Antimatter Blues

A Mickey7 Novel

312 pages

English language

Published March 19, 2023 by St. Martin's Press.

ISBN:
978-1-250-27505-9
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (6 reviews)

Edward Ashton's Antimatter Blues is the thrilling follow up to Mickey7 in which an expendable heads out to explore new terrain for human habitation.

Summer has come to Niflheim. The lichens are growing, the six-winged bat-things are chirping, and much to his own surprise, Mickey Barnes is still alive―that last part thanks almost entirely to the fact that Commander Marshall believes that the colony’s creeper neighbors are holding an antimatter bomb, and that Mickey is the only one who’s keeping them from using it. Mickey’s just another colonist now. Instead of cleaning out the reactor core, he spends his time these days cleaning out the rabbit hutches. It’s not a bad life.

It’s not going to last.

It may be sunny now, but winter is coming. The antimatter that fuels the colony is running low, and Marshall wants his bomb back. If Mickey agrees to retrieve it, he’ll be giving …

3 editions

The beginning of a better story

4 stars

This book was a lot better than the previous, where the "protagonist" just kept messing around and picking fights. The guy is still an ass and the banter is still fun too, but now there was actually a story with a purpose, complete with a heroic journey and self sacrifices. Even the aliens got a lot more character and a justified purpose.

I also appreciated how the overall tone was less depressing, with less brooding about death and failed colonies. There's still some of that left of course but things are finally starting to look better for this little colony!

Well-done sequel for Mickey7

4 stars

This sequel could easily have gone sideways -- the first book came close to overstaying its welcome and more of the same would not have been welcome.

So, where the first one focused on Mickey finding his place in the world, the second was more about the world with Mickey in it. Mickey is still the main character, but we see more of the world and personalities around him. We learn a great deal more about the greater human society that created expendables, we learn more about the history of galactic colonization, and we learn bits about times humanity found other sentient life. None of this is dry world-building, as it's fed to us in bits as it relates directly to the events at hand.

I enjoyed reading this as much as I did the first, and it was in many ways more satisfying. There is still plenty of story …

avatar for kimkarma66

rated it

4 stars
avatar for ray1729

rated it

5 stars
avatar for philiporange

rated it

5 stars
avatar for schellenberg

rated it

4 stars