Friday

Friday by Heinlein, Robert A. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780030615160.

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 books 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 Americas 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 Fridays 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 Heinleins 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