The novel “Friday” by Robert A. Heinlein was published for the first time in 1982.

Friday is an artificial person, the result of genetic engineering. She works as a courier delivering anywhere in the world or close to Earth colonies anything, often very cnfidential information. Her trips are often dangerous so sometimes she must use her physical skills, which are far better than normal to defend herself.

While Friday is finally enjoying a holiday taken after a mission that ended pretty bad, in various parts of the world chaos breaks out. A series of assassinations and sabotage lead to political chaos and make it difficult to travel so Friday will face many problems even to find her boss.

“Friday” is one of the last novels by Robert A. Heinlein. In the ’80s the author could write what he wanted, without being subjected to the constraints of his publishers. Not only he could freely express his ideas in his novels but could also include a sexual component without restrictions.

If you don’t like novels in which sex has a significant presence “Friday” isn’t really for you. If you like politically correct novels “Friday” isn’t really for you. Robert A. Heinlein has never been politically correct and over the years had been able to express his ideas in more and more strongly not caring if some reader with a candid soul might be offended or anyway upset.

In some ways “Friday” is a distillation of the themes and ideas Robert A. Heinlein had developed in his earlier works and Friday’s boss is a character already seen in the past in his 1949 novelette “Gufl” (also published in the anthology “Assignment in Eternity”). In this novel however the author is more negative than before about the world situation.

In the future world depicted in “Friday” several countries shattered in various entities, particularly North America got fragmented in several states. In the novel, Friday travels in some of them, which are democratic in theory but behind that facade there are dark sides. In the future, artificial persons aren’t considered human beings so Friday has forged papers and all traces of her birth has been removed by her boss so she can travel freely. During the novel the protagonist and other characters she meets who are the result of genetic engineering often clash with people’s prejudices against artificial persons.

In the world depicted in “Friday” there are many states but in some occasions it’s pointed out that the real power is held by some megacorporations. In a number of his novels, Robert A. Heinlein described possible revolutions against non-democratic governments but in this case he points out that it’s problematic to make war to an entity that has no precise geographic location. In fact in this case the identity of those responsible for the killings and the chaos is only vaguely indicated and it’s possible that they got away with them.

In “Friday” if you’re not satisfied with your life on Earth you can emigrate to one of the colonized planets but you must be careful in choosing well your destination. In fact the laws in the various colonies are very different and the negative sides of each of them aren’t exactly advertised.

The future technology described in “Friday” doesn’t concern interstellar travelling only: Heinlein describes a future very sophisticated computer network infrastructure and this is remarkable considering that thirty years ago the Internet could be used only by a little minority and it was very different from today.

In the description of the future telecommunications network and megacorporations as having the power “Friday” anticipates “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. Heinlein however isn’t connected to cyberpunk.

Overall, “Friday” is an excellent novel. It may be difficult as the first impact with Robert A. Heinlein because it’s full of ideas, otherwise I recommend it to anyone who has no problems with novels in which there’s a lot of sex.