K.A's response to the final book criticsm.

[KOFSoldier]

I'd argue that there's a very strong chance the characters lived after 54, or that K.A. intended for them to live. There are enough variables in the Animorphs universe (The Ellimist, Elfangor surviving ramming the Blade ship, all the previous stunts that should have killed the Animorphs) that the Animorphs don't need to be dead.

As further evidence, during summer 2007 K.A. told fans at Livejournal that she'd be willing to write books 55-60 if Scholastic offered her the contract. If she's open to the idea of writing more, I'd have to imagine she intended for her characters to live. (I'll try to dig up the exact quote and source soon, but I don't have the time tonight.)

GARGH! Beat me to it again!

But yeah, if it's one thing the Animorphs are known for (besides morphing into animals), it's surviving impossible situations. I could easily see them living through this.

[Early]

What if you ordered a pizza and when you got it there was no cheese and the delivery guy said the cook was an artist trying to teach you minimalism?   

KA is an author.  She gets paid for people to read her stories and if she doesn't get paid then she doesn't write the story.  She's very good at what she does, so lots of people read her stories and talk in depth on forums and tell other people about her stories.   (Also Antonio's pizza next door has the BEST BBQ pizza, he uses three kinds of cheese and some special spice, tell everyone) 

I'm just saying that (imo, of course) scholastic is never going to revive the Animorphs.  So why isn't the artist still writing Animorphs?   There's a formula.  A magic secret formula to her stories.  Those ff writers who have found the formula, we call "KA in disguise."  In the last book she decided not to use the formula.  So instead I have to try and imagine what the book would be like if she did, instead of just reading and enjoying what she actually decided to send to the printer.


...I'm gonna catch heck for this.

[KOFSoldier]

What if you ordered a pizza and when you got it there was no cheese and the delivery guy said the cook was an artist trying to teach you minimalism?   

KA is an author.  She gets paid for people to read her stories and if she doesn't get paid then she doesn't write the story.  She's very good at what she does, so lots of people read her stories and talk in depth on forums and tell other people about her stories.   (Also Antonio's pizza next door has the BEST BBQ pizza, he uses three kinds of cheese and some special spice, tell everyone) 

I'm just saying that (imo, of course) scholastic is never going to revive the Animorphs.  So why isn't the artist still writing Animorphs?   There's a formula.  A magic secret formula to her stories.  Those ff writers who have found the formula, we call "KA in disguise."  In the last book she decided not to use the formula.  So instead I have to try and imagine what the book would be like if she did, instead of just reading and enjoying what she actually decided to send to the printer.


...I'm gonna catch heck for this.

Yeah, Scholastic probably wont revive Animorphs........no t without a reason, at least.

Like if they were to create a movie for Animorphs, maybe they can have KA write one more book, sort of an extended Prologue. It could be MM 5.

Lord knows I'd buy it.

[Aleron]

Yeah, Scholastic probably wont revive Animorphs........no t without a reason, at least.

Like if they were to create a movie for Animorphs, maybe they can have KA write one more book, sort of an extended Prologue. It could be MM 5.

Lord knows I'd buy it.

Who wouldn't?  We're desperate, here.

Crayak and Ellimist didn't need the Animorphs anymore, Crayak had taken his trophy, Ellimist had won his battle.  The war between them continues, but Jake/Marco/Cassie/Tobias don't seem to any longer be a part of it.  The One assimilates the Ax-Man, and Jake takes his crew down fighting.  At the very least stopping the Blade Ship's rampage, maybe destroying/hurting The One, we don't know.

Who says Rachel dying was Crayak's doing?  It'd be cool if she was, but it might just have been a necessary accident.  And not to mention, physical damage doesn't do jack to hive minds.  You can't kill a bee and expect the hive to go down.  Hence it's futility, and a need for more.

And I repeat, the Animorphs didn't come in fighting.  They came in RUNNING AWAY.

[ChimichangaChupacabra]

...Aleron, I don't want to sound like an ass here, but did you read the books?  I know #48 was ghostwritten and all, but K.A. still wrote the outlines.  Crayak had a personal beef with both Jake and Rachel, and all along both he and the Drode were characterized as wanting to basically rip their heads of and feeeed on their sooouullz.  The whole trophy thing with the time-travel part, Jake's dream of the Eye, I'm pretty sure Ellimist mentions it at least once.

It was always going to be Jake or Rachel.  All orchestrated by Crayak, the way Ellimist orchestrated them all meeting at the mall (sans Rachel) that fateful night.

[Aleron]

Actually, I did read the books.  I remember those parts.  It's still an inference tho, your inference, and can be doubted, just like whether they lived or died at the end of 54.

And you do sound like one.

[ChimichangaChupacabra]

I'm deducing that they all died in #54 on interpretation, yes.  But agreed, there's evidence that can be made either way, for the death or the survival.  But seeing as K.A.'s basically said as much as The One being a convenient way to end the series with a brutally succinct action scene...  Hmm.

The Rachel/Jake/Crayak aspect is more than an inference, as there are specific instances where it's mentioned in the book.  By all three characters.  That's about as concrete unshakable evidence as you can get.

[Pippi]

It agree with unhappy and realistic endings but not unfair endings, like the way Marco and Cassie weren't all that affected. If K.A.A wanted to stick with the philosophy of "war doesn't end happily", then she should have written it in a way whereby all the major character were scarred for life in different ways. She did mention in an interview that Marco and Cassie were her favourite characters so I guess that's why she chose to give them "happy" endings while everyone else suffered. So yeah, I agree with her that wars don't end happily but the ending was vary unfair. She is a good writer so, I'm sure she's capable of writing tragedy that couldn't have been prevented and not tragedy that happened simply because you wanted it to happen, that's what saddens me most about the #54 book.

[Noelle]

I'll probably edit this post tomorrow, and add more, because I'm starting to drift into "too tired to post coherently territory."


But one thing I will say that INFURIATES me about that letter, as a writer, is that she absolutely DID NOT give us 60 books.  She gave us maybe 30, and ghost writers gave us the rest.  What an absolute smack in the face.  I can honestly say I have a beef with a lot of the ghost written material, but THEY wrote it, not her.


And if she really did say "If scholastic offered me money/a contract I'd write more books," then my opinion of her as a writer just went down the tubes.  A writer writes because they love to write and they love their books.  You write your book, THEN you sell it.  If all she was doing was using the animorphs series as a cash cow then...pffft, don't bother with the self-righteous letter, I don't understand why you really care whether or not we liked the ending or not.

Well, maybe she cared because the angry animorphs crowd would be less likely to buy the rest of her books, and she felt the need to try to reign them in.  I know I personally avoided her other books because I heard they had endings like this one.


This probably came off as more angry than I intended.  I'll edit after sleep.

[yunyun]

Yeah, I also agree. She should be writing for pleasure, not just for money.

[Noelle]

Just as a final thought for the night (or...morning) before I head to bed.


I'm really really hoping that she doesn't actually have more books planned in her head, and she's holding out for money, or she can't be bothered to write them unless she gets money...if that's true that's just...tragic.

I mean, when I think about it from a writer's perspective (And I don't mean I'm any good or that I am published, I am neither, I am speaking ONLY from the perspective of someone who really enjoys writing,)  How sad is it that an artist become so thoroughly disenchanted with their own work that they simply cannot bother to finish it?

I mean, it's like Vincent van Gogh painting half of Starry Starry Night...and then just stopping and saying 'eh, i'll finish if someone tosses me a couple bucks.'


Its YOUR ART, don't you LIKE it?  Don't you WANT to see it finished?  And I don't mean unicorns and fairies and glitter happy for all ending, I mean, just finishing it, period. 

I don't know, if animorphs was my series (or, if any book was my own), I don't care if only two souls bought my copies, I would want it to be finished and complete, I don't think I'd be able to NOT write the ending.  I'm not saying she should obsess over it or it should run her life or anything, but how can she truly be so un-invested with something of her own creation that she can't even be BOTHERED to finish it?



That's really sad.  I really thought Animorphs was a series that was good enough that it deserved a proper ending.  I think a lot of people did.

Know what's even more sad?  There are lots of fan ficers out there that have made attempts to finish the series themselves, how can it be that your fans are more invested in YOUR work than YOU are?


Tragic.  (Ok, maybe tragic is a rather melodramatic word, but I can't really think of any other word to describe it except sad, and I've already used that word fifteen times.)


It really makes me question the quality of the ending.  If she really is so disinterested in her own series, can I really interpret the ending anything more than just a throw-away?  A way to kill off all the characters in a way that looks psuedo-interesting so she can attempt to make us believe that she didn't just want to hurry up and be done with animorphs?  I mean, if that was all it was she should have at least had the courtesy to write "and then they all killed themselves because they couldn't get over it the end.  Except for Cassie because she's special."  At least it would have been more closure than "wait...what happened to Ax?  And how, exactly, is ramming the bladeship going to fix anything?"


I'll make my attempt to debunk or confirm in the morning.  I think its bed time.

[Liz]

And if she really did say "If scholastic offered me money/a contract I'd write more books," then my opinion of her as a writer just went down the tubes.  A writer writes because they love to write and they love their books.  You write your book, THEN you sell it.  If all she was doing was using the animorphs series as a cash cow then...pffft, don't bother with the self-righteous letter, I don't understand why you really care whether or not we liked the ending or not.

I could be wrong, but iirc Scholastic owns the rights to Animorphs, so Applegrant can't really write more books unless they get a contract.  I don't think they even had a say in the reprint.

[Noelle]

If that's true, that scholastic has such a tight restriction on the intellectual property of another individual that she is legally not allowed to release more animorphs books...that just makes me kind of sick.  I think I'd rather die than let someone tell me what I can and can't write/release.   


When I get some time, I'll look up the laws for that.  If it's true, this is definitely a valuable lesson to watch your contracts and be careful where you get published.  At least for me.



Edit: I will still look for the law, but as far as *I* know, I look at the cover of the book, even the new relauches, and it says that it is Copywrite Katherine Applegate.

Though, it does say that Animorphs and it's trademarks/icons, etc belong to Scholastic.  I'm looking in all my other books and I cannot find that anywhere.  Unfortunately I can't find any other book series to compare (since when did text books take over my shelf?)


If that's true, that she is barred from writing her own story...that's just nightmarish.  If it was me I'd fight tooth and nail in court for the right to write my own story.  And I'd probably still lose if I signed a contract

Goes to show, READ BEFORE YOU SIGN.  lol

Also I would hope she would tell her fans if she were barred from writing more but wanted to, though I suppose there's something against that in the contract as well.  But, I guess there's always ff.net for her.  *silently wonders if she's secretly on there...*

[SkyMorpher]

I think it's similar to what happens with a lot of movie scripts...whoever writes them sells them to a studio to make into a movie...although a book series isn't quite the same, I still bet there's an element of that...the writer pitches an idea and a publisher buys the rights from them. The author's still writing and getting money for it, that's all in the contract, but they do often give up the direct rights to the whole thing...ie they couldn't just take it to another publisher or something.

[Chad32]

That makes me wonder how books get published at all, since most writers don't make a lot of money and the publisher has more rights to their work than they do.