The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)

by John Scalzi

if there was a later, which, given that Blaine Turnin’s neck had just turned a disturbing shade of floppy, seemed increasingly unlikely.

Inasmuch as Blaine Turnin’s body was now presenting a shape that could only be described as “deeply pretzeled,” this was probably correct and therefore

“The fact you are trying to reduce a civil war to ‘she started it’ does not fill me with confidence,”

And since I can tell you’re not the sort to show any actual goddamned initiative on your own part, you fucking cognitive mudfart, I care that your shitty little house is insulting me and my house—both of my houses, since I am still of House fucking Lagos.

As far as Kiva could tell, whenever selfish humans encountered a wrenching, life-altering crisis, they embarked on a journey of five distinct stages: Denial. Denial. Denial. Fucking Denial. Oh shit everything is terrible grab what you can and run.

The mattress on the bunk was two centimeters thick and apparently made out of particleboard and despair,

Kiva was aware that there was more to actual relationships than just banging each other senseless until sheets were soaked and fingers were wrinkled.

Twenty minutes receiving an update from a Commander Wen, Admiral Hurnen’s aide-de-camp, about the status of the End Armada, as Grayland had taken to thinking of it in her head, although she was led to understand it would actually be a “task force,” which Grayland did not feel sounded as awesome.

But at the end of the day Nadashe just couldn’t take Kiva—her confidence, her vulgarity, her outer layer of complete anarchy masking a weirdly inflexible inner layer of morality.

some bullshit alternate history where the Interdependency was still connected to Earth and everyone was fighting a war, or something—

Is that an Old Man's War reference?