Friday - Robert A. Heinlein

n nHis best since The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Jerry Pournellen nA charming protagonist in a story as sleekly engineered as a starship. This one should fly.--Publishers Weeklyn nOne of Heinlein's best, which is to say one of the best in all of Science Fiction--terrific story with a superbly realized heroine and world.--Poul Andersonn nFriday 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 America's disunion, all the way out into the stars and the new colony of Botany Bay.n nThrust 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.n nAs an AP--artificial person--the best humanity has to offer has been written into Friday's 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.n nBut 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. n nOne of Heinlein's best, which is to say one of the best in all of Science Fiction--terrific story with a superbly realized heroine and world.--Poul Andersonn