TLDR:

Mickey7 is the first book in a new Science-Fiction series by Edward Ashton. Its sequel is set to release in March 2023.

Notable elements:

- Clones
- Death
- Identity Crisis

What I liked:

- Unique Circumstance — Mickey’s occupation is a clever, no-nonsense solution to the anticipated problems of a futuristic, science-based society.

- High Stakes — War crimes, stolen identities, life-threatening bets, insubordination: Mickey’s importance as Expendable cannot be overstated, but how long can he up the ante before the mission falls apart?

Reminds me of:

- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Content warnings:

- Death, Suicide, Toxic Friendship

Final thoughts:

Mickey7 is a quick and easy read. Overall, I liked the story, but it lacks the motivation and emotional depth I expected given the severity of Mickey’s circumstance.

It was an interesting concept and I enjoyed the exploration of the concept, but I'm not sure that I would continue if it is a series. I liked the snarkiness of the main character.

The first chapter of this book felt just a little rushed, but after that it settled in and I was hooked. Mickey is such an engaging protagonist, the worldbuilding (about Niflheim specifically but also broadly about the world) was fascinating, and it made me excited to read the sequel and see where the story, especially Mickey's new role as interspecies liaison, goes from here.

Mickey Barnes signs up to be an expendable on a space colonization mission after he gets in trouble and has to leave Midgard. Basically he is sent out on suicide missions and when he dies another clone of him is made. Then Mickey7 is presumed dead and Mickey8 is cloned but Mickey7 is still alive. I'm not really a fan of sci-fi but I enjoyed this a lot because I liked Mickey. I liked the dialog and I liked the other main characters, Nasha, Cat and Berto. Well maybe not Berto so much. I wasn't too interested in the science, no idea how accurate it was or the history of the colonies but the atmosphere and background story carried it along for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a digital copy.

Really liked this book a lot. Loved the story and execution of the story/writing. Loved the ending and the reveal about the “enemy”. I enjoyed the characters as well.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Edward Ashton and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.


Poor Mickey! Although he can technically never die, the only way he gets to live forever is by going through a gruesome death and be replicated back to life. Each colony has one multiple. There are so many dangerous jobs to be done, experiments to be made, why risk the lives of the colonists when they have someone to do the job for them. I mean, he volunteered for the job. Mickey did volunteer but it was out of desperation. Most times they will conscript someone from prison for this lovely job, but no, Mickey actually signed up for this gig. I don’t think he realized that people would either hate him or be so weirded out by him that they don’t want anything to do with him. It doesn’t help that the commander in charge is a Naturalist and fundamentally opposed to multiples. Luckily he has his best friend Berto and his girlfriend Nasha. But is Berto his best friend really? I mean the guy left him to die. That leads to Mickey’s current predicament. He didn’t die, but Berto, who left him for dead, has reported it and when Mickey 7 returns to his room, Mickey 8 is sleeping in his bed.

He can’t report Mickey 8 or they will both end up in the dumpster. The biggest rule is that there should never be 2 multiples walking around at the same time. He knows he should jump into the hopper himself, but he can’t seem to do it. Now he has to split, not only rations with his other self, but his girlfriend. This is really not what he signed up for. How did he survive anyway. He fell down a big hole and instead of the creepers, these ugly animal like creatures that inhabit the planet, tearing him apart, they simply picked him up and deposited him outside. Like you would a spider you found in your house. Does this mean that they are sentient beings? This could be a bigger problem than Mickey having two of him running around.

I was hyped for this one. I thought the idea was great and I was excited for the possibilities. But it just fell flat for me. I kept waiting for it to take off, but it never did. It is readable but it never really got sophisticated either in the character development or world building. I thought there was so much more that could have been done. There was too much middle and the end felt rushed.

Well, what can I say. I liked THE END OF ORDINARY well enough...inventive use of science, interesting personal stakes, but curiously flat. I wanted to read this book because I loved the science premise (remember <I>Doctor Who</i>'s Gangers? My favorite slave race, narrowly displacing the Ood). Also because, well, look at the title of my blog and tell me why I might be interested in the story.

I was particularly taken by Mickey7's job on Niflheim, the planet where he...um...where the action takes place. Oh dear...the Spoiler Stasi will be after me...look, I'm kind of hamstrung here by the endless whinging of the spoilerphobes. So, let's just say, if the possibility of knowing something about a read will utterly devastate your pleasure in it, go somewhere else.

Mickey Barnes chose life as an expendable because, frankly, it was the best way to get on a colony ship away from Earth. This particular colony ship has religious nuts on it, however, and as is always the way with those sort of people, they've decided their imaginary friend doesn't like...really, hates, though for poorly explored reasons...expendables. They're abominations. After all, I thought to myself, once you're dead, their big bully in the...wait, they're on a a spaceship, where the hell is their gawd in such immense skies? how's she keeping tabs on 'em, some sort of spiritual Ring or Alexa?...anyway, your eternal torments are supposed to begin with death (unless, that is, you're one of Them, and even then it's not 100% guaranteed you'll get the post-mortem goodies). Mickey7, whose previous six deaths were pretty horrific, is still up for doing his job now they're on the ice planet Niflheim. Problem is he's gone and fallen into a crevasse. No one's going to bother rescuing an expendable. That's sort of the point of them...he'll be reconstituted into Mickey8, the cycle will continue.

Mickey7's luck is that he survives and makes his way back to the colony, somehow thinking they won't have reconstituted Mickey8. He's handed the religious nut in charge the lever he needs to bludgeon the colony into following his hate-filled plan for the colony to be expendable free. After all, their resources are strained to the limit and, even though expendables get less to eat and fewer material benefits than the religious nuts, they really can't afford another mouth to feed.

But someone please explain to me again how religion is a force for good and compassion in the world.

What results from this unprecedented situation is a kind of slamming-doors farce, with 7 and 8 agreeing to take on the task of splitting their Mickey-duties to both stay alive; needless to say, that fails. What made it fun to read, and the source of my four-star rating, is the sheer propulsive power of Author Ashton's use of Mickey7 as the first-person narrator. It was immediately clear to me that I was going to be investing in this character. His matter-of-factness was endearing to me, where a more emotionally fraught close third-person narration wouldn't have given me the impetus to keep reading.

The filmed version we can expect in, permaybehaps, 2024 is set to star Robert Pattinson and Steven Yeun. Brad Pitt's company is set to produce, and Bong Joon-ho is set to direct. IF, that is, David Zaslav's flensing knife spares the project now that Plan B Entertainment's new home Warner Brothers is owned by his philistine self. Star power isn't much to Discovery, they like cheap and flashy.

We'll always have the fun, funny, and very provocative-idea-laden book.

I liked this book a lot! Perfect for readers who enjoy Andy Weir and Blake Crouch, it is a true science fiction, futuristic story. A clever concept that I could actually see happening in the future, so there was an element of reality to it that I didn't expect.

Mickey7 is a very creative novel pondering how space exploration and colonization is such a risky business that it will surely require "expendables" -- people who have their memories backed up so they can be regenerated when they die. This is from the perspective of the expendable on a particular crew, and the 7 is because he's died six times already so he's on his 7th body.
Since his memory is only as complete as his last upload before dying, he has some gaps but remembers some of his deaths "firsthand" and has only seen some on security footage and/or been told what happened.
His particular colony is on a very cold, barely hospitable planet, and they have recently come in contact with some dangerous local creatures they call creatures, so the opportunities for death on exploratory missions is quite real.
In one instance, however, he is reported dead but actually survives by being brought out of a tunnel by a creeper much larger than any they have seen. He then gets back to find Mickey8 already reprinted and in his bunk. Due to a combination of crazy past experiences and religious beliefs and of course the weird factor, having multiples of a single person is banned, so they have to go to great lengths to hide that and juggle shared rations and relationships once they decide not to have one kill the other.
Things really get going once they are inevitably found out and as the creeper situation escalates.. There are numerous asides into the history of space colonization that give great perspective on the several hundred years that have past since humans left earth, and though interesting they do get in the way of the pacing a bit.
Overall, a very interesting thought experiment on human nature and even though there are not many characters they still manage to represent many different views, attitudes, and backstories.
It's still a bit surprising given the dangers that they would have this technology but only have one expendable per mission, but to some degree that's necessary to drive the plot.
I received a free ARC in exchange for an honest review, and am excited for the sequel Antimatter Blues even though I got declined for that ARC and generally don't commit to series.

I received an advance reading copy of this book through Net Galley. The publishers summary of this book sounded very intriguing to me but unfortunately the book didn’t hit all the marks.

None of the characters were fully developed including the main character and many others were one dimensional. I never believe the reason why he had to hide the fact that he was a double.

It’s been compared to the Martian but there is very very little science in this book.

I wasn’t bored but I wouldn’t recommend reading as I give it only three stars.

I went into this book knowing nothing about it other than the genre and I really enjoyed it! The main character feels so real and it was easy for me to empathize with him. I wish that we had gotten more of the planet the characters are on, but otherwise I enjoyed everything else about it. The relationship was already established when the book started so it was nice that it didn't really focus on building that up. I'm super excited to read the sequel!

Mickey7 (Mickey7 #1) by Edward Ashton
Publication date: February 15, 2022

Date read: May 20, 2022



Mickey is an Expendable - the only employee on the space mission whose DNA and memories are stored for a procedure that will regenerate him if he dies. The Expendable's job on the mission is to do whatever dangerous or suicidal tasks that might come up - and after he dies, the next Mickey is created in his place. When Mickey7 is left for dead on a scouting mission, he miraculously makes it back to base, only to find that Mickey8 has already been generated. Since duplicate Expendables are forbidden, Mickey is left to figure out how to stay alive and unnoticed. But his personal problems aren't the only trouble on this mission, which has landed on a planet that is less hospitable than originally assumed. And with terraforming and farming going poorly, plus the native species showing violent interest, it might just be up to Mickey to ensure his people's survival.

The audiobook was narrated by John Pirhalla and Katharine Chin.

While I read a fair amount of sci-fi/fantasy, I don’t read a lot set in space; it’s just not my usual go-to. But this sounded intriguing, so I had to give it a shot.

Like any science fiction set in an alternate world, it takes a few pages to get used to the world-building, but it’s not too bad. It’s actually set in what is supposed to be our world, just a long way in the future. The technology is obviously crazy advanced, but the characters are all human.

I thought the characters were mostly really great, and Mickey was a lot of fun. He’s a little cavalier and silly at times, but also understands the stakes enough to take things seriously when needed. But he’s a really enjoyable character that was a lot of fun to follow.

I also liked the science and backstory of the Expendables - how they’re made and how it’s supposed to be different from just a clone. Mickey is supposed to still be the same person every time he is regenerated, but seeing the subtle differences between Mickey7 and Mickey8 was really intriguing. I actually really liked all the science in this book, especially when Mickey dove into the history of colonization of other planets and the reason why only one Expendable is allowed at a time. I also thought that the science center was explained in a way that made it sound plausible but also easy to understand.

There was only one scene that I didn’t really like and thought was unnecessary - and, yes, it was a sex scene. Mostly just insinuated and nothing was shown, but the characters involved just made it too weird for me.

Mostly, though, it was a really fun story with intriguing characters. I’m glad I read this one and I think that anyone who enjoys space-set science fiction will enjoy this one. There is also a sequel coming out in March 2023, and I definitely plan on reading it.

Note about the audiobook: the narrator sounds like a young Michael Douglas. I liked it. I thought the audiobook was really well down, and I like that they used a different voice for when he got comm messages. Made it sound authentic.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Trigger warning: death, animal attack, suicide (mentioned), gore, medical experimentation, parasitic infection

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book

Take The Martian, throw in interplanetary colonization, ethical discussions on human cloning and consciousness transfer, and you’ll start to get an idea of what Mickey7 is about. A surprisingly fun read that made me think.

I selected "Mickey7" because of the cover, but read it for the premiss. Mickey7, is an Expendible. Expendibles are basically carbon copies of the previous Mickey being brought to life after that Mickey has died. Basically cloning but where they upload their memories so that when the current Mickey wakes up it's almost like nothing has happened. Expendibles are used to do really dangerous jobs, where they don't want to risk a regular persons life. On a fairly young space colony, this happens often.

I can't recollect any books that I've read which are similar. If I had to name something I would say it has the pacing and feel of "The Martian", but also while dealing with giant creatures.

Overall I enjoyed reading the book. Some parts a lost interest a bit, but eventually the action would catch my attention again. 3.5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mickey7 has been reviewed in the June 2022 issue of SFRevu.com and is exclusive to them until July 2022. You may read the review at this link: <http://sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=19572>.

First of all, the world is called Niflheim, which is the Norse world of the dead. So you know I was going to read this book. Sci-fi in general is a sort of hit-or-miss genre for me, but I was intrigued by the idea of these iterations of the same person used as an expendable resource. I expected a sort of sci-fi thriller, with Mickey7 needing to keep it under wraps that there are two of him. I was pleasantly surprised and how introspective this book is, examining what it is that makes you, *YOU.*

This book started off good: strong, very engaging from the first page. I loved Mickey's sense of humor and his sarcasm. However, the momentum kind of fizzed as the story progressed.

4/5 stars! Loved the concept and ideas of this book, it’s been so long since I read a pure sci-fi novel, the last one I read was Leviathan Wakes (also a great one!). This one is a fun space adventure, full of exploring a different planet, extraterristels, and clones.
We follow Mickey7, an Expendable, a clone of his previous regenerations, who retains the memories of his “deaths.” He gets assigned to colonize a distant planet, though it’s not completely livable, there’s potential. And so, our protagonist gets in the crossfire of a certain event and is presumed dead. Next thing, there are clones and fun adventures. Major Orphan Black vibes ✨
SO, the plot thickens, if I say too much, I’d be spoiling it. This one was a lot of fun! It felt like a great time and I honestly didn't even realize when it was done. The world-building was very imaginative and it painted a picture of the planet in my mind. Though we follow Mickey7's POV, we get important info about the world they’re living in, what it means to be a clone, how it compares to being a human. I got Murderbot vibes from the snarkiness and sarcastic tone of Mickey7’s voice.
Please check this book if you want to try out a fun sci-fi novel. Also, if you liked the Murderbot series or the Expanse, definitely check this out! You’ll love it! :D

This book is such a fun romp. This is original science fiction at its best. Mickey is an “expendable” on a generation ship that is trying to colonize a planet. It’s a post he signed up for but doesn’t really understand what he’s getting into. Without verifying 7’s death his mates order up another Mickey and then we have multiples. It was fun reading about 7 & 8 trying to remain undetected, about Mickey trying to find out what happened to his other iterations, and the overall plot of colonizing and terraforming the new planet was fun and engaging. I also appreciated the background into this world’s rules regarding clones and multiples. All the characters were fun and the banter was great.

An excellent book that keeps you entranced from beginning to end. At first I was reminded of Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, but was quickly sucked and felt like this book had its own identity.