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# Mickey 7 - Der letzte Klon
Mickey Barnes is an Expendable—a colonist whose job is to die. When the colony on Niflheim needs someone to scout dangerous terrain, test potentially toxic food, or investigate mysterious alien burrows, Mickey goes. When he dies, his consciousness uploads to a new cloned body with his memories intact, minus the death itself. He's on his seventh body when the novel begins, hence Mickey7.
The colony on Niflheim is struggling. The planet is marginally habitable, resources are scarce, and the mission has already suffered casualties that can't be replaced. Mickey's role is to absorb risks that would otherwise fall on irreplaceable colonists. He doesn't love the job—dying hurts, and the colony's leadership treats Expendables as less than human—but it beats the alternatives he left behind on Earth.
The problem begins when Mickey falls into a crevasse during a survey mission and is presumed dead. A new body is grown and imprinted: Mickey8. But Mickey7 survives and makes it back to the colony. Multiple instances of the same person are strictly forbidden—it raises uncomfortable questions about identity and wastes resources. One of them is supposed to report for recycling, but neither wants to die (again, permanently).
Mickey7 and Mickey8 try to hide their coexistence while the colony faces an external threat: the 'creepers,' native life forms that may be more intelligent than anyone realized. Previous encounters have been violent, but the Mickeys' unique perspective—their experience with death, their outsider status—positions them to recognize patterns others miss. The creepers may not be the monsters the colony assumes.
Ashton combines dark comedy with genuine philosophical inquiry about identity, consciousness, and what makes a person unique. If your memories can be copied, if your body is replaceable, what makes you 'you'? Mickey's voice is wry and self-deprecating, finding humor in situations that would break someone who took them seriously. The novel has been adapted as the film Mickey 17 by director Bong Joon-ho, bringing its questions about expendability and personhood to wider audiences.
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