Have you ever watched the trailer for a really cool looking movie and then thought to yourself, “Man, I really hope this is a book?”

That was me in December 2024.

When I went to see War of the Rohirrim in theaters, there was a preview for a movie called Mickey17. It had Robert Pattinson playing a quirky character with a weird voice (I was shook—the same kind of shook when I found out he also voiced the heron in The Boy and the Heron) in a science fiction story where Pattinson’s character did all the dangerous jobs on the spaceship, died, and got printed out so he could do them all again. I was disappointed at the rating, though, cause I totally would have gone to go see it. BUT I got excited again as soon as I saw it was based on the book Mickey7, by Edward Ashton! Now, as a disclaimer, because movies are a visual medium (and movies don’t much follow books these days), the content of the books movies are based on aren’t always at the same intensity. I figured the same could be said for Mickey7. I figured if I was wrong, I could just DNF it. 

Y’all.

I absolutely loved it. 

Synopsis:

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, a reprintable human contractually obligated to take on tasks that will inevitably kill him. From being irradiated while fixing a breached spaceship hull to testing new vaccines against interplanetary viruses, Mickey’s been around the chopping block several times… and he’s sick of it. 

Too bad dying was the only way he could make a living. 

On a routine exploration mission on the colonial planet Niflheim, Mickey takes a fall down a crevasse that should have killed him. He is left for dead by the expedition party, being told it’s nothing personal on their way out. But Mickey decides he’s not dying this time. With a little miraculous help from the native life, Mickey makes his way back to the dome… only to find Mickey8 already sleeping in his bed. 

Now Mickey has a choice: hide the fact that he is a multiple and risk permanent death, or kill Mickey8 for the good of the colony… and himself.

What I liked:

The first thing that I loved was the concept. I talked a little about this in the beginning, but the idea of Expendables is fascinating to me. Ashton did a really good job of showing why Expendables were necessary for the survival of interstellar colonies in this world.

For example, organic materials like waste, corpses, plant matter, etc, can be thrown into a recycler and turned into other resources like food, or bodies for Expendables, who do jobs we would think drones or robots would do, to prevent the loss of metal in a closed system. Some other interesting concepts Ashton explored were the caloric toll an extra person in the colony would take on everyone and exploration as to whether multiples are the same people. It’s great! I really enjoyed it. 

Secondly, I loved the character of Mickey Barnes. He was interesting to me because he’s very much a limp-noodle, run-away type of person who signs up for a job in which he literally has to run towards death for the sake of other people. He deals with a lot of social stigma for being an Expendable. There are people whose religions teach that Expendables are an abomination, people who fetishize it, people who avoid him because it’s weird he’s printed out over and over, and Mickey has a hard time making a place for himself in the colony because of it. It was a complicated and interesting social construct to watch an indecisive, go-with-the-flow-cause-there-ain’t-nuthin’-better type of character to deal with.  

This book gave me major The Martian vibes, and The Martian is my favorite book of all time! You got a weird dude going to space, and lots of bad stuff happens to him, and somehow, he still manages to make light of it. Don’t get me wrong; Mickey Barnes and Mark Watney are completely different characters. But the trope is definitely growing on me.

What I didn’t like:

Not much bothered me in this book. There were some big-picture things I wasn’t super excited about, but it wasn’t anything that made the book unreadable. 

A few times, to drive home the importance of the real time events, Mickey gives some background information on things that have either happened to him or in the history of mankind up to this point. It makes sense for his character to do this because he was a historian before he became an Expendable, however it slowed the pacing for me. But it wasn’t bad.

The other thing I wasn’t too sure about was the part of the story that dealt with first contact with the planet’s native creatures. In general, I struggle with “first contact” stories, so when this took a turn for “first contact,” I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I won’t say too much more for fear of spoilers, but again, by the end it didn’t end up becoming a big issue for me. 

Regardless of these few big picture things I wasn’t a fan of, I really loved this book. And I mean really. While the “R” movie rating gave me pause at first, I was thrilled to find the content was much more in line with a “PG-13” rating. If you loved The Martian and Project Hail Mary, I think you’ll find you like this one too! 

Content Warnings:

• Violence: Medium – Terrible stuff happens to Mickey, though he recounts most of it from memory, so the descriptions of his deaths aren’t super duper graphic. 
• Language: High – A handful of “F-Bombs” throughout the book
• Sexual content: Low – fade to black sex, kissing, cuddling
• 5/5 stars 🎉

Have you ever picked up a book because you liked the movie adaptation? If so, which one? Let me know in the comments below!