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.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy to review.

Representation: Not much, a few BIPOC supporting characters.

Mickey has died six times, and he's about to die a seventh time. This is Mickey7's job, being the Expendable of the human colony on Niflheim. As the Expendable, Mickey does all of the jobs that are far too dangerous for an average person and are likely to result in death. Whenever he dies, a new body is regenerated with most of the memories still intact. Except on this scouting mission, Mickey7 ends up not dying and gets back to the base with help from native life. The problem is, by the time he gets back, Mickey8 is already awake. They have to find ways to hide the fact that there's two of them now, because generally, the idea of duplicates is loathed and if they're caught, they'll be recycled for protein. It gets complicated very fast, because the settlement of Niflheim isn't going well. It's a cold planet, hostile to most life, and terraforming isn't going well. Food is starting to get in short supply, the native life is getting curious about the strange people, and the Mickeys have a delicate balancing act that can easily get shattered. The survival of both lifeforms on Niflheim could all come down to Mickey7. Can he do something before he dies for good?

Rating: 4/5 I immensely enjoyed reading this! I love sci-fi, and this hits all the classic sci-fi things - trying to make a living out in the unknown, ethical dilemmas around clones, coming face to face with another lifeform and figuring out how to interact with them, being crammed into a limited space with a bunch of other people, and more. This got quite philosophical at times, but it felt very appropriate, considering Mickey7 has a very strange life where he does very dangerous things but doesn't really have to worry about dying. There was some discussion about souls, about if a new body has your memories uploaded into it, is it really you or is it a new you, things like that. I liked that this was very clearly a spacefaring story, and has portions of that, but it's all about trying to start a new colony on a new planet. A lot of sci-fi will be on already established planets, so it was nice to see the more gritty details of the very early stages of a colony. There is quite a bit of focus on the Mickeys being hungry and fighting over rations, which I get, but I felt like that time could've be devoted to other things. I enjoyed this part, but other people might not - there are several flashbacks to Mickey7's previous reincarnations, and several tangents about other colonies on other worlds that succeeded or failed. I liked thinking about all the potential ways that things could easily go wrong for a colony, and things that could go right. This is sci-fi, and it does get technical at times, but it's never overly complicated or intentionally confusing. Things are explained in a way that the layperson can understand, and it's helpful that Mickey is intentionally not the smartest person. He's basically the average person that doesn't understand complex science, so when things get explained, it's in a way he, and us by extension, can understand. Overall, I liked this!

Edward Ashton http://www.edwardashton.com is the author of three novels. His novel Mickey7 was published in February of this year.

Due to some violence and mature language, I categorize this novel as PG. As you might expect from the title, the main character is Mickey Barnes. The novel is set in a distant future. Humanity has begun to spread out to the stars. Barnes is unique among his group of colonists. He is their designated expendable. That is because his body and brain have been scanned. A new body can be grown and his consciousness downloaded. Why? So that Barnes can perform any dangerous task that the colonists need to have done. So far, he has died and had to be regenerated six times. That is why he is called Mickey7.

The colonists have traveled to the planet Niflheim. It was thought to be Earth-like. Once they arrived, they found it to be an ice-covered world. The colonists can survive, but just barely. The story begins with Barnes called upon again for a dangerous mission on the planet’s surface. Native life has become a threat to the colony, and Barnes is sent on a scouting mission.

Barnes becomes lost. By the time he makes it back to the colony enclosure, there is a Mickey8 waiting for him. The idea of regeneration is loathed by many of the colonists. Strict rules govern regeneration, limiting one living copy. Now one or perhaps both Barnes could be terminated. Not only must Mickey7 deal with this threat, but he finds himself the only one in a position to handle the local inhabitants.

I enjoyed the 7 hours I spent reading this 288-page science fiction novel. This is a different take on human colonization. Being the one and only colonist to be able to regenerate gives the Barnes character some unique plot opportunities. The chosen cover art is eye-catching but does not have much to do with the main plot thread of the story. I give this novel a rating of 4 out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Mickey is an expendable. A job that no one else in the entire world wanted to be, the first and only volunteer for the position. A replicated and indefinite version of his former self. The first line of defense against aliens and disease. The plebeian who squeezes into impossible spaces, embarks on suicide missions, does every task but masters none.

So when Mickey falls into a crevasse while out exploring, it's assumed that his death is inevitable. It's not worth another life to fish him out. Report back to base and get the next Mickey baking in the primordial goo that makes new Mickey's. Only Mickey finds a series of uncanny tunnels deep in the hole, and through a strange encounter with an alien, turns up back and base slightly bruised but very much alive.

The problem is that there can't be two, and Mickey 7 comes face to face with Mickey 8. How long can they hide that Mickey 7 is still alive?

That's when the book gets super boring.

I loved the premise of this and the first few chapters of the book, but boy is Mickey an unlikeable character. AND WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH TWO OF HIM. The whole caveat of this book is that you love Mickey and are rooting for him, because there is little actually happening outside of them playing "Multiplicity" poorly.

There is just so little action to this book, and the stakes are low and the ending is pretty anticlimactic.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for an ARC of this title.
2.5 Stars rounded up.

Mickey7 checked off so many of my favorite things in a book. Science fiction, check. Space, check. Astronauts, check. Colonization of new planets, check. Clones, check. Science stuff, check. Interesting character/s, check.

This was a fun read and I thoroughly enjoyed Mickey7. Mickey signs up as an Expendable for a journey to a new planet and to help colonize a new planet. Anything dangerous that seems like a human would die, send Mickey in. If he dies, he is just remade with all of his backed up memories. Mickey7 is… the 7th Mickey.

When he doesn’t actually die, but everyone thinks he did, Mickey8 is spun up. So now what happens? Multiples are not allowed to exist. And what about the alien species that are killing colonists?

This book was brain candy for me after a long rough work week. I’ll definitely be looking for more from this author!

*Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advance copy!*

A great read for those who are also a fan of The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this ARC!

Not exactly how I imagined this story unfolding, but that's the good thing about books, they can surprise you! It was a pretty good story with a satisfying ending though so I did enjoy it.

Mickey7 epitomizes the scifi thriller genre, weaving a complex universe with a powerful protagonist and a story that utilizes political intrigue, space travel and a strong history. Ashton is an expert at dialogue and discourse, taking you directly into the action that unfolds.. Prepare to contemplate the trappings of power and the consequences of actions.
Full review to come on YouTube.

Mickey7 is an Expendable on Niflheim - he takes on the most dangerous colony tasks, dies regularly and is then cloned and his backed up memories restored.

The seventh time he's believed to have died, he survives and makes his way back to find that Mickey8 has been cloned. If it's realized they are loathed duplicates, they'll both be recycled.

Meanwhile, hostility from the planet's own species (one of them intelligent) is increasing, putting the colony at risk.

Can Mickey7 save himself and save the day, without dying again?

I absolutely adore Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. The concept of Expendables is an interesting topic to explore, and I believe Ashton handles the topics with skill, interweaving the concerns of consciousness, intelligence, the morality of colonization, and immortality.
Mickey7 was assumed dead on his last mission and when he shows up, alive.... he realizes they have already printed out Mickey8. Duplicates are not tolerated, so they wind up sharing daily rations and space....and friends. I write all this down, but it just doesn't explain the adventure and laughs, the serious questions that are posed so artfully and a plot that just doesn't quit. Excellent, highly recommended. I would definitely recommend Mickey 7 especially if you like sci fi that makes you think that is very entertaining!
Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and author Edward Ashton for this digital review copy for me to read and enjoy!

Honestly, this was just a huge disappointment. I originally saw it compared to The Martian and Dark Matter and requested it immediately. Now, I'd recommend just skipping this one and reading those instead. This one felt like it had so much potential with a very interesting setup. But in the end, the author just wasn't really able to execute the idea very well.
The book starts out strong enough with our expendable almost dying while out on a mission. But, he doesn't die. And now there are two Mickey's. It seems interesting enough because along with being an expendable, we're also dealing with supply shortages, native creatures that are starting to turn on the newcomers, issues with rations, a girlfriend who doesn't know there are two of him, and a best friend who's acting a bit shady. And that doesn't even cover the science and politics that got everyone to Niflheim and created expendables in the first place.
There are so many interesting issues that could have been explored in this book but instead, we're dealt with listening to two Mickey's complain about being hungry and how they're going to sneak around the ship to avoid detection. Which, by the way, was not done well by either of them. It just still blows my mind how boring most of this book was. I really don't understand. I think my expectations were just too high because I loved both The Martian and Dark Matter and how they dealt with both the sciences of where they were and the emotional/mental toll it took on both of them. And the ideas of immortality and rebirth and the psychological effects of being called expendable and it being your entire purpose, I just felt like the author could have explored these ideas a little bit more. It was all just pretty basic in the end and the main character comes off as lazy and boring.
Overall, this was just really underwhelming for me. There were a few interesting bits but almost everything felt like it was underexplored. Even the issues with his best friend and the creepers aren't ever really handled well. We did get a lot of history lessons about past colonies and flashbacks to several of Mickey's past experiences and deaths, though.
I think if you're looking for a somewhat light adult sci-fi book and are interested exclusively in the idea of expendables, this might be for you.

Mickey7 was an enjoyable read full of the snarky, sarcastic kind of humor that I love and plenty of world building and sci-fi hijinks. The story gave a lot of context and history around the Diaspora traveling to and inhabiting new planets and in depth experience of life as an "expendable". It was interesting how different his copy, Mickey8, was from Mickey7 suggesting that experience makes a big difference in the character's world view. I wish we could’ve learned more about the native species of the ice planet, Niflhiem, that they are inhabiting. I feel that we got a lot more about the history of colonization, what it means to be an expendable and trying to not get caught than about the conflict between the colonizers and the newly discovered lifeform. Overall it was an interesting and quick read, but I wish it were a little longer and covered other topics it touched upon more than it did.

This was not at all what I expected and I ended up loving it. The characters were great and the story was engaging. So much so, that I finished it in a day. My favorite parts where the ones where Mickey was reading about the other missions from the past. I could’ve taken a whole book on just those missions. Will definitely recommend.

Enjoyed the premise of the book more than the actual story. It was a bit done before with having read the Ender books by Orson Scott Card.

This is a story with great potential! A Sci-Fi book that is easy for a non-Sci-Fi reader to jump into and understand. Always a plus in my book!

Mickey 7 is a replicant of the original Mickey, on it's 7th iteration. His role in the ship that is sent to colonize another world, is to do all of the dangerous things that could get someone killed, so the rest of the crew doesn't have to. If he is killed, then no problem, they zip up a new iteration of Mickey and he's good to go again. Great premise, right?

Oh, and I didn't even get to the 'monsters' on the new planet that the crew is trying to deal with and who seem to be some of the main reasons why Mickey is now Mickey7. Cool!

The story begins with Mickey7 falling into a crevice/hole, where the crew can't reach him without making so much noise that these monsters all come calling (which for obvious reasons, they don't want to happen). So they basically instruct him to kill himself so that he can regenerate to Mickey8. Except, he doesn't kill himself. And by the time he gets back to the ship, Mickey8 is already alive and kicking. Uh oh!

This sets us up for fun antics and a great, crazy plot.

Except that never comes to fruition. Ahhhhh! Seriously, 80% of the books (excluding the excellent beginning and pretty great ending) is about Mickey on the ship, doing pretty much nothing but eating. Or talking about eating. Or thinking about eating. And the food is some pretty awful stuff.

Was the author hungry? Because I don't get it!

To be fair, there were a few antics but most of them were not that entertaining. I kept waiting for the story to pick up or the action to kick in or literally anything to happen besides the stupid eating, but alas, I had to wait until the very end of the book for anything like that.

Don't get me wrong, the middle parts were mildly entertaining and Mickey7 flashes back to previous Mickey iterations and their experiences, so there is activity happening. It just didn't live up to the awesome setup or potential of this storyline.

An overall interesting read if you would like to try Sci-Fi and would like an easy intro. And the narrator sounds like Casey Kasem, the American Top 40 DJ from the 70s and 80s. His voice brought back all kinds of great memories and he did a great job of narrating.

Mickey7 is an expendable human tasked with all the dangerous and potentially deadly missions of a group sent to colonize a distant planet. Every time he dies, he is "recreated" from his saved genetic material. There are those who treat him like a human and others who think he is an abomination, but he is necessary to the survival of this small colony.

Mickey just keeps doing his job, dying and being re-made until he discovers something important about the alien life on the planet they have colonized, and he may be the key to saving everyone. Oh, and by mistake he has a clone that shouldn't exist, so that's a problem.

In theory, the premise of this book was promising and intriguing. I liked the idea of clones trying to keep each other a secret, of how a small colony tries to survive on a distant planet, and the exploration of alien species. However, it felt more like a short story that was padded to create a novel. It dragged in parts, there was too much coverage of Mickey's sexy times (one time would have been enough), there were too many characters and not enough depth given to the "main" characters or even the alien species. The ending was anti-climactic and felt chopped. Despite its problems, I enjoyed it enough to read all of it, and that's saying something.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton is a standalone journey about survival. Set in the future, humanity is faced with the need to find a new home in space. In order to accomplish this goal, people compete for positions in the new colony. There's one position, no one will want, unless they are really desperate (or conscripted)...the Expendable.

Here's where we meet Mickey7, who retells how the original Mickey had found himself in a situation on his home planet that was so bad he volunteered to become the Expendable. Mickey7 is fascinating! Not only has he done crazy, fascinating, suicidal things, he is also funny, sarcastic, and willing to do anything to stay alive!

At the opening, this book reminded me of Andy Weir's "The Martian", but it quickly diverged from that into a hilarious adventure! This book was also thought provoking. One of the most interesting questions for me was "is Mickey7 the same person as the original"? I could not get enough of this book! As much as I needed to know how it ended, I didn't want the story to end.

This is the first book I've read by the author and now I need to check out his other books! Mickey7 is definitely on my list of favorite books of 2022!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Mickey Barnes doesn’t have the intelligence or the qualifications to get him a job on a colony ship. What he does have is a willingness to take on the crew’s worst job: Expendable. These disposable humans take on the team’s deadliest dirty work and, on death, have their backed-up memories downloaded into a new clone body. Mickey is on his seventh life and doing as all right as an Expendable can… until, coming home after being left for dead, he discovers the team wasted no time popping out Mickey8.

Now Mickey7 is a Multiple: frowned on for ethical reasons, difficult for personal reasons, and sure to get both of them recycled into protein paste if they’re found out. At the same time, Mickey8 is missing about six weeks of memories that Mickey7 chose not to back up. Before long, Mickey7 realizes his problems are bigger than splitting his calorie allowance and sharing his girlfriend. Things aren’t what they seem, both among the crew and on the world they’re hoping to terraform.

Mickey7 gives us ample history lessons to flesh out the ethical quandaries its setting raises, and how its residents approach those quandaries. There’s plenty of back story as to why humans are out populating the stars, and the sci-fi elements are solid. But the story shines in its truly, unabashedly human moments: its weird nightmares, forehead kisses, and cafeteria brawls. Those are the moments that make Mickey, and Mickey7, truly appealing.

(Reviewed in Sci-Fi Magazine, Spring 2022)