Mickey7

A Novel

By: Edward Ashton

Narrated by: John Pirhalla, Katharine Chin

Now experience where the hit movie from Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon Ho, starring Robert Pattinson, started in Mickey7 (the inspiration for the film Mickey 17).

Dying isn’t any fun…but at least it’s a living.

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

On a routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, his fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties, and there can only be one Expendable. If Mickey7 reports his survival to Command, one of them is going into the recycler. If he doesn’t and they’re caught, they both are.

Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.

That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

©2022 Edward Ashton (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"The audio narration for Marshall was fantastic–very ‘Full Metal Jacket drill Sgt.’"—FanFi Addict

"Narrated by John Pirhalla and Katharine Chin, the story was brilliantly performed and the personalities of the characters came through in the voicework."—The Bibliosanctum

"Mickey7 is a unique blend of thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, farcical relationship drama and exotic body horror. Edward Ashton keeps it all grounded via a protagonist who experiences the wonders of interstellar travel and alien contact while literally having the worst job in the universe. The result is alternately amusing, intriguing and horrifying, with each chapter seeming to engage a different part of your brain."—Jason Pargin, New York Times bestselling author

Loved it

Such a good listen. I can’t wait for the next book to see what happens next.

premise

The stakes were high but underutilized. Could have went more into detail with the threats and confrontations.

Fun and interesting scifi

Quick listen and really enjoyable. Quirky pov and interesting scifi perspectives. A fun story to follow. I’m not a huge fan of the sound effects used- but that’s a preference thing.

Almost Good, and Yet

Some Spoiler Ahead**

First let me say that for a book I didn't particularly love I found it to be a fun and engaging read. It is never quite boring, even though nothing really happens and is a somewhat slow burn. Perhaps it is the humor, perhaps it is the implicit promise of the plot that something MIGHT happen anytime - they drives the story along neatly.

Now, the biggest problem with the book is that its premise is so amazing and bold, and its execution and tone so underwhelming and underdeveloped that it completely falls short.

The setting is in a spaceship set to colonize a hostile planet and, very rarely, some expenditions on the hostile planet. If the author had spent some time doing actual world-building this would have been a great setting to explore life in a spaceship or to show the mysteries of an alien world. It could have gone with 'big fish, small tank' submarine vibe of daily life in a spaceship - how people live together, the struggles and monotony of being sandboxed with the aame people for a long time, snd the economics of scarcity of resources of a famine in the spaceship. But no, turns out that somehow people in the ship barely talk to each other, and when they do its quite boring. In fact, throughout the book, the main character barely talks to 4 or 5 people. The planet is even more barren of world-building than the icy ecosystem it is... there is barely any curiosity about the alien lifeforms by ANYONE until they are assesed to be a threat and the immediate reaction is to annihilate them. The mystery that is set up early about their odd behavior with Mickey, the tunnels they have built underground, and their ability to absord metals never goes anywhere. Mickey is so self-absorbed in his predicament as a multiple, that he never stops to really consider the ramifications of these events.

Then there is a bigger problem. Mickey is just kind of a himbo, and he never ponders on what it actually means to be a multiple. He goes on a tangent about the reason why multiples have been outlawed by researching the history of a rich guy who clones himself until he makes an army made up of his multiples (which would have made a much more interesting story than this one) but it doesn't even ponder on the tension that would emerge between multiples and the difficulty of establishing a hiearchy of power and order when everyone is the same guy. It's Rick's Citadel but somehow all the Ricks work together.

Then, and this is the worst part, the dynamic between Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 is absurd. Mickey 7, whose journey we follow is a lot more of a real character than his counter part even though the former is only 6 weeks older. It reads more like an older brother who's proactive and trying to figure out a solution to their predicament and the lazy younger brother who sleeps all day and complains about being hungry the whole time. Mickey 8 is a hollow shadow of Mickey 7, with zero character arc and this cognitive dissonance is primarily why the book falls short. If they are clones of each other, they should be eerily similar and there should be more tension and entanglements between their respective goals and how they pursue them... but no, Mickey 8 has no desires besides eating and sleeping. Thus, the Ship of Theseus analogy is undermined by its very weight, since one is a ship and the other one is

wishes it were the Martian

similar tone, language, disaster in space...this book is kind of like Martian fanfic. still fun, but nothing all that exciting.

Wonderful story

This is a fantastic story. Great characters and wonderful narration. Great original idea with original plot.

Can’t wait for the movie

Indeed the book was easy to follow and entertaining I highly recommend the book and follow the sequel antimatter blues

Great premise, mediocre book

The premise is awesome, and the story started well, establishing an interesting existential concept and a conflict right off the bat. But then the middle 80% of the story are essentially nothing, and it’s hard to really “like” Mickey, or any of the characters. The ending is a little unsatisfying and leaves a lot to be desired. Really looking forward to seeing what Bong Joon Ho does with the concept in his upcoming Mickey 17 film.

Good, basic story 

Overall a good story, well read, and interesting characters.
Nothing, outstanding or groundbreaking, but a fun quick listen.

Fun read

A decent story overall. Some of the chapters where he focuses on various elements of the history of this world kind of drag a bit. Other than that though I had fun with it. Looking forward to the movie now.