Friday — Heinlein, Holt Rinehart 1982

📖 Friday by Robert A. Heinlein (1982, Holt, Rinehart and Winston) — a science fiction novel about a genetically engineered “artificial person” navigating a fractured, balkanized future Earth. This Book Club Edition features cover art by Richard M. Powers and is in VG/VG+ condition.

QUICK FACTS

• Author: Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988)
• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
• Year: 1982 (publisher code M36, Book Club Edition SFBC #5468)
• Format: Hardcover in dust jacket
• Pages: ~344 | ISBN: 9780030615160 (trade first edition)
• Condition: Book: VG/VG+; Jacket: VG/VG+ — full report below

THE STORY

Friday Jones is a genetically engineered “artificial person” — stronger, faster, and smarter than ordinary humans. Employed as a combat courier, she travels across the globe and to near-Earth colonies while concealing her enhanced nature from a world that deeply resents artificial people. When a global crisis known as Red Thursday erupts, Friday becomes a fugitive, journeying through the balkanized nations of North America — from British Canada to the Lone Star Republic to the Chicago Imperium — in search of safety and belonging.

THIS EDITION

Book Club Edition (SFBC #5468) with publisher code M36, indicating a 1982 printing contemporaneous with the trade first edition — likely produced before the title was released to SFBC members in 1983. Maroon quarter binding over dark grey paper boards with gold-stamped spine lettering matches the first edition format.

COVER ART

Richard M. Powers illustrates the dust jacket — a futuristic cityscape bathed in reddish-orange light, with a determined blonde woman in a shimmering blue jumpsuit running across an illuminated landscape. Powers, a multiple Hugo Award winner for Best Professional Artist, defined the visual identity of science fiction covers through the 1950s–1970s with his signature blend of realism and surreal atmosphere.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Nominated for the 1982 Nebula Award, 1983 Hugo Award, and 1983 Prometheus Award for Best Novel
• Part of Heinlein’s “Future History” universe — connected to his 1949 novella “Gulf” via shared characters
• Charles Stross cited Friday as the direct inspiration for his 2008 novel Saturn’s Children

FREQUENTLY ASKED

What edition is this? Book Club Edition (SFBC #5468). Publisher code M36 indicates a 1982 printing. Not a first trade edition, but bound in the same maroon quarter-binding format.

What condition is it in? Very Good to Very Good+ for both book and dust jacket — full condition report below.

Is the dust jacket included? Yes. Retains vibrant color under a protective archival sleeve with minor shelf-wear along spine ends and fold edges. Unpriced as issued.

FOR COLLECTORS

The M36 publisher code dates this to 1982, contemporaneous with the trade first edition — distinct from later SFBC reprints coded N34 (1983). Powers’ jacket art makes this a desirable shelf piece for science fiction art collectors.

See accompanying images for full condition details.

Will ship promptly, carefully packaged.

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