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Karma's Touch (Chronicles of Ethan, #3) QUOTES

Karma's Touch (Chronicles of Ethan, #3) QUOTES

1 " Hraith Doomguard wasn’t his real name. He’d chosen it because players always laughed when he told them it was Tom Butler. “That’s too boring,” they’d say. “It can be anything you want here.” Tom had grown up with two brothers and a sister. He’d been teased mercilessly by other kids who called his parents “breeders”—couples who had more than one child. Overpopulation, everyone knew, was the biggest threat to the world, and never mind that the global population was smaller than at any point in the last hundred years. Having grown up in a large family, Tom wanted a family of his own. But every woman he met at the law firm or singles bars had taken the sterilization package to shave ten years off retirement age. Theirs was a purgatory-like existence. None of them wanted marriage. They lived overly safe lives for fear of dying too young, all in the hope of paradise worlds, game worlds, theme worlds, or hedonistic worlds characterized by muscly bodies and supersaturated sensuality. As Tom’s life plodded along, he was plagued with bouts of deep depression which he managed with a medical prescription. In time, he did meet a few women who wanted a family. But he was either too picky or they were, and nothing ever came of it. Lonely and mostly celibate, Tom kept to himself in his later years after watching his friends, parents, brothers, and his sister retire to the Everlife worlds, never to be seen again. At the ripe old age of eighty-five, he finally succumbed to the near-constant government nagging that he was a drain on the system. After a little research, he retired to Mythian. It was fun at first, but eventually the ogres, goblins, and skeleton armies couldn’t replace his longing for a life of purpose. One day, after waking up for the thousandth time—perfectly rested yet unfulfilled—Tom realized the only thing he enjoyed about living was being asleep. That’s why, having reached level 164 for no good reason, he gave up adventuring, went to sleep, and never woke up again. "

― John L. Monk , Karma's Touch (Chronicles of Ethan, #3)