“Congratulations”

“As of today, you are officially Mickey1”

Mickey7, Edward Ashton – Coming 17 February

Edward Ashton is the author of the novels Mickey7, Three Days in April and The end of Ordinary. His short fiction has appeared in venues ranging from the newsletter of an Italian sausage company to Escape Pd, Analog, and Fireside Fiction. He lives in upstate New York in the woods with his wife, daughters, and adorably mopey dog named Max, where is writes-mostly fiction. In his free time, he enjoys cancer research, teaching quantum physics to sullen graduate students, and whittling. You can find him on twitter: @edashtonwriting.

As my partners name is Michael (Mick, Mikey, Mike, Mickey etc) the title Mickey7 caught my attention, the enjoyable narrative and familial -as well as likable – protagonist kept my attention. Edward Ashton’s novel introduces us to a speculative future where humans have successfully left the old, dependable planet we evolved to live on and scattered across the universe; colonising and terraforming planets where possible. Much of the novel nods at the difficulties and fatalities that are often encountered on the colony missions. As well exploring failures of past expeditions relating to hostile sentient inhabitants of planets, starvation or war. The narrative we follow is that of Michael Barnes, who is on part of the team from the Drakkar and a colonist, destined to live out his days on a new world. Unlike his fellow colonists, he was not selected to join the group of less than 200 colonists, he did not pass the strict and rigorous selection process due to his expertise in biology, medicine or other essential sciences, he volunteered to be the Expendable. As the only applicant for the position, he was accepted, and 2 days later he left his home world of Midgard, and headed towards Niflheilm.

Mickey takes on the role Expendable, knowing that a huge part of this role includes dying for the good of the Union and the good of the Colony:

‘The way they sell you on becoming an Expendable is that they don’t call it becoming an Expendable. They call it becoming an Immortal.’

As the Expendable you are the only member of the Colony who can upload your consciousness into the system periodically, and when you inevitably die, from fixing a radioactive vent, trying out a new medicine or falling down a hole while searching the local topography for hostile life; you have a new body bio-printed and your consciousness uploaded. After a day or two of feeling hungover from climbing out of the tank, you go on to the next job and the next regeneration of yourself. Hence the name Mickey7, at the start of the novel we are introduced to the 7th version of Mickey, who narrates the rest of the story. 

Whilst the novel handles some pretty serious and distressing subjects, such as; death, the unending void of space, existentialism, starvation, cloning (or doubling), Ashton manages to juggle these heavy topics, without the novel toppling into the realms of ‘upsetting’ or ‘depressing.’ By setting the narrative as far from the concept of (what we understand as) ‘Earth’ as possible, the story is dislodged from our reality, and defamiliarized into an unrecognisable ‘off-Earth’ and ‘far-future.’ He manages to keep us from anxieties of colonising other planets or being tossed into the ‘cycler’ to become protein for consumption. Somehow, the novel is quite fun. It is full of light-hearted exchanges between characters, amusing high-jinx and typical misunderstandings amongst friends. Ashton’s ability to handle the realities (theoretically) of the disasters of interstellar space travel and colonisation of other planets, alongside keeping the story light and entertaining is flawless and brilliant. 

‘The upside of all of that dying is that I really am a shitty kind of immortal.’

One of the impressive, and easily missed, aspects of this text, is Ashton’s choice in names. Particularly the names of newly colonised worlds and the colony ships. One of which is the world Mickey has travelled to; Niflheilm. Anyone familiar with Norse Mythology will recognise this name, as one of the Nine Worlds that appear in Norse Mythology. ‘Niflheilm’ appears in creative narratives, as the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist, and ice or used interchangeably with ‘Niflhel,’ a poetic embellishment of ‘Hel,’ the world of the dead. Ashton’s use of Niflheilm within his narrative emphasises not only the literal setting of a snow-drowned planet, but also the dreaded unknown of the new planet, and strong unavoidable truth that the planet may become the colonists grave after something on this Icey planet dooms them all. 

Also, the name of the ship, Drakkar, the Icelandic word for ‘Drank,’ which has some interesting connotations relating to a thirst for knowledge, success or even power over the Universe, planet or even each other. I am certain Ashton chose his names carefully to put deliberate emphasis on certain aspects of his narrative, and force us to acknowledge all possibilities of his speculative future.

Whilst there are unavoidable echoes to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of series, there are far more unique aspects of Ashton’s novel; from the Creepers ambiguous, almost amorphous, existence, the questions surrounding sentience and the religion of ‘Natalists:’ 

‘They don’t like backups,’

‘They believe it’s one soul to a body, and once your original body dies, you soul is dead as well.’

‘Which means that a bio-printed body with a personality imprinted from backup is, in fact, a soulless monster.’

Ashton’s novel is a must read for anyone who likes Science Fiction, Entomology or questions of humanity. Unlike some SF novels, Mickey7 is less than 350 pages, but all of those pages are not only fun filled, but they also reveal a simply, but expertly, built world and a clever narrative, intricately woven into a wonderful adventure of colonising new planets and humanity’s journey beyond Earth. 

Mickey7 is available today from Rebellion Publishing