"Mickey7" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[DivaDiane]

I read this and the sequel in pretty quick succession last summer (or was it two summers ago?!) and really enjoyed them both.

Looking forward to the discussion.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

I'm liking the Ship of Theseus Paradox comparison to Mickey's immortality.

[Ori]

A bit disappointed in this one. It was fine, but I felt like a lot of stuff went unexplored or underutilized.

At first I thought it's going to lean towards a black comedy, with a character that's in a pretty morbid blue collar situation, now having to deal with a double, and first contact.

I expected the double to cause some tension, where they're afraid of getting caught, or comedy, with people confusing the two of them, but none of that really happened. They "solved" the problem by having a character be a loner to begin with, and hiding in their bunk all day. Seems like the double was introduced mostly to give Mickey a reason not to want to die. I was also missing some musings on what caused the two Mickeys' personalities to diverge.

The mystery of what Mickey isn't being told about the death of 6 (and maybe many others?) turned out to be nothing interesting.

The first contact story also went nowhere. The parallels between the creepers and Mickey (Prime/Ancillary) weren't explored (I liked how it was handled in A Desolation Called Peace). It doesn't seem like the colony really bothered to story the aliens that much. They've been there for months and never bothered to dissect one?

The history of Earth and the other colonies was nice, especially how the new technologies of cloning and antimatter production were misused.

It would have been interesting to learn how humanity's dire situation affects the characters in the current colony - what they think about the mission, their place in it, or the prospects of the human race, but no-one really talked about it.

[Olga]

Ori wrote: "A bit disappointed in this one. It was fine, but I felt like a lot of stuff went unexplored or underutilized.

At first I thought it's going to lean towards a black comedy, with a character that's ..."

I totally agree with you, Ori. It felt like no one cared about anything really. None of the colonists besides Mickey was interested in learning lessons from prevoius colonisations; Mickey himself sat on important information about the sentient creepers, but did nothing even after they were found out. I expected him to say something in that last meeting with Marshall before they were thrown to jail pending execution, but no, he didn't say a word at all.

The situation with the two of them walking around the station did have potential for lots of things, but they were just sloppy and cavalier about it and didn't even bother to keep each other updated about what was going on. It felt just so sloppy.

The theme of immortality and cloning body and mind was interesting and there was at least something to think about.

[Ori]

> I expected him to say something in that last meeting with Marshall before they were thrown to jail pending execution, but no, he didn't say a word at all.

I had the same thought! Miscommunication trope, or did he have a good reason? He might have suspected Marshall will not treat them kindly.

[Pharmacdon]

It is interesting that Mickey7 and Mickey8 were two personalities. The side stories, both about how Mickey got there and about researching history, felt related to the sequel, which I haven't read. The side stories also explained what was about to happen or the technology involved. In his own way, Mickey was a survivor. Long live, Mickey7!

[Elizabeth]

This was an interesting read. I expected for more action, just my assumption based on the synopsis. But when it wasn't coming I realized that it was a different kind of a book. Looking back I think that is likely the point and the power of the book. What I take from it is that in a clever way the author states that life is a shit show and its not the most intelligent people who are always heros. Having Mickey be not such a smart guy and admittedly so also makes him more lovable and relatable.
Overall I enjoyed this book.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting, I may not have read this book otherwise.

[Netanella]

I finished this last night and enjoyed it. Mickey7 was loveable because he was so ordinary and relatable. The sex scene later in the book, where the gang gets busted, in flagrante delicto, was kinda cringe, but I believe I saw it coming.

Like Elizabeth, I would not have read this story without it being a book pick, so thank you!

[Dustin]

As soon as I read about the double, I figured there would be a sex scene or at least a tease for it.

I kept waiting for some shocking reveals or twists, but every mystery was pretty mundane (for me) sadly.

I also don't know if I believe that literally no one except Mickey would volunteer as an expendable. They kept emphasizing how odd Mickey is for being the sole volunteer, as if everyone would actually look at the job description and think it through beyond the surface level "immortality", as if Mickey was the only person in the world so desperate to run away from his past.

[David]

I liked the Ship of Theseus analogy, but the FP narration opens it as a closed question. Mickey7 is thinking of his Material Cause, which is uninteresting, while he should be thinking of his Formal Cause (more interesting) or, even better, his Final Cause. Neglecting whatever memory is lost in the transfer, Mickeyn is just the concatenation Mickey 1-through-n. Buckminster Fuller's notion of Pattern Integrity might be useful, applied to Mickey's memories rather than his physical assemblage.

[Aga]

DivaDiane wrote: "I read this and the sequel in pretty quick succession last summer (or was it two summers ago?!) and really enjoyed them both.

Looking forward to the discussion."

Somehow I didn’t realize that the sequel was already out last year. I’ll consider reading it.

[Aga]

Olga wrote: "Ori wrote: "A bit disappointed in this one. It was fine, but I felt like a lot of stuff went unexplored or underutilized.

At first I thought it's going to lean towards a black comedy, with a chara..."

Ahh, that’s exactly what my problem is with this book. And I don’t understand the romance-quadruple thing. I just can’t wrap my brain around it.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I liked the book a lot, although I admit Mickey was not initially very appealing to me - too stupid, frankly. But clearly, the author wanted his main character to be just an ordinary guy. Otherwise, if he had been smarter, he would have been too valuable to waste as an expendable. I get it. But for me, the plot was excellently crafted for a good beach read. I also think the author missed a lot of opportunities to explore the issues raised, but clearly since he did not the novel was leaning into being an entertainment read more than trying for a novel reaching the heights of a Dune, for example. I thought a lot of the scene setups were intelligently played out though given the basic premise, and the sex scene caused me to ROTF!

All in all, I thought the book an interesting new offshoot of the multiple copies idea. The first time I ever came across a novel with this sort of idea plot was Kiln People.