There are many novels about colonizing other planets and today we will be reading one with an interesting twist. Keep reading for our review of Mickey7 by Edward Ashton and if you should read this novel next!
Mickey7 Summary
Mickey7 is a human that has signed up to colonize the ice-world Niflheim in a one-way trip. To secure passage to the planet, he signed up to be an expandable, someone who is cloned and used in dangerous situations. Their memory is backed up onto a computer constantly to ensure the new iterations have all of the memories as the previous ones.
But during a routine scouting mission, Mikey7 falls into a hole and is assumed to be dead. That leads to another clone of Mikey being made, Mikey8. But Mikey7 survives the fall and makes his way home to the base. He finds the other Mikey and they argue about who gets to live.
Coming to a truce, they decide to keep it a secret that there are two Mikey’s since it is taboo. The duo tries to coexist in a small area while having to share reduced rations during a famine. It is up to Mikey7 to fix the situation at hand while also trying to understand the threat that is out there killing the inhabitants of the base.
Commentary
I loved the concept of this novel and the fun twist of clones. Writing a novel about colonizing another planet is hard enough but Ashton makes it fun and keeps you on your toes. There is a lot of science and philosophy thrown at you which is always great to read.
This was a novel I could not put down. It was nominated as one of the best science fiction novels of 2022 on Goodreads and a major movie is coming out next year. The movie is called Mikey17 instead of 7 which is a drastic change. That will change the background information for Mikey which I am not a fan of.
Conclusion
If you love a good sci-fi novel, then this is a novel that you will enjoy. This novel was published last year and is the first of many in the series. I will definitely be reading the sequels and where Mikey7 and the future of planet Nilfhelm and the colony.
The synopsis reminds me of the movie ‘Moon.’