e X posted:

I admit that I didn't know that KA actually considered Cassie so close to her own mindset. Maybe it is a ghostwriter problem.

e X posted:

I admit that I didn't know that KA actually considered Cassie so close to her own mindset. Maybe it is a ghostwriter problem.

A lot of media had environmentalist/pacifist characters in the '90 and a lot of them share the same problems I think Cassie has, so I always figured it was due to the authors not actually sharing their character's ideals and struggle to get into their heads.

Jazerus posted:

i think it's definitely a ghostwriter problem. KA's cassie is pretty reasonable...it's the ghostwriters that make her a caricature. which i think is the case for basically everybody.

i can't really blame them for turning things over to ghostwriters as i understand the process for writing these books so quickly month after month was very stressful for KA and michael, but in hindsight i'm not sure that everworld and remnant were worth the decline in quality of animorphs

freebooter posted:

Speaking of, gotta say I haven't really been feeling a lot of chemistry between them throughout the series, and having the most beautiful girl in school develop a thing for the outcast nerd feels a bit pandering. Cassie and Jake feels a bit more solid but even then not hugely natural. If I had to guess at who'd develop into a romantic couple without the exposition already explicitly pairing up Rachel/Tobias and Cassie/Jake, it would honestly be Rachel and Marco.

quote:

“Faster … okay, more grass … okay, hoooof, hoooof!”

I blew lightly on the dry grass. Jake moved the tendon bow back and forth as fast as he could. Marco held the top of the stick.

It had taken a while for us to piece together old bits of forgotten Boy Scout lore and scenes we’d seen on TV or in movies or read about in books.

But eventually we’d figured it out, starting with a flat piece of wood as a base. Ax cut a small notch in it. We then took a straight stick about a foot long. That we held upright, using pieces of bark to protect the holder’s hands from the friction.

We fashioned a bow by stringing a length of Tyrannosaurus tendon cut from the animal’s foot. We put a half loop of the bowstring around the upright stick. Then all we had to do was move the bow quickly back and forth. The vertical stick spun in the groove of the flat base piece. And slowly but surely, the heat of friction began to glow.

I grabbed a tiny handful of dry grass. I bent over, my face just inches away from the base. I added a bit more grass and blew again, gently, gently.

A piece of grass crisped and twisted. More air. I blew harder. More browning, twisting grass. I began to despair.

“Flame!” Marco cried.

It was true. A tiny flame. Very tiny. I fed more grass into it. More grass. Now the tiniest twigs.

The twig caught fire!

I looked up at Jake and Marco. Their faces were shining.

“Wow,” I whispered. “This is the first deliberately made fire. Ever. We just invented fire.”

Ax leaned down low to help pile larger sticks on the flame. It was mesmerizing. The flame grew and grew. It ate up the grass and moved up to the sticks.

I just sat there, feeling weird and significant and yet silly. It was like a holy religious ritual. Man creating fire.

Or in this case, woman, I thought with a grin. Rachel will appreciate… But no, Rachel wasn’t around anymore.

Marco stepped away and came back with a long stick. He’d impaled a half dozen shreds of Tyrannosaurus meat on the stick. He held them over the fire.

They crackled and sizzled and smelled wonderful.

I folded my legs and my awkward Tyrannosaurus sandals under me. It was starting to get dark under the trees. But we had fire. We alone, on all of planet Earth, had fire.

We had moved away from the dead dinosaur just as a bunch of very tiny, swift, two-legged dinosaurs showed up looking for a late lunch. We were now camped at the edge of the plain, with the woods fifty yards away at our backs. We’d chosen the spot because there was a stream running by.

And because we just didn’t know which was safer: open country or woods.

“Okay, who’s going to be first?” Marco asked, holding out a strip of hot meat. “We have medium rare and well-done.”

Jake reached for the slice. He took a cautious bite.

“Just don’t say it tastes like chicken,” Marco said.

Jake considered. “It tastes like fish, actually. Like a mild fish. Maybe like swordfish. It could use some salt.”

Marco cocked an eyebrow at me. “Now he’s a food expert?”

I laughed softly. I took a piece. It was delicious. But then again, I was starving.

“The first cooked food in all of history,” Marco observed. “Plus the first complaint about food in all of history. Ax-man, you want to grind a hoof into a piece of this? Or maybe you could morph to human and eat it?” Andalites eat by absorbing grass through their hooves as they run or walk.

<No, thanks. I’ve grazed very well.>

Ax was watching the grassy plain. He was using his stalk eyes to swivel carefully in all directions.

The sky was shading from blue to brilliant red and orange, with sunset coming on quickly. A massive, distorted-looking red sun slipped below a layer of high clouds and dropped behind the volcano.

“Beautiful,” I said, mostly to myself.

“The first person in history to appreciate a sunset,” Marco said.

“How much longer do you figure you’ll be doing that, Marco?” Jake asked tolerantly.

Marco grinned. His face was red from the glow of sunset. “The first person to ever complain about someone talking too much.”

“What are we going to do about it getting dark?” I asked.

Jake looked surprised. “I don’t know. You’ve been so cool about all this back-to-nature stuff, I guess I was waiting for you to tell us.”

Was he resentful that I had been taking a more active role? No. Surely not. “I don’t have any brilliant ideas.”

“Doesn’t fire keep animals away?” Marco asked.

“Not always,” I said. “Not predators. In Africa, man-eating lions and leopards go right to villages, into huts and drag people away. In grasslands like this, you get lightning fires all the time. Some of the predators may have learned to let the fire drive smaller prey toward them.”

“The first really, really depressing example of way too much information in all of history,” Marco said.

“We have our weapons,” I said.

Jake said, “Yeah. Three sharp sticks. Plus Ax’s tail. Throw in some burning torches and we can probably handle some of the smaller predators.” I felt a chill and scooted closer to the fire, which now blazed up fairly well. The image of a huge T-rex looming up suddenly, gold and red from the firelight, its vast mouth open, eyes greedy … I took a couple of deep breaths.

I’m not Rachel. I can’t just turn off the fear. If Rachel were here, she’d say something cocky about kicking Tyrannosaurus butt. We’d all know it was just bold talk, but we’d feel better, anyway.

“Okay,” Jake said. “We sleep in shifts. Ax’s time-tracking sense is messed up, but he can approximate two hours and wake us up. Two of us awake at all times. The people who are awake will sit facing out, away from the fire. That way their eyes will be adjusted to seeing in the dark.”

“Good plan,” Marco said. “That way there’ll be two of us to scream, ‘Oh no, we’re toast!’ when the next Big Rex shows up.”

“If a predator shows up, what do we do?” I asked.

Jake considered for a moment. “I think the most dangerous morph any of us has is my tiger morph. If we’re attacked, I’ll morph. Ax will use his tail.
Cassie and Marco, you grab your weapons. The three of you try and hold off the … the whatever shows up … till I’ve morphed. An Andalite and
a tiger together should be enough. Then Marco and Cassie, you two will morph. But morph something to escape, not fight.”

“Cassie and I, we wave sharp sticks at a Big Rex?” Marco asked skeptically. “Meanwhile, you’re helpless in mid-morph.”

“You have a better plan?” Jake asked testily.

“Sure. If Big Mister T shows up, we scream and cry and blubber like babies till he eats us.”

Jake grinned. Then he laughed. So did I. It wasn’t even slightly funny, of course, but sometimes fear and exhaustion can combine to make you giddy.

“Okay, Cassie and Ax take the first watch. Marco, you and I have to try and sleep.”

“At least I won’t have any bad dreams,” Marco said. “I’m already in one.”

Jake and Marco fell silent. I don’t know if they slept at all. I turned away from the fire and looked out into darkness that was deepening with shocking speed. Already the night was rushing toward us out of the east, pushing away the last tendrils of red sunlight.

Then I saw it. Like someone had painted a brush stroke of fairy dust across the sky.
“
Ax,” I whispered. “Is that a comet?”
<
Yes. It is very beautiful.>
“
Even to you? You must have seen comets up in space.”

<They are most beautiful when they are closest to a star. The star, the sun, is what causes the tail to extend.>

“Oh. Looks close.”

<It may be,> Ax said. <It is either very close or very large. My people -a long time ago, of course - used to believe that comets were omens of bad things that would happen.>

I was surprised. “Really? Humans thought the same thing.” Darkness fell. There was no moon in the sky. The starlight never touched the grass sea around us. The firelight was puny.

“Are you scared, Ax?”

<Yes.>

“Me, too.”

I felt the stick in my hand. I felt the fire at my back. Little, weak, defenseless Homo sapiens; I faced a night full of terrors.

quote:

Deinonychus. That’s what they were, I was pretty sure. At least, I thought so. I couldn’t remember. But learning about dinosaurs in books isn’t like seeing them face-to-face.

They were hunting us. Like a wolf pack. They were taking their time because we were unfamiliar prey. A strange creature that ran on two legs while carrying a big bird.

Yes, we were something new. New meat.

Rachel ran toward the spot where the camp-fire had been before the failing light had rendered the smoke invisible. It had seemed to be coming from the edge of the plain that opened before us. As she ran, I watched the Deinonychus pack. I watched them as a professional predator myself.

Was there communication between them? It sure seemed like the two bands of Deinonychus were moving in concert.

It was a triangle, basically. One group behind and to the west. The second group level with us but to the east. We were running north. If we veered slightly left, we’d hit the edge of the forest. Was that the right move?

<Rachel, head for the woods.>

“Why?” she managed to gasp. Rachel’s in shape, but running barefoot while carrying a hawk is not easy.

<They’re pack-hunters. I think the two groups can see each other and adjust to each other. Even in this light. In the trees they’ll lose their line of sight.>

Rachel didn’t say anything. But she did veer left a little. Toward the trees.

I focused my hawk eyes on the westerly group. They were speeding up!

A quick glance to the east. They were speeding up, too, but only after the first group did.

<I thought so,> I said. <The leader of the pack is with that western bunch. I think I know which one it is. He’s got about a foot of his tail missing.>

The Deinonychus were running now. They were quite fast. And so close I could see details of the leader: the pebbly lizard skin, the way the tail stuck out stiff as a board for balance, the placid expression on that intelligent face.

His weapons were formidable. He stood no taller than a short man or a tall boy. But his jaw could close over a human head. His hands were relatively larger and stronger than a Tyrannosaurus’s, with wicked, down-curved claws. But it was the feet that were the main weapon. They were talons, not so very different from my own. But on each foot there was an upraised claw, seven, eight inches long. It reminded me of Ax’s tail blade. That claw, kicked by that coiled steel leg, would slice through a car door.

<We’ll reach the woods before them,> I said. <But then we have to act quickly. We have to separate.>

“No way!”

She assumed I was being self-sacrificing. <Rachel, look. They’re after you, not me. I have a plan.>

She said nothing. Just gasped and panted. I could hear her heart pounding madly.

Trees! We hit the tree line and suddenly it occurred to me just how late in the day it was. The sun was setting in a blaze of glory out on the plain, but under the trees it was already night.

<Stop right here.>

Rachel stopped. She dropped me in the dead leaves. She bent over double, hands on her knees, throwing up from exhaustion. The predator in me was glad. Perfect. The powerful, unfamiliar scent would draw the Deinonychus right to this point.

<Okay, I can’t fly, but I can grip. I want you to throw me. Straight up. Up into this tree. Up to that branch.>

“Wha … wha …”

<Rachel, don’t argue. Throw me. Then run and do your bear morph. It may buy you time.>

Besides, I added silently, you don’t want to die as helpless prey. As a human, you’ll simply be ripped apart. You’ll be eaten alive. As a bear, they’ll at least have to fight you first.

Rachel stood up. Then she bent over, cramped in her right side. She winced in pain. I could see her feet were torn. She was exhausted. But not beaten yet. When she met my gaze, I still saw fierce Rachel in her blue eyes.

<We have to do this now,> I said. <They’ll be here in less than a minute.>

“Okay.” She reached down and lifted me up. Like someone heaving a basketball from her chest, she threw me upward. Too low! I missed the branch. I flapped my wings, an instinct. A painful, searingly painful, instinct. I hit the ground.

“I can’t do it.”

<Do it!>

She grabbed me again. This time she put her whole body into it. Up! The branch. I flapped my good wing, spun in the air, grabbed. Yes! I grabbed with my second talon and held firm.

<Now, run! Run!>

She ran. At least, she hobbled and staggered away through the trees. And I waited. I waited and tried not to think of what would happen to Rachel if I messed up.

My branch was just six feet above the ground. I felt totally helpless. I was a bird who could not fly. And there is nothing weaker than a bird who can’t fly.

I gripped my branch. Noises. Many clawed feet running. A Deinonychus appeared. Its tail was minus about a foot of length. The leader of the pack.

“Heeeeessss!”

He froze. He looked at the mess Rachel had left. But he did not walk under my branch. Then another Deinonychus. This one ran right over and sniffed curiously. He had a jagged scar two feet long down his back. I could see it clearly.

Short-tail turned away. Scar walked beneath me. His head was just a foot below me.

Now!

I dropped. I opened my talons. I sank them into reptilian skin, right along the old scar.

“Hrroooohhh!”

The Deinonychus turned his head to glare at me with one eye. He opened a mouth lined with ridiculously large teeth.

I almost lost it. I had to fight the urge to flap away, broken wing and all.

Focus, Tobias, I told myself. I locked the fear out of my mind. I held tight with my talons. And I focused on the dinosaur.

It may have been sixty-five or seventy or eighty million years B.C., but DNA was still DNA.

freebooter posted:

If I had to guess at who'd develop into a romantic couple without the exposition already explicitly pairing up Rachel/Tobias and Cassie/Jake, it would honestly be Rachel and Marco.

Epicurius posted:

Marco and Ax!

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

I..... did Applegate forget that Rachel and Tobias both have Hork-Bajir morphs? They seem ideal - they're fast, strong, and heavily armed.

Or is this falling under the sentience clause again?

Mazerunner posted:

Dinosaurs... dinos...

memories... unlocking

...topia...

freebooter posted:

Speaking of, gotta say I haven't really been feeling a lot of chemistry between them throughout the series, and having the most beautiful girl in school develop a thing for the outcast nerd feels a bit pandering. Cassie and Jake feels a bit more solid but even then not hugely natural. If I had to guess at who'd develop into a romantic couple without the exposition already explicitly pairing up Rachel/Tobias and Cassie/Jake, it would honestly be Rachel and Marco.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

The Marco-Rachel tension strikes me as the 'WILL YOU TWO JUST gently caress AND GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY?!?!?!' type than actual genuine romantic love, but there is no denying it's there.

Terror Sweat posted:

Don't sexualize the children

Mazerunner posted:

yeah we only traumatize them here

Terror Sweat posted:

Look man, I don't want to read goons talking about the sex lives of 12 year olds

Epicurius posted:

Right. In this thread, lets save any discussion of a character's sex life to Visser Three, and keep in mind that Yeerks are monogendered asexual creatures who reproduce by fusing with each other and then breaking apart, and he's the only Yeerk with an Andalite host in the universe, so there's not much to talk about in his case.

Keep it clean, please, people.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Yes sir

Genocide is still OK though right? Because Alloran still did nothing wrong

quote:

I acquired the Deinonychus. I absorbed his DNA into me. And he grew passive and calm, like most animals do when being acquired.

When I was done he wandered away, as if he’d forgotten what he’d been doing. I stood there, utterly vulnerable on the forest floor. And then I heard a roar. Not a saurian roar, but the full-throated roar of a very large mammal.

Rachel!

I focused my mind again. I pictured the Deinonychus in my mind. And slowly at first, then faster, the changes began.

All right, Tobias, keep your mind strong! I warned myself. It was a new morph. I’d have to deal with the Deinonychus’s instincts.

My feathers began to stiffen and harden. It was as if someone were coating them with rubber cement or something. The feather pattern remained at first, but they were glued down. And then they began to melt together.

My beak began to extend, out and out, and at the same time the edges became serrated, almost like a saw. And each saw tooth grew and extended, longer and longer, to begin to form the teeth of the Deinonychus.

All the while I grew. Up and up. From standing a foot tall to five times that height.

My tail feathers twined and twisted together and then my tail hardened and grew. Out and out, impossibly long!

Everywhere I could feel the muscles bulging and growing. Layers of muscle over thickening bones. I rose high on legs like steel springs. My talons became less graceful and more deadly. I found I could raise the huge, killing claw. Yes, that’s how I would run, with that claw raised so that nothing
would dull its razor-sharpness.

I loved that claw. I pictured it ripping open … no! Already the dinosaur’s instincts were struggling to rise up in my own mind.

But that wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t happen. Rachel needed me. But the power! The vivid, electric energy in every cell of my body!

My eyesight grew dim. But not much worse than human eyes, and better in that they could see fairly well in the dark. My hearing diminished, but again, not by much. And to compensate for those losses, the sense of smell flooded my consciousness.

What?

What smell was that?

I stood up and sniffed the wind.

“Roooooaaarrrr!” a deep, hoarse voice bellowed.

“Heeeesss! Heeeesss!” A more familiar cry. The hunt was on! The pack had cornered its prey. I had to hurry. Hurry, or all the best meat would be taken. I’d have nothing but cold carrion.

With my mouth watering, I bounded away, tearing through the underbrush to join the pack.

quote:

I woke up. It was dark. I was all hot on the side near the fire and cold on the other side. I heard the gurgling of the stream. I’d been dreaming of home. In my dream I was eating dinosaur-shaped cereal at the breakfast table with my parents.

I didn’t want to think about my parents. What they would be going through worrying about me just made me sick to my stomach.
“Have you seen anything?”

“Yaaahhh!” Cassie yelped. Then, “Good grief, you scared me.” Marco moaned in his sleep. I rubbed my eyes. I could not believe I had actually fallen asleep. But obviously I had. “Ax, how are you doing?”

<I am well. My time-sense has returned fully. It takes a while to calibrate for the rotation of a planet. This planet rotates differently than it does in our own time.>

“How long was I asleep?”

<Approximately one of the current hours and fifty-two minutes.> He came close and tossed another piece of wood on the fire.

I stretched out my foot and poked Marco. He moaned again. Then he sat up. “Oh. So it wasn’t a dream. Too bad.”

“Cassie, you and Ax can -” I stopped. I had looked up at the sky. “What is that?”

“It’s a comet,” Cassie said. “Isn’t it absolutely beautiful?”

“Yeah. Looks awfully close.” I gazed up at the sweep of bright dust trailing from the brilliant head.

<It is. In the last three hours it has grown noticeably larger.>

I glanced over at Ax. He was outlined against the stars, a dark shadow with stalk eyes turning restlessly. “It’s not going to hit us or anything, is it?” I laughed when I said it.

<I don’t think so. First of all, the odds against any particular comet hitting a particular planet are very large. Millions to one at the very least. Especially since Earth is not large enough to exert much of a gravitational pull. Besides, the comet is now so close and moving so quickly, I have been able to
keep track of a rough trajectory. It will be very close. No more than one or two diameters of Earth, perhaps. But I believe it will miss.>

“Well, that’s a relief,” Marco said. “I wouldn’t want to get killed by a comet and cheat the dinosaurs out of eating me.”

“You two get some sleep,” I said to Ax and Cassie. “Marco and I will take over. But actually, first I have to … um … I have to take a little walk.”

I left the cozy glow of the fire and headed into darkness. Twenty feet, and the fire already seemed like part of some different world. It was so dark. I looked back and it was as if the fire and the comet were both floating in the same empty space.

I did what I had to do, then I saw it. A flash! A sudden flash of light. Low on the horizon to the north. Was it a meteorite? A falling star?

No. There it was again. Faint. A tiny stab of red light. Again. Again.

I hurried back to the others. “Look to the north. Do you guys -”

A flash like the sun exploding! High overhead.

The flash lit up the entire landscape for just an instant. But in that instant I saw them: a herd of vast creatures. They stood on four tree-trunk legs. They had tremendously long necks and tails that were just as long. It was impossible to know their actual size, but they had to stand at least four or
five times my own height. And from head to tail they had to be forty feet. I’d seen at least ten of them moving toward us along the line of the stream.

And in that same flash of light, the huge dinosaurs had seen something, too. Coming up behind them, on their trail, like a monster in the night, a Tyrannosaurus.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The big dinosaurs bolted, breaking into a panicked run. Straight for our camp!

“What was that flash?” Cassie cried as I ran for the fire.

“Everybody run!” I yelled. “It’s a stampede.”

“Stampede? What is this, a cowboy movie?!” Marco demanded incredulously.

“MOVE!”

Boom! Boom! Boom! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

It was like the worst thunderstorm in history. Creatures five times the size of elephants were stampeding. Every step of those big feet was like a pile driver.

“Get across the stream!” I yelled.

“Where is it?”

“What stream?”

“Just follow me.”

I ran, making sure Cassie and Marco were keeping up. Ax, I didn’t have to worry about. He was far faster than any of us.

The thunder grew louder. All around us. I saw a vast bulk beside me, blocking out the stars. The panicked herd was all around us.

“HRRRROOOOOAAAARRRR!”

My knees turned to jelly. I tripped. I hit hard. The wind was knocked out of me.

A massive, taloned foot landed inches from my head. I rolled. I slammed into a tree trunk. No, the leg of the long-necked dinosaur.

“ScreeeEEEEE!” the terrified animal cried as the Tyrannosaurus bent low. I saw teeth glittering in moonlight. I saw a glowing yellow eye. I heard the chomp of the Tyrannosaurus’s jaws as they clamped down.

I was beneath the long-necked dinosaur as it fought. If I’d stood up and stretched, I would have just reached its belly. Tree-trunk legs pounded around me in a frenzy. And all the while the two animals roared and screamed and bellowed in terror and rage.

I covered my ears and screamed. A battle of giants right above me. I couldn’t see anything but darkness blotting out stars and the faintest outline of a creature the size of a whale.

I was a cockroach being hunted with sledgehammers. The ground jumped and slammed into me with each impact. I couldn’t even see the legs scuffling and pounding. At any second one would crush me. I curled up in a ball and tucked my head down and shook.

What morph did I have to fight these titans? Nothing. This wasn’t my world. I was nothing in this world. All my powerful morphs were nothing in this world.

“ScreeeEEEEEE-uh. ScreeeEEEEE-uh!”

“Huh-huh-RoooAAAARRRR!”

A final cry of the big dinosaur ended in a gasp and a collapsing rattle.

The Tyrannosaurus had won. The long-necked dinosaur was done for. Nothing left but for him to fall. Nothing left but for him to drop down onto me.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Hey recommend me some cool books on dinos preferably with cool pics that my nephews and I can get into

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Hey recommend me some cool books on dinos preferably with cool pics that my nephews and I can get into

freebooter posted:

The Dinotopia books fit that description 100%. They're not actually educational or teaching you about different dinos or whatever, they're a fantasy series with fantastic illustrations about a 19th century father and son who wash up on this hidden island where humans and dinosaurs have built a utopian coexistence.

hallo spacedog posted:

Epicurius posted:

How old are your nephews? The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a good book, but its not going to interest younger kids. You might like it.

Epicurius posted:

Right. In this thread, lets save any discussion of a character's sex life to Visser Three, and keep in mind that Yeerks are monogendered asexual creatures who reproduce by fusing with each other and then breaking apart, and he's the only Yeerk with an Andalite host in the universe, so there's not much to talk about in his case.

Keep it clean, please, people.

Fuschia tude posted:

I can't believe you spoiled something from a book so far in the future

(Kidding. I know it's a minor reveal, like "Andalites eat through their hooves" or whatever. Still, it hasn't come up yet, and it's one of the few things I remember from a later (post-David arc) book at this point.)