The Ghost Brigades (Old Man's War, #2)

by John Scalzi

In the early evening of the second day, Andrea Gell-Mann introduced the 8th to the concept of profanity, which she picked up at lunch and shared just before dinner. At dinner members of the 8th enthusiastically told each other to pass the fucking salt, you fucking sack of shit, until Brahe told them to quit that goddamn shit, cocksuckers, because it got old pretty goddamn quick. There was general agreement that Brahe was correct, until Gell-Mann taught the squad to swear in Arabic.

On the third day, members of the 8th asked for, and received, permission to enter the mess hall kitchens and use the ovens and certain ingredients. The next morning the other training squads at Camp Carson were presented with enough sugar cookies for every recruit (and their superior officers).

On the fourth day the members of the 8th tried to tell each other jokes they’d found on the Phoenix data net, and mostly failed to make them work; by the time their BrainPals unpacked the context of the joke, it was no longer funny. Only Sarah Pauling seemed to be laughing most of the time, and it was eventually determined she was laughing because she thought it was funny that none of the rest of them could tell a joke. No one else thought that was funn...

On the fifth day, during which the afternoon was spent in an informational session about the disposition of the human colonies and their relationship with other intelligent species (which was to say, bad all the time), the 8th critically evaluated pre–Colonial era speculative fiction and entertainments about interstellar wars with aliens. The verdicts were reasonably consistent. The War of the Worlds met with approval until the ending, which struck the 8th as a cheap trick. Starship Troopers had some good action scenes but required too much unpacking of philosophical ideas; they liked the movie better, even though they recognized it was dumber. The Forever War made most of the 8th unaccountably sad; the idea that a war could go on that long was almost unfathomable to a group of people who were a week old. After watching Star Wars everyone wanted a lightsaber and was irritated that the technology for them didn’t really exist. Everyone also agreed the Ewoks should all die. Two classics stuck with them. Ender’s Game delighted them all; here were soldiers who were just like them, except smaller. The main character was even bred to fight alien species like they were. The next day the...

Capitalism had made it to space and was doing reasonably well.

He reached over, took the second cookie, and offered it to Robbins. “Here,” he said. “I saw you coveting it.” Robbins stared at the cookie, then looked around. “I can’t take that,” he said. “Sure you can,” Szilard said. “I’m not supposed to eat anything here,” Robbins said. “So what?” Szilard said. “Screw ’em. It’s a ridiculous tradition and you know it. So break it. Take the cookie.” Robbins took the cookie and stared at it glumly. “Oh, good God,” Szilard said. “Do I have to order you to eat the damn thing?” “It might help,” Robbins said. “Fine,” Szilard said. “Colonel, I’m giving you a direct order. Eat the fucking cookie.” Robbins ate it. The waiter was scandalized.