This gave me murderbot vibes both in the overall description and while reading, but if I kept up the comparison, this would fall laughably short, so I won't.
Dying isn't any fun…but at least it's a living.
Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.
On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7's fate has been sealed. There's a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein.
Mickey7 must keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.
That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.
I saw that this got picked up to get turned into a movie, and ngl, I can see why this got chosen by Hollywood. This is not a compliment.
It was written well and read easily. A lot of chapters were told in retrospect, which is a storytelling device I hate, but it was made bearable and even made me curious about those chapters. Still, the fact that so many chapters were essentially the main character lecturing the reader about past events is a horribly lazy way of worldbuilding, even if it's done in a not-boring style.
I think my main gripe with this book was the characters. They all felt very flat and lacked motivations. Most of them were one note, and it was made worse by how empty so many of the interactions between them felt. I could not tell why the characters liked each other or bothered to be friends, I only knew they were because I was told they were. Which, once again, felt lazy.
Even the plot wasn't that exciting. It's all very one note, with Mickey running around without a plan. The main plot is about him trying to not get caught as a multiple, with a subplot surrounding the aliens on the planet, but it was weird how the latter was pushed to the side by the former.
I also found the conclusion disappointing.
I was entertained by it though. I overall found the book really shallow, but it was a fairly enjoyable few hours that I spent reading it.
Check the book out here.
~Iam
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