Man I was fucking obsessed with these books as a kid. I read nearly all of them including the special one offs like the origins of the Hork-Bajir and how the Ellimist went from being a bird alien esports player to being Q from Star Trek.
In hindsight: HOLY FUCKING SHIT HOW THE FUCK DID THOSE BOOKS GET MADE/PUBLISHED??? Like straight up if you watched the TV show on Nickelodeon that shit was like if they took Starship Troopers and made a power rangers show out of it. Those books are definitely marketed towards kids but like…fuck…they’ve got full on body horror and amputations and insane levels of violence and descriptions of pain and torture and some wax philosophizing on guerrilla warfare and shit.
I know my parents were just fucking happy that I was reading a book and they helped me graduate to adult fiction but man I would be fucking terrified to do any sort of deep dive on the fucking ideology of those things. I imagine its gross as fucking shit.
At 54 books in the series, and given that they’re in a guerrilla war from book one with causalities across the entire series, I would be a little disappointed if more than half of them make it to the end.
I basically had the same experience, only it never occurred to me how dark the series is. Now, I’m sitting here at 34, saying “it wasn’t that dark… was it? Oh. Oh, no.”
Man I was fucking obsessed with these books as a kid. I read nearly all of them including the special one offs like the origins of the Hork-Bajir and how the Ellimist went from being a bird alien esports player to being Q from Star Trek.
In hindsight: HOLY FUCKING SHIT HOW THE FUCK DID THOSE BOOKS GET MADE/PUBLISHED??? Like straight up if you watched the TV show on Nickelodeon that shit was like if they took Starship Troopers and made a power rangers show out of it. Those books are definitely marketed towards kids but like…fuck…they’ve got full on body horror and amputations and insane levels of violence and descriptions of pain and torture and some wax philosophizing on guerrilla warfare and shit.
I know my parents were just fucking happy that I was reading a book and they helped me graduate to adult fiction but man I would be fucking terrified to do any sort of deep dive on the fucking ideology of those things. I imagine its gross as fucking shit.
My nephew recently started reading the graphic novels and I told my sister “You know basically all of the main characters die at the end right?”
At 54 books in the series, and given that they’re in a guerrilla war from book one with causalities across the entire series, I would be a little disappointed if more than half of them make it to the end.
Why would you narc on the kid like that?
Because I can’t stop thinking about it…do they ever go back for rat boy?
I didn’t actually read the last half of the series, but I’m pretty sure they just leave that person to die and it’s never mentioned again.
I basically had the same experience, only it never occurred to me how dark the series is. Now, I’m sitting here at 34, saying “it wasn’t that dark… was it? Oh. Oh, no.”