Friday by Robert A. Heinlein

Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay, sometimes I display bad taste. This is a good example. This book is bad because the main character is a woman and she displays a very cavalier attitude about gang rape. This can be attributed to any number of causes: 1) perhaps Heinlein just doesn't understand female anatomy and women's emotional lives, 2) perhaps Heinlein wanted to display what a superhuman badass spy the main character is, 3) just trashy writing so as to kick up some publicity bad or otherwise to sell books? And I tried to forget this initial disaster except the main character goes on to completely forgive one of the rapists. Ugh, too much.

But let's say you just ignore that whole thing, which is tough, but let's say you do-- what a fun meandering sci fi book! It's fun to see what Heinlein predicted right or wrong, though he still has the opportunity to be proven right. The difficult-to-obtain futuristic library technology described by Heinlein is completely ours these days. In Heinlein's future it's easy to travel the galaxies, but expensive, whereas in real life we're not even close. IVF and even 3-parent IVF is already real, though specific genetic modifications to the embryos are still just on the horizon. (Crispr/Cas9)

And I like Friday/ Marge/ whatever her current identity is. I like how she's an unstoppable badass and a needy emotional mess at the same time. (Except when it comes to rape?)

Anyway, worth reading if you can compartmentalize feelings about fiction and enjoy trashy fun.

View all my reviews