈̟̅̀Deathd̨͓̠̹̜̪̙̹̊ͪ̿̑͞ ̶̡̻̞̞̠̦̝̥̓͜o̷̯͙͉͈͚̥̝̗͌͌̓̚͟͞f̛͈͍̬̘̭͎ͭͯ̾͟͞ ̢̥̳͇̠̙͖͇̩̆̀́c̢̩̪͕̰̳ͪ̐̀́́ḥ̗̻͈͒̔a̭̣̝̼̠̺̺͍͈̐̃Count̷̛͎̰̅̿ͣ̽͗́r͓̟̤̫̖͇͔̲̍̎e̮̗̯̦̬͕̺͆̿͊̎ͨ̅͜ͅ
Adam: e̷̹͔̞̓ͮ̏̋̃͛̅̂̕͞-̧̪̯̬͖͕̮͔̣͋̆ͣͪm̧̡̻̅į̳̩͚̌͗̌̃̉̒̒͑̚n̶̴̦͉̘̲͓̟͎̑̃͊̎͊͐̏͜ͅͅd̶̸̼͙̣͔͍̃͛͐̄̈̿͢ ̷̛͎̰̅̿ͣ̽͗́r͓̟̤̫̖͇͔̲̍̎e̮̗̯̦̬͕̺͆̿͊̎ͨ̅͜ͅp̪̣̺̳̲̹̭ͩͭ̓̈ͮ́̊̕͢r͐͏̲͍̀͠e͖͓̅ͫ͊̊͌ͪ͜͞sͦ̿̓͡͏̯̭̗̬̗̱͕̮́e̛͚͔̹̋͂̈́̅̏̋͂̚ṅ̴̋͏̜̳t̯͐̕i̸̞͔̬̭ͨ̒ͤ͌n̸̸̢̩͖̺͕̝͑̌̓ͪͬͥ͐g̢̦͎̻͌͒̔̿ ͉͔̰ͩ̐̿̊̊̑ͫ̿̕c͇̻̰̻̆ͧ͐̓̽ͨ̌̔͡h̷͚̲͍̫͉̩̘̠̻͑̊̊ͣͣ̍a͓̹̠ͭͧ͑̾ͩ̽ͫ̀͞o͌̿͛̄͠͠͏̪͔̗s̶̽͌ͤ͡҉͙.̨̲͉̝͓̹͎̮̜͛̾͑̑ͭ͌̿ͥ́͠
̛̰̬̰̰̤̠̿͌ͨͥ̌ͅI̢͉̹ͦ͂ͬͧͧ̚͘ͅn̸̺͓̭ͬͪͭ̓̅̃ͫ̄̚͢ͅv̴̫̰̋͛ͭ́͌̇ͨ̚͡ͅo̫͎̘̲̰͋̎̇͟͡ͅk̻͖̲̤͇̜̭̭̟̃̓̏͢i̸͓ͩͬ̀ͫͤ̕n̴̠̗̭̺͎͙̜̎̔̉ͩ̐͟g̵̡̦̲͎̯̝̓̌̒ͯ͋ͫ̒̓ ̥̠͉̖̘ͫ̿̾̈ͮͭͩ̀̕t̗͚̦͂ͮ̽ͤ͂͠ḩ̨̹͉̾̎̅̋e̷̢̤͍̘̬͊̂̐̊ͅ ̷̦͔̗̭̘̲̜͑ͧ̇ͫf̿͂͋̽ͧͩ͑͛̚҉̛͙̙͘ę̛̱̺̺̹͔̪̣ͬ̊ͯ̎ͣ͊̒͌ͅe̯̭ͫ͘͢l͎̳͊ͨ͢i̸̻̟̻̇́͒ͭn̙͚̘ͮ̆͗̊̎͛̅͠ǧ̸̨̖͓̆͠
Adam: ḥ̗̻͈͒̔a̭̣̝̼̠̺̺͍͈̐̃

Ifi: Do you need to lie down?
Adam: Nah, I'm good.

Ifi: I love Ax you don't kill Ax OFFSCREEN
Adam: ;_;
Adam: Ax
Ifi: That is just
Ifi: Asdhakjsdsfhdasff

Ifi: Menderash has a confusing and nonsensical story of how their ship got blowed up by the Blade ship and also this other spiky mystery ship.
Ifi: It's almost like the good old days, except nothing is good.

Adam: So now we have our whole "getting the gang back together" montage
Ifi: The only problem is that the bad guys vanished into Kelbrid space, which is somewhere that Andalites are not allowed, presumably because the Kelbrid require visitors to meet minimum standards of politeness.

Once they were gone, Caysath said, <The Kelbrid claim an empire that borders the far reaches of our own territory. They are dangerous. Warlike. Aggressive. But also very trustworthy. We have a treaty with one simple proviso: We do not enter Kelbrid space, they do not enter ours.>

"Was this alien vessel a Kelbrid ship?"

<We do not know. We have never seen a Kelbrid. They, likewise have no direct knowledge of us.>

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: What
Ifi: what
Ifi: what
Ifi: How
Ifi: How do you write a treaty with them
Ifi: if you have no direct knowledge of them?
Adam: They communicate only through vague, difficult to translate transmissions?
Ifi: that does not even sense
Adam: Think Ender's Game
Adam: You have a species at the end that communicates by narcotics
Adam: And people aren't able to figure out their intention.
Adam: So the Kelbrid might be similar.
Ifi: Ok but you should still have an idea of what they look like.
Adam: They're territorial
Adam: Anyone who would have gotten the chance to see them got all 'sploded.
Ifi: I'm just going to let this go because I don't want to spend all night on it and it doesn't wind up mattering at all.
Adam: Also, Menderash becomes a human nothlit now.
Ifi: WHY
Adam: For…some reason
Ifi: Ever since it got out that Elfangor once did it, now it's seen as the cool thing to do?

In answer, Menderash began to morph. He was morphing to human.

"He's still an Andalite," I said.

<In two hours, I will no longer be an Andalite,> Menderash said.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY, DUDE
Adam: I think he just did it to be dramatic
Ifi: You are going to be alone in a ship 99% of the time, nobody will know if you suddenly need to morph to human.
Adam: And having someone unable to morph in the crew is just going to be a liability

Ifi: Sooo Jake goes to get Cassie. Sort of.
Ifi: Cassie is dating some jerk named Ronnie.
Ifi: He's not actually a jerk but fandom hates him
Ifi: I should not have to explain why
Adam: Cassie, you don't date coworkers.
Adam: That's just common sense.

Ronnie knew about my relationship with Jake. I'd probably bored him half to death talking about my relationship with Jake. I felt sorry for him—Ronnie was a man's man, smart, confident, decent, funny. But in the public imagination, Jake was still some melding of George Washington and Patton and Batman. It was impossible not to be a little intimidated by all that.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: lol@batman
Adam: Aw, but Marco was supposed to be Batman.

Ifi: So Jake explains the mission to Cassie, only to tell her that she's not allowed to come.
Ifi: For dumb reasons.
Adam: It's fairly clear that he still holds a grudge over giving Tom the Escafil Device, or at least that's my take.

"That's not it, Cassie," he said, all the swagger gone now. He was the old, awkward Jake now, struggling to express feelings instead of making lightning decisions. "Look, Cassie, you're doing what you need to do and were born to do. Part of what we won was freedom for the Hork-Bajir people. And a place for them here on Earth. That's something we won. It's in the bank. It's real and it's good and your job is to protect it. Me…" He shrugged. "Look, for better or worse, this is what I do. This is what I am, not what you are."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: This is dumb.
Adam: Yeah, I'm going with my "he's still bitter" theory.
Ifi: I'm going with my "this book was written as a deliberate middle finger to the fans" theory
Adam: Everyone always takes everything so personally
Adam: What if I just want to write a depressing story?
Ifi: Then you don't drag it out for 65 books
Adam: 62
Ifi: Whatever
Adam: Plus a pair of CYOA books that are better left forgotten
Ifi: Those don't count as anything except honorable mentions on the list of the ten worst Animorphs books ever
Adam: Next week let's compile a list.
Ifi: Totally

Adam: Anyway, now we finally get to see what Tobias has been up to this whole time.
Ifi: Eating mice.
Adam: Figures.
Ifi: Doing literally nothing.

A Hork-Bajir was leaping from tree to tree. My mood picked up instantly. It was Toby. She had reached her full size now, a big, dangerous looking goblin.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Toby is all grown up!
Ifi: I'm gonna cry again.
Adam: d'aww
Adam: And has gone into politics.

"Tobias, I have done something you may disapprove of," Toby said. She was always ridiculously deferential when addressing me. It was a bit silly, what with her being not only the de facto head of the Hork-Bajir, but also, under U.S. law, officially the Governor of the Hork-Bajir Free Colony and a nonvoting observer-member in the House of Representatives.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: She brought Jake.
Adam: I'm not sure why they couldn't have done this before, just to check up on him.
Adam: Anyway, Tobias is still bitter at Jake over the whole "sending his cousin to her death" thing.
Ifi: But once he hears Ax is in trouble, it becomes a moot point.
Ifi: Jeez man, maybe you should visit your widowed mother every so often, how about that?
Adam: She got a second dog.
Adam: So she didn't notice
Ifi: She works at a Chee-run adoption agency
Adam: Sure

Ifi: Meanwhile, Marco is continuing on his path of being a vomit-inducing sellout
Adam: He's starting to get bored with the whole "being a fabulously wealthy movie star national hero who is dating a supermodel" thing.
Adam: My heart really goes out to him, let me tell you.

<Hey, Jake. Remember this morph?>

"Uh-huh. Some reason why you're morphing to lobster?"

<Ummmm…I dropped my keys down in the pool? I was going to go get them?>

"Well, then it's a good thing you have the ability to turn into a lobster, because otherwise, what would you do? I mean, normal people, they drop their keys in the pool, they're just totally helpless. Those keys stay down there. Forever."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: He seems to be losing it.
Adam: I think he needs Jake to keep him in check, otherwise he just stays in his head too long.
Ifi: So of course Marco agrees to come along, it's not like he really has a choice.
Adam: So now we have Jake, Marco, Tobias, plus an Andalite.
Adam: But we're still short two characters, so Jake steals some recruits from his class.

All but three volunteered. It was a measure of my fame, I guess. It made me feel a little bad, like I was taking advantage of them. I decided to take two of them, Sergeant Santorelli, a U.S. Army Ranger who was five years older than me, and a French Deuxieme Bureau trainee named Jeanne Gerard. I chose them both on the strength of their lack of any close family.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Who are these randoms
Ifi: Who are these randoms in my book?
Ifi: Out.
Ifi: OUT.
Adam: Ifi is not good at handling change.
Ifi: AAAAAAFHSAJKDSHAJKLDSKJLFFFFFf
Ifi: Also Tobias is mad old, isn't he?
Ifi: He mentions it at one point in the text, but they never address it exactly.
Ifi: But he is.
Ifi: I dunno if he was gonna lock himself in human form or let himself die. Probably die.
Adam: The lifespan of an average Red-tail is about 13-20 years in the wild. Prolly a little bit longer for him, since he can always ask Toby for a hamburger if he gets too desperate.
Ifi: Now I am imagining Toby going into a McDonalds and trying to order.
Adam: But at this point, it really comes down to how old the original hawk was when he acquired it.
Ifi: Anyway. It's a moot point.
Ifi: The mootest.

Ifi: You know what else I have an issue with?
Ifi: We never get to learn what happened to
Ifi: well
Ifi: ANYONE
Ifi: All of the minor characters aside from the Hork-Bajir are forgotten about.
Adam: Rachel's mom becomes a delegate for the new Hork-Bajir nation.
Adam: Loren continues to ignore everyone except her dog.
Adam: Chapman has a car run over his foot.
Adam: And the Chee decide to screw it, and take all the dogs to Leera.
Ifi: Yeah okay

Adam: So they drive back to the military base in the middle of the night, Marco hits on Jeanne and everyone is generally uncomfortable.

A few minutes later the two Andalites on the shuttle thought they heard a thought-speak cry. They opened the hatch to investigate and out in the desert at the limits of their vision, they got the impression of a running Andalite. Maybe it was a wild mustang, but they couldn't be sure so they trained all their eyes forward. It was thanks to this that they didn't see the gorilla drop from the top of the shuttle and knock their heads together.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: The word mustang makes me giggle.
Adam: Not that type of mustang.
Ifi: They think they might have seen the ghost of prince Elfangor
Ifi: Driving through the desert, top down
Ifi: With a can of Dr. Pepper in one hand
Ifi: It's actually a pretty common sighting
Adam: Okay, someone write a fanfic involving Elfangor, Rachel, Arbron and Jara's ghosts driving around and playing poker or something.

"You know, I could be kind of a mentor to you," Marco said to Jeanne. "If we worked closely together I could teach you all I know."

"But what could I possibly do to repay you?" Jeanne asked.

"Well…" Marco leered, and was about to offer some specific ideas when Jeanne interrupted him.

"I know! Perhaps someday I could introduce you to my cousin Michelle. She likes short men. Even as short as you."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Marco you are such a pig.
Adam: Jeanne, you're cool, you can stay.
Adam: But now, the point we've all been waiting for.
Adam: Our semi-new team gets their sexy new spaceship.

"So what do we call her?" Marco wondered.

<She's beautiful,> Tobias said. <She's beautiful and dangerous and exciting.>

I turned in surprise to look at Tobias. He stared back at me with his eternally fierce hawk's gaze.

Marco laughed, realizing what we were thinking.

"She would love it. A scary, deadly, cool-looking Yeerk ship on a doomed, suicidal, crazy mission that no one can ever know about? She would love it."

So it was that we went aboard the Rachel.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: TEARBENDING

Ifi: So they blast off into Z-Space and thus begins the galaxy's most boring adventure

Santorelli and I went to do an inventory of the supplies. We found water, vitamin pills, a good supply of various awful-looking freeze-dried foods and six dozen Cinnabons.

"Do Andalites have a sense of humor?" Santorelli wondered.

"We've never been entirely sure," I said.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: Now, I have a question.
Adam: They could easily be up in space for years. What do they do if they run out of food?
Adam: I mean, Yeerks have Kandrona generators, and Andalites have the grass fields inside their domes.
Ifi: idklol
Adam: But they never establish a way for other species to deal with this.
Adam: So they lounge around, watch movies, play cards, etc etc
Adam: And they eventually get to Kelbrid space

We spent the next six weeks wandering around the system, seeing some cool things on strange worlds, but no evidence of Kelbrids. We were starting to wonder whether there was any such thing as a Kelbrid. And we definitely saw no sign of the Blade ship or the mysterious alien craft that had fired on Ax's Intrepid. We moved on to the next nearest system. And the next.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Wow it's almost as if the Kelbrids have evacuated their home because a horrifying space abomination has taken up residence.
Adam: Shh

Adam: And then...
Adam: They find it!
Adam: The Blade ship
Ifi: Good job guys that only took you half a year
Adam: Ifi
Adam: Space
Adam: It is big
Adam: Very, very big
Ifi: This book
Ifi: it is bad
Ifi: very, very bad
Adam: no u
Ifi: Exhibit A:

We gave out our story, that we were the Enterprise, a peaceful, deep-space exploration ship from The United Federation of Planets. We figured no one in this far corner of the universe would have seen Star Trek reruns. It was our little joke.

Here was the problem with that thinking: The Yeerks we were chasing had spent years on Earth, many with human hosts.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: Okay
Adam: Exactly what were you thinking there?
Ifi: *points to previous statement*
Adam: Jake
Adam: I think sitting around in a tiny spaceship for a year has addled your brain.

After that first panicked glance Santorelli betrayed no sign that he was listening to anyone. He assumed a wide, cocky stance and said, "I've always thought of myself as more of a Captain Kirk."

"Sensor confirmation: It's the Blade ship," Menderash hissed.

That tightened a few sphincters.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Exhibit B
Ifi: Actually I think at this point we're on like Exhibit W
Adam: It's cabin fever, like I said.
Adam: I'm impressed that they haven't all eaten each other by now.
Adam: So now we meet Efflit, who I am pretty sure is the guy who killed Rachel.

The Yeerk captain nodded in a genial sort of way in response to Santorelli. "That's quite a ship you have there…excuse me, I don't know your name."

I made a slashing gesture with my hand, cutting Santorelli off before he could say something wrong. "You're Rakich-Four-Six-Nine-One of the Flet Niaar Pool."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Wow it only took you three years to learn how to do that.
Adam: To cut someone off?
Ifi: No to pretend to be a Controller
Adam: They've been doing that since book 7

Ifi: Anyway
Ifi: Brace for
Ifi: Whatever the fuck this is

Santorelli sighed. He acted the part of a deflated man. "There is no empire, Efflit-One-Three-One-Eight. The empire is finished. I...my crew and I seized this ship and escaped as the Andalites closed in. We had heard that a Blade ship had escaped and survived. We have been looking for you ever since. For more than three years."

Efflit nodded. But would he buy it? He and his people were all alone in the universe. We represented the only brother Yeerks he was ever likely to see. Was he lonely enough to be careless? Would he trust us enough to let us destroy him?

"You will place yourself under the command of The One?"

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: So now the Yeerks are part of some sort of Lovecraftian cult.
Adam: Betcha didn't see that coming.
Ifi: I really really didn't.

"I command this ship," Efflit 1318 explained, "but I serve at the pleasure of The One Who Is Many. The One Who Is All. We are not alone, Rakich-Four-Six-Nine-One. We are not this ship alone. We are the seeds of a new empire that will far outshine the old, under the leadership of The One." Weird to see that wild, messianic glow in the eyes of a man you knew was really just a Yeerk slave. It was a disturbingly human expression.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Adam: And now things gett͓̳͇͕̳̖̳͇̓͆͜h̞̖͙̟͍̥̃ͫͨͪͤ̈́͘͘͝ͅe̫͈̠̞̻̘̭̘͐̂ͪ̑ͧ͂̑̍ͅ
Adam: .̣̖̮͓̣̜ͮ̆͒͋wierdi̜̲̔̊̒
Ifi: Three pages left in the book, yes, this is the perfect time to introduce this character
Adam: Quote that shit, yo

The face that filled the screen and more was a shifting image, a slow dissolve from what might be a robot's face, a machine with a rat-trap mouth and steel eyes, into a sweet, feminine, almost elfin visage, and last, and most enduring, into the face of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

<Ax?> Tobias whispered.

The face that belonged to our friend Ax split wide open across the bottom and revealed a newformed mouth full of red-rimmed teeth.

"Save your tricks for this Yeerk fool," The One said. "I see the truth. I see all. Step into view, Jake the Yeerk-Killer. I know you are there, I feel your mind."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Well we are completely screwed.

Ifi: I hope you weren't wondering what this guy is or where he came from or what happened to Ax exactly or any other perfectly valid questions.
Adam: Well, only one thing left to do now.

"Okay." Jake took a deep breath. He looked around the bridge at each of us. At Tobias. At me. "What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"

I nodded, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.

There was a dangerous smile on Jake's face.

Rachel's smile.

"Full emergency power to the engines," Jake said. "Ram the Blade ship."

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Oh
Ifi: It
Ifi: it appears
Ifi: it appears that
Ifi: the author
Ifi: FORGOT TO FINISH WRITING THE BOOK

Make it your desktop and win a bajillion dollars: 1280x800 and 1024x768

Adam: They survive.
Ifi: Oh yes?
Adam: Think back to the Andalite Chronicles.
Adam: Elfangor's first battle with Visser Three right after the Ellimist sends him back from Earth.
Adam: What is the risky move that he takes that ultimately wins him the battle?
Adam: He rams the Blade Ship.
Adam: Jake and co survive.
Ifi: Applegate must have felt guilty, because she left a letter to the fans in the back.
Ifi: Though to be honest, she only addresses the issue for one paragraph.
Ifi: The rest is thanks to various people and a plug for Remnants.

I know, I know, it's rotten of me to leave you hanging at the end like that. But I figured the Animorphs should go out the same way they came in: Fighting.

----Book Fifty-Four, The Beginning

Ifi: Everything after that is typical end-of-series stuff.
Adam: Thematically appropriate, if impossibly cruel to the audience.
Adam: There is one thing.
Adam: There is a typo where she accidentally claims there to be 5 Megamorphs books.
Adam: This drove me absolutely mad as a kid.
Ifi: Haha poor baby Adam
Adam: I absolutely scoured all the nearby bookstores
Adam: And all the proto-fan sites.
Adam: Nothing.
Adam: I was ripping my hair out over this, I swear.

Ifi: As you can guess, there was a lot of fan backlash, and Applegate released another letter defending herself.
Adam: It's up on Hirac Delest

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.

Ifi: KA Applegate, your letter is well written and it makes a great argument and I do not forgive you.
Ifi: There was already an immense quantity of pain and horror in this series. Nobody was doubting the horrificness of war at this point. Trust me.
Ifi: I don't feel like a traditional conclusion would have been much to ask for, especially considering how young we all were.
Adam: War stories are tricky to write in such a way so that it doesn't come off like you're glorifying violence.
Adam: And honestly, I don't really think there is any sort of way she could have ended it that would have left people fully satisfied.
Adam: So I'm honestly really rather happy with the result, myself.
Ifi: Well that goes without saying. No author has ever had their fanbase 100% pleased.
Adam: I legitimately enjoyed this book.
Ifi: The writing was some of the best of the entire series. However, the frequent time skips were annoying and the random ending was disappointing at best.
Adam: This is true.
Ifi: About halfway through I realized that I didn't even feel like I was reading Animorphs.
Adam: How do you mean?
Ifi: I just didn't. But then, this didn't have a traditional three-act structure. So that might have been part of it.
Adam: It sort of had a three act structure, but inside out.
Adam: Backwards, really
Adam: You start off with a climax, then have a rising and falling action, and then end with the setup for a new plot.
Ifi: In creative writing class, we call that fucked the fuck right up
Ifi: But maybe I am just narrow-minded
Adam: Applegate has evolved beyond your puny mortal literary standards.
Adam: She is one with the universe now.
Ifi: Was she The One all along?
Adam: e͆̅̆ͩ͒҉̰̟́ ̃ͨͥ̈́ͧ̍͏̼̰͍̲̜̗f̏͛ͯͫ͏̪̹̭̞̟͈̞̼ē̤̍e̡̘͉͖̙ͧ͘ļ̟̣̟͍̙̼͈̒͢
Adam: ...sure

Ifi: Anything else?
Adam: Alright, two things.
Adam: 1: Everyone stick around for next week! We're going to be doing a final retrospective of the series.
Ifi: yay.
Adam: 2: I decided that we ought to do a final fan-art day.
Adam: So if you have any animorphs related art, poetry, short stories or etc, send it to cinnamonbunzuh@gmail.com by November 29th. I'll put it up the week after the retrospective.
Ifi: Do it.
Adam: Indeed.

2012-10-31T15:24:00.000-04:00

Due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the final review may not be posted this weekend. Please remain patient. Adam and I both live in areas that were hit hard, and we are without power until further notice.

Edit: We're back! The final review will be posted this week!