المراجعات
Mickey7 is a character-led tale that is mostly amusing and light-hearted, but can also be quite deep, incorporating existentialist elements. However, it is certainly not one to be taken seriously.Mickey7 is the seventh bio-print of the original Mickey, who signed up to join a colony ship and travel across the stars to colonise a distant world. He is the ship's one and only Expendable, someone who has their cellular details stored and memories regularly uploaded. He is then tasked with performing any potential life-threatening task; if he dies, they simply create another Mickey. To Mickey, he just wakes up covered in goo with a massive hangover.The story begins with Mickey7, having not uploaded his memories for 6 weeks, falling through a hole in the snow of the ice planet they are colonising, left behind and assumed dead. He is rescued by a huge caterpillar-type lifeform, known to the colony as the hostile 'Creepers', and left near his home base. He returns to the dome, back to his room to find himself already there. The main plot is basically Mickey7 and Mickey8 performing their daily duties whilst trying to hide the fact that he is a duplicate, which is banned. Reasons for which are revealed throughout the story, with Mickey7 having flashbacks to his previous deaths and through his love of learning about history, he reveals why humans are colonising other worlds and their past failures.I pretty much read this in one sitting, with it only being around 300 pages, and I did find it to be a real page-turner. Mickey7's day-to-day was occasionally like a 1980's soap opera, but the history of the world, Mickey's worries over whether he is really immortal is where this story shines. I loved hearing about how he had died previously, though some are pretty harrowing. The history of how The Expendables came to be is very interesting.The book does feel short, with the ending coming much too soon for my liking. It was a satisfying conclusion, maybe it's me being picky, but it should have been more. They say you should leave your audience wanting more, though, and I've since discovered there is a sequel - Antimatter Blues, so hopefully this story will be given the ending it deserves after-all.
I was really disappointed with this. It sounded like such a cool idea and there was such potential to do some funny and interesting things with it, but it just didn't happen.The main character, Mickey Barnes, is just frustratingly dim and un-interesting as a character. His girlfriend, Nasha, is forgettable and the story wouldn't have been impacted if she weren't in it. His best friend, Gomez, is just an arse with no redeemable features. The mission commander, Marshal, is the most charismatic character you meet, but is still not all that likeable.The sentient beings you meet don't get much of a proper look in until the last 3 chapters and, even then, you get to see 2 sentences from them. Then it all wraps up 20 pages later.The whole book is basically Mickey 7 and 8 sneaking around trying not to get caught, before eventually being caught with 30 pages left of the book to go, the last 15 of which the story actually progresses into what might have been interesting but then finishes, padded throughout with history of human interstellar travel offering nothing to push the story forward.