Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton

"This is gonna be my stupidest death ever."

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, the person who's given any and every hazardous assignment on Niflheim--a new colony on a nearly uninhabitable ice world--so that the other, more mission critical colonists don't have to risk their lives. When he falls into an ice crevasse, his friend decides it's easier to declare him dead than try and rescue him, because he knows the colony will just bring him back as Mickey 8. Only Mickey 7 doesn't die. And now there are two of him. Which is a very big problem. 

"I've died six times in the past eight years. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, wouldn't you? ... If I die now, though, there won't be another me coming out of the tank. The other me is already here, and despite all appearances, Eight is most definitely not a continuation of me. Honestly, he doesn't even seem to like me very much."

It's easy to like Mickey 7. He's a flawed, funny, and wryly self-deprecating narrator. He enjoys reading the histories of other failed colonies and is in a relationship with Nasha, a fierce combat pilot. And despite his job as an Expendable, he really doesn't want to die again. I was definitely rooting for him to figure out a solution to his problem. I also really like that colonizing-another-world trope in science fiction, and this new planet they're trying to colonize has some pretty unique aliens they call creepers on it, which added some nice tension. There's also a bit of a mystery in this one involving the death of Mickey 6. Because of all of Mickey's introspection and past memories of his other deaths, this isn't quite as action-packed or as fast-paced as I thought it would be going in, but it's still very interesting and entertaining. And the ending is great! I'd give it 4 stars.

Happy Reading! 

Similar read:

One Way by S.J. Morden

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

 Suspense. Murder. Science fiction. Mystery.

There's a lot to like about this interstellar mystery. It's unique. It's well-written and it reads fast. It has six interesting characters and an intriguing premise. And it's set in space. But I have to admit, I'm finding it a little hard to summarize. So I'm going to cheat and quote from the blurb on Goodreads instead.

"A space adventure set on a lone ship where the clones of a murdered crew must find their murderer -- before they kill again.

It was not common to awaken in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. At least, Maria Arena had never experienced it. She had no memory of how she died. That was also new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.

Maria's vat was in the front of six vats, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire... And Maria wasn't the only one to die recently."

Because the ship's AI memory logs have been wiped, and none of the six cloned crew members have retained any recent memories, you don't know who to trust. Any one of them could have committed the murders and sabotaged the ship's computer. There's the captain, the pilot, the doctor, the tech guy, the security guy, and Maria, jill-of-all-trades. Each has a criminal past and each knows their own piece of the puzzle. But none feel they can trust any of the others. 

I always enjoy reading these kinds of locked-room mysteries (or locked-ship mystery in this case), and I found Six Wakes to be both compelling and entertaining. I especially liked all the clone technology, with its complicated moral and ethical issues, and the six clones with their past lives, their memories, secrets and altered mindmaps. If you like character-driven mysteries, especially ones set in space, this is a really good one. 

Happy Reading!