Sci-Fi is the genre that explored both possibilities: the end of our existential crisis and the end of our existence. My novel, The 5th Wave, explores the latter scenario, because, frankly, I believe it represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they're out there, we better hope they never find us.

Time for the world to end.

In case you're an alien and you're reading this: BITE ME.

It isn't up to me to break his heart; that's time's job.

It's an either/or world now.

Sarcasm doesn't appear to work on him. If that's true, I'm in trouble: It's my normal mode of communication.

I was a slave to something he believed to be silly and superstitious: the idea that all life was worth defending and that nothing justified surrender to the forces of destruction.