I really enjoyed Mickey7 so I was eager to pick up this follow up novel. Set after the events of the first book, I recommend reading the books in publication order to avoid spoiling yourself. Like the first, this was so fun and engaging. I often struggle with humorous books but this one worked for me. I liked it, but I liked Mickey7 more because it was a fresh concept at the time.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Antimatter Blues was a fantastic follow up to Mickey 7! Going into it, I wasn’t sure where the plot would go, and through the whole book, I was on the edge of my seat and biting my nails trying to figure out how the characters were going to get out of each predicament. I enjoyed the character relationships and most of all, I was completely shocked (pleasantly) at the ending! Thank you St. Martin’s press for this arc!

In this sequel to Mickey7 our titular character Mickey is still plugging along, kind of important, but not really 😉.

He’s got a new mission to complete…or else!!
Is he the best man for the job? Nope.
Does it matter? Also nope.

Unlike a lot of other sequels, this book very much reads like a continuation of the first book. Like if Mickey7 had been 600 pages, and the editor just chopped it straight in half, then you kind of get these two books. This isn’t a bad thing, just an observation. Since I gave it four stars I still obviously very much enjoyed this book, and will automatically read whatever Ashton puts out next.

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for this advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

This sequel was just as much fun as the first one! Mickey Barnes is still adjusting to his new non-expendable life two years after the events of Mickey7. A chance encounter and a serious of mishaps leads him once again into a race to save the planet. With a rag tag crew of old and new (Speaker!) friends, Mickey must track down a hidden antimatter bomb before time (and good weather) run out. Funny, fast paced, and clever - I could not put it down. Really hope there is a third one in the works! Thanks to NetGalley for a change to read and review this book.

Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton is a scify sequel that stands fairly well on its own which I can confirm mostly because I did not know that this is a sequel going in and still really enjoyed the story.
The Author has provided an atmospheric writing style and strong character to support a gripping plot that leaves the reader longing for more.
This will be a good reading experience for fans of the characters wanting to revisit them and for sci fy fans wanting an easy to jump into story.

I loved Mickey7 and could not wait to get my hands on the sequel! And it was worth it! Antimatter Blues continues to be funny and entertaining. All the characters we love from the first book are back and we get some new ones here and find out more about the world they're trying to live in. I love the narrative of this book more than anything else. It is so witty and I found myself laughing out loud. I was cheering the characters on in this new adventure and was waiting to see what would happen next. I hope this isn't the last we see of Mickey and his friends. I will read as many of these as there will be!
Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy. All opinions are my own.

Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton

Pros: fast paced, good world-building, romance elements

Cons:

Due to a power decrease that means the colony won’t last through the next winter, Mickey7 is tasked with retrieving the anti-matter bomb he supposedly left with the creepers 2 years ago. But when he goes to get it, it’s not in the rock pile where he left it.

This is a fast paced continuation of Mickey7. I loved learning more about the new world and seeing a few more alien species. Mickey has to make a lot of difficult decisions and it’s fascinating seeing what he’ll do.

I loved Mickey’s relationship with Nasha. It was nice seeing a committed couple work together to save their colony.

There’s a fair amount of action as well as some attempts at diplomacy. I thought the author did a good job of showing that different species think in different ways and that communication isn’t always straightforward.

If you like light-hearted science fiction these books are fantastic.

THIS WAS BANANAS! And in a good way. This book did not suffer from the second book syndrome as duologies/series usually do. This book had higher stakes, more humor and alien wars. Who knew I could love it so much. The audiobook was great - great narration, tone, etc. So worth the read/listen - will be my favorite entertaining Sci-fi of the year for sure (this is not a space opera!).

Thank you so much to Mamillan Audio and St. Martin's press for my gifted copies. All opinions are my own.

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

I was so happy when I received this ARC as I had an ARC of Mickey 7 too and thoroughly enjoyed it! This story continues about two years after the other book ends and I would definitely recommend reading the first book before this one. I honestly had no idea what kinds of trouble Mickey could be getting into this time, but it was so creative! I love all the witty banter thrown across the comms and inside jokes that the characters have! I really hope there’s more to come! If you’re into science fiction or dystopian, you need to check this series out!

This second book in the Mickey7 series isn't nearly as much fun as the first. It's good but not in the same class. Mickey7 has retired from dying, but he doesn't have any worthwhile work to do on the station. He tends the gardens and the food rabbits. Then he discovers that someone is using his clones to work in the reactor core. The station has been damaged and without a jolt of energy the settlement will run out of power. Mickey needs to go back out and retrieve the anti-matter bomb he stashed in the last book. Of course it has disappeared and this book is about his efforts to return it. It's a clever story but not thrilling.

This was such a fun read. Antimatter Blues is a science fiction story where you follow Mickey7, who is an expendable heading out to explore the new world for the human habitation. The world building was excellent. It was lighthearted, humorous, quest-like and the characters were easy to follow and enjoy. They each had their own charm.
When I got this, I didn't realize it was the sequel. I did eventually read the first book, so I would advise you to read it. This way you get a better understand of the world and characters, especially Mickey.

This one is definitely for all the science fiction lovers.

I loved Mickey 7 when I read it last year. It was a smart and wildly original story, so I was thrilled to find out it was getting a sequel. And I’m pleased to say Edward Ashton has done it again. Antimatter Blues is an excellent follow up. Mickey is now retired, no longer and ‘expendable’ but that doesn’t mean life is all rest and relaxation. Far from it. Given that what happened in the first book plays into the storyline of Antimatter Blues, I’m hesitant to delve too deep into the plot for fear of spoiling the first book for those that haven’t read it yet, which I most definitely recommend reading. But rest assured this adventure is every bit as smart, humorous, and action packed as that first book, if not more so. I’d like to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Antimatter Blues.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RCK4GLD22LFZA/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this novel. I was super excited to get approved for this one as I thought Mickey7 was a cool concept. If you enjoyed Mickey7 then you will absolutely enjoy this one. I would give it a 4 star rating....it went by way too fast. Great job! Highly recommend.

Mickey 7 was one of my recent favorite novels. I was really excited to see the sequel pop up on NetGalley. This sequel follows the first book in the series and puts Mickey back at odds with his nemesis from the last book. The author once again does not disappoint with the plot and humor. A fun, fast read; great for sci-fi fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book.

The books that I cherish the most are those that take me on a heralding adventure, adds a hapless underdog, stirs up some hilarious dialog, and garnishes with some heart and humanity. Mickey7 was one of those books, and with Antimatter Blues, Ashton takes those ingredients to a whole new enjoyable metamorphosis.

This story continues to unravel all of the lies that Mickey had in place in the previous book to prove his role as a critical part of the colony. Through his charming witlessness, we follow him and his crew (Nasha, Berto, and a few others) as they fall into one dire situation after another with Mickey’s lead.

The humor here is guaranteed to put a smile on your face and interspersed with action and dire consequences to keep the pace up. The crew is pushed to their limits and met with unbeatable odds and new allies and foes. The world is strange out there, and they must traverse the treacherous lands to complete their mission.

One of my favorite parts of the writing here (besides the witty banter and everyone’s recall of Mickey’s track record of stupidity) is the method in which we learn that it’s not always the super-qualified or well-trained-mind that will come up with all the solutions. Sometimes it takes an unorthodox approach to achieve the best possible outcome. The character of Mickey isn’t a complete idiot, but when things look bleak, only someone of his history of bad choices and poor swindling that can dig out of the hole. His unwavering optimism embraces the ‘ignorance is bliss’ attitude and it fills the book with a little more light than would be otherwise.

Finally, the cherry on top was the finale of this story. No spoilers but I hope you enjoy it too.

Ashton has pulled off a 1-2 knockout so far. Antimatter Blues is a hilarious, spirited, and a purely enjoyable SciFi read! It’s a great heralding underdog adventure story with a unique cast of characters. If you enjoyed Mickey7 in the slightest, you’ll love this follow up.

Thanks to St Martins Press and Netgalley for the review copy!

It was a fun action driven science fiction book. I also thought the world building good. It does a good job of setting up how much of a knife’s edge the colony is. The story is pretty straight forward, go retrieve the vitally important thing or doom! But it does a fine job of driving the action forward.

Mickey Barnes is about to carry out a simple, but important, task and then return to his life of tending to rabbits and tomatoes. You guessed it – nothing goes as planned. Although he is no longer an Expendable (he hopes), his life and those of the whole colony rely on a complicated and increasingly dangerous expedition that depends on him. There are lots of twists (and sometimes too much bickering) before the story is through. Like it’s predecessor, Mickey 7, the book has humor, action and some things to ponder.

8 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2023/03/14/antimatter-blues-by-edward-ashton-review/

Two years have passed since the events of the first book. Mickey Barnes (Mickey #7) is happily enjoying his retirement from being the colony’s expendable, instead performing menial grunt labor and mucking out rabbit hutches. It’s not a glamorous job, but it definitely beats dying for a living.

The Creepers are still nearby, but the threat of a shared bomb leaves them—and their human neighbors—at an uneasy détente.

Niflheim has warmed considerably since the old days, but another, colder winter is looming just over the horizon. A winter that humanity hasn’t faced the likes of before, and one they must prepare for sooner rather than later.

But, wouldn’t you know it, the antimatter reactor is on the fritz, and suddenly the colony’s reserve of fuel is at dangerously low levels. And so, to make it through another winter—and to make it TO another winter—Mickey is sent to retrieve the bomb that he gave to the Creepers in the first place.

A bomb that they’ve since given away.

Paid, it seems, as tribute to a rival collective. One that is entirely more dangerous and under no compulsion to return it. So it comes to Mickey to step back into the line of duty, find the bomb, pacify this new threat, and return with the antimatter before winter and the deaths of everyone he holds dear.

Now if only he had a plan…

…but he doesn’t.

—

<i>So, to sum up, my continued survival is based almost entirely on an extremely shaky tower of lies.</i>

—

The sequel to Mickey7 returns to the wonderful world of Niflheim—a death-trap with a human-killing problem, and sentients that are more than happy to share their bountiful world. Or… something like that.

Mickey reprises his role as Creeper bait, though he’s well out of practice in dying lately. Nasha and Berto return as well—the former having grown quite attached to Barnes not dying; while the latter has rekindled his friendship with the Expendable, which is honestly better than its ever been. In addition, Kat, Quinn, and Marshall return to reprise their respective roles as well. With the previous Creepers now acting as uneasy allies, there exists one new, interesting character. Because there aren’t any others. Okay, okay, Antimatter Blues also introduces Jamie and Lucas, but neither are very deep, nor are they well explored. They’re included more in the event that someone needs to die, as Barnes can’t just pop back to life anymore.

Other than the lack of new characters, and a relatively straightforward fetch-quest plot—I have very little but praise for this sequel.

The humor from the first installment returns, and while Mickey can’t get into any more shenanigans with himself, he’s still bleak, disruptive, unconfident, and impulsive. If anything, two years of not dying has honed these talents to their most useless, as he’s just been carrying boxes around and playing with bunnies in that time. As such, what could’ve been a straightforward “go here and get this” turns into a spontaneous mad-scramble, complete with half-assed plans, promises and betrayals, and less of the gungho, cavalier attitude he could afford when there was always the promise of a new him fresh out of the tank when he screwed up and died.

TL;DR

In a sequel where humanity needs to undo most of the events of the previous book, find new friends, and prepare for a new, harder, and longer winter—they struggle to achieve any of these. In fact, Mickey, former Expendable, is now their only hope for success. Antimatter Blues builds little on the roots that Mickey7 put down; returning the core cast but adding little else, expanding the world and its inhabitants but not lingering on their description, sticking to a fairly straightforward plot, while throwing impediments up to hamper its progress. Still, it maintains the same smartassed tone, the same humor, the same impromptu approach to life, and the same spark of interest found in the first book. Therefore… if you enjoyed the first book and wouldn’t mind more of the same—this one’s for you. But if you were torn on the first book and wanted to see the second expand upon it and grow as a brand—you’ll likely be disappointed. I quite liked Mickey7, however, so Antimatter Blues gets a thumbs-up from me!

Mickey 7 is back. And you'll -- almost? -- love him as much this time as when you first met him in the eponymous first book.

To refresh your recollection, Mickey is an "Expendable". He's a human, for sure. But he lives in an era when his mind-state is backed-up to the cloud, and can be downloaded into another blank body that can be rendered up from goo. This isn't a novel idea - you've seen it liberally used in the Altered Carbon series, where enforcer Takeshi Kovacs is reconstituted for ugly jobs. Similar to Kovacs, Mickey is sent in to dangerous situations - but instead of being a law enforcement (or, private) enforcer, he's sent along with people in a starship going to colonize new planets. He's put into situations where, well, danger lurks. The innards of nuclear reactors. Or, bitey things on new planets. He's "expendable" - his current torso can bite the dust, be reconstituted, and be ready for the next expendable effort.

This time, we're catching up with Mickey after the opening salvo book, where he's been expended one-too-many times, and has insisted he's retired. (Whether his boss accepts that assertion is an open question.)

And now he's with the settlers on the assigned planet, and things aren't going well. He needs to go back and ... well, let's say "correct his past behavior". And this involves putting himself at mortal risk - as usual.

Here's the thing in this installment: He's "at risk", but there's a fair bit of effort to keep him from being "expendable". And the gallows-humor that accompanied knowing he was headed to likely demise in various chapters was part of the appeal of Mickey. (To avoid spoilers I won't tell you how many Mickeys survive in this book.)

Not that the prior novel was re-instantiating Mickey's like they were going out of style, but there *were* a couple of Mikeys that came around. And that led to the humor and appeal. The mind-set change about prioritizing self-preservation that pervades this instance kinda took away from the appeal for me.

On the positive side, we learn that the indigenous flora and fauna on the planet where he's at is more interesting than was revealed in book one. And this turns out to be fun.

Nevertheless, I was excited to read this book - and slightly less excited about the longevity of the Mickey franchise after reading this one. I'm still glad I read it, but and I'll probably read the NEXT one, hoping for a return to joy. But this instance? 3-3.5 stars, given this review scale:
* Five stars is when you read a book to the end, put it down, take a deep breath, pick it up and start reading it all over again - or you would if you weren't so anxious to read the next book in a multi-book series. Or, it's simply really good.

* Four stars is when you tell yourself : ”This is good, this is well-written, this is full of interesting ideas/characters/plot points”, but you know you will never read it again.

* Three stars is when you read it to the end, put it down and proceed to forget all about it in the next instant.

* Two stars when it's so bad that it makes you laugh, or sigh, and want to write a review, but you can't remember the name of the book or dislike it so much that you don't.

* One star when you can't read past chapter 3, even as penance for your sins.

Disclosure: I received an advance review copy of this book for free. Nevertheless, I commit to you, reader, to have integrity and not to let "free" generate a falsely-positive review.

What's it about (in a nutshell):
Antimatter Blues is the second book in a series by Edward Ashton centering on Mickey 7, a member of an expedition to colonize a new planet in a future setting of the human race. Mickey's job is as an Expendable, and it is the job of the Expendable to perform the most dangerous tasks the colonists need to do to survive. Unfortunately, this means that Mickey 7 generally does not survive the job. But in the future, science can replicate him with his memories intact so he can do it all over again.

In this sequel, Mickey 7 recently retired from his position as the Expendable of his fledgling colony, a retirement only permitted because of a fabrication Mickey 7 told during the conclusion of book 1. Now, the very survival of the settlement could come down to whether or not he can figure out a way to save the colony or himself.

It will help if you read this book until after reading Mickey 7 since the first book explains so much you need to understand the story.

My Reading Experience:
Mickey is a snarky son of a gun who always finds himself in trouble, most of his own doing. He is very self-aware of his knack for making a mess of his life, and his snappy and sarcastic dialog makes the story enjoyable and fast-paced. Ashton also personifies the aliens in the story to exhibit a similar quirky wit, providing much comic relief. The themes of personal and community survival under harsh circumstances are explored meaningfully but with a bright-side-of-life sensibility.

Characters:
Most of the focus of the story is on Mickey. He is a well-developed character who explains his decision-making thru flashbacks of his past life in his home world. His bad choices continually create situations that result in more bad decisions, and he knows it. The other characters are solid but not as well developed and mainly serve as reflections of the traits that Mickey wishes he possessed.

Narration & Pacing:
The narration is first person and is very brisk. Mickey and his small task force experience exciting, tense, creative, and sometimes humorous adventures.

Setting:
The setting is the far-off planet Niflheim. It is a seemingly bleak and unwelcoming environment for human colonization, but it is the best they have, and they must try to make it work. The story splits between the settlement in the Dome and the unknown lands outside of the Dome, and neither place is a place you would want to go on vacation. Interactions with several alien species make Mickey struggle with his morality and the morality of the human race.

Read if you like:
• Science fiction adventures
• Characters who don't take themselves seriously with a big helping of sarcasm
• Thinking about what it takes for civilizations to survive while retaining individual independence