Rumor has it, that an Animorphs 2.0 might be in the works...with Scholastic!

[wolfev]

Like I said, you can't market new books to kids without them having been exposed to the previous canon. That is currently out of print. The will probably just do a rewrite. Maybe they'll try to go for a Harry Potter/ Twilight type deal and release the books in a larger quantity but fewer books overall. Of course, they'd have to be somewhat different. You could have the main series and extended chronicles. I don't think megamorphs would fit into it though. Maybe we'll even get new characters.

[Chad32]

I think it's obvious KA moved on from what she wrote at the end of book 54. Advertising her new book series Remnants.

[KOFSoldier]

I think it's obvious KA moved on from what she wrote at the end of book 54. Advertising her new book series Remnants.

Yeah, she certainly acted as if she was finished. But then, somewhere (on LiveJournal, I think) she wrote that she would love to continue the series. I'll go find the link...

EDIT: Here it is

http://community.livejournal.com/animorphs/333855.html

The Reply
To Everyone:

Wow. You made us cry. Even Michael and that's not easy.

This was incredibly moving for both of us. Humbling as well.

It is very weird to think of the fans being adults now. Fans with jobs, fans in college, Elizabeth in Iraq. (I knew Michael was getting older but I didn't
think I was. Damn.)

We had always hoped Animorphs would have an effect beyond the "aaargh" and the
"tseeew!" We tried not to think about those possibilities, of course, because
we both have a mortal fear of taking ourselves too seriously. Marco's theory
that you have to decide whether you're going to see life as tragedy or comedy is our philosophy as well, and we've always figured our first obligation -- before we started laughing at anyone else -- was to laugh at ourselves. So we'd know we were sneaking "big issues" into the books but we never wanted to really think too much about it. After all, we're just fiction writers not philosophers and if we ever started thinking we were having an effect that would carry over into adult lives we'd be paralyzed by the responsibility.

We'd love to do book #55. Or #55 through #60, even. But that's not our
decision to make. The publisher would have to make that call.

In the meantime we are both back at work. "Home of the Brave" and "The Buffalo Storm" both by "Katherine Applegate" are coming out this fall, starting I think in late August. Some of you guys might enjoy Home, but Buffalo is a picture book. I have a little kid series, "Roscoe Riley Rules" coming out next spring about the same time as Michael's "The FAYZ." Michael's going to be using the pseudonym "Michael Grant." As many of you know he's sensitive about blurring lines, especially on-line, where 11 and 12 year olds probably shouldn't be reading his more adult stuff, hence the pseudonym.

Again, we can't tell you how meaningful this was for us. We were really moved.

Thanks.

Katherine and Michael

[wolfev]

It would be awesome to finally get some closure on the last book. I don't think they'd bring Rachel back though. I think scholastic could simply condense the series into about 6 books of several hundred pages and remove the filler. Then again, that isn't my decision. As long as its official though, I will so buy it.

[EscafilDevice]

It would be awesome to finally get some closure on the last book. I don't think they'd bring Rachel back though. I think scholastic could simply condense the series into about 6 books of several hundred pages and remove the filler. Then again, that isn't my decision. As long as its official though, I will so buy it.

Ehhhhhhh, I think most people would be happiest if they brought Rachel back.

[Estelore]

MOST people would be happiest to have Rachel back... but if they do it by re-writing the last book, I will be severely ticked off. When she wrote it, K.A. essentially said "This is what I believe it should be; I make no apologies", and that is EXACTLY the way literature should be. If an artist lets popularity affect his/her works, then it ceases to be art by becoming consumer goods. It loses its honesty in favour of capitalism.
Mind you, if there is a canon-cooperative or MAYBE time-travel-and-Ellimist-intervention situation that causes Rachel to be not-technically-dead, then maybe I'll buy that plotline. Short of that... ugh. 

*shrug*
Rachel's supposed to be dead, and Tobias is supposed to be a psychological wreck.

[wolfev]

you can bring her back, but there has to be a payoff. There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially with deaths. We as the readers have to lose something to get Rachel back. Maybe we get Rachel in some other form. Possibly she becomes the equivalent of the Drode for Ellimist. If that was the case, then she would be unable to really interact, just be cryptic and guide the living Animorphs. It would also mean she can not be with Tobias I think.

[Estelore]

Yes, very like.

Remember that Crayak has it out for Jake? Maybe there would be a situation that allows them to repair their timeline and save Rachel... at the cost of Jake's death in the same timeline. Perhaps Cassie talks him into dealing with Tom instead, and Tobias finally tells Rachel that he loves her WHILE she's not DYING...

...and like all the other potential-time-shifts, by the end of the book they realise that it was meant to be the way it was at the start, and they reset things back to Jake-lives-Rachel-dies... but now they know that in at least one possible reality, things were different.

[EscafilDevice]

MOST people would be happiest to have Rachel back... but if they do it by re-writing the last book, I will be severely ticked off. When she wrote it, K.A. essentially said "This is what I believe it should be; I make no apologies", and that is EXACTLY the way literature should be. If an artist lets popularity affect his/her works, then it ceases to be art by becoming consumer goods. It loses its honesty in favour of capitalism.

LOL @ KA trying to pull the "author integrity" because not only did she hire other people to write the series for her so she could make money off of other series while still making money off of Animorphs, she obviously didn't bother to put in enough effort to make many of the ghostwritten books as good as they could've been! So much for "yeah, he/she wrote [book] but I ensured it was okay": books #36-42 are generally considered to be the worst of the series and even #41 could've and should've been better.

It was laziness. Pure and simple.

Mind you, if there is a canon-cooperative or MAYBE time-travel-and-Ellimist-intervention situation that causes Rachel to be not-technically-dead, then maybe I'll buy that plotline. Short of that... ugh. 

That's what I think happened. I think Cassie reached the Time Matrix the same time as Jake crashed into the Blade Ship.

*shrug*
Rachel's supposed to be dead, and Tobias is supposed to be a psychological wreck.

And Jar Jar Binks is one of Star Wars' finest and most beloved characters. 

[Chad32]

Ghostwirters wrote more Animorphs books than KA did. So I agree with Escafil here. Rachel's death never should have happened. I will never understand why anyone would think it should.

[Estelore]

Hey, I'm not saying she has the best author integrity. I'm just saying that the one time she actually made a realistic statement and stood up for her work, we owe it to her to take her seriously.
You did read the ghostwritten books, right? Probably even knowing they were ghostwritten, you read them, neh?
Now, if you read them before buying them, but you bought them anyway, then you really aren't in any position to argue that point. If you never bought them or weren't aware of the ghostwriting, then maybe it's valid enough.

When you purchase a piece of art not-previously-viewed, you are doing it with the understood risk that you may not like it.
If you commission a piece of art, you're still expected to pay for it. The artist still did work on it. In these cases, it just wasn't the same artist every time.
*shrug*

And be honest with me, Escafil... as much as you appear to hate the last book, would you have ANY respect left for Applegate if she just said... OOPS! I REALLY meant it to say THIS....

*grinds teeth*

And don't be hashing JarJar! He served a purpose other than being a flippin' plotbunny! All things considered, he was well thought-out.

*cough*UnlikeGrievous....

[wolfev]

To end this argument over ghostwriting and get back to the more pressing topic of a second series, all the renaissance artists used the equivalent of ghost writers. Regardless of this, it in no way detracts from their overall integrity or authority as an Artist.

If the series picks up where it left off then I think it would have to be aimed at an older audience. The animorphs were all 18 by that time. It would also be weird to have readers in a world where the existence of aliens is common knowledge and technology has taken a huge quantum leap. A theme to the books was how magical the alien technology was. The animorph's reaction to the technology mirrors our own wonder. If the characters talk about it as if it was common place, that wonder is detracted from. Plus, new generations of kids don't know the mythos of animorphs. That is why the books have to be re-released and that would take time. The best possible course of action would be to condense the series, and release it in larger books like with Harry Potter or Twilight. It could have more violence and introspective aspects to it. The ending would probably be the same though.

[Chad32]

I can't guaruntee escafil's feelings on the subject, but I would have fully respected her if she let all the main characters life, and all gone on to be better people for the scars they bared. Heck, I flat out expected it to happen. I also expected the series to continue onto the HB Homeworld, but that's another thing...

I was also unaware of the ghostwriters until I came here.

[Duff]

Ghostwirters wrote more Animorphs books than KA did. So I agree with Escafil here. Rachel's death never should have happened. I will never understand why anyone would think it should.

Because the author and creator of the series you claim to love wrote it that way.

I'm wondering whether they plan to revamp the series or continue on from the existing canon. Because 2.0 implies that this is a seperate volume from the original animorphs but on the Hirac Dilest it says the higher ups were discussing possible ways to continue from where the series left off.

Personally I would like to see a new volume tackled by a new writing team start from the very beginning and give us a new take on the animorphs, same characters, same basic story, but a new original series. (obviously I'd prefer KA to helm this but really I dont see the odds of that, they have moved on)

[Estelore]

Supposing a different cluster of teens walked through the construction site,
or supposing Elfangor crashed in another locale...

maybe Melissa was there? Who's to say?