Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

​   I’ve been in the mood for some good new science fiction and this book fit the bill perfectly. It’s a hip, fresh and fun space adventure with just the right balance of action, science and humorous touches. Very entertaining production.
    So, meet Mickey7…the seventh reiteration of the same person, but no mere clone, he retains all the memories of his previous forms, he just gets reprinted, over and over again. Because he gets dead over and over again. Because he signed up for a crazy mission and now that’s his life.
    Mickey is an Expendable on a colonization mission to a distant planet, in a distant future where colonization efforts are all the rage. This particular planet isn’t especially habitable, but has a lot of potential, and it’s up to a team of nearly 200 people to categorize and optimize this potential, so that it can be seeded with all the embryos they brought with them.
     Mickey’s crucial to the mission, a sort of royal tester, in space. Mickey’s also the only one mad enough to volunteer for this position. Some of the colonists, the Natalists, including the mission’s commander, don’t even consider him a real person anymore, but are still aware of his inherent worth. The thing they don’t want, though, the thing no one really wants, including Mickey himself, are two Mickeys, and yet, following a mission snafu, that’s exactly what occurs. Mickey7, written off for dead, survives and comes back to find a freshly printed Mickey8 in his bunk. Shenanigans ensue…
    The book is really too elaborate to describe as a mere clone comedy, though it did remind me of that recent blink and miss it Paul Rudd tv show where he also found himself sharing life with a clone, after a snafu. That production wouldn’t even be saved by Paul Rudd’s considerable (and doubled charm), but this one works and works well. It hits all the right notes in all the right respects, follows its internal logistics tightly and spins a fascinating and compelling narrative of wildly imaginative, well crafted future. Very respectable world building, very fun, dynamic writing. There’s so much to like here. I enjoyed reading this book very much. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.