Which Book Was It...?

[capnnerefir]

So, I've seen a few topic like this floating around, and I figured it might be easier to compile these sorts of questions in one place.

Sometimes - especially if you're just now getting back into the series after a long break - you remember something from one of the books and really want to read that one but you can't for the life of you remember what book it was.

Fortunately, this place is full of obsessive nerds, and we remember everything that ever happened in any book ever.

So if you just remember some strange detail (for example: What was that book where they were on the log flume ride?), ask about it here and I'm sure somebody will be able to answer (i.e. That was book 14, the one with the Andalite toilet and horse controllers).

[Sassy_Cat]

That had that weird Australia filler in it?

[Spencer]

That had that weird Australia filler in it?

Book 44: The unexpected.

The only reason I know that is I was doing a bit of Fanfic research and needed to place Marco at a certain point on the timeline to determine his morphs, and right before book 45 is where I picked.

[Tobias_Marco]

<In honor of my birthday I'll ask, "In what book did one of the Animorphs celebrate their birthday?>
<HINT: Tobias had a birthday somewhere between book #22 and #24.>

Uh, TM, that's not a hint. You know full well that happened in Animorphs #23: The Pretender.

<Yeah, what's your point?>
<How about this, Are there any other times in the books or TV show where an Animorph or one of their family members has a birthday?>

[BabelFish42]

<How about this, Are there any other times in the books or TV show where an Animorph or one of their family members has a birthday?>

Yes, actually. In one of the Jake books, he was going shopping for a birthday present for his mom, and trying to get Cassie and Rachel to help him. Rachel said something like, "You want to buy her something from that store? It practically screams 'overweight middle-aged ladies'!" I'm pretty sure it was book 6.

Wow. I am an obsessive nerd.

[loosonghan]

<How about this, Are there any other times in the books or TV show where an Animorph or one of their family members has a birthday?>

Yes, actually. In one of the Jake books, he was going shopping for a birthday present for his mom, and trying to get Cassie and Rachel to help him. Rachel said something like, "You want to buy her something from that store? It practically screams 'overweight middle-aged ladies'!" I'm pretty sure it was book 6.

Wow. I am an obsessive nerd.

Was it just in your memory?

[Tobias_Marco]

<They are correct, one of the Jake books does have him buying a gift for his mother. It may well have been book 6. Now I'll have to read that one again.>

<Normally I’m all for the number of posts and decrease the number of Gedds on this site, however sometimes I tend to post things that are helpful, and in this case I want to post something that will reduce the number of posts to this topic.>
<The first step in figuring out what Animorph book something happened in is to figure out who is telling the story. Does this seem like it would be a Jake books? If so than it would end in the number 1 or 6 (1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41).>
<This rule works for all Animorph books between 1 and 45, for 46-54 the rule is different.>
<This trick works with any Animorph. Rachel books end in 2 or 7 (2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37, 42).>
<Tobias and Ax got the short end of the stick and each has half as many books as any of the others.>
<All Tobias books (before 45) end in 3 (3, 13, 23, 33, 43).>
<Cassie books end with 4 or 9 (4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, 39, 44).>
<All Marco books end with 5 or 0 (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45).>
<As I said earlier, Ax got the short end of the stick, with only half as many books, and book that ends in 8 is probably an Ax book (8, 18, 28, 38). See what I mean, that is one less book than Tobias!>
<Remember that there are only 54 regular books, so if someone tells you that it happened in book #55 or later they are talking about fan-fiction or they are just yanking your chain…better make sure the other end of that chain isn’t in the Yeerk Pool. That being said this rule only works up to book #45, a book ending with 5, so it is a Marco book.>
<There are 2 main problems with this rule when it will not be able to help you, the first is if the event you are thinking of takes place in a Megamorphs book, they each take a turn telling that one, or a Chronicles book, in that case the regular Animorphs won’t even be there. What your favorite Animorph isn’t even in the book? Then it must be a Chronicles book. The other case is books 46 to 54.>
<For books 46 to 54 the rule is:
2, 6 = Ax (46, 52)
3, 7 = Jake (47, 53)
8 = Rachel (48)
9= Tobias (49)
0 = Cassie (50)
1= Marco (51)>
<Notice here that the rule is similar, let’s start with Jake, in all cases (both before and after book 45) the book after a Jake book is always a Rachel book, the book after a Rachel book is ether an Ax or a Tobias book, the book after an Ax or Tobias book is a Cassie book, and the book after a Cassie book is always a Marco book.>
<The only books that break THIS rule are:
Book 45 was a Marco book, yet 46 was an Ax book,
Book 46 was an Ax book, yet 47 was a Jake book,
Book 51 was a Marco book, yet 52 was an Ax book
Book 53 was a Jake book, so book 54 should be a Rachel book, instead it reads like a short Megamorphs book, with each of the characters taking a turn.>

<Now here is an example: in one of the books Jake says something to the other Animorphs as they are in there bird of prey morphs heading off into battle, then he says something to himself about "yeah sure they'll believe that" and Rachel (?) says <Uh Jake, we all heard that.>, now as I'm typing this I haven't read that page in a while and I fully expect someone (maybe even my future self) to replie with the actual book quote that fixes some of the mistakes I've made.>

<Now we look at the first clue: This is most likely a Jake book, that tells us that if it happened before book 45 (3 x 3 x 5 for those who like to prime factor your numbers) then it ends with a 1 or a 6, otherwise it was book 47 or 53.>
(1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41) + (47, 53)
<My mind is telling me that it happened in a later book, not 1, 6, 11, or 16, yet I don't think it was 53.>
<I just narrowed it down from 54 books, down to 11 books, down to 6 books, that is if it wasn't a Megamorphs book.>
<I still don't know what book this event happened in, however I now have A LOT less reading to do to find it.>
<You can decide for your self if this is a good thing or a bad thing on a case-by-case basis.>

[loosonghan]

<They are correct, one of the Jake books does have him buying a gift for his mother. It may well have been book 6. Now I'll have to read that one again.>

<Normally I’m all for the number of posts and decrease the number of Gedds on this site, however sometimes I tend to post things that are helpful, and in this case I want to post something that will reduce the number of posts to this topic.>
<The first step in figuring out what Animorph book something happened in is to figure out who is telling the story. Does this seem like it would be a Jake books? If so than it would end in the number 1 or 6 (1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41).>
<This rule works for all Animorph books between 1 and 45, for 46-54 the rule is different.>
<This trick works with any Animorph. Rachel books end in 2 or 7 (2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37, 42).>
<Tobias and Ax got the short end of the stick and each has half as many books as any of the others.>
<All Tobias books (before 45) end in 3 (3, 13, 23, 33, 43).>
<Cassie books end with 4 or 9 (4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, 39, 44).>
<All Marco books end with 5 or 0 (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45).>
<As I said earlier, Ax got the short end of the stick, with only half as many books, and book that ends in 8 is probably an Ax book (8, 18, 28, 38). See what I mean, that is one less book than Tobias!>
<Remember that there are only 54 regular books, so if someone tells you that it happened in book #55 or later they are talking about fan-fiction or they are just yanking your chain…better make sure the other end of that chain isn’t in the Yeerk Pool. That being said this rule only works up to book #45, a book ending with 5, so it is a Marco book.>
<There are 2 main problems with this rule when it will not be able to help you, the first is if the event you are thinking of takes place in a Megamorphs book, they each take a turn telling that one, or a Chronicles book, in that case the regular Animorphs won’t even be there. What your favorite Animorph isn’t even in the book? Then it must be a Chronicles book. The other case is books 46 to 54.>
<For books 46 to 54 the rule is:
2, 6 = Ax (46, 52)
3, 7 = Jake (47, 53)
8 = Rachel (48)
9= Tobias (49)
0 = Cassie (50)
1= Marco (51)>
<Notice here that the rule is similar, let’s start with Jake, in all cases (both before and after book 45) the book after a Jake book is always a Rachel book, the book after a Rachel book is ether an Ax or a Tobias book, the book after an Ax or Tobias book is a Cassie book, and the book after a Cassie book is always a Marco book.>
<The only books that break THIS rule are:
Book 45 was a Marco book, yet 46 was an Ax book,
Book 46 was an Ax book, yet 47 was a Jake book,
Book 51 was a Marco book, yet 52 was an Ax book
Book 53 was a Jake book, so book 54 should be a Rachel book, instead it reads like a short Megamorphs book, with each of the characters taking a turn.>

<Now here is an example: in one of the books Jake says something to the other Animorphs as they are in there bird of prey morphs heading off into battle, then he says something to himself about "yeah sure they'll believe that" and Rachel (?) says <Uh Jake, we all heard that.>, now as I'm typing this I haven't read that page in a while and I fully expect someone (maybe even my future self) to replie with the actual book quote that fixes some of the mistakes I've made.>

<Now we look at the first clue: This is most likely a Jake book, that tells us that if it happened before book 45 (3 x 3 x 5 for those who like to prime factor your numbers) then it ends with a 1 or a 6, otherwise it was book 47 or 53.>
(1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41) + (47, 53)
<My mind is telling me that it happened in a later book, not 1, 6, 11, or 16, yet I don't think it was 53.>
<I just narrowed it down from 54 books, down to 11 books, down to 6 books, that is if it wasn't a Megamorphs book.>
<I still don't know what book this event happened in, however I now have A LOT less reading to do to find it.>
<You can decide for your self if this is a good thing or a bad thing on a case-by-case basis.>

Too complicated...

[Tobias_Marco]

<Just remember:
Jake 1 or 6
Rachel 2 or 7
Tobias 3
Cassie 4 or 9
Marco 5 or 0
Ax 8
Until you get to 46.
Then it is: Ax, Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, Ax, Jake, 54>

Now back to what I was saying earlyer: In one of the books Jake says something to the other Animorphs as they are in there bird of prey morphs heading off into battle, then he says something to himself about "yeah sure they'll believe that" and Rachel (?) says <Uh Jake, we all heard that.>, now as I'm typing this I haven't read that page in a while and I fully expect someone (maybe even my future self) to replie with the actual book quote that fixes some of the mistakes I've made.>
<I am fairly sure this was 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41, 47, or 53.>
<Does anyone know what book this was?>
<...or does anyone have another scean we could look at?>

[kgray]

I believe your quote was from book 17, chapter 13, page 73.

The exact quote is:

<Once we have our Controller, we follow him in. No problem,> Jake said. Then he added grimly, <Oh yeah, no problem. A little picnic in the Yeerk pool. I'm sure they'll all buy that.>

<Um, Jake?> Marco said. <You said that last part out loud. We heard it.>

This was much easier for me as i have a much more brute force way of searching. First i took all of the epubs that i created as part of the part of the ebook tidy up project (Shameless cross-site plug: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4860). I extracted all the chapter html files using 7-zip, opened them all at once (yes every chapter of every book) in notepad++ and ran a find command over every open file for the indicated text. Once i found it i got the book and chapter number and then cross referenced it with my physical copies for the page number.