Skip to main content

Mickey 7 (review)

 


A couple of years ago I remember seeing the book Mickey 7 (by Edward Ashton) on bookshelves in the library, in bookstores, and other places. It seemed to be popular. I remember seeing it, but it didn’t generate any interest in me. Maybe I associated it with baseball. Mickey Mantle was the most prominent baseball player when I was growing up. I never really liked baseball. Or, maybe I associated it with the Toni Basil song “Mickey.” I never really liked that song. Maybe it was the cover? Whatever the reason, I never picked it up or even sought to see what it was about.

Then I heard someone talking about it, and thought I would give it a try. Okay, I liked it. The Mickey of the title is in a group of colonists trying to scratch out a living on a cold barren planet. Mickey has an unusual job. He has the job the no one should want. He is an “expendable.” His body and brain patterns have been fully recorded, and should he die (he definitely will die, and that is not a spoiler) a new body will be printed and his memories implanted and a new Mickey will emerge. Thus, expendables (there is only one on this colony) are given all the most dangerous jobs, the suicide missions. As you may have now guessed from the title, the Mickey we meet is the seventh iteration, or incarnation, or, edition and by now he has realized that this being an expendable business is no fun. Not only is there the dying over and over in gruesome ways, but the other members of the crew tend to give him a wide berth. Most of them consider him “other,” maybe not quite human. Does he even have a soul? There are religious factions that consider him an abomination, a useful abomination, but still an abomination.

He does have two friends that make it bearable, his friend Berto and his girlfriend Nasha. Berto is a bit of a scoundrel, but Nasha loves Mickey unconditionally, even if he is the seventh version of himself. When the crisis comes (and you know it will) Berto may not be much help, but we are confident that Nasha will stand by him.

When the idea of becoming an expendable is first pitched to him the image of immortality is presented to him. But is it immortality if you die and your memories are put into a new body?  If your consciousness comes to an end, what is that thing in the next body? Food for thought.

It is a decent story, but what I love most is the dark humor. It reminded me a bit of The Martian by Andy Weir and maybe even some hints of John Scalzi’s Redshirts. However much he is disrespected, Mickey seems an indominable spirit. He bends but doesn’t break. I see that Edward Ashton has written a sequel to Mickey 7. Bring it on.

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

  Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...
1 comment
Read more

Empathy

  Websters defines Empathy as: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Empathy is what makes us human, though lord knows there are many humans who don’t seem to have any. A person without empathy is like a caveman, only concerned for himself. Selfish. It is a lack of community and by extension, a lack of the need for civilization. The person who lacks empathy can have a bit of community, but only with others exactly like himself. It seems like societies go through cycles of empathy and less empathy. Sometimes a single event can change the course of society. Prior to America’s involvement in WWII, the general feeling in America was not very empathetic. We had our own problems. We were still dealing with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and had been for years. That kind of stress makes it hard to think of others. Hitler was slashing through Europe. He and his fol...
1 comment
Read more

A Deception

  I have a secret. I deceived my mother. Okay, it was like 50 years ago and she is gone now, but still . . .  I was generally a good boy. I did as I was told. My family lived a pretty strait-laced, middle-class, fairly conservative life. We were a G-rated family, well, until my older siblings broke the mold, but at this time, I was still in the mold. My friend Rich and I made a plan. Rich had asked me if I wanted to see Cabaret . He said he didn’t think much of Liza Minnelli, but he wouldn’t mind seeing her take her clothes off. We were like 13 years old and sex was ever-present on our minds as much as it was absent in our households. Cabaret was not rated R. It was rated PG. The ratings system has changed since that time. There was no PG-13; there was just the choice of G, PG, and R  (X was not an official rating).  Apparently the makers of Cabaret satisfied the ratings commission enough to escape an R rating, so it was PG.   There was therefore no law or ...
Post a Comment
Read more