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Summary: Hot babe takes on the future
Review: Dude, this babe is awesome! She kicks butts and takes names, baby! The future can't come fast enough for me, if this is the quality of the chicks!
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Summary: The beginning of the end of RAH
Review: I just re-read Friday, and confirmed it as the beginning of the end for Mr. Heinlein.He takes on a very difficult topic - bigotry - and does a poor job of dissecting it for discussion while blasting the reader with his grandstanding opinions. Like most of his later work, he starts with an interesting plot develops it to the point of grabbing significant reader interest and then seems to get bored and moves on to another topic. As with all of his later stuff, his free-love/sex message comes through loud and clear which takes his attention from developing more of the plot and characters. In the end, the book just kind of peters out and really never finishes.
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Summary: Lessons on Genetics and Racism
Review: Despite the science fiction techno-thriller plot, the real point of this book is its stand against racism. Heinlein created a character whose genetic material was synthesized from many different, though all human, sources. In the world of this story, this makes her an "artificial person" and not entitled to full human rights. The plot then follows her around a Balkanized future world of near-anarchistic states and ultra-powerful corporations, and ultimately beyond Earth. But Friday's ultimate quest is for a family that will put aside its prejudices and accept her completely. The real lesson of this book is quite simple: we are all human, regardless of our genetic mix, and racism is baseless nonsense. In case the metaphor of Friday the artificial person was too subtle for some science fiction fans, Heinlein beats us over the head with a subplot about a white family that disowns their daughter for marrying a Pacific Islander. Many great Heinleinesque touches fill out the story, including some lessons on genetic engineering, and satires on several North American subcultures (most notably California and Quebec). Friday's observations on the dangers of credit cards, and the ability of people to trace your life through the worldwide computer network, are hauntingly apt considering they were written in the early 1980's. About the only point where Heinlein drops the ball is with Friday's reaction to her rape, and her reaction when she meets one of her rapists face to face. Definitely an embarrassment for Heinlein, but if this doesn't make you throw away the book in disgust, the rest of the book is quite well done.
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Summary: Of _course_ she's human, silly
Review: Contrary to the comments of some readers, Friday Jones, the protagonist of this SF novel, is neither an "android" nor a "clone," and she is most assuredly a "real woman." She's a so-called "artificial person" or "AP," genetically human but with her genes deliberately selected to make her superior to most of her fellow humans in many respects. The conceit that she isn't "really" human is consistently presented in the novel as a popular prejudice that has as little foundation as popular prejudices usually have, and indeed as one that has a profound negative effect on Friday's self-image and sense of "belonging." That's one feature of this novel that will be of interest to readers of Heinlein's older works. _Friday_ is a sequel to his novella "Gulf," in which Kettle Belly Baldwin made his first appearance, and it undoes much of the damage of that earlier story. (Note especially Kettle Belly's reference to the planet Olympus, where "those self-styled supermen" went.) Between the 1940s and the 1980s, Heinlein has done some serious reconsidering of his views on what it means to be human and what it means to "belong." As a matter of fact, the _whole point_ of this novel (whether the reader knows "Gulf" or not) is _precisely_ that Friday is altogether human no matter how "superior" her genes; Heinlein's earlier views to the contrary notwithstanding, "superhumans" are not a new species at all but just as human as the rest of us. Readers who missed that point may want to give _Friday_ another read.
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Summary: The 50s, James Bond, and Sex and the City all smashed up
Review: This was a pretty enjoyable read for the old-school sci-fi fan. The story is pretty neat, but the characters are just plain weird at times. You feel like you're watching one of those 50s movies where everyone talks in that American accent with an almost British crispness and everyone is always saying witty things. There are references in here, random quotes in foreign languages and such, that I didn't get for months. And Heinlein clearly put a good bit of his fantasies into Friday, she being the super-hot and horny being with powers testing the limits of what could be defined as human. I paid too much for this book at my local store, purchasing the full-sized paperback, but the mass market size may be worth picking up if you like science fiction from that era.
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Summary: Different, but definitely Heinlein
Review: This book, although keeping with typical Heinlein themes, is set apart from his other books in one key factor... it does not integrate with his future history. While I do like some of the recurring characters in his other books, they tend to all have the same plot line. This book does not hook into the others and I think it is better for it. It is a Heinlein book, however. Like the others, some key themes stand out: people of extrodinary intelligence being morally superior, tanstaafl (there aint no such thing as a free lunch) and wanton sexuality. Honestly, if this were all the book was, I would avoid it. However, like many of his novels, Friday has a great plot. Friday is a novel which explores the idea of an artificial person designed to be better than any other human, a clone if you will, who attempts to find her place in society and save herself from its pitfalls. The plot seems very relevent today with the current controversy over cloning. While I do not agree with his conclusions about the issue, I think he does explore it from some interesting angles. The book is written in first person and, although he tries, I do not believe that Heinlein writes a believable female character from that perspective. Over all, this is not a great book, but it is a good book and it deserves to be read and perhaps reread.
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Summary: Can a man write a woman in the first person?
Review: How about if she was not really human?
I think Heinlein does a good job of presenting a womans point of view, albeit Friday is an android and not really a "woman" in the first place. He touches on many social/political themes in this book, his future vision of California is a riot, I think perhaps he may be called in the future a type of Nostradamus.
I first read this as a teenager and loved the adventure, the sex themes and the overall story line. The second time I read this book, having been through many other Heinlein books and being older, I also enjoyed the commentary that I missed earlier.
I would recommend reading this book and 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress', 'Stranger..' before going into the later much longer works of Heinlein.
I'll bet someone will make a movie based on this book someday and I am equally sure it will be botched and screwed up much like was done with 'Starship Troopers'.
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Summary: A great yet sidetracked idea.
Review: In this book, Robert Heinlein does a nice job or portraying the plight and alienation felt by those who are different from what is considered "normal", in this case an android female. While the protagonist's ongoing search for her own identity and a place she can call her own are indeed compelling, the narrative is, unfortunately, sidetracked by her seemingly endless sexual escapades, which detract from the main character's appeal and needlessly distract the reader. While it can be argued, with good reason, that her almost single-minded focus on sex is an integral part of her quest for self-discovery, it can get tiresome for those who expect a more "serious" approach. Altogether a good, but not a great selection from the Master himself.
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Summary: Futuristic sensuality
Review: Robert Heinlein's most captivating main character creates a new paradigm of what woman can be. Partially modified by technology, partially engendering previously perceived masculine traits, Friday's powerful sexuality keeps her deeply embedded in her gender. Escapism at its finest with a much more complexity in the woman-power genre than Lara Croft's image of "girls with guns." Friday's power lies in her strategy.
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Summary: Friday is what all women want to grow up to be.. but hornier
Review: Friday IS what I think all women want to be. As one, that's how I see it. Of course she does have a bit of a randiness problem... but she's being written by a man! However, this is truely a great story, and Friday, along with her cohorts, are people you wish you knew. A fun and invigorating story, Friday is a good read every time.
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