Fri, 18 Feb 2005

Friday's World

Just finished re-reading Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein. It's beyond a doubt my favorite book by the dean of science fiction writers, but not because of the story. It's a good tale, to be sure, if a bit overflowing with Heinlein's particular sexual predilections, and it lured me in twenty years ago when I first read it. But now the story itself is almost secondary to the effect that the book has on me: déjà vu. The book was first published in 1981. Major plot spoilers are ahead, but I want to try to convey how prescient this book has turned out to be: it's positively eerie.

The heroine of the book, Marjorie Friday, is an AP - an artificial person. Genetically engineered (not cloned) and raised in a creche, she's owned by the "Boss", who uses her for various courier duties. Her engineered body contains a couple of rather special pouches, you see, where things can be safely tucked away from prying eyes.

AP's aren't very well liked in Friday's world: the majority of the population sees them as a threat, both literally (AP's are generally physically and often mentally superior) and economically. The laws against them are fairly draconian, with some going so far as to call for their extermination. They are not citizens of any nation, and are considered property.

But there are a lot of laws, anyway, in Friday's world, because there are an awful lot of sovereign nations. Following a brief nuclear exchange (which led to a few cities being destroyed, notably Seattle in North America) the large nation states Balkanized: and your MasterCard from the Chicago Imperium may not always be honored in the California Confederacy, as the exchange rate between crowns and bruins fluctuates wildly.

But of course MasterCard itself survives. Most all transactions take place using biometrics or smart cards, on the Net. Terminals are literally everywhere in Friday's world: it's Always On.

Friday walks daily with the threat of terrorist attacks. There are religious terrorists, political terrorist and folks who just like causing mass hysteria. Terrorists have already taken down one of the space elevators, and she hates riding the remaining one. So she usually rides the semi-ballistic back and forth from her job in BritCan (British Canada, as opposed to Quebec) to her New Zealand home. The SB's have their problems, though. Sometimes the creatures engineered to fly them (they need super fast reflexes) go kinda bonkers, and passengers and crew get to swim in the Pacific - if they survive hitting the water at Mach 9.

Friday gets a job at one point as a mercenary in a private army that's marching on Chicago. Governments have fewer soldiers than corporations in Friday's world.

To say much more would be to give away the entire story, and I don't want to do that, as it is a very good tale. It was one of Heinlein's last efforts, and is probably not the best book to start with if you've never read anything by him, but the ambiance is positively frightening.

This is about as believable a dystopia as I've ever encountered: it's barely subdued anarchy. And I can see it coming to fruition on an almost daily basis. Heinlein must've used a real crystal ball for this one: read it and fear for our future.

Inspired by Gibson's World from Moore's Lore

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