CORRECTED TEXT (TYPOS)“His best since The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” Jerry Pournelle“A charming protagonist in a story as sleekly engineered as a starship. This one should fly.”—Publishers Weekly“One of Heinlein’s best, which is to say one of the best in all of Science Fiction—terrific story with a superbly realized heroine and world.”—Poul AndersonFriday is a secret courier and ardent lover. … secret courier and ardent lover. Employed by a man she only knows of as “Boss”, she is given the most awkward and dangerous cases, which take her from New Zealand to Canada, and through the new States of America’s disunion, all the way out into the stars and the new colony of Botany Bay.
Thrust into one calamity after another, she uses her enhanced wits and very many skills to evade, seduce or even kill her way out of any sticky situation she finds herself in. For she is both superior and inferior to the average human.
As an AP—artificial person—the best humanity has to offer has been written into Friday’s DNA. Yet she is often treated like a second class citizen—if she were ever able to claim citizenship. Her mother was the test tube and her father the knife, as the saying goes, so she has less rights than the biologically-born human, and no soul, according to the church.
But in Friday Heinlein has created one of the most enlightened, warm, engaging and humane characters in the science fiction field, gifting us a novel of female empowerment that was well ahead of its time.
“One of Heinlein’s best, which is to say one of the best in all of Science Fiction—terrific story with a superbly realized heroine and world.”—Poul Anderson
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“Friday” is one of Heinlein’s later books, and IMNSHO one of his best. He never did get out of his avuncular attitudes toward women, but in this book he began to show possibilities. We have to remember that the man grew up in the 1920’s, and thus his ideas were influenced by literally Victorian ways of thinking. Taken in that context, books like “Friday” and “Stranger…”, along with his later books, are pretty advanced. Regardless of his reactionary thinking, RAH is one of the best, and should be on the list of anyone who claims to be a lover of true Science Fiction – as opposed to the templated offerings so prevalent today, especially in e-books.
Friday is a fascinating book, written from the perspective of an AP – Artificial Person or genetically modified clone. Friday is however deeply human, better than human in her body yet still working out how to deal with her own feelings and sense of inadequacy. There is nothing more human than that.
Set in the near future, Friday is a high level combat courier. The world building is wonderful, with even the briefest character a fully rounded one and adding to the story. A dark and violent world for the most part, yet Friday manages to find love and companionship when she needs it most. The dichotomy between her combat skills and her soft side are part of the great charm of this story, seen as it is from her point of view.
As it is part of his over arcing world universe, some of the characters will be familiar from other books. However it firmly stands on its own. A highly recommended read.
Amongst the incredible future advances and action sequences depicted in this novel is a heart-rending story of a young woman facing profound prejudice and self-loathing. The depth of this books draws me back to it again and again.
This is clearly the best of Robert Heinlein’s later works. If you are a Heinlein fan you won’t need me to tell you to read it. If you are new to Heinlein, I consider his writings to fall into three period. The first are juveniles and very old novels. The second are his classic greats such as The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. Finally there are his later works, which I enjoyed but found uneven and often rather long. Friday stands out from the other books of that era and deserves to the compared to Moon and Stranger. Heinlein at his best!
Heinlein set the standard for fact based science fiction in his day and his style is still emulated today.
Classic later Heinlein. Fast and exciting for the first and last 50 pages. 300 pages of drivel and dinner descriptions in between.
I don’t know — how else SHOULD I rate a book that starts with the female hero being raped, then later falling in love with and marrying her rapist?
excellent futuristic fiction.
a sci-fi classic
I love this author and all of his sci-fy novels. They are always extremely well-written, very entertaining, and he cleverly inserts remarks that have foreshadowed the political future of this country which have turned out to be correct to a scary degree. The author is a brilliant man and creates by as characters that are fully fleshed out. These books are not the “dime a dozen” type of sci-fy stories where all the aliens are ugly and bad and trying to kill all earth people with tremendous battles. Instead, many have aliens, that altho they look, act, and feel differently from us, are still sympathetic figures.
A classic Heinlein — an enjoyable romp with a powerful and sexy heroine (an ‘artificial being’) battling gender discrimination and authoritarian government in a possible future. Written in 1982, Heinlein anticipates gene editing and the Internet. The plot doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, but it’s fun to go along for the ride.
This book one of the author’s better works from the latter part of his career. It is not a juvenile book. I would say, not for children.
Robert Heinlein is the best author in history
One of his best si-fi novels. This is the 3rd time for me. Excellent read!
I love all of Heinlein’s books. they are original and all of them are a page turning experience. Friday does not disappoint in that it is very original and I couldn’t put it down.
as usual with many of his books enjoyable
My favorite Heinlien book. Enjoy reading a story that has a beginning and ending in one book instead of a series. Enough action and suspense to keep the reader engrossed and turning the page.
This is not one of Heinlein’s best efforts, but is still entertaining. The language and some of the social structure is definitely politically incorrect by today’s standards, but the main character is well developed. A lot of the secondary characters are very flat or are poor literary constructs.
One of Heinlein’s best.
Very good. Not your ordinary every day book. Very graphic, not for the faint of heart.