Storyline: 1/5 
 Characters: 2/5 
 Writing Style: 2/5 
 World: 2/5 
 Heinlein must have had something like this in mind(view spoiler)[: A combat courier gifted with now-outlawed genetic enhancements takes on a seemingly normal mission. Cataclysmic, widespread attacks happen each step along the way, leaving our hero questioning if it has anything to do with the mission or not. Encounters on the run, in hideouts, and on the offensive give her reason to question her identity, her own desires, and what ends she currently serves. Friday is a tour through our political and technological future; a future where nations are increasingly connected because of rapid sub-orbital flight; a future where nations are increasingly fragmented over political ideology. Technology, spatial integration and political fracturing leave these citizens of future Earth with little room for individual choice and must weigh the costs of reclaiming their planet or venturing for the space colonies. (hide spoiler)] Along the way, Heinlein could show us what people of the future are like, how different political ideologies function, ponder the tradeoffs of technological change, and debate what moral, ethical, or other personal maxims guide behavior and decision-making. This would have been a good book. 
 What Heinlein wrote was this(view spoiler)[: A hip action-adventure set in a science fiction future of balkanized North America, Friday gives Heinlein a new platform of his ideas. Ever ready to spread the message of free love and guiltless promiscuity, we readers get the first person viewpoint of an amorous femme fatale as she experiences rape, orgies, and such mild delights as men looking down her shirt. You'll visit regional Imperiums and Democracies where one can experience the manifold ways in which taxes, majority rights, banks, paper currency, and government limit the freedom of the individual. Contemporary, progressive sociological themes are included so that you can check them off your to-encounter list. An Asimov legacy will be included both to poke Asimov and entertain genre enthusiasts. Cool, sarcastic dialogues pervade. (hide spoiler)]. There was a chapter or a few initial chapters where Heinlein did have something going: it was cool, it was hip and edgy; it did feature a promising technological future. But that coherent vision and writing soon lost out to long-winded dialogues that were there to entertain those already on board with his social and political libertarianism. There were few, if any, unique insights, no new criticisms, and for about the middle four-fifths of the novel Heinlein really lost control of the plot. This doesn't read like someone who cared about the writing. It doesn't read like someone committed to satire or to dystopia. It doesn't even read like someone committed to technology and science fiction. This read like gratuitous wish-fulfillment. I recommend this to Heinlein devotees, knee-jerk libertarians, and creepy 60's free-love old men.