Thank God It's Over

Friday by Robert A. Heinlein

Friday is an artificial person who works as a courier in a future where the US is divided into many countries and there's not much difference in the quality of life of someone living beneath fascism or in a democracy. Political upheaval complicates Friday's plans to have a holiday and she is forced to keep moving, seemingly doomed to never belong anywhere.

I was angry while reading this book, because it is one of the worst examples of a male author writing a female POV that I have ever come across. Many male authors have pissed me off in my lifetime, but Heinlein really takes the cake for having Friday suffer a gang rape in chapter 2. Better yet, have her marry one of her rapists later - you see, he's totally a good guy because he LET HER PEE.

Yes, it was the 1980s... but it's profoundly annoying when you know the author is famous for making social commentary and yet he completely misses the opportunity to do so (because he's misogynistic as hell!). Heinlein did address racism through Friday's identity as an artificial person, but this was done so clumsily that I felt secondhand embarrassment whenever he attempted it. I suppose the one thing I wasn't angry about was the number of queer characters who appeared throughout the novel (but framed in problematic ways, ofc).

Ahem. Heinlein's ability to infuriate me aside, Friday is not a good novel. Events that occur in sequence do not a plot make. I did like the idea of seeing the world's end stages through the eyes of someone who wasn't strategically significant, though. What intrigued me most about this book was how obviously it has influenced the more modern Murderbot Dairies, a series I really love - and a series that hits the same issues with precision AND has well-written plots.

Go read Martha Wells' work instead. You'll thank me later.

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