quote:

One of the author's favorite books, The Lord of the Rings, lent several words and images to Animorphs: the elvish word for Orc, "yrch", became Yeerk; the flaming red Eye of Sauron inspired the Crayak, and Ax's middle name, "Esgarrouth", is based on a town in the books called Esgaroth. The human name of Ax's brother, Elfangor, is Alan Fangor and his last name is in reference to the Fangor region or Fangorn Forest. Also there was a minor reference to Gondor, in the form of a fictional company named "Gondor Industries" in the 14th book. (It may also be significant that Visser Three's host is named Alloran, a rough homonym of Gandalf's Valinorean name "Olórin", and that one of the minor alien races is called "the Five", which is also a term used in The Lord of the Rings for the Istari.) Applegate's writing was inspired by her family. All books after The Unknown were dedicated to Applegate's son, Jake, as well as her husband and co-writer, Michael. Her son was born premature in 1997, and she worked on the Animorphs series at night, in the lobby of the hospital where he was in Neonatal Intensive Care (NIC).

quote:

Alloran-Semitur-Corrass - Andalite host body of Visser Three. Alloran was an officer under Prince Seerow, who relieved his superior of duty after a force of Yeerks stole Andalite ships and left their planet thanks to technology provided to them by Seerow. Years later, having been promoted to the rank of War Prince, Alloran was placed in command of the Andalite forces sent to fight the Yeerk invasion of the Hork-Bajir homeworld. Unfortunately, the desperate situation on the planet led Alloran to decide that wiping out the Hork-Bajir with a virus was a better alternative than allowing them to be enslaved

David - A boy who joins the Animorphs after learning their secret. The Animorphs trust him at first, giving him the ability to morph and fight with them rather than kill him, but he betrays them. Ultimately, they are forced to trick him into morphing into a rat and trap him permanently in the morph, leaving him stranded on an island. He returns later in the series, eventually asking Rachel to kill him. Whether Rachel kills David or not has never been established.

Probably Magic posted:

Nice try, but I'm not reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book written by the guy from Artemis Fowl, fucker.

CyberPingu posted:

loving lol if you think Martin is going to finish that before he croaks.

The final word will just be "gently caress you fanbois"

Kalli posted:

Just read history, because then everything is just the dark middle chapter before things get even worse.

axeil posted:

I hated that book as a kid but having re-read it as an adult it makes way more sense. Harry just saw a dude die in front of him and it was all his fault he was there anyway.

That'd gently caress with your head a bit.


A kid gets trapped in the body of a falcon in the first book because he was careless and stays that way for the entire series.

Animorphs was messed up but a really entertaining series that made me read a lot as a kid.


They are kids who are given the power to turn into animals by a dying alien to let them fight against an invading force of slugs called Yerks that infect people's brains and turn them into puppets. If they stay as an animal for too long though they are trapped like it forever. The Yerks have already conquered many other alien races and I think at one point you find out the aliens who gave the kids their powers (the Andalites) were the ones who uplifted the Yerks, or made them or something like that.

It's a pretty complex and nuanced story for kids and by the end everyone is a broken person.

Intruder posted:

I grew up in Texas so when I was a kid I read Hank the Cowdog

e: Holy poo poo they're still going

Its Rinaldo posted:

Lol if your childhood wasn't reading Redwall books and woodland animals constant siege warfare.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Did any of you ever read the gritty Hardy Boys reboot in the 90s where one of their girlfriends is killed in a car bomb and later on they get hunted for sport by a bunch of crazed paramilitary guys

Kalli posted:

Probably Magic posted:

Hardy Boys were way inferior to Nancy Drew, come at me.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Did any of you ever read the gritty Hardy Boys reboot in the 90s where one of their girlfriends is killed in a car bomb and later on they get hunted for sport by a bunch of crazed paramilitary guys

Kalli posted:

Mel Mudkiper posted:

the hardy boys and the case of the backyard volcano

piss tape israel posted:

https://twitter.com/Gramiq/status/951650901403619328

axeil posted:

Encyclopedia Brown was my main source of childhood mystery novels.

I also read the Boxcar Children and all I remember from that is they were a bunch of orphans who lived in a boxcar and I think solved mysteries?

No Butt Stuff posted:

I know you're old, but I also know you know what Google is.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Did any of you ever read the gritty Hardy Boys reboot in the 90s where one of their girlfriends is killed in a car bomb and later on they get hunted for sport by a bunch of crazed paramilitary guys

axeil posted:

Encyclopedia Brown was my main source of childhood mystery novels.

I also read the Boxcar Children and all I remember from that is they were a bunch of orphans who lived in a boxcar and I think solved mysteries?

Leperflesh posted:

I might have seen one or two of those and gotten confused. My stepmom had all her old hardy boys (and nancy drew and tom swift) books so I was reading editions from the 1950s or 60s or something, and I thought the new ones were just reprints until I read one she didn't have and realized it had been modernized.

Leperflesh posted:

and I read the Little House on the Prairie books and learned that modern people are helpless idiots compared to the bootstrappy old timers who won the west.

axeil posted:

Encyclopedia Brown was my main source of childhood mystery novels.

I also read the Boxcar Children and all I remember from that is they were a bunch of orphans who lived in a boxcar and I think solved mysteries?

Kalli posted:

I don't remember anything aboutt it, but I vividly remember this cover:



which I got at a book faire along with the novelization to Little Monsters the Fred Savage / Howie Mandell vehicle I never actually got to see.

axeil posted:

A lot of young adult fiction is super messed up.

The Giver is about a totalitarian society and I think no one can read? I also remember there being some sexweirds in it.
Hatchet is about a kid who gets stranded in the woods after a plane crashes and everyone dies.
The Hunger Games are about how everyone deep down is evil and manipulative and wants to watch you kill others for sport
Animorphs we already talked about
Bridge to Terebithia is about kids dying of cancer I think?

axeil posted:

A lot of young adult fiction is super messed up.

The Giver is about a totalitarian society and I think no one can read? I also remember there being some sexweirds in it.
Hatchet is about a kid who gets stranded in the woods after a plane crashes and everyone dies.
The Hunger Games are about how everyone deep down is evil and manipulative and wants to watch you kill others for sport
Animorphs we already talked about
Bridge to Terebithia is about kids dying of cancer I think?

axeil posted:

A lot of young adult fiction is super messed up.

The Giver is about a totalitarian society and I think no one can read? I also remember there being some sexweirds in it.
Hatchet is about a kid who gets stranded in the woods after a plane crashes and everyone dies.
The Hunger Games are about how everyone deep down is evil and manipulative and wants to watch you kill others for sport
Animorphs we already talked about
Bridge to Terebithia is about kids dying of cancer I think?

Neil Armbong posted:

In hatchet, just the only other person is the pilot and he dies of a heart attack, hence the plane crash.

Nothing really sexual about the Giver, he's just the one that get to know/feel all the feelings of the world and he saves a baby that was going to be killed for reasons, though the book ends with the reader deciding whether they made it to safety or died.

Probably Magic posted:

This series went places. The kid ended up getting sent to some literal Space Manhattan and there was a crystalline captain and the bully character had his brain transplanted to make him less of an rear end or something.

Cash Monet posted:

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/951360486414544897

Those are some lame gang murder tattoos.

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

Bridge to Terebithia is great. It's about a boy and girl who become friends and create an imaginary world. At the end she drowns.

Its Rinaldo posted:

I think I remember the end of the series that humanity used to have some sort of psychic gestalt we fell out of and the reason we were so lovely to each other was constantly feeling the loss and pain of not knowing each other. So we were like reverse orks.

Neil Armbong posted:

In hatchet, just the only other person is the pilot and he dies of a heart attack, hence the plane crash.

Nothing really sexual about the Giver, he's just the one that get to know/feel all the feelings of the world and he saves a baby that was going to be killed for reasons, though the book ends with the reader deciding whether they made it to safety or died.

Its Rinaldo posted:

I remember hatchet because when the pilot has his heart attack he farts up a storm as his body loses muscle control

In the Giver there was something about wanting to give his friend who was a girl a sponge bath and that lets his parents know it's time to take the anti-sex drugs.