Robert Heinlein's following was ardent and instant with the appearance of his first short story in Astounding Science Fiction magazine more than 40 years ago, and it has multiplied with each of his publications. His series of "juveniles" had a great deal to do with raising that category from childish to what is now called YA—"Young adult." His influence on science fiction has been immense; his knowledge of the hard sciences and his gift for logical extrapolation inspired many beginning writers—and a good many already established hands—to knit fact and conjecture with a little more care and a great deal more literary quality than previously. The net effect over the years has been to erode the snobbery placed on science fiction. [Vladimir] Nabokov, [Doris] Lessing, [Kurt] Vonnegut, [Jorge Luis] Borges and other luminaries have found it a worthy metier with full awareness that it is, after all, not all zap-guns and special effects. And throughout this swift and steady evolution can, almost always, be seen the Heinlein influence.

Heinlein's … most recent books have been largely didactic, interior, sometimes pedantic, though each has its good measure of action. Some of his idolators mourned the lack of the Heinlein of the decisive hero, the blinding pace, the magnificent sweep of very possible near-future developments; above all, that element of capital-S Story.

Well, "Friday" has it all. Friday herself is a delight. She is as strong and resourceful and decisive as any Heinlein hero; in addition she is loving (oh, yes) and tender and very, very female. She also has an evolved ethos—the ability to discard past hatreds and dislikes and so to meet people, day by day, in terms of what they now are, and not to judge them by what they have been.

Heinlein's gift for invention—we owe him the remote manipulator that scientists call "waldoes" after a Heinlein story, and another gave us the waterbed—moves pretty far out from time to time. In this book he describes a completely Balkanized North America, complete with his typical meticulous analysis of its currencies, customs and political forms, its border guards and variegated moralities…. This, like so many of Heinlein's works (particularly the earlier ones), is as joyous to read as it is provocative.