Reviews - Mickey7 | The StoryGraph

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5.28k reviews for:

Mickey7

Edward Ashton

3.73 AVERAGE

knc_311's review against another edition

3.0

you vs the guy you told your commander not to worry about

dremadeoraich's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This is my first Edward Ashton book, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the blurb fit the story perfectly and, given that first line in the book (“This is gonna be my stupidest death ever”) was so great, it didn’t take me long to get hooked. Mickey is an “expendable” – he is the guy who, on the planetary colonial expedition, gets all the jobs that will probably—or certainly—end in death. Because Mickey can be rebooted. Sort of. It’s complicated. It’s also a touchy subject, and it’s absolutely taboo for there to be two Mickeys alive at any given time. So what happens when one of the Mickey’s doesn’t, you know, die as he’s supposed to?

The entire story is told through Mickey 7’s eyes and, while 7 isn’t exactly the brightest or most skilled member of the Niflheim team, he’s the average guy who ends up changing everything. History is his jam, and his dives into the history of other beachhead colonies, including why they did or didn’t survive, pepper his own tale with backstory. Even so, it was never boring. Instead, this method of telling built the larger story a bit at a time, feeding me just enough info to fill in a blank for understanding, but maintaining enough mystery to keep me reading. Nice balance!

There’s a lot of snark in Mickey’s internal dialogue. But there’s also a good deal of deep thought. As an expendable who’s died and been “reborn” numerous times, he keeps asking himself (as do others) a singular question: is he immortal? Given the story itself, this is a common theme throughout, in varying degrees and angles, and I found the concepts used to describe the quandary fascinating.

But Mickey 7 isn’t just about Mickey. Nor is it just about Niflheim and the colonists. There are greater questions in the wind here, and the way 7 addresses them was noble and intriguing. Also snarky.

This is a really fun, intriguing read. There’s a lot (a lot) of hard sci-fi here, but not so much that it’s inaccessible to those who don’t/can’t follow physics, or who can’t math (like me). All in all, I loved this book, and will probably read the second in the series (Antimatter Blues). There’s even a movie titled “Mickey 17,” which we’ve watched—it didn’t follow the book exactly, and in places it diverged wildly. That said, it’s fun, if a bit bizarre.

If you like hard sci-fi with snarky characters, you’ll love this book. Definitely recommended.

bergh_the_bookpirate's review against another edition

2.0

It is as if Ashton had written a nice short story and afterwards decided to turn it into a novel. And how he did this was simple; every chapter starts with a small piece of the main story, which is then interrupted by a lengthy flashback or backstory.
I don't know if this was the case, probably not, but it what this book felt like for me.
Every chapter is padded out with extra content you don't need.

One of my favourite books of all time is The Lies of Locke Lamorra. In this book the action also gets interrupted by flashbacks. But the genius of that book is, that the flashback you just read will tie in immediately with the action in the main story, which works wonderfully. You are fully invested in everything that happens
The flashbacks and backstories in Mickey7 added little to nothing to the main story, which made them feel like a hassle.

Mickey7 himself isn't a very likeable character.
He complains constantly, although he got into his present situation through his own fault. He is spending a lot of time with another girl behind his girlfriend's back.
My main complaint about him is that he is not very pro-active at all. At the start of the novel he finds himself in a real problem. Instead of coming up with a problem he ignores it and hopes it will sort it self out, which it doesn't of course.

The story and characters feel flat. We know almost nothing about the planet they inhabit apart from the fact that it is really cold there.
We know nothing of the aliens that inhabit the planet except for the fact that they are dangerous and scary. We barely get a description about what they look like

The ending was also lacklustre. The colony itself also deals with a major problem in the book. This problem magically fixes itself in the end of the book without any of our characters contributing to it.

This book feels like a rough draft from a starting author.
It surprises me that there will be a movie about this book. The movie will have to change a lot for this movie to be moving or thrilling.

As a final note, this book had a reference to sex-scene which made me physically cringe.
The author tries a lot to make this book funny but it only makes the characters more unlikable. He tries to mimic the funny tones of The Martian and Murderbot but will only make you sigh in frustration

My tip: read some Alastair Reynolds instead. Great sci-fi, great characters and new ideas.