Edward Ashton Books In Order

Publication Order of Mickey7 Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Edward Ashton
Edward Ashton’s short fiction has appeared in venues that range from the newsletter of an Italian sausage company to Fireside Fiction, Analog, and Escape Pod.

In his free time he enjoys teaching quantum physics to sullen graduate students, cancer research, and whittling.

The original idea for “Three Days in April” came from this project that his lab had been working on. It was a really clever method for delivering chemo to tumor sites while the normal tissues were spared. While he was doing some background research for this trial, it occurred to him that with just a little tweaking, it was an idea which could conceivably be put to much less altruistic ends.

“Three Days in April” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2015. Anders Jensen is having a pretty bad month. His girlfriend picks fights in bars, his roommate is a data thief, and his best friend is a cyborg, not to mention a lousy tipper. When everything starts spiraling outta control, however, maybe these are precisely the sorta friends you need.

In this world divided between the unmodified masses and the genetically engineered elite, Anders is an anomaly: engineered, yet still broke and living right next to a crack house. All that he wants is to land a tenure track faculty position, and possibly meet somebody that’s not technically a criminal, yet when a nightmare plague rips right through Hagerstown, Anders finds he’s dodging kinetic energy weapons and government hitmen while Baltimore slips into chaos. His buddies are not quite as helpless as they first seemed, however, and his girlfriend’s street-magician brother-in-law may be a pretentious hipster, or he may hold the secret to saving all of them.

Audacious and frenetic, this is a blend of psychological thriller and science fiction which raises an important question: once humanity heads down the rabbit hole, can we ever figure a way back?

“The End of Ordinary” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2017. Drew Bergen is an Engineer. He builds living things, a single gene at a time. He is also a bit of a doofus. Six years after the Stupid War, which was an inconclusive and bloody clash between the UnAltered and the Engineered, a pretty dangerous combination. Hannah is Drew’s greatest project to date, she was modified in utero to be a little more than merely than human. She is also his daughter.

Drew is working on a brand new project now. He believes his team is working to develop this spiff new strain of corn, however Hannah’s classmate and her mysterious companion disagree. They believe he is cooking up the end of the world. Once a member of Drew’s team vanishes, he starts suspecting that they could be right. Before long they are each in way over their heads, with government operatives and corporate goons hunting for them, and millions of lives hanging in the balance.

Bitingly satirical and energetic, this is a riveting near-future thriller which asks this important question: if we cannot even get along when our differences are hardly skin deep, what happens when they run all the way down to the bone?

“Mickey7” is the first novel in the “Mickey7” series and was released in 2022. “Multiplicity” meets “The Martian” in this high concept science fiction thriller, in which an “expendable” called Mickey7, refuses to allow his replacement clone take his place.

Dying may not be easy, however it’s a living at least.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: this disposable employee on this human expedition sent off to colonize Niflheim, the ice world. Whenever there is a mission that is much too dangerous, or even suicidal, the crew turns to Mickey. After an iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with many of his memories still intact. Mickey7, after six deaths, understands the terms of this deal, and why it was the only colonial position not filled when he took it.

Mickey7 goes missing while on a fairly routine scouting mission, and is presumed dead. By the time that he comes back to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by some native life, his fate’s already been sealed. There is a new clone, Mickey8 that is reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if they get caught, they’ll likely get tossed into the recycler for protein.

Mickey7 has to keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. At the same time, life on Niflheim is getting much worse. The atmosphere is not suitable for humans, there’s little food, and terraforming is going badly. The native species are getting curious about their new neighbors, and this curiosity has got Commander Marshall incredibly scared. Ultimately, the survival of both of these lifeforms is going to come down to Mickey7.

That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.

“Antimatter Blues” is the second novel in the “Mickey7” series and was released in 2023. Summer has come to Niflheim. The six-winged bat-things are chirping, the lichens are growing, and much to Mickey’s own surprise, he’s still alive. This last part is thanks almost fully to the fact that Commander Marshall believes that the colony’s creeper neighbors have been holding this antimatter bomb, and Mickey’s the only one that keeps them from using it. Mickey is just another colonist at this point in time. Instead of cleaning the reactor core out, he spends his time these days cleaning the rabbit hutches out. It isn’t a bad life.

But it is not going to last.

It may be sunny now, however winter’s coming. The antimatter which fuels this colony is running out, and Marshall would like his bomb back. If Mickey agrees to go and retrieve it, he will be giving up the single thing that keeps his head off the chopping block. Should he refuse, he may just doom the whole colony. At the same time, these creepers have got their own worries, and they are not going to surrender this bomb without getting something back in return. Once again, Mickey finds the fate of these two species resting in his hands. If something goes wrong this time around, however, he will not be coming back.