Somehow I missed the first two books in this trilogy, but if you're going to come to a series late, reading the ending is the way to go.

Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos is a janitor. She and her crew were trained to clean spaceships, not to fight battles. But a war is on the rise and Mops and her crew are in the thick of it, fighting not only for themselves, but for all of humanity. This is one time they don't want to get flushed down the toilet.

I really like a good, humorous scifi story and it's been awhile since I really got a good laugh while reading some good scifi (Adam Christopher's Raymond Electromatic Mysteries series a few years back, and before that we're probably talking Spider Robinson or Ron Goulart). Seriously ... janitors stuck fighting a war with aliens? It's a great set-up and fortunately author Jim C. Hines develops it well.

The cast of characters are really delightful. They're funny, unique, and very easily identifiable. Typically I would say that I really prefer the character driven novels, but despite a delightful cast, this doesn't feel like a character-driven story. Rather, it's a circumstance-driven story that relies on these specific characters to make it work. It's a small distinction, but I do believe this is a case where all the parts come together and none of them would be strong enough alone to pull it off.

I got the story quite easily - all the background info needed is supplied gently through the course of this book, but I do think it would have been really good to get more information on the background of the characters. While I don't feel I'm missing anything vital to the story, I do think I'm missing a little depth to them and it's likely something I would have gotten through the course of the other two books.

Looking for a good book? You could read Terminal Peace by Jim C. Hines as a solo book, but I wouldn't recommend starting here. Based on this volume alone, this looks like a fun series to read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for n honest review.

What a journey we have been on together with this series — both personally and professionally. This book was an emotional read for me and I found it touching. If you don't know the author's journey to complete this series, this review will make sense once you get to the end of the book and read the acknowledgements.

Most of Earth’s humans have been turned feral by a Krakau plague, though the Krakau have generously managed to cure some of them to be used as cannon-fodder in the Alliance Prodryan war in space. Cured human, Marion Adamopolous, Mops for short, and her multi-species crew of janitors have become so much more than cleaners and plumbers. They are now officially in charge of the spaceship Pufferfish and are the leader of Earth’s space force of one. In this book they make a dangerous trip to see why the Jynx, inhabitants of the planet Tuxatl, have been able to drive off the dangerous alien Prodryans. Might there be something that Earth and the Alliance can use against the vicious conquerors? Mops herself is running out of time as she seems to be reverting to her previous feral state, leaving crew members to step up. Good job she’s trained them well.

Mops and the crew are off to a mystery planet to determine why their enemies, the Prodyans, are so afraid of its inhabitants that they keep the planet blockaded. With the war escalating and the alliance falling apart, time is running out to win this war or see the whole universe taken over by the Prodyans. Landing on the planet Mops and the crew find a race called the Jynx who are involved in a war of their own and an overall, multi-generational plan that might be more dangerous to everyone than the current war is. To complicate matters Mops is starting to lose control and revert to her feral state.

After a long, and understandable, gap we have the conclusion of Mops and her crew’s adventures. It was worth the wait. I enjoyed the whole trilogy and this was a satisfying conclusion for a crew of varied individuals (human and alien) that I grew quite fond of. Highly recommended.

I never expected to read this book.

Not because I didn't love the first two. I did. They are some of my absolute favorite military science fiction reads, because of the humor, the relationships, the world-building, and the way Hines so deftly twists milsf tropes about. It centers space janitors in the BEST way possible!

I didn't expect this book because shortly after Book 2 was published, Hines' wife passed away. I read his blog posts, and was heartbroken alongside him. I expected the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse to end at book 2, because how can a person go on after a loss of half your soul? And then the pandemic happened, and it scuttled the publishing world.

So when this ARC popped up on NetGalley, I knew I had to read it.

And I knew that it was going to be sending me in tears. In the first chapter. In the middle of the book. In the end and the ending and everything afterward.

Maybe I'll do a more in-depth post. Because I'm highly annoyed that this trilogy is so underhyped, because it is everything I ever wanted in a space opera:

✅ Friendships
✅ Zombies
✅ Mutiny
✅ Interplanetary secrets
✅ Underdog spaceship crew
✅ POG power!
✅ Chemical Solvents
✅ Snarky AI
✅ And the most terrifying callback to Clippy, Microsoft Word's "helpful" paperclip

I received an ARC from NetGalley

The conclusion to the Janitors of the Post Apocalypse was both action packed and very satisfying. I had waited two years for Mops and her crew to venture to Tuxatl (aka Hell's Claws) to discover a way to stop the Prodryan invasion. What made this conclusion so satisfying is the twists and turns the story took, and how original the war was settled. Hines humor is probably my favorite part of the book. Its gentle and whimsical, not in your face or obnoxiously slapstick. I would love for the author to continue the story of Mops and the EDF Pufferfish beyond just this trilogy.

It’s always a challenge to stick the landing of a really good series. It’s even trickier when several years have passed since the release of the previous book, and it’s especially difficult when those passing years were during a global pandemic. But with Terminal Peace, Jim C. Hines brings his “Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse” series to a close with a novel that’s still as funny and clever as the first two but also features a surprisingly deep exploration of mortality, the ethics of free will, and the perils of war.

Back in 2017, which seems even longer ago now than it actually was, Hines introduced readers to Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos, the Lieutenant in charge of Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation (the janitorial staff) on the starship Pufferfish. Long before, a disaster rendered Earth uninhabitable, and humans feral—zombie-like, predatory, thoughtless versions of former humans. Thanks to the help of Krakau scientists (squid-like aliens and leaders of a galactic alliance), some humans had been cured, more or less.


Now practically impervious to pain, quick to heal, and incredibly able mercenaries, humans became a feared force throughout the universe. This made them an asset to the Krakau Alliance in the war against the Prodryan Empire. But in the first two books in the series, Mops and her team (who end up in command of the Pufferfish, with Mops as captain) discover some incredibly unsavory truths about who’s at fault for the downfall of Earth. (Spoiler alert for the first two books: it’s the Krakau. But it was an accident! Really!)

Terminal Peace beautifully balances a delicate line between recapping just enough so that readers can remember what went on before, but never retreading too much ground. There are no summaries here, just responses from Mops and her team that remind readers, “Oh yes, that’s what happened.” While Terminal Peace isn’t the best place to start the series, a reader could jump in here without ever feeling too much at a loss for what’s going on, because Hines deftly manages the world-building in brief snippets, and because the story starts moving along in a new direction almost immediately, as Mops takes on one last mission to end the war between the Krakau Alliance and the xenophobic Prodryans, who are determined to wipe out every other sapient species.


Why is it a last mission? Terminal Peace opens with tragic news: Mops is reverting to a feral human. She’s going to lose her ability to reason. As a captain known for her ability to think outside the box (including a penchant for using cleaning supplies to solve military problems—a gimmick that never fails to be funny throughout the series), the idea of losing herself is terrifying. It’s not necessarily a fate worse than death, but it’s a fate just like death. And Mops just doesn’t have enough time. But really, would there ever be enough?

Mops takes the Pufferfish out to a world the Prodryan Empire fears, determined to make contact with the local residents and enlist them to help end the war. But what she and the crew find there is a deeper moral question. If the only way of winning the war is a biological weapon that would fundamentally change who the Prodryans were, should they use it? Does any species have the right to take away that free will from another? For the humans, changed into something entirely different by their interactions with the Krakau (and still, understandably, smarting over it), this question hits a little too close to home.


Hines navigates this combination of ethical dilemma, action, humor, and heart with dexterity, never lingering too long over the deep thoughts to become bogged down in them, and using the humor at just the right moments to keep the story fun. He also plays some excellent tricks with point-of-view narration. Each chapter begins with a small scene that’s beyond Mops’s perspective, giving readers insight into the larger universe, including plots being put into action by Mops’s supposedly captive Prodryan lawyer, Advocate of Violence, affectionately (kind of) known as Cate.
But there’s an even deeper shift. As Mops relinquishes her command of the mission, she also hands off command of the narrative. Hines uses that moment to shift into some of the other crew members—particularly Mops’s mission leader, Kumar, and the commander of the Pufferfish, Monroe. It’s a beautifully meaningful narrative shift that’s both practical and symbolic.

Terminal Peace is the type of finale fans of Hines’s previous work have come to expect: a zany adventure far deeper than the series title would lead readers to believe. Mops and her team are there to clean up the whole universe’s mess, and sometimes that means looking at what parts of history need to be washed away (but remembered) so that everyone can move forward into a brighter future.

One of the most satisfying series conclusions ever for one of the most underrated Sci-Fi trilogies ever! Jim C. Hines has created such an incredibly creative, refreshing world that you wish you could join Mops and her crew aboard the EDFS Pufferfish and explore the universe with them. The very entertaining, action-packed plot is full of twists, turns and surprises, and the storyline goes in the direction you were expecting. Hines really excels at characterization and his cast is one of the most endearing ever (villains and almost-villains included). All the characters evolve throughout the trilogy, and their growth feels incredibly natural. Add to that lots of humor, priceless interactions between all the different alien species and sanitation-related shenanigans, and you're in for one of the wildest, most entertaining Sci-Fi rides ever!

This is definitely one of those special series that stay with the reader long after they finish it and I can't wait to read it again! Highly recommended.

MY REVIEW: 4.5 Stars

I loved this trilogy!! I love the original storyline, the characters, and space as the setting

In my opinion, this trilogy is underrated!! I think theses books should get more attention! The books are funny, have wonderful species of characters and you care for them! I’ve already ordered my hardback to go with my first two books! Highly recommend!

I’ll leave it with some fun quotes!

*Humans are little more than animals. I say this not out of malice or racism. Indeed, I’m quite fond of human beings. But after years of study, I’ve found them to be an evolutionary quagmire of inefficiency. Scientifically and objectively, humans are a primitive species.

They have redundant lungs and kidneys, but only a single brain or heart, as well as seemingly "optional" organs like the appendix. Even more absurd is their reproductive system. Half the species keep their genitalia on the outside of their bodies! Then there’s the human gastrointestinal abomination if ever there was one!!

*The human GI tract is more than seven and a half meters long. Despite this absurd length, humans regularly emit foul-smelling exhaust as a byproduct of inefficient digestion. Krakau biochemists have tried for years to reduce these emissions through a carefully controlled diet, but their efforts have met with minimal success.

** Thank you to Netgalley and DAW Books for a digital copy of this book.

This is a wonderful finish to the Space Janitors series. Our brave crew set out once again and end up having to save the world using their superior knowledge of cleaning products. Seriously though, I knew that the author had suffered a terrible loss and I wondered how that would affect this book. His heartache is woven in bits and pieces throughout the storyline, but he left his readers with a glimmer of hope at the end.

This was such a fun series. It’s a really satisfying ending too. If you’re looking for a light science fiction series I recommend this one highly. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and has been super fun to read, on second thought I’m rounding this up to five stars for the overall quail the series. You don’t want to start with this one though if you’re a reader that waits on a series being finished before you start it. You do want to start with Terminal Alliance. Everything I’ve read by this author has been super fun so take a look at his other books too if you’d enjoy some non serious fantasy books.

Terminal Peace is the long delayed* conclusion to Jim C Hines' fun space opera series "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse", which began with Terminal Alliance a bunch of years back. As you might imagine from the series title, this is a fun space opera series, in which humanity has fallen into feral monsters due to an unknown plague (explained in the series), cured somewhat and recruited by an alien alliance to help secure the galaxy as soldiers....only for the story to follow a series of Janitors/Sanitation-working humans who wind up in control of an alliance ship and forced to save the day repeatedly. There's a lot of sanitation/toilet based humor, the characters all take names after various parts of pop culture that they don't quite understand the 20th/21st century context of for maximum humor, and well...it's a whole bunch of fun.

*The delay is explained in the back of the book as due in large part due to Hines' struggle with losing his wife during that time.

Terminal Peace continues the story of the EDFS Pufferfish and Captain Marion "Mops" Adamopolous and her crew and manages to conclude the trilogy in an enjoyable, poignant, and well immensely satisfying volume. It even adds in sort of a sob-story that made me tear up a bit, especially when combined with the author's note, and deals with some serious themes of free will, predestination, and well, lots of cleaning and alien humor to continue to keep the fun going along the way. Is it some profound work? No, of course not - again this is the silly side of space opera, and it knows it. But it still pulls it


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Captain Marion "Mops" Adamopolous and her fellow crew on the EDFS Pufferfish have been outcasts, heroes, and the most unlikely discovers of truth - like that the plague that turned seemingly all of humanity into Ferals was in fact the creation of the Krakau alliance that once claimed to be their saviors or that immune humans exist on Earth. All this despite the fact that they were really just meant to be Hygiene and Sanitation Workers, whose best skills involve knowing what are the best cleaning fluids to use the right situations.

Now Mops faces a threat that is even more implacable than before: her body is rejecting the Krakau cure and is reverting to a Feral State....and soon, within months or even just a few weeks, she will be gone. But Mops doesn't have time to just sit and wait....the galaxy is teetering on the edge of renewed war between the splintering Krakau alliance and the murderous Prodryans, and Earth is directly in the crosshairs. Their only hope is to investigate the mysterious planet Tuxatl and its inhabitants, the Jynx, a race that the Prodryans fear for some strange reason.

First Contact is hardly in Mops' skills, even if she wasn't in danger of becoming a mindless beast. But it's all up to her and her crew to achieve it and to figure out a way to use what they learn from the Jynx to save humanity....if the secrets of the Jynx aren't even more dangerous to the galaxy than the Prodryans themselves.....
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To a certain extent Terminal Peace delivers more of what you got from the prior two novels - a fun bonkers plot, featuring silly shenanigans - distracting an enemy war leader with checkers! tactical use of cleaning fluids! etc. - toilet/janitorial humor, and an oddball cast of misfits, both human and otherwise who just take things in surprising and hilarious directions at times. And the new characters we meet here, the Jynx, present us with new interesting ideas and ethical dilemmas (at what cost, or with what means - no matter how hypocritical - is one willing to use to save their people?).

But what we also get here is an additional poignant plot stemming from Mops' disease, in a plot Hines admits in an afterwards was inspired by what happened with his own wife. Mops' struggle to keep herself going, to deal with her the realities of her own reversion and how that might affect her team is sometimes heartbreaking, especially near the end, and how the rest of the team reacts to it also is really done well (with the book shifting POV characters at times to account for this). Hines treats this surprisingly realistically - although the disease in question (reverting to a feral mindless beast form) is in some ways comedic, it's actually treated serious and not something that can simply be overcome with determination and strength. Rather Mops has to ensure that steps are taken for her team to be able to move forward once the disease starts taking her out of the loop, and she does exactly that. And this works really well as a thoroughline throughout the novel....although unlike in real life, Hines does manage to give this a happy ending. But it's a happy ending that isn't cheap and is earned, which makes it perfect.

And again around all that we have a fun enjoyable plot, with some crazyness to go along with some ethical themes - like would it be wrong, for those who have fought against an alien species that wrongly affected their species' mental autonomy, to use a weapon that would affect another species' mentality and make them more peaceful? The answer is of course yes, but Hines does a great job at setting the stakes such that you'd think such might be an ends justify the means like moment, even as he allows his heroes to find another way....And this of course involves Janitorial/cleaning humor, lawyer humor from a ruthless warlike species (Cate is the best), and more zaniness, so never think it gets all too serious.

All in all, a highly enjoyable concluding volume and I very much recommend it.

Terminal Peace concludes Jim C. Hines’ Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series with Mops and her crew fighting the clock to end the war with the Prodryans. This is all-around well done with humor, heart! I love these characters!

Stars: 5 out of 5

This was an excellent ending to what turned out to be a very good series. I will definitely check out other books by this author, because as far as introductions go, the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse knocked it out of the park.

This book effectively resolves the main issue of the first two books - the seemingly unresolvable Prodryan treat. How do you prevail over a species who considers all other species as inferior and the whole universe as their own playground, ripe for the taking? Where conquest is woven into the very DNA of a Prodryan? The only way to beat that is genocide, at least according to the Krakau Alliance. And we found out exactly to what lengths the Krakau are willing to go to accomplish that in the previous two books. But Marion "Mops" Adamapoulos and her crew might just have another solution...

I loved how unpredictable these books are. Every time I think I know the course which the story will take, the author manages to surprise me with a completely different resolution. I admit that I still have doubts about the feasibility of the solution proposed at the end of this book, but I admit that it's beautifully accomplished. What solution? you might ask. Well, read the book to find out.

Mops also had a big obstacle to overcome in this book. One that is very personal and very terminal. It was both uplifting and bittersweet to embark on this journey with her and to see her slowly come to grips with her own condition and her place in the big picture. Mops grew a lot as a leader and a human being throughout the series. So did all the other characters as well. I was particularly impressed with how far Kumar came from the obsessive-compulsive cleaner he'd been in book 1. The great part is that he is still obsessive-compulsive, but he had matured as a person and discovered some inner depths that I frankly didn't know he had. That's the great thing about this series - the characters evolve and mature, but they fundamentally stay themselves. The growth is believable. They still act in character and the decisions they make are believable based on what we know of them. 

I admit that up until almost the end was wasn't sure what kind of solution our crew would find to the Protryan problem short of full-on genocide or chemically altering an entire species which would also be a different kind of genocide. As I had mentioned earlier, the solution is quite beautifully done, even if I have doubts it would last long-term. I would be interested to see how it works out, if the author decides to revisit this world again in his later works. 

There are a number of characters I would like to follow up on, including Mops and all the Librarians on Earth. We end this book on a hopeful note, with a real cure for feral humanity. This is huge. How would that work out? A whole civilization to rebuild and hordes of feral humans to cure and re-educate. That's a big task. Also, how will this new alliance work? How would the Prodryans interact with other species when they aren't trying to conquer them?

All in all, this was a very good story - fast paced and full of twists and turns and engaging characters. And the Jynx are furry little balls of awesome.

PS: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Terminal Peace is the third in the "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" series by Jim C. Hines. Really, do you need anything other than the name of the series to know this is going to be great?

Premise is that humanity have been turned "feral" by an alien disease, except for a few who were naturally immune. Those became "librarians," and have been working to free humanity from subjugation by various intergalactic powers.

Mops is a human janitor who is also the captain of a ship crewed by humans and aliens. War is imminent, and humans will suffer even more than they already have. It's up to Mops and her crew to clean up yet another mess, but Mops is running out of time, as she's been infected and will soon "revert."

Mops is a delight, as are her crew. There are plenty of pop culture references, but not enough to distract from the story. This is a story of the underdog and how doing the right thing sometimes pays off, even if not in ways you expect. Mops and her crew battle their way to a forbidden planet in hopes of something that will stop the Prodryans, who want to dominate the galaxy. Can they convince the "primitive" Jynx to help them?

Hines is a good writer, and has created worlds and beings with whom you will want to spend more time. I'm hoping there are more in this series, although the ending of this book did wrap things up well.

I received an advance copy from DAW via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

4.75/5 stars.

Terminal Peace I believe, is the finale in Jim C. Hines SciFi trilogy adventures of the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse. It is swift moving, well written, exciting, surprising, funny, and intense. As in the previous two books the unexpected heroes rise to the occasion, kick some serious butt, and struggle with bad guys, culture clash, and personal issues. I will miss this crew.

"The third and final book of the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse follows a group of unlikely heroes trying to save the galaxy from a zombie plague.

Marion "Mops" Adamopoulos and her team were trained to clean spaceships. They were absolutely not trained to fight an interplanetary war with the xenocidal Prodryans or to make first contact with the Jynx, a race who might not be as primitive as they seem. But if there's one lesson Mops and her crew have learned, it's that things like "training" and "being remotely qualified" are overrated.

The war is escalating. (This might be Mops' fault.) The survival of humanity - those few who weren't turned to feral, shambling monsters by an alien plague - as well as the fate of all other non-Prodryans, will depend on what Captain Mops and the crew of the EDFS Pufferfish discover on the ringed planet of Tuxatl.

But the Jynx on Tuxatl are fighting a war of their own, and their world's long-buried secrets could be more dangerous than the Prodryans.

To make matters worse, Mops is starting to feel a little feral herself..."

Any chance Mops and her team could come clean up the mess that is Earth? They couldn't make it worse!