There are times when fear is not our enemy. There are times when fear is our truest, sometimes only, friend.

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.

I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.

Afterward I told his widow, "Your husband is dead, but at least he died laughing.' I think she took some comfort in that. It is the second-best way to die, Will Henry." He did not say what the best way was.

I was woefully ignorant in the social graces. I was being raised, after all, by Pellinore Warthrop.

I didn't save you," he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. "You saved me.

It's like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it.