Friday

Robert Anson Heinlein

Ballantine Books, 1982 - Fiction - 368 pages

"AS JOYOUS TO READ AS IT IS PROVOCATIVE . . . Friday is all woman . . . She is as strong and resourceful and decisive as any Heinlein hero; in addition she is loving (oh, yes) and tender and very, very female."
--Los Angeles Times
Friday is a secret courier. She is employed by a man known to her only as "Boss." Operating from and over a near-future Earth, where chaos is the happy norm, she finds herself on assignment at Boss's seemingly whimsical behest. From New Zealand to Canada, from one to another of the new states of America's disunion, she keeps her balance nimbly with quick, expeditious solutions to one calamity and scrape after another.
Not since Valentine Michael Smith, hero of the bestselling Stranger in a Strange Land, has Robert Heinlein created a more captivating protagonist. Friday proves once again why Robert Heinlein's novels have sold more than 50 million copies, have won countless awards, and have earned him the title of Grand Master of Science Fiction.
"FRIDAY IS A SUPERBEING. . . . Engineered from the finest genes, and trained to be a secret courier in a future world of chaotic ferocity and intrigue, she can think better and make love better than any of the normal people around her."
--The New York Times Book Review

Contents

• I: 1
• II: 8
• III: 16

About the author

Robert Anson Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907 in Butler, Mo. The son of Rex Ivar and Bam Lyle Heinlein, Robert Heinlein had two older brothers, one younger brother, and three younger sisters. Moving to Kansas City, Mo., at a young age, Heinlein graduated from Central High School in 1924 and attended one year of college at Kansas City Community College. Following in his older brother's footsteps, Heinlein entered the Navel Academy in 1925. After contracting pulmonary tuberculosis, of which he was later cured, Heinlein retired from the Navy and married Leslyn MacDonald. Heinlein was said to have held jobs in real estate and photography, before he began working as a staff writer for Upton Sinclair's EPIC News in 1938. Still needing money desperately, Heinlein entered a writing contest sponsored by the science fiction magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories. Heinlein wrote and submitted the story "Life-Line," which went on to win the contest. This guaranteed Heinlein a future in writing. Using his real name and the pen names Caleb Saunders, Anson MacDonald, Lyle Monroe, John Riverside, and Simon York, Heinlein wrote numerous novels including For Us the Living, Methuselah's Children, and Starship Troopers, which was adapted into a big-budget film for Tri-Star Pictures in 1997. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Heinlein its first Grand Master in 1974, presented 1975. Officers and past presidents of the Association select a living writer for lifetime achievement. Also, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Heinlein in 1998. Heinlein died in 1988 from emphysema and other related health problems. Heinlein's remains were scattered from the stern of a Navy warship off the coast of California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Friday; A Del Rey book
• Author: Robert Anson Heinlein
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1982
• ISBN: 034530988X, 9780345309884
• Length: 368 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure; Fiction / Science Fiction / General; Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera