The Martian meets Dark Matter in Edward Ashton’s high concept science fiction thriller, in which Mickey7, an “expendable,” refuses to let his replacement clone Mickey8 take his place.
We chat with Edward Ashton about his latest novel Mickey7, along with writing, 2022 book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Edward! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure. I’m a cancer researcher by trade, but I’ve been writing for a lot longer than I’ve been running clinical trials. I once took payment for a short story in the form of a nine-square-foot sheet pizza. I’ve solo hiked 1200 miles of the Appalachian Trail. I wrote my first novel, Three Days in April, in 2014, primarily because my wife let me know that if I didn’t start doing something more productive with my laptop than playing Civilization V she was going to either divorce me, murder me, or both, and my second, The End of Ordinary, in 2015 as a reaction to the abrupt realization that my sixteen year old daughter could outrun me. Oh, and also, I guess, I’m a Capricorn?
How has the beginning of 2022 been for you?
I think “wacky” is probably the best word. I’m not used to seeing my name in Vanity Fair or trending on Reddit. I’m having a difficult time right now imagining how much crazier things are going to get if/when the movie adaptation of Mickey7 actually gets made and out into the world.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I’ve been putting stories together for pretty much as long as I can remember. When they moved a few years ago, my parents sent me an envelope stuffed with dozens of one- and two-page horrors that I tormented my third-grade teacher with. The one common theme among them was that the main characters always died. Some things never change, right?
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember reading was a biography of Gale Sayers that I got from the school book fair when I was in second grade. It stuck in my head because there was this awful story in it about how when Sayers was a kid his dog got really sick, but they couldn’t afford to take it to a vet to have it put to sleep, so his dad… well, I’m not gonna get into the details, but suffice it to say that it has haunted me ever since.
The book that made me want to become an author was Shakespeare’s Planet, by Clifford D. Simak. I read it when I was probably eleven or twelve and the ending really hit me hard, and I remember thinking then that I wanted to make other people feel something like that.
The book that I’ve never been able to quite shake is Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Ice-9 is such a creepy concept, and the ending of the book is so unbelievably bleak but also weirdly defiant. Slaughterhouse Five gets all the love, but for my money Cat’s Cradle is Vonnegut’s real masterwork.
Your new novel, Mickey7, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Death isn’t final. Hurts, though.
What can readers expect?
Mickey7 is a funny skin suit pulled across deadly serious bones. The protagonist, Mickey Barnes, is an Expendable. His job is to die for his fellow colonists, over and over, each time being reconstituted in a new body with his memories intact. He narrates the story with a sort of gallows humor that makes the terrible things that happen to him a bit easier to swallow. His best friend is untrustworthy, his commander would rather he just got it over with and died for good, and the planet they’re trying to colonize is a hellish ice ball that seems determined to accommodate him on that. In and amongst all that there’s a love story, a fair amount of intrigue, and a (mostly) happy ending. What’s not to like?
Where did the inspiration for Mickey7 come from?
I’ve always been interested in the teletransport paradox, a philosophical problem that people have been chewing over since the mid-1700s. The basic question it asks is this: if you could perfectly replicate your memories, your loves and hates, hopes and dreams, and then transfer all of it into a perfect replica of your body, would that new person really be you? More to the point, if you step onto the Star Trek transporter pad, is that you that steps off the pad at the other end, or have you just been dissolved and now somebody else is getting his hands all over your stuff? That question really provides the central conceit for Mickey7.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
From a structural standpoint, the major issue I had to deal with was the fact that the setting borders on claustrophobic. Niflheim, the planet Mickey has been sent to colonize, is nearly uninhabitable. The fledgling colony is confined to a dome five hundred meters across, and that’s where ninety percent of the action takes place. There aren’t a lot of grand vistas to describe. I tried to use this to my advantage by giving Mickey a secret to hide—a task that the cramped quarters he shares with the other 175 members of the mission makes nearly impossible.
From a stylistic standpoint, my biggest challenge was injecting elements of humor into the narrative without tipping over into farce. Comedy is hard, and the minute your reader starts seeing your book as silly rather than funny, you’ve lost them.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
She’s a minor character, but I really liked Jemma Abera. She’s the person tasked with training Mickey in the fine art of being an Expendable. She’s kind and thoughtful, she does everything she can to prepare Mickey for what’s coming, but at the end of the day there’s no escaping the fact that she’s teaching him how to be okay with dying.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Best advice came from my college mentor, just after she’d sold her second volume of poetry. “Do you know what I did with my advance?” She asked. “I bought an air conditioner, Edward. Not the whole house kind, mind you. The kind that goes in your window. You may well have some success in this field some day. When you do, please don’t quit your day job.”
Worst advice came from a different writing instructor my second year of grad school, who tried to convince me to drop out of my doctoral program and apply to the Iowa writer’s workshop. When I explained to him that while I was flattered that he thought I might be accepted, I have a strong and long-standing aversion to starving to death, he sighed and said, “Oh well. I suppose we all must make our bargains with the world.” True enough, and at the end of the day I’m pretty happy with the bargain I wound up striking.
What’s next for you?
Global domination? That would be good. In terms of projects, the sequel to Mickey7 is already in the can, due out early next year. After that, I’ve got a couple of things in the hopper. The first is a new, non-Mickey book that’s in the early stages of gestation (by which I mean I’ve completed a couple of chapters and a very vague outline.) The second is a collaboration with an artist friend that may or may not turn into a graphic novel at some point. Neither of these has yet reached the point where I’m positive that they’re ever going to amount to anything, but I’m hopeful.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
A book I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is When Heaven Fell, by William Barton. It’s on the older side (first released in 1995) and there are parts of it that may not hold up so well, but Barton is really good at writing morally conflicted characters who are forced to choose, not so much between good and evil, as between one evil and another, and I’m kind of a sucker for that sort of thing. This book follows a mercenary in the service of the unambiguously awful aliens who have conquered Earth. You expect it to turn into a story of rebellion against oppression, but Barton has other ideas.
A newer book that I thought didn’t get quite the attention that it deserved is Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower. I’ve often had trouble with the way fantasy novels handle magic. All too often it either delivers a deus ex machina ending or else leaves the reader wondering why it didn’t. In this book, both the powers and the costs of magic are clearly defined, and when it’s invoked there are no questions about what the stakes are. Also, one of the main characters is a talking rock whose best pal is a sentient swarm of mosquitos. Can’t go wrong with that, can you?
