Friday Paperback – May 4, 2021

Any Day of the WeekBy Bob Gelms For me, reading a book by Robert A. Heinlein is a special treat. He never fails me. He always delivers a novel with interesting characters spiced with social criticism set in wonderful places that are certainly exotic. His plots serve the story and amplify the destinies of the main characters. They never overpowered what the characters are going through. Fans of Mr. Heinlein think he is the greatest science fiction writer to have ever lived. The who's-the-best discussion has been going on since the late 50’s. Almost as many people think it is Arthur C. Clarke and there are a few voices crying out in the wilderness for Isaac Asimov. The three writers themselves, when asked who's the best, agreed to say the other two. I think we can say that they are all tied for first. It helps that they all have distinctive styles and wrote about very different things. Mr. Heinlein has won the Hugo Award more than any other writer. He won his first one for the controversial novel, Starship Trooper, and the controversy always followed him around. Well, you know what they say, if they are shooting at you, you must be doing something right. His second Hugo was written a year later, the masterwork, Stranger in a Strange Land, which became one of the great novels of the twentieth century. The third Hugo winner was written 6 years later; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein's books were constantly being nominated for scads of awards. This is an indication of how influential he was. Robert A. Heinlein influenced EVERYBODY from the late 50’s right up to his death in 1988 at the age of 81. The novel we are looking at in this issue, Friday, is one of his later works. It was published in 1982 and was nominated for a Nebula, a Hugo and a Locus Science Fiction Award. I am enchanted with this book because of the central character. She is a young woman in her 20’s, pretty but not beautiful. She is astonishingly bright, with an almost supernatural ability to process numbers in nearly every possible way you can think of…all in her head. Oh yes, she is the most dangerous person you might ever meet. She doesn’t need a weapon to kill you but can easily do that with either hand, either foot, or her head. Sometimes her name is Marjorie Baldwin, sometimes it is Friday Jones but most often it is just Friday. I almost forgot, Friday is not human; she is what is called an artificial person (AP). She was, um, in a word, manufactured. She was designed in Tri-University Life Engineering Laboratory. Her, uh, I guess you’d have to say, inception was formulated by Mendelian Associates, Zurich. All of her senses are heightened and she actually has an eidetic memory. Humans think they can tell the difference between a human and an AP but they can’t. Friday looks human, all of her parts are biological and if she went to a doctor and had an X-ray he couldn’t tell the difference. Friday had a contract with an individual to train as a doxy (middle English word used a lot in the Canterbury Tales; means prostitute). A man Friday only knows as Boss bought her contract and spent large amounts of money educating and training her as a courier for his business. It was a perilous job and Friday was perfect for it. Some terrible political upheaval in the distant past caused complete border changes in North America. Now each little section is its own country. It involved an assassination for what apparently was no reason. No one knows what's going on. Getting across borders is difficult at best. If you are a courier you have to figure this out. It affects your job. Artificial humans are widely resented and are subjected to racism. Friday spends far too much time and energy in the book trying to keep her situation from slipping out, hiding it from everyone. That is thorny because she has been genetically engineered to be far superior to humans in every way possible and sometimes it’s tough to keep that under a bushel basket. Heinlein published one of the first sci-fi novels with a woman as a main character. Although Friday is not human she is somewhat empowering…wouldn’t you say? Friday by Robert A. Heinlein is a joy to read. I might have a little crush on Friday even though she isn’t a human. Hmmmmmmm You might not understand this until you have read the book. From another one of Robert Heinlein’s bigger than life characters, Scar Gordon from Glory Road, “Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn’t happen yesterday, won’t happen tomorrow.”

Somehow I missed reading this in junior high when all my friends were reading it. Overall I really liked this book. I was somewhat surprised that a significant portion of it takes place in a area that I'm familiar with, the border area of North Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba. I've visited Winnipeg several times.I liked the characters, I thought the plot line was fine, but the action ran at you time and time again like a blitzing linebacker. Friday was the only really well developed character, the rest of the characters were fairly disposable and transient. At times it was kinda preachy on the issues of libertarianism and, somewhat shockingly, on discrimination. Anyone who claims Heinlein is racist and/or discriminatory probably hasn't read him. Friday ended up having way more sex than I was expecting. She's oddly unemotional about the rape at the beginning of the book. I've heard it said it's because she doesn't regard herself as human. I'm not sure I buy into that. She's a little tentative about kissing a woman at first, but then seems to get quite into it. None of her relationships are what someone might consider 'conventional'.My biggest complaint was the formatting of this copy. This was apparently a bad OCR, as there were numerous instances of misspellings and improper punctuation.

I am a big fan of his work and this novel is great. His vision of the future is becoming close to reality.

The second book of a rare two book science fiction series by Heinlein. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Richard Chwedyk in 2021 and written by Heinlein in 1981. I bought this copy new on Amazon, I also have a 1982 MMPB copy that I do not remember reading back then.The world of "Gulf" and "Friday" is way different from ours. Many things are much more advanced yet the population of Earth is significantly reduced due to constant wars and diseases. People can travel to the Moon and the stars using the beanstalks but travel locally using horses and carriages. Plus ballistic travel between the continents from place to place in 30 minutes is common. Anti-gravity devices are used but incredibly expensive. And the USA has been broken up into several nation states along with Canada and others. And there are several colonies in other star systems using huge FTL space ships, much like the old ocean liners that carried both humans and cargo.Friday Jones Baldwin is the biological daughter of the two secret agents who died at the end of "Gulf" on Luna preventing the immolation of Earth, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Greene. Of course, Friday's genes were significantly enhanced for intelligence, strength, speed, and disease resistance. And plus some genes from Kettle Belly "Two Canes" Baldwin, her adopted father and her boss. Due to to the common saying, "her mother was a test tube, her father was a sharp knife", Friday is an artificial person with almost no rights and not a human. But nobody knows that Friday is an artificial person as Kettle Belly adopted her and created birth records for her. Unless, she tells her secret.Friday is a combat ready courier and secret agent. Her enhanced speed, strength, and training make her a formidable courier for moving valuable materials in the dangerous world that Heinlein has built. She can kill without remorse and loves freely, way too freely. In fact, Heinlein brought his concept of group marriages to "Friday" that he wrote about in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". He even destroys a group marriage to show how easily they can break up also.As always, Heinlein dedicated this book to his friends and this book is dedicated to thirty-one strong ladies, including Roberta Pournelle, Judy-Lynn Del Rey, Ginny (his wife), Marilyn Niven, Joan De Vinge, Catherine Sprague de Camp, etc.Warning, both "Gulf" and "Friday" have very detailed torture scenes in them. The descriptions are quite breathtaking.The Heinlein apologist, Hugo and Nebula award winning author Jo Walton says this about "Friday" in a 2009 review, "The worst book I love: Robert Heinlein’s Friday". She complains that there is no plot but to me, the best plot is just life.

This book is a very good Heinlein story. Heinlein. Wrote great books around characters in a futuristic settings. This book has a great character in Friday Jones. A story of her growth form a artificial person to a human. What a great story.

I read Friday in 1982 when it was published. I loved it then and I love it now.Superb. I didn't want to leave that world.

A replacement for a copy that was ruined in a fire.

typical clarke with details that make sense

Predicts a lot of the future. Only Sears Montgomery will be long gone. Genetics and social structure make this a good book.

Friday is very Heinlein but is also pretty predictable. As much as RAH is my favourite speculative fiction writer, his last few books weren't quite up to his previous standards. Still enjoyable, don't get me wrong. I still feel that even sub-standard RAH is better than most.