patcl@tekecs.UUCP (Pat Clancy) (01/28/84)
I completely agree with your assessment of "Friday" as drivel, although I must admit that my opinion is based on only the first 1/3 of the book, as that was all I could stomach. I think the worst aspect of the book was the endlessly monotonous dialogue, which displayed such a contrived and pre-adolescent attempt at "cuteness" that it made me wince. Speaking of bad sf, this gives me an opportunity to voice a dissenting opinion on Brin's "Startide Rising", another dog that, to use the words of Dorothy Parker, "should not be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force". Probably the worst attempt at depicting aliens that has appeared in many years. Second only to Gene Wolfe in the bad writing catagory. Pat Clancy Tektronix
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (02/03/84)
>I completely agree with your assessment of "Friday" as >drivel, although I must admit that my opinion is based >on only the first 1/3 of the book, as that was all I >could stomach. I think the worst aspect of the book was >the endlessly monotonous dialogue, which displayed such a >contrived and pre-adolescent attempt at "cuteness" that it >made me wince. I completely disagree with your assessment of "Friday". It's not Hugo material, but I found that it had an aura of maturity and vision I haven't seen in RAH since the Juvenile days (they may have been strident, but they were good and he knew what he was trying to say). What REALLY suprised me was the maturity he had in his sexually oriented material in Friday. Most Heinlein either suffers from an Oedipus or a candystore complex; I found Friday to be realistic about things while still being RAH (a difficult line to tread). >Speaking of bad sf, this gives me an opportunity to voice >a dissenting opinion on Brin's "Startide Rising", another >dog that, to use the words of Dorothy Parker, "should not be >tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force". >Probably the worst attempt at depicting aliens that has >appeared in many years. Second only to Gene Wolfe in the >bad writing catagory. I haven't read Brin yet, but having listened to him at Baycon, I am looking forward to it. Also, I don't know how you can consider Gene Wolfe a bad writer. It looks like we simply disagree on what makes writing good or bad (which makes neither of us right or wrong, just different). I seem to like everything you don't, which is why they publish such a variety of books these days. Somewhere out there, every book you consider trash has someone who likes it. It may only be the author or editor or publisher, but that person exists. -- From the house at Pooh Corner: Chuq 'Nuke Wobegon' Von Rospach {fortune,menlo70}!nsc!chuqui Have you hugged your Pooh today? Go, Lemmings, Go! <I'll give up my quote of the week when YOU give up those pretty pictures!> I'm not worried. I gave myself up for dead before we started.
rpw3@fortune.UUCP (02/07/84)
#R:nsc:-60100:fortune:9900028:000:1352
fortune!rpw3 Feb 7 03:29:00 1984
Let's hear it for "Friday"! I was beginning to worry about him after
"The Number of the Beast" faded into unintelligibility (started fine, then
got weeeiiirrrddd), but "Friday" brings back the good old secret agent stuff
of "Gulf" and "The Puppet Masters" (updated to scary plausibility, if you've
been reading the noises about seccesion lately, see Naisbitt's "Megatrends").
My one gripe is that the ending is just a bit lame. But that sudden cut away
from the action to a look back from a future quieter time in the lives of the
characters is something RAH has used/abused more than once (see "The Moon Is
A Harsh Mistress", "Glory Road", and even "Puppet Masters", for examples), neh?
[Hmm.. was the mishmash at the end of T#otB the beginning of the trend
we've seen with Niven ("Engineers") and Asimov ("Foundation's Edge" and
"Robots of Dawn") on the part of authors to try and make ALL of their
various plot lines come together? Is T#otB a satire, then? I mean, just
this morning Lazarus was complaining to me that R Daneel was probably
really a Pak protector, or vice-versa, and knew nothing of psycho-history
beyond what Jorj X. McKie had brought back from Dosadi.]
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphins Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065davidk@dartvax.UUCP (David C. Kovar) (02/08/84)
I lost the origional material, but the author stated that
he appreciated the maturity in regards to sexual mores and the like
that Heinlein showed in Friday. If you ask me, that's about ALL he
is showing these days. I really liked the Lazurus Long material,
party because it did handle sexual issues well. But his latest two
books, Number of the Beast and Friday, deal only with such issues
and use the plot to tie together various encounters and discussions
on the subject. Heinlein once showed us that he was a good author,
he then showed us that he was very liberal with regards to sexual mores,
hopefully he can now go back to being a good author.
It might be point out that two of my friends in high school
read Number of the Beast and Friday as pornography, they did not
enjoy science fiction for the most part.
--
David C. Kovar
Usenet: {linus, decvax}!dartvax!davidk
ARPA: kovar@MIT-ML (Infrequent)
U.S. Snail HB 3140
Dartmouth College
Hanover NH
03755
"The difficult we did yesterday, the impossible we are doing now."israel@umcp-cs.UUCP (02/12/84)
From: lmc@denelcor.UUCP
Somewhere I read that Kettle Belly was a refugee from an
earlier Heinlein story. What was it? Anyone know?
The story was "Gulf" in the collection "Assignment in Eternity". It
also mentions Gail and Joe Greene.
--
(If I had a cute saying, you'd probably be reading it rather than this
garbage which says that if I had a cute saying, ... )
Bruce Israel
University of Maryland, Computer Science
{rlgvax,seismo}!umcp-cs!israel (Usenet) israel.umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay (Arpanet)charlie@hp-pcd.UUCP (02/15/84)
Kettle Belly Baldwin was featured in only one other Heinlein story that I know of, a neat little novella titled Gulf. It was a spy story where Kettle Belly was the leader of an underground group of supermen. Friday's parents (major gene donors) were two characters in that story that died to save the Earth.
lmc@denelcor.UUCP (Lyle McElhaney) (02/15/84)
Yes, just what was Kettle Belly's organization *doing*, anyhow? And why does it all come to an abrupt end at his death? That was what I found disappointing in Friday. What started out as the main plot line just kind of disappeared.... Somewhere I read that Kettle Belly was a refugee from an earlier Heinlein story. What was it? Anyone know? -- Lyle McElhaney (hao,brl-bmd,nbires,csu-cs,scgvaxd)!denelcor!lmc