The End of All Things (Old Man's War, #6)

by John Scalzi

“Not exactly an upward move, paywise,” Han said. I shrugged. I figured that the shrug would come across as a casual and cool Hey, some things are more important than money rather than Hey, I’m living with my parents who are beginning to resent that fact so I will take what I can get.

Unless this was the afterlife. But I doubted it was. I’m not much of a religious person, but most afterlives that I’d heard of were something more than a blank nothingness. If God or gods existed, and this was all they put together for eternal life, I wasn’t very impressed with their user experience.

What I did with those two weeks: blue pill. No, I don’t know where the phrase comes from. It’s been used for a long time. Look it up.

The Fflict recognized five genders: male, female, zhial, yal, and neuter. Aul was zhial, and ze liked zis pronouns accurately stated. I would too, in zis position.

This book was published in 2015

“You should be dead!” Aul yelled at the monitor. “You should be dead, your ship should be dead, you should all be dead! You magnificent shit-eater!”

I hunkered down. “What are you about to do, Aul?” “It’s probably best you wait until it happens. If it works, it will be really great.” “And if it doesn’t?” “Then it’ll be over quickly.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much, and in a twisted way, I assure you, I admire your commitment to amorality,” Lambert said.

“Captain, the problem is not that I’m paranoid. The problem is that the universe keeps justifying my paranoia.”

“But I have always found that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of people in a room and the amount of useful work that can be done.