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Friday
by Robert A. Heinlein
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Del Rey (1983-07-12)
ISBN: 034530988X
EAN: 9780345309884
Dewey Decimal #: 813.54
Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
Release Date: 1983-07-12
SKU: 348
Condition: Good
Comments: Binding: Softcover. Condition: Good. Slightly bent front corner. Slightly creased binding.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Engineered from the finest genes, and trained to be a secret courier in a future world, Friday operates over a near-future Earth, where chaos reigns. Working at Boss's whimsical behest she travels from far north to deep south, finding quick, expeditious solutions as one calamity after another threatens to explode in her face....
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Customer Reviews
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No TGIF Here
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-02-03
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Unlike most SF readers, I have never been a Heinlein fan. I hadn't read him since being scared off by "Time Enough for Love" 20 years ago. But hey, I thought, I'm older now, I should give RAH a second chance. I'm sad to report, though, that Friday did nothing to sway my opinion.
The main problem with Friday (the novel) is that it lacks a coherent story line. Friday (the character) is an artificial person, a kick-*ss courier for a shadowy organization run by "The Boss." When the book starts, she is being chased by enemies after delivering a package. So, you think, this will be a SF espionage novel; Friday will battle the enemy organization, solve some mysteries, save the day. But no, we never discover what her mission was about, or who the men chasing her were, or why. She retreats to the headquarters of her organization, and you think, ah ha, this will be an Alias type story; we'll find out who the Boss is, what his group does, go on dangerous missions. But no, the Boss dies and the organization disbands. Before dying, he tells her she is a latent genius, and initiates an intensive education. Friday responds, and begins to unravel sinister connections in current events. So, she'll figure out who is behind the recent world-wide wave of violence and take him down, right? No, she has to quit when the Boss dies, and that storyline comes to nothing.
And so it continues throughout the book. Instead of being a head-banging agent, Friday is more like a pinball, bopping around Earth and beyond without direction or purpose. She goes here, goes there, perhaps has a minor fight or scrape, meets people, has consequence free sex with them, then moves on. I'm not offended by the never-ending sex, just annoyed by it. It serves no purpose to the story. In fact, there's no point to the book that I can see, other than promoting some of Heinlein's pet ideas: free love is great, governments are stupid, corporations actually run the world. And I'm sorry, the dialog is kitschy at best. He must have used the word "silly" a hundred times.
Friday did nothing to win me over to Heinlein. If you're looking for an entertaining read, I suggest you look elsewhere.
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Revisiting Friday
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-10-12
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I first gave Friday an admittedly cursory reading nearly twenty years ago and set it aside unfinished. In retrospect, that has turned out to have been a bit of good luck.
Returning to it recently gave me the opportunity to once again experience Heinlein's voice in previously unread material. Although this isn't as clear and focused as Heinlein's best work, it is good solid read.
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Heinlein, Sex, and a Pretty Cyborg
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-10-10
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Hey, what more do you need? Listen, this is not going to win any Hugo awards, but it is a fun, enjoyable futuristic adventure through Heinlein's wild imagination. A rollicking Bond-like female cyborg protagonist loves and kills her way through a typically Heinleinian future, replete with rogues, double agents, robots, despotic leaders, and that rare good human.
Any book that can advertise with a straight face that it was Playboy Book Club's alternate selection of the month can't be all bad.
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Not Free SF Reader
Rating  (1)
Date: 2007-09-03
2 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is bad in just so many ways. By far the worst thing he ever came up with. Just horrible. 'What if I had a super girl android servant I could send on missions, and she loved sex whenever and
however, and I could get lots of the details afterwards.'
If you want something that is similar, but actually decent, try Joel Shepherd's Cassandra Kresnov series, Crossover, Breakaway, Killswitch.
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Everything you could want in a book and more
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-04-02
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I came across the paperback version of this book in the $1 bin of a thrift store and was surprised I hadn't heard of it before. I thought this might have been a rare dud in his career, but thankfully, I was wrong. This could be considered a sequel to his novella "Gulf", and actually features Kettle Belly Bailey, and makes reference to Joe and Gail, the main protagonists in Gulf.
Within the first chapter of the book, you realize that this is not a typical Heinlein book. The primary character, Friday, is a young, artificially created human female. A departure for him considering most of his stories are from the point of view of young adolencent males. A few of the early events in the book will give some readers a shock (read it and you'll understand why), but shortly after, the book takes off into a typical Heinlein story arc of action and adventure.
Heinlein explores several subjects in this book ranging from communal marriage, overt racism, authoritarianism, genetic engineering, and sexual promiscuity.
Overall, a very good book and worth well more than the $1 I paid for it
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