SUMMARY

The Yeerks have taken over units of the National Guard with plans to infest all of its officers and soldiers. The plan seems to be to step things up—use the Guard to prepare for an all-out war on Earth. The Animorphs couldn't be less prepared. They're living with the free Hork-Bajir colony, Jake is depressed, and worst of all, the morphing cube is in the hands of the enemy. Marco and the others know they need to take serious action to stop the Yeerk infiltration of the Guard. They decide to approach the governor—but they don't know if she's a controller or not. If she is, they're walking right into enemy hands. If she's not, the Animorphs are finally going public with their secret. And no one knows which situation is worse...

Released: February 2001 Pages: 149 Cover Art by David B. Mattingly

Front Cover (Hi-Res) Inside Cover (Hi-Res)

 

ADDITIONAL / ALTERNATE COVERS

U.S. Inside Cover	U.K Cover

TRIVIA

ANIBASE: An Animorphs fan was an intern at Scholastic when the book was being titled and told us that he and an associate editor set out on their own personal mission to change the title of this book from The Absolute to The Consequence, in reference to the Yeerks now being able to morph. Unfortunately for our dynamic duo, "The Consequence" wouldn't fit on the spine of the book and couldn't be used. The Absolute remained the chosen title. ANIBASE: The author of this book was having quite a bit of trouble doing research on tanks. Phone calls to the army turned up a lot of suspicion, but not a lot of information. Help finally came in the form of a man named Art Alphin, a retired Army tank commander and husband of author Elaine Marie Alphin, who won the Edgar award for her book Counterfeit Son. Art provided the author with all the tank info that she needed and even read over the chapters to make sure that the details were spot on. She was so grateful that Art was given a "special thanks" dedication in the front of the book! Starting with this book, the back summary of "We can't tell you who we are, or where we live.." etc was changed to: "Here's the deal these days: they know exactly who we are. They know exactly where we live. We've got a few secrets left, and we're gonna use them. But just know that the end is coming. And we don't know how much longer we can do this. How much longer we can fight. What about you? Where will you be where it ends? Think about it. Think hard. Because the countdown has already begun...." A marketing campaign had been begun by Scholastic at this point, featuring a "behind the scenes" look at the war as it went on in the books. Radio commercials were made, the website was taken over, and, oh yeah, K.A. turned out to be a controller. Read all about it in the Marketing Campaign behind the ending of Animorphs.

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