4.5 stars

I couldn’t have asked for more. This book is thought-provoking and sometimes bleak, but also light-hearted in the face of that bleakness. I loved the main character. He was snarky and sometimes deep and not always smart, but his circumstances put him in a very difficult position and it all made perfect sense to me. The only quibble I have is I would’ve liked to spend more time with the first giant creeper figuring out what Mickey figured out. It seemed like a pretty giant leap.

Any easy, satisfying and well-written novel. I wish I’d read it sooner! It lives up to the hype.

Thank you to Edward Ashton, St Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mickey 7 was a great read. It gravitated more towards the comedic space-capade than dramatic space opera or thrilling face-hugging xenomorphs ... or... maybe a wee bit of that last one. Great plot, interesting worldbuilding and fun characters with all the shenanigans and double-trouble you would expect from multiple clones. Very entertaining.

Recommended for fans of All Systems Red, Redshirts, Don't Touch the Blue Stuff!, John Dies at the End, Battlestar Suburbia, PAGER, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Thank you to Netgalley and Solaris Publishing for the copy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was faced paced, really engaging and very interesting. There were some technical bits that I didn't quite understand, but things were explained very well, in such a natural way, as we were able to read both things from the main characters perspective and his thoughts etc too. I really like this format of storytelling and would definitely recommend this book. The story itself was very thought provoking and incredibly insightful.

This was a fast-paced read - the plot flew along nicely, and I was always intrigued about what would happen next. Unfortunately, the writing style was a bit hit or miss for me - I think some will greatly enjoy it, and others will be irritated by the style choices - I was somewhere in between. As a side effect of this, I found a lot of the characters tricky to empathise with.
That said, the world-building in Mickey7 is really interesting - I would be keen to read the next in the series, as there's a lot of potential here and a wider world to explore might help to reach it.

A fun romp. The humour isn't exactly high brow but Ashton makes it work. Not the most original premise of clones but Ashton does a good job of not adding any unnecessary ideas to make this a pretty solid and entertaining read. Though the idea that a woman would decide to go to bed with her long term lover and his clone within hours of discovering the clones illegal existence is quite the eye rollingly male fantasy.

Recommending it to my book clubs.

I found the concept at the centre of this book quite interesting. It was the main reason I wanted to read this. In a world where interstellar travel is standard but filled with jobs that people would not survive, our lead protagonist gets a job to be an 'expendable'. His memories are uploaded and saved, and a new 'him' is created, and the memories are then entered into the new body.
I did not realize that this was to be a series when I first started. It is the kind of narrative that makes sense with the ending that was provided, but I guess the overall concept is hard to pass up as a series.
Our initial lead, Mickey the original, decides to take his job because of some bad choices he makes in his home location. Once he signs on to be an expendable, he finds out that there are people who find his situation against their very beliefs. Which is strange given that he exists, so how can they believe otherwise? The latter part creates divisions in the small group of people who are trying to find planets to colonize and start new settlements. Mickey does not help matters by being a smartmouth almost all the time.
Mickey 7, on the other hand, has learnt a lot from his deaths and is starting to doubt the efficiency of the system that he is a part of. When he ends up returning safe and sound after Mickey 8 has already been commissioned, things take a turn for the more complicated.
This book focuses on the world-building and the ideologies of the people around. It did feel new and interesting, although a tad bit long. Given the direction the story took, I thought it could have been slightly shorter. The number of trips to eat and the chances to be caught out was a little repetitive. I would read the next if I had the chance.
I would also recommend this as a good start to a series (even if I did not take it as one initially, this opinion is in retrospect as I write this review)
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Easy read, a lot of fun. Slight pacing issues with a bit of a sudden rush towards the end but I would certainly read more.

I really enjoyed this book and am super excited it will be a motion picture someday reminds me of starship troopers meets the martian ....

Loved the setup and loved the story and once I got in full swing I could not put it down already recommended this book to some of my film friends so they can read it before the movie... I work in a cinema and i am super hyped for the film now.

A great concept, underdog from the start with all the odds stacked against him, does Mickey even want to win?

I really enjoyed this sci-fi book. I don’t read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy but this seems to me to be a bit different.
A spaceship with some 180 people on board are leaving to set up home on a far away planet. With the wars on Earth people are looking at ways to colonise distant planets. Among the techs and pilots and specialists aboard the craft is Mickey7. He is an expendable and the only one onboard. His job is to go into dangerous situations where there is a highly likely chance he will die. If he does die his body is fed into a cylinder that turns him into a protein based paste that can serve as food for the rest of the crew. He is however reborn into a new version of himself and thus we are up to the 7th version of Mickey. The original Mickey who had signed up to the crew had his DNA and sample matter store along with memories to be inputted into the new clone, hence every week, his memories are uploaded and stored. When Mickey7 falls into a pit of man eating centipedes, his friend thinks he is dead and leaves him there. Instead of eating him the creature delivers Mickey7 safely above ground. When he makes his way back to the ship and to his room, he finds he has already been cloned and there in his bed is Mickey8. Now they must both try to stay alive and not let on that there are in fact 2 of them.
It certainly was a fun read, easy and enjoyable

#Mickey7. #NetGalley

Mickey Barnes is an Expendible – the person on a colony spaceship who is used for those activities when a human is necessary, but knowing that he is likely to die.

For many that would be bad news, but Mickey has an ace up his sleeve in that if he dies – actually more a case of when, rather than if – his personality can be reloaded into a replacement body generated from Mickey’s original DNA, retaining all of his memories up to the point he was last recorded.

This process can seemingly be repeated indefinitely – in fact, we begin the story with “Mickey7” apparently about to die for the seventh time. Having fallen down into a deep cavern on an alien planet with a badly sprained wrist that makes his retrieval near-impossible, his pilot friend Berto Gomez regards him as being not worth the effort of retrieval because it would be easier just to reload him up. His second pilot girlfriend Nasha is more willing, but Mickey declines her offer as it would put her in danger.

The complication is when instead of dying Mickey is saved by a deadly alien centipede-like creature known as a Creeper which, instead of eating him, carries him back to home base and leaves him there.

Mickey goes to his room to find that, thinking he was dead, Mickey8 has already been revived and is there in the room. Both are rather surprised and whilst they try to work out a solution agree to live in tandem, in secret, for telling the authorities would lead to one of them being disposed of.

This secret would be difficult enough in a small colony without also having the base’s commander hating you and looking for any excuse to “put you down the corpse hole”. And how do you keep your fellow shift workers, your best friend and your girlfriend from guessing what’s happened?

The style, written in the first person, reminded me very much of Robert A Heinlein’s deceptively simple style. The author manages to balance the main character’s tone between snark and self-deprecation pleasingly well. Unlike Heinlein’s characters Mickey has more than a touch of derision and snark about him. He doesn’t see himself as a hero, more as someone with a healthy degree of self-preservation in a job that ironically is determined to kill him. Whilst such matters could be depressing, Ashton writes about such matters in such a jaunty way that it all seems quite rational whilst reading, something reminiscent of Robert Sheckley’s stories. At times the plot verges on satire, but Ashton is a clever enough writer to know not to push the absurdity too much, which keeps the plot almost realistic. The science fictional ideas are not particularly new – see also Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon series, for example – but they are used in such a way to be entertaining and engaging.

In short, I raced through this one and couldn’t put it down. It was a terrific read, easy to follow and deceptively engaging. Though Ashton is perhaps best known for his short stories to date, Mickey7 shows that he may be an author to watch.

Remember that ‘Time travelling guy in a box’? The episode where a small group of people have their ‘gangers do the dangerous stuff? This is similar but instead of clones, Mickey has signed up to be expendable. Each iteration is actually him; body made out of calcium, protein etc and his brain and memories up- then downloaded.

Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves; hair cells, skin, everything. So in a decade you’re a new person. Are you still you? One of the many interesting questions posed in this.

Why risk people in life-threatening situations when you can send Mickey? I loved how this idea of an expendable person affected the way he was treated, thought about and misunderstood.

I devoured it over a weekend and look forward to more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for providing this E- ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Such a witty, fun and interesting twist on sci-fi! I loved the banter, the plot and Mickey 7 is such a great character! this book is so entertaining, and the social commentary on expendable employees is apparent and done quite well. It's so unique and unlike anything I've ever read before!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an e-arc!

Mickey7 is sci-fi set on a beachhead colony sent to terraform a planet somewhere in the universe in far future. It’s a dangerous project and for that they need someone to take all the almost-certain-death jobs that robots can’t do. Enter Mickey Barnes.

Mickey is an expendable. To escape debtors on the planet where he lives, he agrees to have his memories uploaded and his body scanned to make copies of it—and to die when necessary, usually in a painful and gruesome fashion. As the number after his name implies, he’s done this several times already.

It never gets easier to die.

A routine mission goes awry and unable to rescue him, Mickey7’s pilot leaves him to die. By the time Mickey7 manages to return to the base, they’ve already revived a new copy, Mickey8. The problem is, there can be only one. But instead of fighting to the death to see which version gets to live, they decide to keep the double a secret and stay both alive.

Immediately, they run into problems. The food is rationed, and they have to share it between them. One of them is injured and the other isn’t, which leads to some baffled encounters. And which of them gets to spend time with their girlfriend?

In a colony of a couple of hundred people, secrets never stay hidden for long. But Mickey7 has another one in his sleeve. He knows that the planet has sentient beings. Because he didn’t make it back to the base on his own.

This was a fun book. The plot was simple and not terribly high stakes. Most of the book was filled with Mickey7’s running commentary on everything: his previous life, the colonies that have failed before, and all his deaths.

What the book is about in the end is identity. Are you still the same person if you’re the seventh copy of your original self? Who has the greater right to your life, you or your future copies? And are you still human?

Not all questions are given definitive answers, but it’s well-written enough to keep the reader entertained. Mickey7 comes to a conclusion that satisfies him, and that leaves the reader in a good place too.

Midgard is the Earth in Norse mythology, in case you were wondering. That is where Mickey is from. He needs to get off that planet. He has no useful skills, so he signs on as an Expendable on a colony ship going to Niflheim — in Norse mythology the cold, dark, misty world of the dead, ruled by the goddess Hel. So, potentially a nasty ice planet with a mysterious underworld.

And what are Expendables, you ask? He gets to do all the dangerous and deadly jobs on the ship and later the colony. And if he dies, the others wake up his next incarnation. We start of with Mickey7. He does not die in the first chapter, but the others think so. And by the time he rescues himself with some help of an indigenous lifeform and gets back to base, Mickey8 has been woken up. Ops, not good. Because when the others find out, they both will most likely be offed. The expedition‘s leader hates Mickey‘s guts. What to do now? And what‘s going on with those lifeforms?

From the blurb I expected an action-filled novel, exploring the ecosystem and the sentient lifeforms on Niflheim. The beginning reminded me a little of Andy Weir in tone and my mind was heading in the direction of Project Hail Mary, just set on a planet.

However, that was not really the novel I got. There were suspenseful parts and action — Mickey7 had died six times previously (hence 7!) and some of those deaths are lived through quite graphically. There was an unexpected amount of Mickey‘s and the Union’s past, aka other colonies and why the failed. And very little character development for Mickey8. Somewhere around the middle of the book I started to wonder about uneven pacing and lack of meaningful plot progression. It did all come together quite nicely in the end, but I am not a total fan.

Would I recommend this to a friend? Yes.
Would I read the next book by the author? Most likely.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher or author through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

Mickey is an expendable, it's his job to die (and be rebooted), to preserve the more skilled colonists. But what happens when two of him survive.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a standalone sci-fi set in the distant future.
It has become common practice for the human race to settle one world, then send colonisation crews to new worlds, to secure the future of their race.
Mickey lives on Midgard, which is a bit of a Utopia... and a bit boring for Mickey. He sees himself as a bit of a scholar and historian at heart, but those aren't occupations on Midgard, where all information is available readily.
When Midgard organises its first colonisation mission, Mickey will do whatever it takes to get on board; even take the job that no one else wants. His mind and body are uploaded into a file, and every time he's sent to a painful and inevitable death, they just print a new copy of him.

Mickey7 has died 6 times, during the mission to colonise Niflheim. But it's when he falls down a crevasse and doesn't die, that the problem starts. When he gets back to base, he finds Mickey8 in his room. Multiples are strictly banned, and if anyone finds out, one or both of them will be thrown into the bio-cycler (i.e. painful death).

I liked Mickey, he feels like such a normal guy, who made some bad choices back on Midgard. His "best friend" is a complete git, but Mickey knows that nothing and nobody is perfect. He knows that Berto is a git, but Mickey accepts his flaws as just Berto.
Mickey is very pleasant and pretty smart, through his narrative, you get to see his Expendable training, and also other colonisation missions throughout history (some successful, most not).

There is a long look at the theory and philosophy behind Expendables, and colonies. It looks at the morals and rules that have been established for various scenarios.
All of Mickey's training didn't prepare him for the fact that, even though they've been in this small community for years, travelling together and setting up the colony together, no one really talks to Mickey. Apart from Berto, and Mickey's girlfriend Nasha. No one wants to talk to the dead guy.

The not-so-good.
That's most of it. There are the creepers - giant wormlike creatures with pincers, native to Niflheim, and may or may not be trying to kill them all.
But most of the conflict in the book is either of the historical nature, or quite small and human.
The biggest worry Mickey7 and Mickey8 have is getting found out by the other colonists, because the leader of the colony is very anti-Expendable, and needs no excuse to get rid of them. And trying to survive on 1 person's rations, when rations are very carefully-controlled.

I liked following Mickey's stories and thoughts on other disasters, and theories, etc... but I kept waiting and hoping for something big to happen.
Towards the end, it was fairly big, but didn't feel it, if that makes sense.
I was also surprised at how different Mickey8's opinion of creepers was, despite everything Mickey7 had told him.

Overall, this was interesting, but lacked punch.

*Huge thanks to Netgalley and Rebellion Publishing solaris for providing me with an ARC for Review*
I wanted to read this book after reading a few lines of the synopsis, (maybe even the first line) and within a few pages of reading, I was loving it.
It is such a great blend of humour and sci-fi and I could see immediately that this book will be compared to the work of Andy Weir. It was fun from the beginning, and I knew immediately that this would be a ‘bingeable’ read. It’s also a very approachable sci-fi book in that any science is clearly explained as part of the story. This makes it accessible for people who don’t traditionally like sci-fi.
Despite being light-hearted, the book did bring up the moral dilemmas around the ethics of cloning and the related issues of if this technology got into the wrong hands. I especially loved the inclusion of the thought experiment ‘The ship of Theseus’.
It felt like I finished this book very quickly and my only gripe is wished it was longer. The book could be classed as a good standalone sci-fi tale however I’m pleased to know the author has been hard at work on a sequel.
Note on the artwork, although I like both covers, I much preferred the graphic art style cover.
Note on the audiobook, after reading the book, I also listened to the audiobook. Its presentation is excellent and further adds to the enjoyment of an already great book.
My review can be found on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/26094184-cadguycad

Ya había leído otras novelas que se centran en el uso de clones para la exploración espacial, como la estupenda Six Wakes de Mur Lafferty o la menos conocida Death of a Clone de Alex Thomson. Sin embargo, aunque la premisa es similar, el desarrollo de la novela de Edward Ashton no tiene nada que ver, en vez de escoger un camino de investigación nos encontramos con una novela divertida y algo reivindicativa.


La humanidad se ha ido expandiendo por el universo en una suerte de nueva diáspora colonizando los mundos disponibles aunque con una alta tasa de fallo en esta tarea. El uso de la tecnología de clonado para realizar tareas que puedan provocar la muerte del sujeto implicado no está muy extendida por razones religiosas y por sucesos del pasado reciente, por lo que nuestro protagonista, la séptima iteración de Mickey Barnes, es el único clon en la expedición a Niflheim.

Mientras que el resto de los participantes en la expedición son la crema y nata de la sociedad de la que parte la empresa, Mickey utiliza el viaje como vía de escape a sus problemas, en un puesto que nadie en su sano juicio aceptaría. La personalidad de Mickey es bastante pusilánime, le gusta escaquearse en lo posible de sus labores aunque al final acabas empatizando con su forma de ver la vida… o la muerte.

La forma de narración que escoge Ashton, una primera persona muy bien definida con selectos pasajes de las pasadas vidas de Mickey es todo un acierto. Así vemos cómo los hechos del pasado van influyendo en el presente. Situar la acción en una colonia al borde del fallo por las condiciones inesperadas del planeta colonizado le sirve para que los hechos se vayan precipitando uno tras otro cual fichas de dominó y la consideración de cada proteína y recurso gastado como algo irremplazable también hace que en ocasiones la lectura pueda llegar a ser un poco agobiante, pero como todo el libro está bañado en ese humor sarcástico al que hacía referencia antes, el mensaje que nos quiere hacer llegar el autor entra con más facilidad.

Me interesa sobremanera el tratamiento que se hace de la paradoja del barco de Teseo, aunque no es una discusión filosófica de por sí, sí que nos hace reflexionar bastante.

La película del libro está en desarrollo, aunque no tengo muchos datos sobre ella, tengo curiosidad por saber cómo se van a reflejar los diálogos interiores del protagonista.

En definitiva Mickey7 es una novela entretenida, divertida y que puede que nos haga reflexionar un poquito.

Entertaining and pretty fresh sci-fi - not typically my sort of thing but definitely piqued my interest for things that are similar.

Incredible storytelling. I am not a huge science fiction fan, but loved this book. Edward Ashton’s world building and characterisations were superb. Hope this book gets optioned for a movie, and also hope for a sequel. Highly recommended.