Just finished Project Hail Mary: A Novel? Jump into Mickey7 next.
Fans of Project Hail Mary: A Novel know the rush of watching a lone genius hack survival out of cosmic disaster, and Mickey7 hits that same nerve from a slyly different angle. The spark you loved from Andy Weir shows up in Mickey Barnes, an Expendable thawed on the ice-ball Niflheim who keeps logging lethal missions—and deaths—so his colony doesn't crash.
"I read the book first and really liked it. I hated the movie and didn't even finish it. It had a nasty tone, portraying Mickey as stupid and made other characters incompetent."
Clone the Problem, Double the Stakes
With Mickey's accidental duplication forcing two versions of him to improvise, you get meticulous breakdowns of how to jerry-rig the bio-printer, tiptoe around Niflheim's hostile ecosystem, and bargain with nightmare-ready natives without tanking the mission. Ashton walks you through the resource math and ethics with breezy clarity, and that found-family heartbeat keeps every dark joke grounded in hope.
The colony drama mirrors the pacing you loved: resource spreadsheets, risk calculus, and a hero wisecracking while the vacuum howls. That 3.91 Goodreads average shows readers are hooked on how Ashton marries crunchy science with gallows humor, turning every expendable mission into a puzzle worth solving for the crew.
Why It Resonates
Mickey's crew might not know which copy they're backing, but the loyalty builds as he shields his engineer partner, negotiates with chitinous locals, and decides what "Expendable" really means. The book keeps the stakes intimate, pushing questions about continuity of self and moral responsibility that make the laughs hit deeper.
Spin up this adaptation-in-waiting before Bong Joon-ho's film drops so you can compare how the cloning tech, diplomatic gambits, and optimistic grit translate—and so every STEM-weekend tinkerer in your circle hears the news from you first.
