From: utzoo!decvax!genradbo!linus!security!tfl
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Title: 
Article-I.D.: security.171
Posted: Thu Feb 17 09:32:31 1983
Received: Mon Feb 21 21:10:27 1983

Well, since someone asked for it, here is a review of "FRIDAY."

First, before reviewing, I think it's only fair to list my background and
prejudices.  This way, those with divergent backgrounds can take my review
with a hefty shaker of sodium chloride.

As for my taste in SF, I tend to like the whole range from hardware SF to
Fantasy, with the exception of hardware stories without characterization
(software? firmware? tupperware?), and fantasy without creativity and logic
(all those mindless `quest' novels. sheesh!).  Thus, my favorite authors tend
to be: Heinlein (early), Zelazny, Anderson, Dickson, E.E. Doc Smith, Asimov
(in small doses), some deCamp, some Robinson and Haldeman, Kurtz (to some
extent), plus the assorted classics by Clarke, Miller, etc.  And, yes, I'm one
of the few ever to struggle through the entire DAHLGREN (even five years later
I'm still trying to decide whether it represents a bold new enterprise or pure
crap).

Anyway, FRIDAY, I believe, represents the worst in a growing set of Heinlein's
vices.  No, I don't believe that it represents senility (whatever that is),
but it does represent a turning away from the craftsmanship of earlier years.
For example, there was a discernable and growing trend from STRANGER to I WILL
FEAR NO EVIL to TIME ENOUGH to NUMBER and finally to FRIDAY of including pages
and pages of domestic dialogue (chit-chat).  As a progression (not quite
geometric, I'm afraid), the amount of fluff in the above sequence goes from
1/3 to 2/3 to 7/8 to 8/9 to 2/3 (mild improvement).  That is not to say that
Heinlein doesn't occasionally shine with a modicum of his old talent in these
books. For example, in TIME ENOUGH, the story about the man who was too lazy
to fail was pure vintage Heinlein.  Perhaps he's been away from the
short-story genre too long, and has forgotten how to write terse prose.

FRIDAY, though, was a much greater disappointment than NUMBER, because it
starts off so well.  Without spoiling it for those who haven't yet read it,
there is a distinct turning point in the book from fast-paced action, to slow
paced and insipid dialogue (look how hard it is to READ a play, which in its
written form, is pure dialogue stripped of action and setting). In addition,
as one who would love to read an occasional SF story about a liberated female,
minus all of the misanthropy of Joanna Russ, I am distressed by the manner in
which Heinlein's hero Friday is rapidly turned from a female Doc Savage cum
Lensman cum Dorsai etc. into a meek little house frau.  Why does so much SF
(with some notable exceptions --- no flames here!) either treat women as
objects to rescue from BEM's, or else androgynous creatures whose goal in life
is to eliminate men as superfluous, and then take off with the girl next door?

For those Heinlein freaks with a more literary bent, you might want to take a
look at Sinclair Lewis' ELMER GANTRY (very different from the movie) and
IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (can't or won't, I can't remember the title exactly).
In these two books you can see where Heinlein gets much of his style, and some
of his plots.  For example, lots of the stuff from STRANGER seems influenced
by ELMER GANTRY, while IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (ICHH) seems to have had an
influence on a number of Heinlein's novels and short stories having to do with
a fundamentalist revolution in the U.S.  Also his stuff about obnoxious
tourists (viz. PODKAYNE, ITS GREAT TO BE BACK, etc.) seems to come right out
of Lewis' DODSWORTH.  Notes of interest: there is, I believe, a hidden
reference to Lewis in one of the first chapters of GLORY ROAD.  It says in
there something about Oscar Gordon saying that, in spite of all of the
complaining by authors of the 20's about the lost generation, that they had it
easy compared to the people of the 50's.  Also, in ICHH, written only 2-3
years after BRAVE NEW WORLD (and, to my mind, a more realistic possibility
than that portrayed in BRAVE NEW WORLD), there is a hidden reference to
Huxley.  See if you can find it (hint: he's referred to as a nameless british
visitor).

So, on the Litant Literary Scale (LLS), with 5 stars as the maximum, FRIDAY
gets:
characterization: **
plot: *
creativity: **
eveness: *
entertainment: *
intellectual stimulation: *

See y'all at BOSKONE.