Mickey7
By Edward Ashton
In Mickey7, I’ll get to the title in just a bit, Mickey Barnes, a young man with little in the way of employment opportunities who is also on the run from debt collectors, signs up in a state of desperation for a mission to colonize a new planet. Alas, the only job he can get is that of “Immortal,” which is a euphemism for “Expendable.”
What Immortal means is that Mickey is the colony’s disposable man. Since flesh is cheaper and easier to recycle than robotics, the job of an Expendable is whatever dangerous or downright suicidal stuff needs to be done. When (not if) he gets killed his consciousness is reloaded into a clone body pulled from a vat of protein paste. All so that he can be killed again.
It’s a silly but effective premise, and Edward Ashton has a lot of fun with it in this lively SF action-comedy. Things kick off with the seventh iteration of Mickey being prematurely declared dead, thus leading to Mickeys 7 and 8 having to hide the mistake of there now being two Mickeys, as duplicate Expendables are against the rules. Meanwhile, the colony is under threat from killer bugs called “creepers.” But then, just as with Mickey, all is not what it seems.
Alex on SF 
That sounds like it should be a movie.
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Yep. A lot of SF reads that way. The thing is, you can’t do these as ultra low-budget productions so they have to be picked up by a studio that wants to put some money into them. And that usually only happens with big franchise brands.
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In regards to Fraggle’s comment. Sadly, a lot of modern SF is written for the sole purpose of being picked up and turned into a tv show/movie. Some nobody author thinks they have a movie script and since nobody will give them the time of day, they write a poorly disguised “book”. It grinds my gears.
Mogsy over at Bibliosanctum recently reviewed this and she rather enjoyed it. From what she wrote I figured it wasn’t for me and your review here simply confirms that. I like the idea but the word “silly” gives me pause. Unless the whole book is meant to be humorous, silly isn’t good in my opinion.
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It’s an action-comedy, so silly comes with the territory. Maybe not your thing.
I don’t know if the authors are thinking that they’d like their books to be picked up by Hollywood (though I’m sure they do) so much as they know they’re writing for an audience that expects these kinds of stories, told these kinds of ways.
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stoooopid audiences…..
I’d do a Thanos if I could. Good thing I can’t….
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