tl;dr - I enjoyed this book. It was a quick, light, fun(ny at times) read and while it didn't quite give me what I expected I still loved the expendable theme and some of the history of Ashton's universe. From the Readers Q&A it appears as thuogh there may be at least one more Mickey story, and I will certainly be reading it. I'd recommend Mickey7 to fans of John Scalzi and Murderbot.

Mickey7 follow the story of an Expendable: a man, in this case, who's sole purpose upon joining the Niflheim mission is to be available to die. Repeatedly. Typically in ways so that tech (robots/drones) and non-expendables (normal humans) don't have to be sacrificed to fix a anti-matter field or to test local flora and fauna on a newly established world. Due to resource limitations (and a lot of negative feelings towards Multiples), yada yada, only one Mickey can be around at a time and for 7 iterations this process works out fine...and then it doesn't due to a mishap with Mickey "best friend". That's more or less where the book starts off. Over the next 300-some pages, we follow Mickey 7 as he goes on a couple of missions, argues with the folks in charge, tries to keep his accidently created double (Mickey8) from a) killing him and b) getting caught. And that's more or less the story.

Mickey 7 had some serious Murderbot vibes. He completes most of his missions less than enthusiastically and is really just here because he didn't have another option. He's snarky, relatively quick witted and seems to be fairly loyal. Unfortunately though, whereas Murderbot shows a significant amount of growth (granted, that's over the 5 novellas and 1 novel currently published) Mickey 7 felt a little flat, which I think worked to an extent because of future Mikey novels, but I would have liked to see more character development.

On top of that, Mickey is seemingly intent on giving readers the backstory on the diaspora of humankind from earth frequently cutting back for entire chapters to explain something that's about to become relevant. I'm convinced that these cuts into the narrative probably make up 1/4 of the story. As an epic fantasy reader, I don't mind lore dumps - but these break into the narrative and immediately pulled me out of the story every time. The shame of the matter here is they're mostly pretty interesting. I enjoyed reading about the history of the expendables and failed settlements.

Finally - there were so many threads here that the author could have pulled, and so many ways that those threads could have unraveled that I almost felt cheated by where the story went. We know that foods a problem. We know that energy is a problem. We know that the creepers are a problem. We know that the climate is a problem. What we ended up focusing on, how that problem was ultimately resolved (and how several the other problems were resolved in a matter of pages as what felt like an after thought) was disappointing.

As I received the audiobook version of Mickey7, I would be remiss if I didn't praise the narrators John Pirhalla and Katharine Chin for this production. They brought the characters to life and the way that the radio communication was handled in the audiobook was pretty cool!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing a review copy of the audiobook via NetGalley. ( )

Space exploration and planet colonization are a dangerous business - genre books and movies showed us this fact many times in many different ways, with characters often suffering grievous harm or losing their lives in more or less horrific ways. But how would a story develop if there was always someone - the same someone - to risk their neck every time a hairy situation presented itself? This is the premise at the roots of Mickey 7: what if there was a dedicated individual to take on every risky endeavor the colonists had to face, so that none of the rest of them had to put their lives on the line?

Mickey Barnes is a very average guy, a history buff at a time in which such information is readily available online - that is, if anyone were minimally interested in it - and he lives a quite lackluster existence on the colony planet of Midgard, his only thrills coming from gambling. And that’s where his life takes a sudden turn for the worse: indebted beyond his meager means to a quite unsavory individual who threatened him with very painful retribution, Mickey knows his only escape comes from leaving Midgard, and so he seeks for a berth on the Drakkar, a colony ship ready to leave toward the world of Niflheim. Unfortunately he does not possess any technical or physical skill that would be useful to the 200-odd contingent of spearhead colonists, so that his only chance to be accepted is to sign as the ship’s expendable: that’s the person who, for example, must go outside the ship to effect vital repairs with a high probability of being exposed to lethal radiation; or the one who’s called to test some experimental medicine whose side effects are unknown; or to sample a planet’s atmosphere where deadly pathogens lie in wait for the unwary colonists. And so forth…

As the novel opens, Mickey Barnes is at his seventh iteration: every time he dies, his stored consciousness is transferred to a new body, the memories of previous lives (and deaths…) there to be recalled in vivid detail. Having fallen into a deep chasm on the frozen surface of Niflheim, he knows no one will risk their safety to retrieve him and he’s ready to accept his fate for the seventh time, but something happens that allows him to return to the colony’s dome. Unfortunately, his replacement has already been decanted, and the two versions of Mickey, 7 and 8, have to decide how to deal with the situation: an extra body is out of the question, since the resources are limited, and one of them should volunteer to go into the recycler, but neither one of them wants to give up because despite so many deaths life is still precious and then there is Nasha, Mickey’s sweetheart, to think about…

What follows is a story that tackles several serious issues with a light, humorous tone conveyed by Mickey’s first person narrative: the colony’s hardships are always front and center, what with the planet being revealed as less hospitable than the probes showed, which puts severe limitations on population growth and on available resources; the colonists are dealing with a native life form, dubbed the Creepers, which are quite hostile; and to top it all, Mickey’s virtual immortality made him something of a pariah in the colony because of the utter weirdness of his situation, made even more difficult by the colony’s manager who is a Natalist, i.e. the member of a sect who views expendables as soulless people. On top of it all, our hero has to deal with a double (number 8) who seems quite dissimilar from the Mickey we meet at the start of the book, since he seems very apt at avoiding any kind of work (and therefore danger) and manages to hog most of their single food rations - not to mention “stealing” sweet Nasha from under 7’s very nose.

The most important theme, however, is that of cloning - and identity. To showcase the dilemma all expendables (and their fellow colonists) face, the author often mentions the famous Ship of Theseus, the paradox of the mythical ship whose parts have been replaced over time: can that ship be the considered the same one that first sailed long ago? So, in the same way, can a “simple” transfer of consciousness and memories produce the same individual? At face value one might answer yes, that Mickey is always Mickey as long as his memories are preserved, but when one takes into consideration all the (often painfully horrific) deaths he’s undergone, it stands to reason that he might very well be quite a different person from the one who left Midgard a few years prior, because those deaths and the suffering that went with them have left a permanent mark on him. And from the reader’s standpoint I feel certain that no subsequent Mickey can be the same as the one that preceded him, because the differences between 7 and 8 are quite glaring - even taking into account that they are described from 7’s point of view which might not be that of a reliable narrator.

Science Fiction often tackled the issue of clones, or doubles: a few TV examples come from the original Star Trek, where Captain Kirk must deal with an evil twin created by a transporter accident; or from the more recent Farscape, where John Crichton is split in two perfectly identical copies, and no one - neither them nor the audience - knows which one is the original and which one the copy; or again in Duncan Jones’ intriguing movie Moon, where protagonist Sam Bell faces a situation not so dissimilar from the one Mickey 7 has to deal with. The examples I quoted are all developed with a propensity for the drama of the situation, while Mickey 7 tends to take a lighter approach even though it never glosses over the seriousness of the situation: the author manages this far from easy feat by creating a very relatable, very sympathetic character it’s quite easy to root for. Mickey’s life experiences taught him a kind of innate, self-deprecating humor that works very well in endearing him to the reader - I even feel like going out on a limb and saying that Edward Ashton succeeds where, in my opinion, Andy Weir’s The Martian failed, by finding the correct balance between the drama of the situation and the character’s humorous comments that never feel forced or contrived.

Where I always enjoy SF stories based on planet colonization, this time I found something quite different with Mickey 7, and I enjoyed this difference so much that I’m curious to learn what kind of new “adventures” expect this delightful protagonist in the next book(s). ( )

A fun sci-fi romp. Mickey7 is an Expendable on a distant colony on a new harsh world. He is a clone, and he is used to go into places and do things that are too dangerous to let drones and robots go into. Recreating a person, is much easier than rebuilding a drone when you have limited supplies. When out on a mission to investigate alien life, he is presumed dead, so the colony brings out Mickey8. But what happens when there are now 2 of you? A fun quick read, and I immediately started listening to the sequel; Antimatter Blues ( )

This book was so much fun. Space travel takes time, and for most it is a one-way trip. Mickey just needed off his planet, and the only way to get out of trouble was taking a job as the expendable on a one-way trip to terraform a new planet. His job is to die. His conscience and everything that makes Mickey Mickey, is uploaded, preferably frequently, and when the crew need someone to do something dangerous, or something that will surely cause death, that is Mickey’s job.

We start this book with Mickey out on exploration. He is exploring a set of caves when he falls, and his friend/crew mate, says he’s not performing a rescue, and that Mickey can just pop the hatch and they will print a new one. This is Mickey’s job. He knows it, but he has this thing about purposefully killing himself. He can’t do it. With a little help of a giant fuzzy caterpillar, Mickey makes it back to base by morning, with minimal injuries. The only problem, when he makes it all the way to his bunk, and finds out Mickey 8 is in his bed, freshly regenerated. And while they are both the same person, they are both alive, and both hope to stay that way.
This book is both a look at the complications of technology like this, as well as the ethical and religious beliefs in this practice (it’s not preachy). But it is done with the whit and wisdom one would find in the Murderbot books. This book is funny, heart tugging, and will keep readers at the end of their seats at times. It is well thought out, flows at just the right pace and make you keep turning the page. This is a duology, but one could just read this book and be just fine. It has an ending, that works well, and will satisfy readers. ( )

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
CAWPILE score: 7.14 (50/70, Very Good)
FRTC ( )