Mickey 7 - A Review

 

Ever hear of the Ship of Theseus problem? It goes like this: Suppose there's this sailing ship called the Ship of Theseus, and during the course of its life, it gets worn out pieces replaced. Old gangplank boards get replaced, old hull boards, new masts, sails, etc. But someone goes and collects all the old pieces whenever the ship replaces something. Eventually, this person then re-assembles the old pieces to make another ship, just like the original, but perhaps a little bit more threadbare. Now, here's the central question: Which of these two ships is the original Ship of Theseus? The one that was re-assembled with all the original parts, or the one that had all its old parts slowly replaced with new ones?

The problem could be simplified as an old joke about George Washington's hatchet. A man brandishes a hatchet and claims it's George Washington's original hatchet. Sure, the handle got rotten and had to be replaced, and then some time afterward, the rusty axe head got too rusty and had to be replaced as well, but it's George Washington's original hatchet!

But is it?

Such existential problems of philosophy are central to the novel Micky 7 by Edward Ashton.

The planet Nifelheim has been been recently colonized by a generation ship. Advance reports about the planet, made with ultra high-res telescopes, revealed that the planet was supposed to be within the "Goldilocks zone," and so was expected to be hospitable. Unfortunately when the ship arrived, they discovered that it was actually a frozen wasteland, only barely tolerable. The settlers had no choice but to try and establish a beachhead anyway, because it was either that, or die. They landed, built a base, but could neither grow crops nor utilize the water ice which surrounded them - Nifelheim's water and air contained toxins lethal to humans. Resources became stretched thin, and everyone was kept on strict caloric rations.

Micky, the central character in this setting, is a clone. An expendable clone, to be exact. Which means he occasionally gets sent on dangerous missions from which he's not expected to come back. If he dies, he gets replaced by a clone with memories downloaded from his most recent backup. As you might expect, Micky 7 is the seventh version of himself, having been clone-copied six times thus far. He gets sent out on one such mission, only to fall down a deep, icy crevasse. He is informed by his teammates that he is un-retrievable, and thus will die. The disappointed Micky 7 disagrees with this assessment, but is powerless to force the issue. After his teammates leave, he encounters an alien monster and expects to be killed.

Remarkably, the alien carries Micky 7 to the surface and releases him!

Grateful, but puzzled, Micky heads back to base, enters through the airlock doors without much notice, and goes to his quarters, only to find Micky 8 already sleeping in his rack. They hadn't realized Micky 7 had survived, and now there are two Mickys!

If the commander discovers this, especially with resources stretched so thin, both Micky 7 and 8 are likely to be disposed of in favor of Micky 9. Since two people cannot survive on a single person's rations, they determine one of them needs to die. But neither of them can bring himself to pull the trigger. So, in a strange game of cat-and-mouse, they pretend to be each other at key intervals, expecting that, sooner or later, one of them is likely to die in the ordinary course of duty (as so often happens) and thus solve their problem for them. Add to this the problem that the commander, who doesn't like Micky anyway, keeps punishing him by slashing his caloric rations over and over, and the problem starts to become severe. Naturally, nothing goes according to plan, and hilarity ensues.

In many ways, this is a classic sort of sci fi story told in a golden age style. The story is driven, not by the scientific facts, although there is a fair amount of that, but rather by the humanity of Micky 7, Micky 8, and their closest friends, who have their own demons to slay. The story builds to a climax with Micky 7 becoming the bridge between the colonizing humans and the indigenous alien monsters of Nifelheim who, it turns out, are sentient.

How this transpires is one hell of a ride.

I became interested in this novel when I discovered it had been optioned into a movie, due for release in early 2024. But this left me with a mystery. For a movie to be made out of this novel, which was released in early 2022, it would need to have been picked up for production almost as soon as it was published! How did Ed Ashton pull that off? The last time I'd seen something like that was Ready Player One, and the reasons behind that movie option were obvious - Ernest Cline was a Hollywood insider ever since his maverick indie film, Fanboys, came out. What was Ashton's secret? I honestly don't know. He's published some earlier stories and books, but only a few. He's also a working scientist, so he has that going for him, but not even Kim Stanley Robinson has had one of his novels picked up as a movie, and both his scientific and sci fi credentials far outstrip Ashton's. There's either more to Edward Ashton's career than I currently know, or else his agent is the most spectacular agent on the planet.

With this book getting positive reviews, I expect there will be a lot of buzz about the movie version of this story. It will likely catapult Edward Ashton into marquis sci-fi writer status.

I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Eric

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