Friday Format: Paperback

A CAEZIK Notable book. CAEZIK Notables is a series of speculative-fiction books marking important milestones in science fiction or fantasy. Each book published in the series has a new introduction highlighting the book’s significance within the genre.

“A charming protagonist in a story as sleekly engineered as a starship. This one should fly.”—Publishers Weekly

Friday is a 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

Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988) was an American science-fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and retired Naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.

Heinlein became one of the first American science-fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science-fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors. Notable Heinlein works include Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers (which helped mould the space marine and mecha archetypes) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His work sometimes had controversial aspects, such as plural marriage in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, militarism in Starship Troopers and technologically competent women characters that were strong and independent, yet often stereotypically feminine - such as Friday.

Heinlein used his science fiction as a way to explore provocative social and political ideas, and to speculate how progress in science and engineering might shape the future of politics, race, religion, and sex. Within the framework of his science-fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought. He also speculated on the influence of space travel on human cultural practices.

Heinlein was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master in 1974. Four of his novels won Hugo Awards. In addition, fifty years after publication, seven of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos"--awards given retrospectively for works that were published before the Hugo Awards came into existence. In his fiction, Heinlein coined terms that have become part of the English language, including "grok", "waldo", and "speculative fiction", as well as popularizing existing terms like "TANSTAAFL", "pay it forward", and "space marine". He also anticipated mechanical computer-aided design with "Drafting Dan" and described a modern version of a waterbed in his novel Beyond This Horizon, though he never patented nor built one. In the first chapter of the novel Space Cadet he anticipated the cell-phone, 35 years before Motorola invented the technology. Several of Heinlein's works have been adapted for film and television. [adapted from Wikipedia]

Richard Chwedyk is a science fiction writer and teacher. He won a Nebula Award in 2002 and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Rhysling Award, and shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. His work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Space and Time, and in anthologies Year's Best SF 7, Nebula Awards Showcase 2003, Hell in the Heartland, Cthulhu and the Coeds, A Fistful of Dinosaurs, other places. He has been teaching creative writing and literature, and science fiction writing when he can, at Columbia College Chicago since 2009. He has also taught for Oakton Community College and Triton College. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Russian, Hebrew and Hungarian. He participated and coordinated dozens of writing workshops at conferences and conventions across the continent. He currently writes the book review column for Galaxy's Edge magazine and occasionally posts to his blog, Critinomicon.