Mickey Barnes is both an expendable and an Expendable. He’s also immortal…in a sense.

Within the beachhead dome colony on the Hoth-like alien planet Niflheim, Mickey Barnes’ job is simple: Do what he’s told and die in the process. As an Expendable, his job is to be the human element to exploration and experimentation on this foreign planet. Does the human body react violently to this planet’s environment? Are there hostile alien creatures ready to strike at any moment? Is there anyone who can perform this highly dangerous task that spells certain doom? The answer is simple: Mickey is on the case. Whenever Mickey meets his end, the colony uses their bio-printer to simply print him back into existence. Welcome to the world Mickey2. Then Mickey3. And Mickey4. And so on and so forth. 

“This is gonna be my stupidest death ever.”

So what happens when Mickey7, after falling down a hole in what the opening lines of the book describe as his “stupidest death ever,” is reported dead too early? Surviving the fall and an attack from the planet’s natural wildlife—insect-like creatures they call “creepers”—Mickey makes his way back to base to find Mickey8 has already been printed. Classic work miscommunication.

So which one will be expended if anyone on base finds out? How will they both survive with their limited food rations? If their captain discovers them, will they risk ending the line of the E/expendable, Mickey Barnes permanently? Thus begins Ashton’s whacky, farcical science-fiction tale about Mickey7 and Mickey8 trying to navigate their everyday tasks and relationships while hiding the fact that they’re multiples—all while avoiding the risk of one (or both) of them being terminated. 

Mickey7 juggles a lot of balls, though it doesn’t do much more than toss them around a bit, and in the end catch them all and go tada! But it doesn’t take much to understand the larger thematic questions Ashton is posing—like whether uploading our consciousness means a printed version of ourselves is really ourselves. Ashton plays with the idea without ever coming to a real conclusion, though Mickey7 and Mickey8 (while we don’t leave Mickey7’s perspective) think, act, and read like the same person. It’s refreshing to read a narrative on duplicity that commits to even the mundanity of repetition in its characters, rather than to pose deviantions of the base persona against one another. 

What helps is that Mickey Barnes is basically a blank slate. He’s goofy, and curious, but lacks other traits or depth that would make him feel “real” or otherwise nuanced. And that’s okay. Much of the crew expects Mickey to be a criminal or a felon, or otherwise socially undesirable in some way. Why else would he voluntarily apply to be an Expendable on this isolating journey (a role he’s told they almost had to draft from their employment pool for lack of applicants)? Instead, he’s just trying to avoid debt collection after betting too much on his friend’s racquetball tournament (betting that he’d lose, mind you). Nope, Mickey is just an everyday kind of guy. An everyday kind of guy who can, literally, be worked to death. He’s expendable, after all. In that way, Mickey exists as a kind of satirical (sacrificial?) “perfect worker” who will—and does—give his life for his work. His life is literally in the hands of his employer, who, as the story touches on, can pull the plug on at any time. 

It’s an ironic twist on the fear of death. Mickey grapples with how to understand his own mortality in relation to his job, as do his coworkers. In one scene, a fellow worker makes a point to wear additional protective gear when embarking on a mission, pointing to Mickey how they’ve only got the one life to live. It’s a fact that challenges Mickey. He has experienced death (six times now) which makes him somewhat numb to the whole idea of it all. His existence is a kind of solution to death. The novel presents this solution in a way that feels plausible given the technological promises we hear about in this day and age, but shows us that capitalism still rules our lives and livelihood. This solution to death, with all its moral and ethical dilemmas, with all its focus on the environmental and economic impact this reincarnation has in the book, is reserved for exploiting the working class. 

“‘This is no big deal for you. But you’ve got to understand, Barnes—the rest of us don’t get to just hit the reset button if we go down. Dead is dead for me.’”

It’s in these questions where the novel shines the most. Mickey7 is surface level richness, touching on various thematic questions, but its contrived and rushed final third don’t lead the reader to a natural or satisfying conclusion. As if Ashton realized or decided he was telling a story of agency at the very end, without laying the groundwork for the audience to follow him there. In many ways, Mickey’s life is out of his control, but it isn’t as if he’s vying for that control throughout the novel, other than to escape the mess of a situation he’s found himself in. It’s a lackluster ending to a mostly entertaining novel, but doesn’t give one much reason to pick up the sequel—though, admittedly, I’d be interested to see what socio-technological dilemmas Ashton plays with in his other works.