5th Megamorphs??

[NickDaGriff]

So I looked it up briefly.  It was going to be a "Where are They Now?" kind of book, which is what #54 essentially became.  Originally, #54 was just going to be an extended battle and ending to the war, but KAA's contract got cancelled before she could finish it all up, so she just had to merge it all together. 

I appreciate that KAA wasn't afraid to back down from completely shattering characters' lives, but I just think that the final chapter in #54 was a bad note to end on, just dragging it out slightly too long without adding anything relevant and creating an unnecessary cliffhanger.  If you just ignore all that stuff with The One and just have them flying off to rescue Ax, then it's a great ending.  I mean, naming the ship The Rachel is a great line to end the series on.  It leaves things so open to imagination and interpretation.  It's just Marco's final chapter that kills it for me.  KAA said she was going for a sort of Lord of the Rings style ending, but LotR's ending wouldn't have worked if Sam was watching Frodo sail off into the sunset and a huge Kraken suddenly jumped out of the water and tore his ship apart.

[NothingFromSomething]

Nah, heh, it'd be better!  Funnier, anyway.   

I just love the positivity coming out of the bleakness of the ending, though.  Short of some miracle (which one would assume they've all used up by that point in time, no luck left to count on), ostensibly they all die.  Cassie carries on doing the good work, protecting the war's hard-earned gains, and the rest go down on what they know is pretty much a suicide mission, "but it's Ax, we've gotta do it anyway!".  Having each other's backs in the face of impossible odds.  If that's not Animorphs in spirit, I don't know what is.  Tobias and Jake were pretty much FUBAR by that point in time anyway, might as well end it with some valiant final stand.

[Chad32]

It's a downer ending that people want to try to soften by saying maybe something will save them. Especially since Jake's statement was mirroring what Elfangor did, and he got saved. Of course, there was a Dome Ship right there to save him with, which is not so obvious for Jake's crew.

Personally I just say they all died, the ending is depressing, and I dislike it for many reasons. The fact that KA couldn't bear to send her pet character along with them for that is just adding insult to injury.

[NothingFromSomething]

Ahh, the Mary-Sue stuff.  Convenient for that particular argument.

[Alan Fangor]

It's because the series was originally planned to be longer. If I remember correctly, it was an 80-books, then reduced to 72, then to 68-64 or something, and at the and to 54.

So probably KA was thinking to write at least another Megamorphs, and, for sure, another Chronicle. The Taxxon Chronicles was scheduled; it was supposed to be about the life of Arbron as a Taxxon on the Taxxons' planet and then on Earth with the Yeerks.
 Instead it was decided to conclude the series quickly and so Arbron appears briefly in #53, and all the projects of  any ohter Megamorphs or Chronicles have been abandoned.

[Chad32]

Probably for the best. KA was barely involved with the series as it was, with only 54 books.

[NothingFromSomething]

"Barely involved"?  Uhh...

Where did you hear it was supposed to be 80-ish books, Alan?  That's pretty cool, I hadn't heard that before.  I know they made a conscious decision to start wrapping it up somewhere into the 40s, starting that final arc, but I didn't know the original plan was for more.

[Chad32]

Yes, when she was working on another series, and going over books that other people were writing, while occasionally writing Animorphs books outside of the main series, I'd call that barely involved. 4 main series books, nonwithstanding.

[NothingFromSomething]

She was very much involved in the series overall, though.  I'd put money on the ghost-writers during that 2/3 of the way period still having to work within a basic framework she'd outlined for the progression of the story.  They got individual books to work with, and no say in the big-picture stuff.  That was still all Katherine and Michael.  Explains why so many of the ghost-written books are sort of one-off story filler stuff, with less to do with the progression of the war.

[Alan Fangor]

"Barely involved"?  Uhh...

Where did you hear it was supposed to be 80-ish books, Alan?  That's pretty cool, I hadn't heard that before.

I remember reading it years ago, maybe in an interview or in a website, Scholastic or Wikipedia.
It's a known fact that Animorphs was interrupted quickly and other books were planned, e.g. the above-mentioned "Megamorphs 5" and "Taxxon Chronicles".

As far as I know, K.A. had a son in 1997 so she had less time for writing. In addition, she wanted to dedicate to other books like Everworld and Remnants.

According to some people, she lost interest around #26, so she delegates Anis mainly to ghostwriters.

It's a real shame. It would be even more fantastic a series of 80 books and other companion books.

[Chad32]

It's a real shame. It would be even more fantastic a series of 80 books and other companion books.

That's debatable, juding from the way the series was going in the later books.