(Takes a deep breath)
. . . okay. I read through all of everyone else's post and I have to say I wish I'd joined the board and been here sooner because there's a lot of points where I wanted to say something and the time has now passed, I don't want to bring up old arguments so I won't . . . this is very hard to do, I so desperately want to say some things but no I won't.
One thing I do want to say, and won't bother to stop myself from saying though is that I personally don't see Animorphs as science fiction, Contact was science fiction. Star Wars, and indeed Animorphs are more like science fantasy, yes I'm one of those geeky people. I'll say no more on the subject.
As for my thoughts on the final book? I didn't hate it when I was a kid, but it made me feel kind of numb, I don't know how else to describe it. See I wanted to read them since I saw the first book in schoolastic's little advertisement thingy, but I'd only been with the series since the 5th book came out, because I was poor and they were never in stock at the library and then one day I saw book 2 and 4 sitting on the shelf and grabbed them while everyone else in my class was fighting for book 5. Yeah I'll never forget that moment, the feeling of triumph I had over getting what I could get even though everyone else thought I was an idiot for not getting what was newest . . . anyway I'd been following the series pretty loyally since the first time I opened the books, in fact I read books 2 and 4 in one sitting, breaking only when nature screamed (as opposed to called) and I was a kid so sure they're like a 1-2 hour read nowadays but it took me all day back then.
So anyway I followed the characters, saw them fail and succeed, grew up with them, saw close call after close call and I identified the most with Rachel, I saw myself having the most in common with her from aspects of her family life to her questioning her own self, I identified with it all and then finally . . . Rachel died, and I, a guy, cried. I don't cry over book characters, that was a whole new experience for me and at that very moment I realized that no matter what else happened I wasn't going to forget that book so how could K.A. be a lazy writer? Even if she didn't write the whole series the worst you can say is that maybe she shouldn't have been signing her name on the ghost written books, no lazy writer evokes emotion and a lot of you have admitted to feeling emotion on this book.
I felt numb at the end because we were told one of them would die, and it wasn't hard to guess it would be Rachel yet at the actual moment it was overwhelming for me, the power of that moment I really can't see how anyone could say K.A. didn't like Rachel either because let me tell you that death scene could have gone so much worse. Maybe Rachel wasn't K.A.'s favorite character, but I don't think she hated her, I don't think she hated any of them. I don't see K.A. as being the best writer out there but that moment was one of the best she's ever written and one of the best I've ever read.
The fact is the final book was powerful, at least to me at the time, that was how I felt as a kid reading the book, and like most others it depressed me.
But I think that was necessary, see it sticks with you, if it had all ended happily it wouldn't have been special, it would have been just like any other story, just like Star Wars where killing the emperor ends the war instantly and destroying Alderan has no political downside. It's only in the expanded universe that those two things failed to be true and frankly Animorphs could have used an expanded universe, it could have started with the Ghost Writers taking over, writing their own spinoffs and by now many of the writers could have been fans because we've all grown up and I'm sure some of us have writing talent.
They're rare, few and far in between but there are fan fictions out there as good as what you find in print.
K.A. left the ending open and nobody did anything with it.
She has humanity in a sort of alliance with the Andalites, the Yeerk empire is overthrown and humans are now, at least apparently, becoming a space faring species with a new, bigger war on the horizon. Instead of just one planet and one group of kids we have the opportunity to see a larger scale conflict, each of her ghost writers could have had their own world to write about and there'd still be plenty left over for the imagination, and since much of her audience had been growing up the new books could have grown up too, no more dumbing things down so much, no more complaining about school and dissing math.
Frankly I think the saddest thing about 54 is that that's where it all ends. We could have done so much more with it, as an aspiring writer myself I wouldn't be at all opposed to writting something for Animorphs, I think a lot of writers out there would have agreed, it could have gone on after 54 even with people disliking 54.
My main complaint with Animorphs' ending would be the cliff hanger though, and like I said if there'd been an expanded universe that wouldn't be a problem at all. Another reason I felt numb as a kid was that the story apparently wasn't over, but I wasn't going to get to see any more of it, K.A. had moved on and I had to too . . .
But I haven't, not completely anyway, I mean I read other books now, but I still think of Animorphs, I re-read the entire series (minus the books I don't have: alternamorphs and megamorphs 4 which I didn't even know existed until recently) once a year or so. I read the last book too, do I have problems with it? Yes, I have a few things I disliked about it, but do I consider it bad? No. Is it wrong? No. Tragic? Yes, but that made it different, powerful, memorable.
Now don't get me wrong because I actually agree that it's not the right ending for the series. I agree that it didn't feel the same way the rest of the series did, but even from the first time I read it, I've had the feeling, which gets reinforced every time I re-read it, that this wasn't supposed to be the END end, it was an ending yes, but it was also a beginning, a new arc, a new series maybe, I think that Animorphs would have continued and I used to wonder why it didn't, as a kid I thought K.A. must have just become bored, nowadays though I think it deserved an EU, and I kept wondering why it never got either a continuation or an EU.
Until I saw K.A.'s response to the criticism (I hadn't seen it before) and man, she comes off as being pretty ticked off as us, her readers, I can see her not being terribly eager to do anything more with Animorphs.
Still, the final book was memorable, it was powerful, it wasn't perfect but it was as strong as a children's book can be. Allow me now to make myself an even greater fool in everyone's eyes by comparing #54 to the quote in Dark Knight: It was the ending Animorphs needed, but not the ending Animorphs deserved.
I think that would have been #60.
