Mickey7

Mickey7: A Novel by Edward Ashton

Mickey Barnes is an expendable. His entire person was scanned and downloaded onto a computer. His experiences would be regularly backed up. Any time he died, his body would be regenerated from the downloaded version, and his most recently backed up memories would be restored. He is part of a space colonization mission. He would go on dangerous missions or scientific projects that can use a body. He may test the suitability of an environment or explore dangerous areas. Mickey7 is the seventh iteration of Mickey. He goes on a mission to explore some tunnels, and falls down into one. His commander decides to leave him as dead rather than rescue him. However, Mickey survives and makes his way back to the station - only to find that Mickey8 has been generated. This creates a number of complications - especially since the colony is resource constrained.

The novel works backwards and forwards to unravel the history of Mickey and the world. The human diaspora was started after an antimatter war had pretty much wiped out earth. Antimatter technology is still used in limited capacity for propulsion, but is generally taboo for warfare. The human duplication technology was created by an eccentric billionaire. He had eventually moved himself to a world, and made numerous clones of himself to take control of the world. He would destroy anyone that tried to come to the world. This lead to a "nativist" religion and a group of people strongly against cloning ability. (Eventually, his world was destroyed by launching a high speed projectile at it.)

The "creepers" that inhabited Mickey's colony were discovered to be sentient. They were a hive group that seemed similar to Orson Scott Card's Formics. They were willing to live on a world with humans as long as the humans did not disturb them.

The structure of the novel helps to explore numerous science fiction topics, while continuing on the narrative.