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My economics background is limited to the intro macro and micro courses I took as an undergrad and in which it seemed to me every question could have numbers going up or down and I always picked the wrong one. So when presented with books like these I just look at the presented graphs and nod, and say that sounds reasonable, especially since I mostly pre-agreed with the sentiments expressed. Not that I would call myself a socialist, and I don't really think the policies recommended here are particularly radical - reducing inequality through progressive taxation and investment in education, yada yada, and endorsing Bernie Sanders (this book was published during the first Trump term) who was not above campaigning against gun control in New Hampshire and coded appeals to racists in the name of anti-globalism when he was running against Hillary in the previous race (one credit to the Trump years is that it made that kind of Democratic have-it-both-ways campaigning that got Vincent Chin killed more unpalatable these days). That is my biggest complaint about this book, it doesn't just presume but flat out states that xenophobia will not be a problem if we just have less inequality, which at least is an improvement over Robert Reich's oligarchy book where did the people-aren't-racist-it's-racist-resentment thing (which I first heard on Geraldine Ferraro's Fox News sour grapes tour after Hillary lost to Obama). Seriously, go to Reich's website where a search for "oligarchy" returns hundreds of results and "racism" has no hits. But anyway back to this book, what I found most interesting is the prescriptions for how to improve or worst case replace the EU, because really I had no idea how that thing works, just complaints from Brexiter colleagues about "unrestricted immigration" while raking in tidy salaries in California. Yeah, a UBI is really gonna change their tune.

Mickey Barnes has the job of "expendable." He's sent into hazardous jobs with a high risk of dying, which he often does. Then his body is cloned and his brain is restored from a recent backup, and he's sent out to do something else dangerous. In order to put some tension in the story, Ashton has made it so having more than one multiple alive at the same time is illegal. In the backstory, it's because of a rich multiple who murdered an entire planet and used the biomass to create copies of himself. Oh, also the head of the colony thinks multiples are an abomination because clones have no soul.

That's what he's up against. What he's got going for him is one clone is left for dead but doesn't die. He and his next version (Mickey8) get to put their heads together to save the colony on a harsh planet and figure out how to keep the rest of the colony from knowing about them.

There's a bunch of little things that just don't quite mesh together super nicely, but the characters and plot are much fun.