Antimatter Blues (Mickey7 #2) continues the saga of Mickey Barnes, our lackadaisical savior. Ashton sticks to his guns with the humor that invested us in Mickey7 and turns the world-building up to 11 here in the sequel, providing more thrills and action planet-side. Highly recommended for those that enjoy sci-fi on the lighter side with fast-paced, witty prose and a good dose of silliness.

I really just didn't like this one. I don't think a book two was necessary for this world and it did not improve on the story or the characters. The characters still feel overly cliche and only there to move the story forward in whatever direction the author wanted rather than being fleshed out characters with interesting personalities. I wasn't really keen on the first one, but I hoped that maybe book two would be better.

A fine sequel. This is a well written, fast paced, engaging book. It has some fine lines, amusing mild snark, a generally amiable tone, and a few well-conceived set pieces. It's also good, sometimes pointed, fun. I would encourage inquisitive readers who like playing with sci-fi genre conventions to give the book a try.

3,5 stars.
This is an okay sequel to a great first book. What I enjoyed the most in Antimatter Blues is the fun adventure plot and the expansion of the world. I loved meeting the new character who part of a complex and weird alien species and its interactions with the crew. However, there is not much character development and thus some emotional bits fell flat for me.

Anti-Matter Blues is an exciting follow-up to Mickey-7, with a few twists and enough humor to make it a thoroughly satisfying read.

This was a strong sequel to Mickey7 and strengthened the characters and world that we got to know in the first book. It was very interesting to learn more about the other beings and their ways in this book. Would definitely continue reading this author and more books in this world.

A fine sequel and coda to the first book. The ending felt a little rushed, but otherwise really enjoyed. Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC

Representation: Not much, a few BIPOC supporting characters.

Rating: 3.5/5 This is an follow up to Mickey7, so I won’t go into much detail. I thought it was an interesting sequel, considering where the last one left off. It was a mostly quiet and slow paced book, and got into the higher stakes much later in the story. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t wowed by it.

First off, when I chose this book I didn't realize it was the second book of a series. Did I go find book one and devour both books in two days? Absolutely.

Now, Antimatter Blues takes place a little over 2 years after the end of book one (Micky7). There is so much to unpack. The colony finally settled on a planet, but the planet is already inhabited by a species that is so much more intelligent than they ever expected them to be. That's not the only problem however, the colony is running out of fuel and that intelligent species has their only fuel source... or they did.

They traded it to another primal intelligent species to stop a war from breaking out. Well guess what the humans do? You guessed it!

Who will win between an all out war between not one but two intelligent sentient beings on their home turf and the human invaders looking to build a new life? And what about that power source that the rest colony needs for survival?

Mickey has such attitude and is funny, I really enjoyed Edward Ashton's Mickey 7. A disposable clone, Mickey has what it takes to stand out and be the hero that the world needs AGAIN. But, he also has numerous obstacles to overcome to get to be the hero. I definitely thinking this is a case where reading the first book just makes book two make more sense. (That's my recommendation)

Now he has a bomb to recover, the creepers to make peace with, characters on his ship like Marshall to handle and a possible copy of himself getting into danger. What could possibly go wrong?/

I enjoyed the writing and the continuation of the first book. Mickey is a likeable guy with a witty personality, the plot moved along and left me wondering what would happen several times. Definitely enjoyed!

Science fiction is a hit or miss, but this was good. I enjoyed the first book more but a fun follow up sequel filled with clones, aliens and plenty of twists.

I loved the first book in this series. This second one is also fantastic. Mickey7 is such a fun character and the world building in this series is my favorite part. I would devour a fake history book from this universe.

4.5 stars. The only reason I’m not giving this book 5 stars is because Mickey7, the original book in the series, is a tough act to follow and it was the first installment in what I hope will be many to come. Edward Ashton has done a phenomenal job with his world-building and I was throughly engrossed by the story until the very end. His characters showed growth from the original book and we come to know much more about the inhabitants of Niflgard. I am thrilled that they have filmed a movie based on Mickey7 ‘and can’t wait to see it. The cast is first-rate!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Mickey7 was one of my absolute favorites last year and I was so excited for the sequel! While I did enjoy this, it didn’t have the same fresh feeling as Mickey7 did for me. However, it was still a fun and enjoyable sci-fi novel.

This is the second book in a series, which I didn’t know when I picked it up. The clues were all there but I simply didn’t notice. It wasn’t too hard to get into the swing of things, however. I would have had a better grasp on the characters and the setting if I had read the previous book, and it would have deepened my enjoyment of the book, but I don’t feel like I was missing so much as to make Anti-Matter Blues impossible to read.

Mickey is so funny. His attitude about everything is so flippant, but he’s also quite smart. He’s not like genius level intelligent, but he’s got a practical level of smarts that makes him relatable and easy to understand. He gets the ball rolling and has a lot of good ideas. He’s also quite brash, which makes sense when you consider that he’s a clone who was basically disposable until recently. It’s hard to get over that fact even if you aren’t having duplicates made of yourself anymore. Which is honestly a perk because I imagine being killed, and remembering it, isn’t the best thing to go through time and again.

The mind of the creepers, and how they viewed humans, was fascinating to see. Each person is an independent body, which is hard for the creepers to grasp, since so many of their people are disposable. Only their prime is not expendable, but to humans, each human is a prime.

I recommend this book to people who enjoy good old fashioned space science fiction, similar to Ender’s Game in my mind, with lower stakes and less stress. It’s fun, it’s a quick read, and there’s a little bit of stress and mystery, so predicting the ending isn’t necessarily possible right from the beginning. It would definitely be good for middle grade and up. Easy to understand, with good messages regarding the sanctity of human life and what people can do to protect it, as well as reminding humans that they’re probably not all that’s out there and to think so is kind of dumb. Even if we can’t see it yet, it feels unlikely that humans are the only sentient life in the entire universe.

Edward Ashton as done it again!

I love the first book in this series and this second book was just as good, if not slightly better. It's fun, adventurous, full of great escapism literature, and you'll find yourself wrapped up in Mickey and not wanting to leave his world.

At the end of Mickey7, the first book of the series, Mickey had hidden an antimatter bomb outside the colony dome and convinced the creepers, the indigenous intelligent species, to leave the colony alone. Returning to the dome, Mickey resigned as the colony's Mission Expendable. Time passed, and Mickey was still alive doing general grunt work on reduced rations. Not a great life but it was life.

Then, one day, he thought he saw himself down a corridor being hurried along to engineering. Every time he was hurried to engineering he ended up dead in various horrible ways. Some quiet investigation turned up that there had been a copy of him decanted--maybe even more than one.

Marshall, the colony commander, called Mickey in for a meeting. An event that usually meant Mickey was in trouble or soon would be. Evidently, the colony was in trouble and they needed the bomb Mickey said he gave to the creepers because now the colony needed it to fuel their reactor or things were going to get real ugly, real soon, as a long, bitterly cold winter approached.

Mickey's prevarications were coming home to roost. He was going to have to retrieve the bomb from the creepers since he was their friend and bring it back home. Simple enough task except that what he'd told the commander at the end of the last novel wasn't exactly what had happened. Now Mickey had to negotiate with an alien species, end a war, save the colony, and most importantly not die.

Antimatter Blues is a fitting and well written sequel to Mickey7. Nearly non-stop action from beginning to end, snappy dialogue, misunderstandings, relationship issues, some philosophic subtext, and a smidgen of romance—how could you go wrong?

This sequel to Mickey 7 feels very much like a sequel, and it's hard to tell how well it would work for readers who haven't read the first in the series. The relationships among the mission members were interesting, and carried the plot for me. While the action trying to retrieve a bomb to fuel the mission's power source were suspenseful and exciting, the different kinds of creepers and their internal conflict became confusing in battle. The dialog among characters was authentically irreverent, and made them all the more believable.

I loved mickey 7 and was so excited to read this one and it did not let me down!! So good! So creative and unlike anything I've read before. I loved all the characters and how much Mickey got developed in this sequel. Edward Ashton is officially on my auto buy list!

Thank you netgalley for the earc in exchange for an honest review.

I was almost scared to read this, because a lot of second books in series fall flat, but this was just as good as Mickey7. Anyone who loves scifi should give this a try. On my list of favorites.