Fiction Fans

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

• Episode 172

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Excited for Mickey 17, the upcoming movie featuring Robert Pattinson, your hosts read Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. Despite their complaints about the narrative voice and Mickey’s POV, they really did enjoy the book, they promise. They also discuss the effect of cloning on the sense of self, the implications of space colonization, and neat aliens.


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly:

And tonight we will be discussing Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton. But first, our five minute introduction. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

It's not even usually five minutes, to be honest.

Lilly:

gives us some wiggle room to go off topic.

Sara:

Something great that happened recently, I don't know if this really counts as great, but I am training to run a marathon. Yay! 10k, well technically it's an 11k, and I did my first 7 mile run last week, and I completed a 7 mile run. I mean, I didn't run the entire time, like, bits of that was walking, because I cannot run 7 miles without stopping.

Lilly:

But you went for seven miles. Seven miles happened.

Sara:

But my legs did seven miles.

Lilly:

That is technically great in that it is good for you. And so you pass the test. That, that question you've accomplished.

Sara:

Maybe, maybe the great thing is not that I did it, but that I survived it.

Lilly:

I mean, I'm being silly. That's a really great thing. I certainly can't do that. It just also sounds miserable.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Yeah. On. The opposite side of the spectrum. My great thing is that back before Christmas we had d and d and one of our friends brought over a carrot cake out of the six of us or whatever. We only had like maybe half of it, not even that, and we left that carrot cake in our refrigerator. It has been probably about a month now, and I had some yesterday, two nights ago, and it is still good!

Sara:

I'm impressed that you did not have carrot cake for breakfast every day after that D& D session.

Lilly:

I, you, it's a good point. I'm not a big breakfast person.

Sara:

It's true.

Lilly:

And then, I have a bad habit of eating dinner so late that by the time I'm like, It's dessert time! It's also bedtime.

Sara:

If I don't eat breakfast, then my stomach makes very loud noises at me.

Lilly:

Mmm,

Sara:

It was very embarrassing when I was in school.

Lilly:

I'm sorry. But I have carrot cake, and I'm not sorry about that.

Sara:

The carrot cake does sound delicious.

Lilly:

What are you drinking tonight?

Sara:

I am drinking cider.

Lilly:

Very nice. I am perfectly on theme tonight. So Mickey, the main character of Mickey 7, is on a space colony and they are very limited resources, and so he has to drink just like nutrient paste smoothies through most of the book. And so I made myself a protein shake hot chocolate, and it is probably more enjoyable than what Mickey had to have.

Sara:

I mean, my impression of what he was drinking was that it was not particularly good.

Lilly:

no. And mine is at least halfway to hot chocolate, so I'm not punishing myself, but

Sara:

I thought about being on theme with my drink. And then went, nah.

Lilly:

The entire time, every time he described the awful nutrient based smoothies, I was like, That's a protein shake! I agree with you, Mickey. Have you read anything good lately?

Sara:

I'm still kind of feeling very burnt out on all fiction books, which is a great thing to say on a book podcast, a fiction book podcast. But I have been reading a lot of Tolkien scholarship. So the last book that I finished was Green Sons and Fairy which is a collection of essays by Verlinde Flieger on various aspects of Tolkien's work. Yeah,

Lilly:

Nice. It's nice also being able to bounce back and forth between genres like that. Give you some variety.

Sara:

I mean, I think the reason why I'm feeling so burnt out on fiction is because we do a book podcast where I read I guess it's not quite 52 books a year because we do take some time off but at least 48 books and then have to discuss them.

Lilly:

And you go beyond that, so you probably read more than 52 books a year.

Sara:

Yeah. I think last year I didn't read as much, but I still read 75 books. So it, yeah, sometimes it's just too much. You need to change a pace.

Lilly:

I haven't actually started it yet, but I have sourced Misery by Stephen King, figured out how to get the file into my e reader app, which I do so rarely that it is always like a new little journey every time I do it.

Sara:

Good, I'm, pleased for you.

Lilly:

But yes, I'm excited to read it. It's for a casual book club, extracurricular book club, that a friend of mine has organized, and I have yet to read a Stephen King book that I liked. So, I'm probably going to be really annoying in that discussion.

Sara:

I mean, you didn't hate The Gunslinger though, right?

Lilly:

The end of it was, like, intriguing enough that I would give another book a chance. But I did hate the first three quarters of it.

Sara:

Okay. I don't remember having such strong negative feelings towards it, but it's been a while since we read it, so maybe I did and I just don't remember.

Lilly:

You did, but we were talking to Fantasy Files about it. And our conversation was fun, and we had fun, like, speculating where it might go. And so by the end of the recording, we were, like, feeling much, much better about the book than we all started, I think.

Sara:

Maybe that's what I'm remembering because I do remember really enjoying our conversation.

Lilly:

But yeah, so I will be Reading Misery, probably also watching the movie. Very excited for that, so.

Sara:

Speaking of books with movies, although this movie is not actually out yet we read Mickey Seven by Edward Ashton, which does have an upcoming movie adaptation. I think it's being released in March or April or something starring Robert Pattinson. And it looks, like it could be an okay movie.

Lilly:

It looks like a really fun movie. It does not look like it's going to be very close in plot to the book. It looks like it's close in concept, but that the actual progression of the narrative is going to be pretty different.

Sara:

I mean, I don't know if I would say that necessarily just because the, the trailer, I thought, gave us so little idea of what the plot of the movie was.

Lilly:

Maybe. But a large part of the book was Mickey trying to prevent anyone from finding out he was a multiple, which means he is supposed to be a clone in a line of clones, but there's accidentally two of him at the same time. And it looked like in the movie that other people knew about it and are on the narrative, or on the adventure with him. Knowing about the multiples, and that seems very different.

Sara:

True, it did look like that was the plot. discovered earlier. So you could be correct.

Lilly:

Instead of, the like, final conflict. Hehehe.

Sara:

Yeah. Which did give me anxiety the entire time. I was like, I know that this is going to be discovered. Can't you just get it over with? And then finally when it was, I was like, okay, phew, now I can just relax. But I think it will be a good, I mean, setting aside whether or not it will be a good adaptation, I think it will be an enjoyable movie because I think that this book had some issues that you are going to talk about a little bit more in the spoiler section but that meant it felt like a very kind of surface level romp to me and I think that will translate well to the screen.

Lilly:

Yeah, and we won't have to listen to that god awful first person narrator.

Sara:

You and your distaste for first person.

Lilly:

I have two very different complaints about the first person narrator. The first one is me. And the second one is legitimate. Okay, I'm just gonna start there.

Sara:

Okay.

Lilly:

The one that's me is Who the fuck are you talking to? I hate it. I hate

Sara:

that, that is a you problem.

Lilly:

He's just like narrating, bantering in his own head and it's like, the fuck are you doing? This isn't a diary. Like, if he was writing a diary that we were reading, okay. But, it's my least favorite kind of first person narrative. Which is made ten times worse by the legitimate complaint, which was how dorky it was.

Sara:

It, it did get kind of dorky. At times.

Lilly:

Including, I highlighted a couple of them, not all of them. Things like, Question, what the hell happened here? Or, At this point, you may be wondering what I did to get myself designated as an expendable. No!

Sara:

Hmm. Okay, I do think that that is a little bit of a you thing too. I didn't hate the very conversational kind of semi comedic tone. Your face!

Lilly:

There is, there is no rebuttal to that. You're just wrong.

Sara:

I mean, I don't, think that it's like the best narrative or the best narration ever, but I do think that it's not as terrible. Like, it works better for some people than others. And I think, that some of that is a you thing too.

Lilly:

Some people have no taste. The very concept of a first person story that has no excuse for why it is in first person, that's me having a problem with it. Okay I accept that it's a valid storytelling thing that other people like, whatever. But I bet you're wondering what happened here is bad. That is bad prose, period.

Sara:

I mean, it sounded like a person talking, which is, was kind of the point.

Lilly:

It doesn't. No one says that. That's just like bad voiceovers in movies.

Sara:

Yeah, kind of, kind of the point.

Lilly:

No. You can't just say the point was that it's bad, so it's okay that it's bad. That doesn't make it less bad.

Sara:

I'm saying that it was doing a thing intentionally. And just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's bad.

Lilly:

No, I don't like first person narrative, so it being in first person is not why it's bad. The really, really terrible prose is why it's bad. Those are, like I said, two different things.

Sara:

I mean, I don't even know I'm arguing because I didn't think the prose was that great, to be honest.

Lilly:

it wasn't!

Sara:

But I guess. I'm arguing a little bit because I don't think it was as terrible as, you do.

Lilly:

Well, it was god awful, and in first person narrative, I can't ignore it. I don't know why. But that kind of thing just, like, grates on me, and I'm constantly aware of it. Whereas really shitty prose in third person perspective novels, I can kind of just gloss over a little bit better. And so it ends up bothering me much less.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

That's where it's a me thing. That doesn't make this prose good, that just means other people are better at ignoring how much it sucks.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, that's, true. Because it was not spectacular prose. I don't disagree.

Lilly:

And I actually really liked this book. I didn't like the narrative, or the, I didn't like the prose or the narration, but I liked the story.

Sara:

it is a fun story. I, I wanted a little bit more from it at times. times, which like there's, there's this whole kind of discussion or implication about kind of like the nature of a person given Mickey has thoughts about, well, is he still the same Mickey who signed the contract to be on this expedition, even though he's the seventh clone, et cetera, et cetera. And it, does have that discussion a little bit, but because it's first person and because Mickey's kind of an idiot I don't think that it can go very deep into it. so that kind of kept me from, I don't know. Feeling like it was a thoughtful novel?

Lilly:

Yeah, it tried. I appreciated the conversation around, you know, identity and what makes a person a person, and a sense of self and all of that. Which I think is something you can do. If you avoid in a story about clones, you're doing something very wrong.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

It's like the whole point. It does make this firmly science fiction to me. No arguments there. But there's the recurring motif used, or as an example, the story of the ship of Theseus. Right, if you replace one piece of the ship One at a time, over time, and at the end of the journey, the entire thing has been replaced, is it still the same ship? Used in Counterpoint to:, okay, well if you replace all of the pieces all at once, is it still the same ship? And, I thought that was a really nice sort of way of starting the conversation, and giving us like a really concrete visual, when Mickey is talking about all of this. Then, when there are two of him, and he ultimately decides that he is a different person from his concurrent clone. Therefore, the Ship of Theseus story is bogus. Like, there's so many leaps of logic there, my dude.

Sara:

and see, I think I think that's my problem. Like, I enjoyed that as the starting point for the conversation, but the bulk of that was done by his trainer in the situation who is kind of coaching him through thinking about how he is going to be and expendable on this mission. And he understands very little of it. And he throughout the rest of the story, he kind of like misremembers and mistells the original Ship of Theseus comparison. And it's just because, like, as I said, this book is from his perspective, and he's kind of a dumbass. So, it never, like, dwells beyond that first conversation.

Lilly:

That's fair. And I mean, like I said, I disagree with the character's conclusions at the end. But, I feel like the book brought up those questions in a way that allowed me to think about my opinion while I was reading the book. And sort of, you know, like, posed questions without answers, and I'm okay with that. And I say without answers because his answer was wrong.

Sara:

it definitely did pose questions. Like, it's clear that the book was thinking about it, or the author was thinking about it. And I guess Mickey was too, he just didn't come to very good conclusions.

Lilly:

He just had some very flawed logic at the end there that made me sort of dismiss. Everything. Like, when the basic fundamentals of his argument are so clearly flawed, none of the logic that follows is any good. It was interesting, especially, we actually were just talking about 13 Ways to Kill Lullabelle Rock by Mod Wolf, I think.

Sara:

Yes, Mod Wolf.

Lilly:

And that also has a lot of conversation. Again, it's a book about clones. You kind of have to talk about what gives someone a sense of self, what makes a person themselves all of that stuff. But very specifically, it was a story about What I'm calling concurrent clones. There's a bunch of Lulabelle rocks all at the same time. And they're even made with sort of different purposes in mind. So they have very specific differences. Whereas this book was about, you know, he downloads his memories as close to dying as possible. So that there's as much of a continuity of memory as humanly possible, and how is that clone experience different from having 13 different variations of yourself? I thought it was If I was organizing a book club, I would have everyone read those two books back to back, and I think that'd be a very interesting, like, there's a lot going on,

Sara:

I do think that there's a lot to talk about comparing the two. Because, like you say, they do deal with the same kind of themes. And I feel like this book, Mickey 7, kind of starts coming to the same conclusion As Lulabelle Rock does, that it's our experiences that make us unique and different not necessarily our memories. Like, you know, you, you start at the same place, but then you diverge because you have different experiences. And so you become in some ways, different people, even if genetically you're the same. But because so much of this story is about continuous clones, linear clones, not concurrent clones, it doesn't like necessarily go there.

Lilly:

Well, it's so interesting, too, because that's the perfect counterpoint, right? Like, if you are able to back up all of your memories before the clone, does that have the same, like, problems? And, I think the book was trying to say, like, it was trying to be a gotcha. Where it's like, see, you don't really think clones are the same. And it's like, well, no, A, like, Mickey 7 hadn't uploaded his memories for six weeks before Mickey 8 was made. So there's a ton of different, like, recent experience there that they don't have in common. And then B, their lived experiences as people after creation are really different. Because Mickey only exists, like, in secret. So, of course, Those two are different, but that doesn't mean the other six Mickeys are a completely different person.

Sara:

Yes, exactly. And I

Lilly:

such a leap.

Sara:

I think that's what I'm going for. Or that like, that's, what I'm concluding to is that Mickey's, Mickey's one through seven are the same people because they, like you said, they're linear. They have the same memories, all of that. But once you have two clones at the same time, then you start getting those divergences.

Lilly:

Now, there were some pockets of memory where Mickey 7 does not remember all of his deaths, which is actually very important to the plot of the book. But he's seen the recordings of some of them. And that, like, experience of, that's kind of him, but kind of not, and why did that person make the choices he did, except also it's me, would I have made those same choices, is very interesting. And this book really just kind of barely brushed past it.

Sara:

Yeah, because Mickey is not a thinker.

Lilly:

No, which is okay. I,

Sara:

is, it is, but it makes it hard to like really delve into those aspects and those questions when it's a first person novel. Yeah.

Lilly:

especially when we don't really see him talking about it with other characters. We have quite a few flashback scenes. This book, I really liked the pacing of this story. It's mostly, like, it starts in what I'm going to call current time, where he is. At the colony, on the ice planet things are kind of going to shit and they're trying to, you know, struggle on. And then it flashes back to when he was still back on the planet and his decision to become an Expendable and goes through his training. And so we kind of see that process in chunks throughout the colony story. And I thought that kept the pacing really nice. It never felt like it dragged on in any part. And it kept me wanting. To, like, read more to get back to the last thing that I got, like, cut off from. So that, I thought, was very well done.

Sara:

Yeah, I, I thought structurally it was good. I did, like you say, I did like how it starts at the, on the ice planet at the current action and then you flashback to how it all began and you kind of get bits and pieces of the story leading up to where they are right now as the story progresses. So I enjoyed that. I did really enjoy this book. it's a fun book. I think it'll make a fun movie. But I still felt it was just kind of surface level at points when I didn't want it to be.

Lilly:

Well, The only conversations we really have are in the flashbacks, right? When Mickey is being sort of introduced, but during his interview for the job and his training, those are the only moments where we really get, like, a thoughtful person talking about this, and his reactions to that, and then his reactions to them, like, as he's had more experience and him thinking back on it and going, I kind of see what they were saying now, and that kind of stuff. So. That, I think, was a huge hurdle for the book, because if he's trying to keep his other clone a top secret, how could he possibly

Sara:

He can't have those conversations.

Lilly:

Well, he could with his clone, but they

Sara:

His, his clone is also not a very thoughtful. Yeah. Except thoughtful in the sense of thinks things deeply. I mean, he's, he's considerate enough, I suppose.

Lilly:

He's not contemplative.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

I just realized there's one piece that the movie is going to completely brush over, because it sounded like in the trailer that we just watched. Mickey is from Earth. The colony was set off from Earth, which is not at all the case in the book. We have a cool little future civilization where they are having what they call the human diaspora and humans are just trying to colonize as many different places as far away as possible because there's some expanding disaster.

Sara:

well, I don't think that there's an expanding disaster so much as there was an expanding disaster. Like,

Lilly:

the same thing twice?

Sara:

no, because it's, it's not, it's not that there is something that they are running from. at least not in the sense of an active dis like an ongoing disaster. this is a thing that happened in Earth's past that has made everyone feel like they need to go out and colonize.

Lilly:

Yes. Okay. It gives. like this almost cultish vibe like, the only purpose anyone has is to colonize, like to go, to expand. And they are wrecking the hell out of these planets. And I think that was something that the book brought up quite nicely. It was the effect that they are having, you know, they're terraforming, they're murdering native creatures just to expand. And Mickey sort of doesn't really get it. But the book presents it in a way that makes you go, Hmm, yeah, that's not great, is it?

Sara:

Yeah, the, the book makes you think about it Mickey tries to think about it,

Lilly:

And that's why I don't think it's really a spoiler to say that that comes up, because it does not affect Mickey in any way.

Sara:

Yeah. I actually really enjoyed, or not, maybe not enjoyed is the right term, but I, I liked The history that Ashton presented and the motivations for this expedition, and I also really enjoyed that Mickey is a historian and was reading about how so many of these went wrong.

Lilly:

Yeah, that's his kind of coping mechanism. He's the expandable on this colony mission. So let's read about how all of the failed colonies. I liked this book. I think it poses questions. That I enjoyed thinking about and going eee sometimes.

Sara:

it was a fun book. I wish Mickey had thought about some of these questions a little bit more like I, I didn't find him a very thoughtful narrator but he was in character the entire time. I mean, the fact that I didn't find him thoughtful doesn't mean he was, like, bad. I was a little concerned. Because there is a book two.

Lilly:

mm, never a good sign.

Sara:

and I, I was a little concerned that this was not going to be a complete story. And while certainly, like, there is room for a book two I, I did feel like, You can read this as a standalone and be just fine, it's not like it ends on a cliffhanger that you're like, what were you doing?

Lilly:

Yeah, no, it felt like a complete book, but I can definitely see, like, this colony has more going on.

Sara:

Yeah, there's absolutely room for book two.

Lilly:

So I did have a quibble with the summary. I read, I don't usually read the summary of books that we read for the podcast because I'm gonna read the book anyway.

Sara:

So, why did you decide to read the summary this time?

Lilly:

I was buying the ebook and it came up on screen and I'm a compulsive reader.

Sara:

Gotcha.

Lilly:

Yeah. So. I read it, and I felt a little misled. I thought there was gonna be a lot more aliens on the page.

Sara:

I also felt that way. I was kind of expecting more of the conflict. I don't think this is a spoiler. I was expecting more of the conflict to center around their colonizing this alien world, and the difficulties involved in that, and less to center around Mickey trying to keep everyone from knowing that there's a second Mickey running around.

Lilly:

Yeah. 100%.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

When I was getting to the end of the book, I was like, Wait a second! So that threw me for a loop. But I think, for what the book is, I quite liked it. Science fiction. It poses questions. It doesn't deal with them, you know, super thoughtfully. But that's just true to character. The prose is rough, but there's enough going on that I'm able to, I think you can power through it.

Sara:

I mean, the, the narrator is mediocre but it, again, that, that did feel true to Mickey. But it's a fun read, it's not necessarily the deepest read but I enjoyed it I'm glad we read it, I look forward to watching the movie.

Lilly:

Me too. I think the movie also looks very good, but in a different way. Like, I don't think it's gonna be the same, but obviously, it's an adaptation. It doesn't have to be. I'm interested to see how they deal with, I mean, if it does not revolve around keeping it a secret, because people know, Then what is it going to revolve around? Maybe it will have more aliens.

Sara:

I bet that it's gonna have more aliens. I bet that it's gonna be more of a, like a sci fi action movie,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

With this little, you know, hiccup that Mickey has a clone and people don't like that.

Lilly:

So maybe it's the book that I thought I was getting. Who should read this book? If you like science fiction, space colonization, with acknowledging the ramifications of that, it doesn't, like, whitewash it, I don't think.

Sara:

I would agree with that.

Lilly:

It doesn't delve deep into the ramifications, but it acknowledges that they're there.

Sara:

It at least says, Hey dudes, there, there are ramifications.

Lilly:

Sometimes it's all you need. It went really fast.

Sara:

I think I read it in three hours, two and a half hours or something. I picked it up one afternoon and like finished it before dog walk. And I was not, to be clear, I was not trying to read it that fast. It just is a really fast read.

Lilly:

And it pulls you in. Like I said, by Going back and forth between the current events on the colony and back to Mickey's training and his earlier lives and deaths, it really kept me going, like, I want to know what happens next. I want to pick up where the last scene left off. I want to know, you know, for both of those reasons. timelines too, so it wasn't like, ugh, this again, I want to get back to the colony. Like, I really enjoyed both.

Sara:

Yeah, it was, it was a compelling narrative.

Lilly:

Mm hmm. That's a faster way of saying it.

Sara:

So, basically, if you want a fun, like, sci fi novel to just kill time, I think this is a good one.

Lilly:

It was a little stressful, but not like Psychically so.

Sara:

I mean, it gave me anxiety, but very many things give me anxiety. So, that's not necessarily a sign that it's super tense.

Lilly:

I said psychic, I think I meant existentially. It's not existentially stressful.

Sara:

No. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to fall when it did. He actually had the clone. And then when it did, I was like, okay, fine. I can breathe again. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

That's us! We really appreciate our patrons because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Sara:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and they have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Lilly:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Sara:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. So Mickey does get a girlfriend. I mean, before, before the action starts. He doesn't have one when he first joins the crew.

Lilly:

no, but at the beginning of the book he has one.

Sara:

but yes, they, they have an established relationship Nasha is her name. And we don't see a ton of her, but I feel pretty confident in saying that Mickey does not entirely deserve her. I think, I think she is better than Mickey.

Lilly:

I was not crazy about her at first. Looking back now, I think that might have just been because Mickey is a doofus. And so his descriptions of her are like, I love how she giggles. And it's like, this woman has more substance than giggling, right?

Sara:

Yes, I think that is definitely on Mickey. And that's part of why I don't think that he deserves her because he talks about her very superficially. And she's an incredibly competent, like pilot, she's willing to go back for him when he's like down in this crevice and thinks he's going to die. And she just seems like she has her shit together. He does not.

Lilly:

Yeah. And by the end, I really liked her. I loved, oh my god, Sarah, they did it. They did the clone sex. Ashton wrote clones, I mean, not explicitly, but at the very end, when Nasha does find out. that there's two Mickeys. She's like, all right, we're doing this. I love that that was her reaction. I love that Ashton went there.

Sara:

That was, that was great. That was excellent. That is one of the places where, you know, 10 out of 10 no notes.

Lilly:

Yes. And finding out more about her, like, as they get together in the flashbacks, learning about her motivations for joining the colony mission and all of that. Like, I, I did really like her by the end, but at first I was like, what is this? Is she a person? We also meet Kat, who is. One of the security force of the colony and She sort of has a thing with Mickey Kind of not really he doesn't cheat on Nasha or anything.

Sara:

No, I mean, like, there, there's some tension there. And you get the impression that if he had not been with Nasha, He maybe would have slept with cat, but he doesn't cheat on Nasha with cat.

Lilly:

I really liked her. I Maybe that's because we see more of her on the page. So I just had more time to get to know her but she is a More observant and thoughtful than some of the other characters that we see on the page. Caveat. When Mickey brings a different type of gun than everyone else she's like, Oh hey, that's, like, I'm gonna listen to this guy who's died a bunch of times. He might know something. And that kind of thing. That was very interesting. I liked their banter, the way they sort of on each other after this. There, there's a very bloody instance towards the middle of the book where a bunch of people die. About, like, five people die out of a pretty small group, and they both witnessed it. And so they're like, kind of dealing with it together. And I thought that was sweet and well done.

Sara:

Yeah. I, I liked cat a lot in

Lilly:

a while, I thought where the book was going, was that there were two Mickeys, and so one of them was dating Nasha, and the other Mickey's a different guy. And so, You know, they would be going their separate ways or dating separate women. That is NOT what ended up happening.

Sara:

that is not what ended up happening. I maybe would have liked that a little bit better.

Lilly:

well, at the time I was like, Oh, is that kind of cheesy? All the women love Mickey? I don't know. But then instead, Cat's character just takes a nose dive and turns Mickey in to the authorities after she discovers that he is a multiple for no reason.

Sara:

Yeah. And that's, that's where. I had some issues because it didn't feel consistent with Kat's character. Like, yes, she's having to come to terms with the possibility of her death. Her roommate just died. You know, a bunch of other people that she worked with just died. She's really, you know, stressed and worried and, and dealing with shit. But still, she talks through some of that with Mickey, and. You never, in those conversations, you never get the sense that she is, like, considering selling him out, wants to become an expendable, like, any of that, and so it felt like that betrayal came out of left field a little bit.

Lilly:

It bothered me. Because they had a whole conversation. She figures out that he's a multiple. And they have a whole conversation about it. She's like, Hey, that's weird. But like, they're, they're calm. She's understanding. And then she knocks on his door and goes into his room and sees both Mickeys in bed with Nasha. And just like, hightails it out of there. And that's when she turns him in. And it feels like seeing The Mickeys in bed with Nasha is what changed her mind?

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

sucks on every level.

Sara:

hmm. Agreed. Agreed.

Lilly:

jealous? Was she grossed out by them having a threesome? Was it, I don't know, there, it's really hard to come up with a charitable explanation for that.

Sara:

Well, and also I think part of the issue is that there's no follow up conversation with her where we get the opportunity to like hear what she was thinking.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

Like if she, if there had been a conversation where she was like, yeah, I'm thinking about it. I decided that I couldn't deal with you having a clone, a multiple running around, and I came to your door to tell you that in advance and then saw you guys and then was like, no, I, I was going to report this anyway, and now I'm going to report it right now. Like I could, I could almost understand that, or I could understand that it would, it would feel less gross than her being okay with it, her going to Mickey's room, Seeing the three of them together and then being grossed out by that or whatever.

Lilly:

it did not feel like that interaction justified her character's, like, sharp turn on the whole situation.

Sara:

Yeah, exactly.

Lilly:

There are some other inconsistencies that frustrated me quite a bit in this book. One of them is kind of minor. Mickey is saying that everyone calls the clone on the colony, or on the mission, Inexpendable, but, you know, for recruitment purposes they're called Immortals, Which, I was like, okay, that totally makes sense. And then we flash back to the scene of him getting recruited, And they do not use the word Immortal once! Or, they might, they don't use it as a title.

Sara:

Do they use expendable as a title? I don't actually remember.

Lilly:

Quite a few times! I was just like, come on! You just told me! You just told me! This is when it was referred to as an immortal. The role was referred to as an immortal, not an expendable.

Sara:

Yeah, there should have been a little bit more internal consistency there.

Lilly:

Also, I was wondering, as I was reading this, like, why they don't back up all of the colonists? And I can see, like, not treating them all as expendable, but that way, if anyone dies, you can, like, make them come back. And that would be great for such dangerous missions. And that is explained. Eventually in the book that creating the backup of someone is super resource intensive. And, I mean, making the physical bodies is also resource intensive. But just creating the backup, I think Mickey's backup, they say it takes like a supercomputer a full week. To actually, like, process him. And so that's why there's only one on every mission. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. I'm glad they addressed it. Cool, cool. And then at the end, after Kat sells Mickey out, the boss guy is like, Yeah, and we're just gonna make Kat the new expendable, so we don't even need you. And I was like, what the fuck?

Sara:

So I have, I have some thoughts on that. I agree that it should have been. Like actually discussed in the book. But my wonder is, is that yes, it's resource intensive and takes a supercomputer, but if the only other thing that it needs to create the backup is power, I think that the. Leader of this expedition is such, such a jerk that he would spend that power because it's, it's the actual printing of the bodies that takes up the resources, the that they need to survive.

Lilly:

Maybe.

Sara:

if that's not a thing with the uploading of the, of the memories, I could see him saying, well, I hate Mickey so much that I'm going to screw him over and screw myself over by doing this.

Lilly:

Yeah, that is something he would do, because he sucked pretty hard.

Sara:

Yeah. But I agree that it should have been a little more explicit because it's not, clear.

Lilly:

That was, yeah, not the impression that we were given during Mickey's, like, onboarding. And there, seemed to be specialized equipment and stuff,

Sara:

there does seem to be special equipment and stuff.

Lilly:

I just was taken aback. Because it was something I was actually, like, very seriously thinking about. It was answered, I was happy, and then they took it away.

Sara:

Yeah. My, my other thought is that the guy is such a dick he just hasn't considered how he's gonna do this yet.

Lilly:

I like that better, actually. Dude, the what was he, the general? He wasn't a general. The

Sara:

he was, he was the leader, I forget what his title was, but he was the leader of the colonization effort. once they got on the ground.

Lilly:

Yeah. He was the worst. He hated Mickey, clones are against his religion, okay fine. But just so, so cartoonishly antagonistic.

Sara:

he was a pretty over the top asshole, which is why I think he will be great in a movie

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

you don't need a lot of nuance, necessarily.

Lilly:

I think The most frustrating moment was him going from Mickey, you're wasting resources! Like, stop dying so much! We don't have infinite food to keep bringing you back to life. You know, using the, the goop to bring you back to life with. And then, on a mission, Mickey runs away from danger to save his life, and then he's like, How dare you try to save your life? You think you're more important than everyone else?

Sara:

Why didn't you die?

Lilly:

and it's like, okay, you're just directly contradicting yourself now. And I do feel like that is in character for that guy, but it was frustrating as a reader to read.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

Ooh, I really loved the, like, cafeteria system. All of their currency was in English. K cals, kilocalories, and Everything revolved around Food because that was their like most concrete precious resource And I thought that was really cool. I

Sara:

it was, it was nifty. I did like that. I did also enjoy the scene where we see Mickey's best friend, who's also kind of an asshole. He's a bit of a thoughtless jerk. But he has been bedding with Mickey. Some of the other members of the expedition, that he can do this cool, like, pilot thing. And the bet that they had made used their K Cals.

Lilly:

Yeah, it was nice. It's good. I liked this book It does some cool sci fi stuff.

Sara:

It was a fun book.

Lilly:

We eventually find out that the aliens on this planet are sentient And so it's probably not cool to murder them all,

Sara:

Which the main guy wants to do anyway.

Lilly:

right? I thought the ending felt a little, a little cheesy, but I liked it. After all of the kind of, like, frustration of this book, and hating the captain guy so much, having Mickey, of all people, outsmart him felt good.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I thought it was that cheesy. It's a little cheesy, I guess. It, it felt in keeping with the kind of book that I thought this was.

Lilly:

This book is kind of cheesy.

Sara:

yeah. So it was fun. And I did like that the aliens were very alien. they weren't just like re skinned human beings.

Lilly:

Yeah, totally, and I thought that was a really great explanation for why they kept killing humans.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Because they're a hive mind, and so killing one of them was just like, sure, okay, like, ow. they didn't understand.

Sara:

they don't recognize that it's different for us. Yeah, I did like that.

Lilly:

Yeah, I really liked this book.

Sara:

I did. I did think that the explanation for why Mickey can communicate with them was a little hand waved.

Lilly:

Because they can text him from his eyeball that they stole from one of his previous versions.

Sara:

Well, not, not that they can text him from his eyeball necessarily. But just that, like all of that, all of that happens off screen, which I guess makes sense because Mickey doesn't have those memories. But. It's, yeah, it just kind of is a thing that appears one day.

Lilly:

I did kind of hate a lot, and this is me having issues with first person, but We are in Mickey's head. For this entire fucking book. And then it fades to black for his negotiation with the aliens. And then he shows back up and is like, Oh, I've you know, I gave them the nuclear bomb so you can't attack them or they'll blow us up. Guess you have to be nice now. And that was good and all. And then at the very end, it's been like a year or something. He shows Nasha. He did not actually give them the bomb. He hid it somewhere. And I liked that because fuck the captain, but it annoyed me so much for that, like, stupid contrived way to keep me in the dark as the reader so there could be this big reveal when it doesn't make any sense for the how the book has been going until now.

Sara:

It didn't bother me as much because that doesn't bother me as much in general, but I agree.

Lilly:

Just the contrived, like, when the reader knows everything you're thinking and then you just, don't suddenly just so we can be surprised later. It's Bad. I hate it. This happens in mystery stories a lot too where if a detective figures something out and then just like doesn't, for some reason, doesn't think it out loud, like they have been thinking every other fucking thought they've had, it's just fake and contrived and I don't like it. And that's one of the reasons why I have big problems with first person perspective.

Sara:

Because he read too many mystery novels,

Lilly:

Maybe. If you want to surprise the reader, maybe don't choose that storytelling format instead of doing something dumb with it. Alright, that's it. I'll stop complaining about first person. I liked this book, after all of that.

Sara:

despite the first person.

Lilly:

Yeah, and truly in spite of it.

Sara:

I would consider reading book two at some point. I don't feel like. the desperate dying urge to go out and read it right now. But I enjoyed, Mickey seven enough that I would go read the antimatter blues at some point.

Lilly:

I totally would. Is it there's only two?

Sara:

As far as I know, there's only two. There's a, Ashton has a third book called Mal goes to war, but I don't think that it's related to Mickey seven.

Lilly:

Yeah, I'd be willing to read the second book. more excited to watch the movie than I am to pick up the sequel. I think, is kind of where my head is at.

Sara:

I agree. It's possible. I have no idea if this is true. It's possible some of the action in the movie will come from things that are in the sequel.

Lilly:

Ooh, that's a good point. That'd be interesting.

Sara:

Yeah. Which,

Lilly:

just rush through the secret part because, what the heck.

Sara:

mean, I, I do think that it would kind of be hard to turn Mickey 7 into a whole movie, given that it actually goes pretty quick.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean it could be a 90 minute movie.

Sara:

Could be a 90 minute movie. I still think that would be stretching it a little bit though. I think it's, more like 60 minutes of content

Lilly:

I know, I disagree with that. I disagree with that completely. But, I'm excited for the movie. Oh, we're gonna have to watch it. Are you gonna go to the movie theater to see it?

Sara:

if we decide to do a podcast episode or an exclusive episode on it, yes, I will go to the movie theater to see it.

Lilly:

Wow.

Sara:

I know, so unusual.

Lilly:

I definitely will be. My husband also loves sci fi, and I think he's gonna really like this story. So, double exciting.

Sara:

Yeah. I'm glad we read it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok, at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Sara:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or leave a comment on our YouTube page, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

We also have a Patreon, where you can support us and find exclusive episodes, including possibly a conversation about the movie Mickey 17, and some other nonsense.

Sara:

Because for some reason, he's had a lot more lives in the movie.

Lilly:

I kind of love that. They, I bet they're gonna go through a lot of his deaths.

Sara:

I bet they are. I think that'll be fun. Thanks again for listening, and may your villains, or clones, always be defeated. Bye!