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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His books are always very good, but this is one of his best.
This is actually a re-read. I enjoyed it quite as much the second time around and once again must bemoan the passing of “Admiral Bob” and the fact that there will be no more literature from his typewriter.
Written in the 1st person (narration) the title character “Friday Jones” is an ‘artificial person’ (android) who also goes by the surname “Baldwin” – a paean to a Heinlein espionage character “Kettlebelly Baldwin”.
Given what has become known of the machinations of the cloak & dagger world of clandestine intelligence gathering and the innate xenophobia of man the trials and tribulations of Friday are both entertaining and understandable – even if the extremes are deplorable.
Given that it’s Heinlein interplanetary and interstellar venues abound. It’s a big old
universe – but it’s still hard to hide successfully.
Pick it up, read it, then search out the rest of Robert Heinlein’s work. Stay away from the Kindle edition of this one, however. It was a poor job of proofreading for typos and context.
The Classics never disappoint. Heinlein always has a ‘different’ perspective, and manages to entertain while teaching; he builds very believable worlds filled with the most interesting and appealing characters – very much like Ayn Rand. I give this book my highest recommendation.
I read this book a long time ago when I was grabbing everything sci-fi from this author that I could find. Have not been disappointed in any of his books so far. He’s up there with Anne McCaffrey and Isaac Asimov (and a few others). 🙂
Also I like heroines who are strong, capable, and do not need the hero to rescue her, but can be a partner to the hero. Friday is all that and more human than the snobs who think only a person from a womb is a person or has a soul. (Soul life is breath life – If you’re breathing you have a soul.)
A Heinlein book with strong characters and lots of action. I can’t recommend it for the following reasons (Spoiler Alert): the book includes gang rape, the woman enjoying it, mutilation (cutting off the female protagonist’s nipples). I found it disturbing when I read it 30 years ago. Those views today are still offensive and the environment that allowed this to be written dates this book.
Classic Heinlein -what more needs to be said. A classic of SF without a doubt, good to read then reread later. And read again.
Great science fiction. Heinlein is my favorite author.
A good example of a bad Heinlein book. Stick to his earlier works…
i read it first in my teens .now at 65 I still enjoy both the story and the author!
If you really like Heinlein otherwise it leaves a little bit to be desired.
RAH is my all time favorite, been reading him since I was 16 but always find something new and insightful even if it’s a reread. What can I say he was the bow wave.
One of Heinlein’s better early works. A fun read.
Can’t go wrong with Hienlein
Interesting story. Well written. But this is one of the books after Heinlein went off the deep end. Rape scene. Open marriage. Free sex.
Read it years ago, and truly enjoyed it. Picked it up again, but, it had not aged well. Not recommended.
Entertaining, but the chauvinistic treatment of female characters, while trying to be modern annoyed me. Yes, the females were strong characters, but they were still eye-candy for the male characters.
I could not finish it. I read a lot of Heinlein when I was younger and it was great. Reading it now, it seemed very dated.
Great writing from a master storyteller. An interesting look at Gene splicing capability and current ethics. Amazing characters.
Amazing foresight. That this was written in the 80’s shows the prescience that Heinlein had/has in forseeing the future.
I love Heinlein’s books, and this is one of his best.