Talk:Friday (novel)

Was Friday dark skinned

Was Friday really dark skinned? One of the points of the story was that she "passed" as white, so to speak, with one of her families. This became apparent when one of her kids went on to *date* a dark-skinned fellow and she discovers the prejudice of that family.

So, I'm not so sure that Friday was dark skinned, so much as she had many genetic components from all kinds of human beings. There's even a point where she lists them and is puzzled by the human drama.

But it's been at least a decade since I read the book, so I could be mistaken.

Having read this book several times, I believe you are correct. I could not find any mention of her actually having dark skin. There is mention of her various genetic backgrounds, including Native American, but there is nothing to suggest that she has dark skin. Djgranados 01:10, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Did some basic cleanup on the book, and deleted the "cleanup" tag. I've never read the book, so I can't improve the article too much. -Lampros, August 20 2005

Actually, in one of the scenes in the novel set in New Zealand, Friday's somewhat dark skin coloration comes up in discussion of why Anita (the head of the group) cut one of the group's daughters off from the family for wishing to marry a man from Tonga. The point was that she explained her skin coloration as due to Native American ancestry (she's actually a recombinant human with genes from about two dozen people of different races), and that in the vote to allow her into the family in New Zealand, it was a negative factor, but not a strong one (as she was also a well-paid woman with Native American ancestry who would be buying into the family with large monthly cash payments). loupgarous (talk) 18:10, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Skin-colour

[This section was totally without signatures. It must have been added before they got Sinebot working. --RoyGoldsmith (talk)]

(Spolier Warning. Are these needed on the talk pages?) I don't have the book to hand, but I am fairly certain Friday is not pure white. I think she is described as having a natural tan. I belive the S-Family she "passed off" as white in considered her as native american, something Friday only discovers after it turns out the question of her race was discussed by her family before she was allowed into the family. Will try and dig out the book later to get some page refs... Here we go Publisher: New English Library Pg72 ... (Friday says) "So? Vickie, this built-in suntan of mine - you know where I got it?" "Certainly, you told us. Amerindian. Uh, Cherokee, you said. Marj! Did I hurt your feelings? Oh, dear! It's not like that at all! Everybody knows that Amerindians are - Well, just like white people. Every bit as good."

Note that Vickie knows Friday as Marjorie Baldwin.

Sorry, I think whoever wrote this is wrong. (I can't address that person properly because they didn't sign their name.)

The full quote is (1st ed, p56-7, underline mine):

"So? Vickie, this built-in suntan of mine - you know where I got it?"

"Certainly, you told us. Amerindian. Uh, Cherokee, you said. Marj! Did I hurt your feelings? Oh, dear! It's not like that at all! Everybody knows that Amerindians are - Well, just like white people. Every bit as good."

(Oh, sure, sure. And "some of my best friends are Jews." But I'm not a Cherokee, so far as I know. ...)

More pertinent is "Boss"'s final letter to Friday (p260):

Before your records were destroyed, I once scratched my curiosity by listing the sources that went into creating you. As near as I can recall they are:

Finnish, Polynesian, Amerindian, Innuit, Danish, red Irish, Swazi, Korean, German, Hindu, English -- and bits and pieces from elsewhere since none of the above is pure.

So Friday is a genetic everywoman, probably with a skin color halfway through the normal human range. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

For sure. It's often been pointed out that the cover is inaccurate as regards skin color.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the Microsoft comparison - it's right in the sense that Shipstone holds a monopoly on an intellectual property (Heinlein seems to think this means it isn't a monopoly for some reason), but the "sinister" aspect of Shipstone is more the huge number of companies it is behind, which on the face of it have nothing to do with Shipstone. An early "Sinister Mega-Global Corp". The uprisings in the book turn out to be a inter-departmental despute within Shipstone. I may try and improve the article a bit, but haven't edited any pages before, so will see.

General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler during their heyday in the late '60s- early '70s would probably have been Heinlein's inspiration, but a much better modern analogy to Shipstone and the corporate empire he founded would be Elon Musk and and the business empire he's building around Shipstone-like efficient batteries for his Tesla cars, the batteries he's making to store solar electricity in homes and his Solar City power company. Musk's work to rationalize our energy economy comes much closer to what Heinlein has Shipstone doing in Friday than anything Microsoft did. And Musk isn't actively restraining trade (neither did Shipstone in the novel) the way Microsoft was argued to have done in the historic Federal anti-trust suit before Thomas Penfield Jackson. loupgarous (talk) 20:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Musk' "work." Please, can we be serious? 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:956C:1C35:22BF:46F1 (talk) 08:13, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Friday and feminism

Someone really dumbed down the analysis of the male chauvinist cliches that frame the beginning and the end of the book. I restored the point that the reality is the opposite of the cliches in both cases. This is important, because Heinlein's trick here is one of the most sophisticated and skillful he ever managed--in what is probably the most successful of his adult novels.--Dec. 30, 2005

I don't see the ending as a skewering of any cliche. It's known that Robert and Virginia wanted children but didn't have any and it seems to me that this seeps into Heinlein's works as the attitude that having and raising children is very important. Also, a number of Heinlein's stories show pioneer planets positively. The ending could very well be completely serious. Ken Arromdee 20:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It is clear throughout Heinlein's career from The Rolling Stones to the Tertius novels that he felt that true freedom comes only on the pioneer edge of a culture, that once the culture has built up for a while, government expands to strangle. Look at Time Enough for Love, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Red Planet. So, Botany Bay, as a non-built-up planet with little government other than what is needed (in Heinlein's eyes) is a place where freedom can flourish.--Wehwalt 22:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Heinlein didn't entirely step out of the "man writing a potboiler about a woman" headspace in Friday, but the book shows us his evolution toward writing more dimensional women, along with the narratives which make up The Number of the Beast and To Sail Beyond The Sunset. These later novels compare well with, say, Lois McMaster Bujold's women characters (and her ability to write across the gender gap to give us dimensional male characters). I mention Bujold (her Barrayar novels and stories, specifically) because Bujold was just beginning to enjoy success when Heinlein published the later novels, not long before his death.

Of course, Heinlein always had an eye for what his readers liked, and his characters reflect that, too. Friday might not have had the following it did if its main character were, say, more like Podkayne of Mars's, and less the uninhibited, libidinous, sexually fluid courier, polymath and trained killer Heinlein created in Friday. But she's anything but a cardboard cutout or constrained by anyone else's notions of proper womanhood. loupgarous (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Now that we've all indulged in a round-robin festival of WP:OR about "Friday and feminism", let's look at WP:RS. If you go there, you have to go to sources which are disparaging about Robert Heinlein in general and Friday in particular. Scott Timberg, in "The Descent of a sci-fi guru", a 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times, says:

"L.A. writer M.G. Lord loves the juveniles and credits their strong, self-reliant females with making her a feminist. The tendency of Heinlein heroines to use initials led young Mary Grace to do the same. But Heinlein's adult books are not as good, she said, and some written during and after the sexual revolution are disturbing, including "Friday," in which a heroine falls in love with her rapist. "The minute he could make his sexual fantasies explicit it was, 'Oh, gross!' "

Which is a prodigy of poorly-considered literary criticism. Timberg manages to reduce the plot of Friday to "in which a heroine falls in love with her rapist". The whole subtext of Friday and the man who raped her as part of the novel's second chapter opening scene both being "artificial persons" without much say about their assignments curiously goes missing in the analysis. Timberg didn't want to deal objectively with Heinlein, he was a prosecutor doing a voir dire to empanel a jury to convict Heinlein of sexism in the first degree with the aggravating factor of rightism. It's the Left talking to the Left, again.

I'm not sure Timberg's article or its point of view is notable enough for our article. If we present it, it ought to be balanced against Spider Robinson's much more favorable assessment of the novel in the Mid-September 1982 issue of Analog. Robinson's contemporary criticisms of how Heinlein chooses to end the novel are much more in line with contemporary feminist thought, not what Timberg's short list of modern-day feminists thought. There are other perspectives on Heinlein and feminism, however, which line up roughly with Timberg's, such as Annalee Newitz's. I'm not sure that Newitz's criticisms of Heinlein, given her association with the Gawker snarkery-for-profit online empire, are much more WP:RS than Timberg's - but we ought to have a conversation as editors about it. loupgarous (talk) 17:19, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I’m not sure how, “it’s the Left talking to the Left, again” reveals anything of merit to the Wikipedia article, except that you don’t think that the criticism from the published critic is valid because of supposed political leanings.

Later criticism of Friday brings to light that as a character she lacks agency, bouncing around until men tell her what to do, and feel. I don’t have a citation for that, sorry, beyond “late 80s, early 1990s”. 2600:1700:F90:6950:19C:2E7E:85C5:D895 (talk) 15:35, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Links to other novels

The conjecture that Friday might be in Timeline 3, is based on similarities between the other 3 stories canonically set in Timeline 3: The Rolling Stones, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Cat who walks through Walls. Of course, the problem is trying to set Gulf in Timeline 3 :-) Albmont 16:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm..I think this section should be reworked:

Friday is loosely tied to the novelette "Gulf", which appeared in Assignment in Eternity, since both works share characters — "Kettle Belly" Baldwin and "Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green". (The latter two do not appear in Friday, but are mentioned as two of the title character's genetic progenitors.)

I would describe Friday as a sequel to Gulf. (In contrast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is loosely tied to Friday through references to Shipstones and the colony worlds, including Fiddler's Green.)

Kettle Belly Baldwin is the boss of Friday's organization, a central character in the novel.

And "Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green" don't appear in Friday for the very good reason that they died at the end of Gulf.

-- Jim Douglas 17:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Where is it stated that Rolling Stones is in the TMiaHM timeline? Because there is a Hazel Stone in each? The Moon seems very different from the overregulated state described by Mannie. I suggest we hedge on this. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wehwalt (talk • contribs)

Hmm, I've never thought about it like that; you make a good point. I don't think Heinlein had come up with the Multiverse concept as early as 1966. But you're right...there are significant discrepancies. -- Jim Douglas 21:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the unsigned. I don't have a copy of RS around the house, it is not one of my favorites, but I will lay my hands on one. But I do not think we would be justified in saying that RS is in the same timeline as Moon.--Wehwalt 22:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem, I just signed it for clarity's sake. And I'm with you on Rolling Stones...at one point, I thought it would be interesting to read Rolling Stones -> The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress -> The Cat Who Walks Through Walls in order, but I dropped Rolling Stones after a dozen pages; it's not my favourite of the juveniles. -- Jim Douglas 22:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I would view Rolling Stones and TMiaHM as being in the same timeline, but I would take RS as a later work (despite being written earlier). Specifically Hazel Stone is 12-years-old in TMiaHM, and a old grandmother in RS. As for the different conditions on the moon in both stories, that is sort of the point of TMiaHM. It goes from the over-regulated state run by Earth to the independent state that, while larded down with silly regulations invented by the revolutionists, is still more free than they were before. And over the course of Hazel Stone's lifetime, one could expect an ebb and flow to regulation and government on the frontiers. I see no real conflict between the two books.OnceUponAnUpdate (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Friday is a sequel to Gulf, The Rolling Stones is a prequel to TMiaHM, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is a sequel to TMiaHM. The inconsistencies exist, but they are not fatal: there are even less inconsistencies among those stories then among the stories that canonically compose the Future History. My private heretic hypothesis is that Heinlein wrote Friday not only as a sequel to Gulf, but also as a sequel to TMiaHM and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, but now I see that I must be wrong: Friday was published in 1982, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls in 1985. It doesn't matter: the balkanization of the USA that is history in Friday is an important event in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Albmont 22:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, folks, Roger Stone move to Fiddler's Green is mentioned in TCWWTW, not in The Rolling Stones <:-( Albmont 23:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This section might need a bit of rework:
Friday is loosely tied to the novelette "Gulf", which appeared in Assignment in Eternity, since both works share characters — "Kettle Belly" Baldwin and "Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green". (The latter two do not appear in Friday, but are mentioned as two of the title character's genetic progenitors.) The motif of a secret superman society in the latter work, however, is not mentioned in Friday.
Apart from the things already mentioned by Jim Douglas, the superman society IS mentioned, in passing, several times in Friday with the references to the planet "Olympia". After the death of Dr. Baldwin, the attorney Mrs. Tomosawa explains "Olympia is where those self-styled supermen went". I am assuming those are the same supermen as in Gulf. WanderingSpirit 00:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(Irrelevant small-world observation: My wife used to play bridge with Bob and Ginny, back in the day...) I think calling Friday a sequel to Gulf almost entirely misses the point. Like (e.g.) Poul Anderson, Heinlein became much more conservative as he grew older. The elder Poul referred to his young self as a flaming socialist and was reluctant to edit his early work, feeling that they were effectively the work of another person. His "UN-men" story, for example, is about idealistic United Nations agents laboring to save the world. Gulf is Heinlein's equivalent story, also about young idealists giving their lives to (in this case literally) save the world. Gulf may fairly be regarded as the terminal story of Heinlein's early period, since it was the last story he wrote specifically for Campbell, before their personal split over WW II patriotism issues. Friday, by contrast, is vintage late Heinlein, and its most essential feature is that it is a meticulous point-by-point retraction of every point he advanced in Gulf. Most essentially, in Gulf the protagonist Joe Green dies to save the Earth; in Friday the protagonist leaves Earth to stew in its own juices and goes off to maximize her personal life. A full list of oppositions between the two tales would take pages; a few other obvious highlights include:

  o  Joe is male, Friday is female;
  o  Joe is human, Friday is artificial;
  o  Joe is trained to think super-rationally; Friday is trained to think purely intuitively;
  o  In Gulf Kettlebelly states that his organization wouldn't even hiccup if he died,
     in Friday Kettlebelly's organization shuts down completely the day he dies.

(My wife suggested at one point I check all this out with Ginny, but at the time I was too shy, and now it is too late...)

 76.191.170.103 (talk) 04:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC) Cynbe

From the New Future History section

"The Imprisonment of Dr. Hartley Baldwin - In "Gulf" Dr. Baldwin and the Greenes successfully prevent the launch of nuclear weapons by a group of politically motivated would-be tyrants from the moon. While the Greenes' actions are successful, and they die in the attempt, Dr. Baldwin is held accountable by the Lunar Government, who have him serve sentence on Earth. The ensuing Rebellion frees Baldwin, but by which time Friday is several years old, and cannot be rescued from her Creche."

All the copies of Gulf that I've read ended at the death of 'Mr & Mrs Greene,' with a paragraph or so mentioning a plaque on the site of their death. Where did all that about Baldwin's sentence come from? The-Dixie-Flatline (talk) 05:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Removed the Microsoft bashing

I removed this POV: "...eerily suggestive of today's Microsoft".

Specially because the Shipstone Corporation looks more like Standard Oil... And Shipstone might be a pun on Rockefeller.Albmont 22:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Heinlein once wrote nostalgically about the efficient way in which the Standard Oil trust provided its services before the Sherman Act was passed. I suspect he was skeptical about government's ability to protect the public's interests better than properly motivated capitalists. His descriptions in Friday of the books written about Shipstone and the tentacular network of holding companies formed after the worldwide use of his invention to convey energy efficiently are clever, low-key satires of the outrage some people feel for global capitalism and any other efficiently-run and successful business enterprise.

An even better analogy for our article might be Elon Musk and the business empire he's building around Shipstone-like efficient batteries for his Tesla cars, the batteries he's making to store solar electricity in homes and his Solar City power company. loupgarous (talk) 20:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, "properly motivated capitalists" such as Musk building an "empire" around "Shipstone-like efficient batteries" - are these loony ramblings to be taken at face value? 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:956C:1C35:22BF:46F1 (talk) 08:20, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

The Year of the Jackpot

This is sort of interesting. Friday's research into various cycles that led her to recommend emigrating off-planet is almost identical to the plot of The Year of the Jackpot, which was written thirty years earlier. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd call it similar in theme, touching on some of the same cycles. Probably Heinlein's idea of a bit of a joke, recycling his old material!--Wehwalt 05:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

agreed, although I am not sure is was meant as a joke. More generally, the power of maths is a recurrent theme. It appears he had a chip on his shoulder about it, being not as proficient as his "competent man" is supposed to be, and being rather naive about what can be done with it. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:956C:1C35:22BF:46F1 (talk) 08:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Widely theorized; by whom?

The story occurs against a backdrop of general social collapse, widely thought to represent the theorized decline of Western Civilization.

If someone can produce two references to such a supposition made by a reviewer or critic, I'll say that sentence can stay. If not, I will move it into talk in a while, or at the very least remove the qualifier "widely", as unsupported. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 05:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm just going to take it out.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Friday82.jpg

Image:Friday82.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 21:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

plot summary

The plot summary is terribly written. Not even sure what it means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.224.166 (talk) 22:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just reread Friday, first-edition hardcover, and (as I suspected) never once is the year mentioned. Yet the writer of the plot summary has included dates for past and present events in the novel. Such dates are at odds with Heinlein's intent; if he'd wanted dates in his story, he would have provided them.

For example, in the novel, the "Second Atlantic Rebellion" is mentioned exactly once, undated, in Hartley Baldwin's posthumous note to Friday, whereas the summary says that it "concluded July 4th 2076." Moreover, Red Thursday is said to occur in 2093, thus dating most of the events in the novel. Where on earth do these dates come from?

Other similar suppositions are made without giving specific dates, such as that the Quito Skyhook sabotage occurred "5 years before the novel begins." Nowhere in the book is the date specified; we are only told that it occurred after Friday met Douglas (that is, some seven or eight years before the novel begins, based on Friday's description of S-group daughter Ellen's age then and now).

Better for the entire plot summary to be reduced to a few sentences than for this nonsense to remain posted. Plot summaries should include no inferences about dates or anything else not given in the story. (Moreover, it is pointless to contrast this novel with the "established" future history against which many Heinlein stories take place.) Gottacook (talk) 06:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Somebody really went to town on this article a few weeks ago, and I really haven't had the time to deal with it. I'd agree, cut back the plot summary to bare essentials.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to look for contemporary reviews of Friday. I remember reading Spider Robinson's review of the novel in the Mid-September 1982 issue of Analog but no longer own that issue. The Speculative Fiction Database page on Friday has links to bibliographic info (but not the text of) nineteen different published reviews of Friday, each of which would be WP:RS-compliant secondary sources both for the plot summary and other areas of our article. loupgarous (talk) 20:17, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Lists

The vast majority of this article seems to be pointless lists. I think that these need to be trimmed right back or (preferably) removed altogether. Euchrid (talk) 14:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, it would seem reasonable to delete the following sections completely: Solar System Locales, The Interstellar Colonies, Technology, The Shipstone Complex, Genetic technology, Religious References. The plot summary is where more detail is needed. Some of this could be worked into the plot summary but with much less detail, in my opinion. --Captain-tucker (talk) 14:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll work on it, as I get time. Writing a plot summary shouldn't be difficult, though the story is slightly convoluted. And the lists are trivial and in universe.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Dedication

From memory, Friday is dedicated to a number of prominent female science fiction writers of the day, using their first names only. There's some controversy over what Heinlein meant by this. I think that this deserves a mention in the article - I'd do it myself but I don't have a copy on hand, and as such can't include the full list. Euchrid (talk) 09:54, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unreferenced Sources and possibly In-Universe Original Research

Folks,

I'm sorry to have to tell you this but I think that the bulk of the article on Friday does not meet Wikipedia standards and should be removed. The problem is that most of the article has no reliable sources. In addition, my guess is that everything from A New Future History down to Religious references is based on original research with an in-universe perspective, which is also disallowed.

These sections were originally created by two anonymous users: 118.92.189.35 on April 7, 2008, and 203.97.21.90 on October 8, 2008. Unfortunately, many of you have added content to those sections over the past year. Unless we can find sources for your efforts, I'm afraid that all of the work will have to be deleted from Wikipedia. (It will still be available through the History tab at the top of the article.)

Everything published by Wikipedia should have received significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. You, as an Wikipedia editor, should not read a novel and then write how one portion of that novel relates to another portion. This would be original research. ("Original research" is something of a misnomer; perhaps "original thought" would be better.)

• For example, you can say that "Approximately two-thirds of the book deals with Friday's employment in "the boss's" secret organization and the rest deals with her after her boss has died, including her interstellar journey." Since you're only counting pages, that would be allowed.

• But, you cannot say "The Kingdom of Mexico is now no longer a republic, possibly ruled from Spain, or by expatriate Spanish Royalty, but either possibility is conjecture." That would be original research.

Unless the meaning of that paragraph was present, in some concise form, in the novel itself OR we had at least one source confirming this.

• For example, if some Wikipedia editor did have (say) a review of the book and it said that "Within the timeline of the novel, Mexico is now a kingdom. This kingdom is possibly ruled from Spain although it is equally likely that it's ruled as a separate country, possibly by royalty from Spain, although I may be presuming too much." If we did have this source then we could cite it as a reference for that sentence in the article. (The best way is through an inline citation.) Then the judgment is by the reviewer, not you.

However, even if you had such a citation, we should probably not use it, unless there was something in real life that made the novel's description of Mexico pertinent. For example, if the government of Mexico lodged a formal complaint with the US State Department over that description, that would certainly be relevant to the article. But, of course, then we would have a citation (or many citations, like news reports and official State Department announcements) about the real-world incident.

I quote from our guidelines:

"Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves."

and:

"An in-universe perspective is inaccurate and misleading, inviting unverifiable original research by relying on primary source. Most importantly, in-universe perspective defies community consensus as to what we do not want Wikipedia to be or become."

In our case, the text of the novel is our primary source. Remember that we're editors, not contributors of ideas. Our job is to summarize and paraphrase information that is already documented, not to come up with new thoughts. For an example of reliable sources and a real-world perspective, see the featured article on Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

In conclusion, let me say that I really liked the treatment of Friday, especially the questionable sections. Friday is my favorite book and I read it about once every two years. It's just that I believe that those doubtful sections do not belong in Wikipedia and I think that most experienced Wikipedians would agree with me. I wish we could find some other wiki that allows original interpretations. Then we could cut and paste our material over there.

I'm going to leave this talk section around for several days, to see what comments I attract. Sometime next week, I'll begin adding warnings to the article, like:

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Five days later--

OK. I've inserted the three warnings above into a total of nine sections (see below). I'm not going to make any further changes to the article for at least several weeks.

If anyone is opposed in general to one or more of those nine sections being permanently deleted, please insert your objections here.

If anyone can cite sources (any kind of sources) for any material in those nine sections, please do so in the article itself. At a minimum, please insert a comment about your source(s) in one of the nine subsections that follow.

A New Future History

The Dominions of North America

Rest of Earth

Solar System Locales

The Interstellar Colonies

Technology

The Shipstone Complex

Genetic technology

Religious references

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Response to Mr. Goldsmith

Dear Mr. Goldsmith : User 118.92.189.35 is myself, apologies for writing so much without logging in - my oversight. Subsequent corrections are my own, though other users have neatened up sections (such as the list of colonised stars) for which thanks to all.

Re references - Roy, this is Science Fiction story. I therefore submit that the only significant reference available is - the book itself. In addition - I am as an avid a reader as yourself. The sections detailed were taken as far as possible from my copy of the novel. Quotations are direct - it was not appropriate to distort the author's intent, as this article is of course a precis. I have been using the NEL Inernational Edition. I am also curious as to why you did not see fit to make corrections ? If there are inconsistencies that you felt would be best to be corrected, the Wikipedia is well designed to accommodate them. As an author I respect others opinions, and so try to build, rather than demolish. My own contributions were clearly appreciated until this point, or else they would not have been enchanced by others (see above). Other readers and contributors are invite to leave comments with regard to this. I will post a reference and ISBN number as well.

I further submit that a requirement for other sources of reference are not pertinent in this regard - as a work of fiction the story is independent, though comments above include references to real-world politics.

Within your own commentary, you have noted that other users have seen fit to leave the entry mostly unedited for over year - while legally speaking "silent assent" may not have great validity, I am personally confident that Hienlein Fans internationally are content with the content and depth of the article as written. Please put forward reasons over and above those written for your requirement for speedy deletion ! Your own opinion matters, but in the spirit of free speech please also do not presume that you are the all-powerful ogre, because that is extremely tyrannical behaviour, and Hienlien Fans in particular will take your actions very badly, I feel sure. I am taking it badly right now, and look forward to private conversation if you would so desire.

Kind regards,

Martin La Grange, Auckland, NZ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepshark5 (talk • contribs) 09:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Martin La Grange

Dear Martin (Deepshark5),

Thank you for your kind letter. I shall try to address your points down below. (I’m not indenting because it’s too much trouble for a multi-paragraph response. :) My reply is kind of long, I'm afraid.

First, I’m not talking about speedy deletion (or any kind of article deletion). That type of deletion would remove the entire article, even the name and all history. What I am talking about is a severe form of content deletion: the removal of 9 out of 16 sections. Even if these sections are removed, they still exist in the article's history tab and may be restored at any time, by any editor, through cut-and-paste or the Undo button. (I’m trying to avoid such an edit war; that’s why I created a talk section.) Look here for some of the restrictions on writing about fiction.

While this article is about a Science Fiction story, it is also a Wikipedia article. As such, it must meet the general consensus of all Wikipedian editors, not just science fiction fans or Heinlein fans. In other words, general consensus trumps the consensus of a particular subset. Please, please read the Five Pillars (our foremost rule), if you haven't already.

You must understand that most Wikipedians concentrate on Civil War battles or US politics or Rock Bands of the 1960’s or whatever. They regard science fiction as a somewhat illegitimate form of literature, like fairy tales or historical romances. Early on, there was a movement to eliminate all articles specifically on novels. Then someone pointed out that even an encyclopedia should have an article on, say, Les Misérables. But, if we wanted an article on Les Misérables, what about For Whom the Bell Tolls and The DaVinci Code and (more to the point) Friday? What about some unpublished novel the author posted on the web and so far has received less than a dozen hits. Where would we draw the line? What about films or plays or works of non-fiction?

The solution was to apply the Five Pillars to this problem. By consensus, the article's contents (not the existence of the article itself) had to pass Verifiability (specifically Reliable Sources) and No original research. Any published novel could be included but each significant statement in the article must be attributed (or attributable) to a reliable, secondary source, not the text of the novel itself. (“Attributable” means that you’re sure there is a secondary source somewhere, you just can’t lay your hands on it right now.) Many novels have dozens or hundreds of secondary sources; for example, see Les Misérables and/or Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

We can use the text of a novel inside the Plot section but, even there, the plot must follow the book’s chronology. We shouldn’t extract fragments from various places in the story and assemble them to produce a meaningful whole. That’s original interpretation. Even the plot section should act like a linchpin to the rest of the article; it shouldn’t be the be-all-and-end-all of the article itself. (These are rules adopted by the editors of Wikipedia by consensus.)

Addressing your concerns specifically, you seem to want an exception to the Reliable Sources and the Real-world Perspective guidelines for science fiction (or, possibly, for all fiction). Before we continue, please read this and this. These guidelines apply to every article in Wikipedia.

This requirement for reliable sources and real-world perspective has been gone over dozens of times in the past. The problem is: where do we stop? Do we allow someone to add a section to the Battle of Gettysburg all about a recreation (in modern times) of the Battle of Gettysburg? I understand that such recreations happen several times a year. Do we permit a separate subsection for each recreation? Told as a first-person narrative (even if disguised)?

Our solution has been that we do allow a recreation to appear in the article providing that it has appeared in reliable, secondary sources. Let’s say the Harrisburg Patriot-News sent a reporter to a specific recreation and they wrote a fairly long piece in their Sunday edition. And the NY Daily News sent a stringer who produced a two-paragraph slug on Thursday. Then that would be “encyclopedic” enough to pass the reliable sources test for inclusion in the Battle of Gettysburg (probably in a small subsection near the back). If the first author expressed their opinion or interpretation, it would be OK if we included that judgement, making sure that the article is phrased in such a way that it's obvious that the judgement is the author’s opinion, not original thought on the part of the Wikipedia’s editors.

We can't say that the nine sections under discussion are any different than that Battle of Gettysburg recreation just because they’re in an article about fiction. That's against the consensus of all Wikipedians (not just Heinlein fans) so that is what we’re supposed to do. We don't have separate, conflicting rules for separate subsets of articles. (Maybe we should but, as of right now, we don't.)

If someone else took the nine sections and paraphrased them on a blog then you could cite that blog as a reference for those sections. (If you blogged them yourself, that would be against our rule pertaining to conflicts of interest. Even if you got a friend to blog the sections for you, it would be against the spirit of conflict of interest.)

However, even though that blog would pass the test for a secondary source, we don’t usually allow blogs as reliable sources. But I’m only asking for any sources at all. Please bear in mind that another editor, say tomorrow, might ask for reliable sources or they'd remove the offending sections.

Now you can choose a new pen name and “publish” the offending sections (properly paraphrased, we don’t want any copyright problems, do we?) on any of thousands of websites that allow anonymous user input. Because we always assume good faith, I (and most editors) will allow your inclusion in the article. (A couple of years from now, who knows?)

But then we’re really cheating the consensus system of Wikipedia itself. That consensus is built on what everyone would like our encyclopedia to be eventually (on that great day when everything is reliably cited). Not what science fiction fans (or Civil War fans or whatever stripes they’re wearing this year) want today. “Silent assent” is also not sufficient because, IMO, the article on Friday is visited by mostly science fiction fans and the content of Wikipedia is based on what everyone would want. Would you want a Wikipedia that means one thing to (say) historians and another thing to science fiction fans?

In conclusion, let me say that, in spite of everything, I approve of your intentions. There may be something in allowing an in-universe perspective, based solely on the text (which would have to be cited by edition and page number or chapter). In my opinion, these sections should be in separate, See Also sub-articles, accessed from the main article. Maybe having an article name like (say) “In-novel perspective of Friday”. If you want to start a request for comment (RfC) in favor of this on this talk page, I will support you.

If we get the In-novel-perspective idea approved by consensus then we can retrieve the nine sections from history and cut-and-paste them into a separate article. As a matter of fact, if you want to pursue this, I will leave the nine sections alone until this matter is resolved. We can use them as an example.

Finally, I don’t think I’m an ogre or a tyrant. My personal objective is to get Friday and all Heinlein novels up to featured article status (like Starship Troopers) but that shouldn't affect this decision. I wish there was some legitimate way of doing what we both want. But, for now, the guidelines are what they are and we must follow them or object in some civilized way, like your letter or RfC’s. (By the way, I’m fairly new at this. I believe that most experienced fact-checkers of Wikipedia would simply have deleted the nine sections from the article entirely, with maybe an edit summary, visible only from the history tab, like: removed 9 sects for no RS and OR.)

All of this is simply my opinion. (Obviously I can’t talk for anyone else.) But I’m fairly confident that what I’m saying meets with broad consensus and are in Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines. If you disagree, perhaps we should start a RfC on these nine sections below.

Very sincerely,
--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 19:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC) (Goldsmith is my nom de wiki but I prefer Roy from all my fellow Wikipedians :)

Subsequent developments

Dear Martin,

It has been over a week and I still haven't heard from you. Do you accept my arguments that the nine sections under discussion should be removed? I don't want to get into an edit war with you, not even reverting a single time.

In brief, my arguments are:

• This is a Wikipedia article and so must be judged by the same standards as any other article, not just science fiction fans.
• The text of any novel is regarded as a primary source about that novel and, therefore, should not be used whenever possible.
• The sections in dispute suffer from: no Reliable Sources, Original Research and a In-universe perspective.
• I offered to support you in a trial exception to the current consensus about in-universe perspectives.

In addition, I have started a venue for others to comment about this matter.

If you have any response, please add your remarks below. (Also, I will send this comment to you via email.)

Thank you. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 22:11, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

---

I will remove the nine sections sometime next week, unless someone objects. These sections will always be available under the article's history tab. In addition, I will save these sections in a user subpage. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:21, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Email from Martin

I have just received an email from User Deepshark5; that is, the guy named Martin I've been arguing with up above. I will not delete any sections until the matter is resolved. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

In a message dated 8/31/2009 10:28:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time:

Dear Roy

Thank you for your reply, and I appreciate the email as sent. Re not replying - I must confess to being away and working hard professionally, though I am back on deck this week out. Re your points, I'll post a reply on Wikipedia this evening (1 Sept 09) ASAP. Re your email, I have addressed responses, please let me know ASAP how you intend to proceed.

>>> This is a Wikipedia article and so must be judged by the same standards as any other article, not just science fiction fans.

Granted, and not disputed. BUT, and this is a very massive but, the subject of the article is a piece of fiction. There are many other novel articles more technical than the one for 'Friday' : Wikipedia articles covering Thomas Pynchon's 'V' and Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' are far more detailed and equally catholic with regard to the novels under consideration.

Therefore your objection does not make much sense to me - The article is encyclopedic, as befits Wikipedia. The data presented is not at variance with the novel, wherever possible. Would it help to perhaps give chapter and verse references for quotes from Friday herself ? I am happy to oblige.

On the issue of Standards - how ? Is there a novel page on Wikipedia that meets those standards by group consensus ? If so, please point it out to me, and I'll make the changes and rebuild the Friday page myself, without trouble. If they are your personal standards that are infringed, say so too. My own standards are not harmed by the page, but the page is a fair place in order to set balances aright.

>>> The text of any novel is regarded as a primary source about that novel and, therefore, should not be used whenever possible.

Ok, as regards this one - you have mentioned that Friday is one of your favourite novels. We both agree that the origin of the novel is the short-story 'Gulf' which feature Dr. Baldwin and Friday's progenitors, the Greenes. Further, we both agree that the work is Fiction.

So - here is the problem I have with your line of argument - the Fiction is the only source available. Can you defend your requirement for additional resources ? As I noted previously, we don't have history texts for Friday's world. Other users have placed links into articles for reference - do you require more of those?

'Gulf' is a very spare story - very little is said about the political situation of the story apart from their being a number of terrorists, which the Greenes as honourable hatchet-men are sent to dispatch - successfully. Dr Baldwin is their boss, but also intellectual expander for their minds. More is not said.

'Friday' as a tale does not work within a particular 'sequence' related to any other story so far seen within Heinlein's 'Future History'. As the Wikipedia article itself notes, the 'point of consensus' for Friday revolves around the Moon landing of LeCroix funded by Harriman. I will further note that Heinlein himself was not 100% consistent, as Lazarus Long's life story (Time Enough For Love) mentions a planet featuring a city of New Canaveral that celebrates Niel'sday, for the date when Armstrong set foot on the Moon, and yet the Harriman Space Trust exists in the same universe at the beginning of the tale.

>>> The sections in dispute suffer from: no Reliable Sources, Original Reasearch and a In-universe perspective.

Please see above - where a 'Universe' is detailed enough, it is possible to write an article. Where it is not, one can be vague. Again : The Novel is all we have. I am afraid no-one has 'A History of the Second Atlantic Rebellion and the Balkanisation of the Americas, 2076-2082' - BUT - we do have the Novel, "Friday" which tells us enough of the background, currencies, polities, and societies for us to make shrewd guesses based on historically minded intelligence. This universe is certainly detailed enough, which is what makes the novel compelling.

>>> I offered to support you in a trail exception to the current consensus about in-universe perspectives.

Ok, well in that case please be consistent ! Regarding current consensus and in-universe, We are in agreement. However, please see replies above in regards factuality. Logically, if we both agree that: • consensus has been reached • in-universe view is acceptable Then what on earth are you yammering about ? You've behaved atrociously in attempting to force your own view over a consensus, which is the fundamental nature of Wikipedia articles - they are consensus driven, not solo controlled. Further, given the nature of the subject, a work of fiction, the only views possible are those in-fiction. Roy, I urge you to be academically minded when making pronouncements and decisions for a Wikipedia article. Your an intelligent, well read, and a capable writer, and must be able to reason out these issues.

>>>In addition, I have started a venue at WP:WikiProject Novels/GeneralForum for others to comment about this matter.

>>>If you have any response, please either add your remarks to Friday's talk page or reply directly to me via reverse email.

>>>Thank you. --RoyGoldsmith (royjgordon@aol.com)

Thanks Roy, I hope we can continue to sort through these problems, constructively. Many kind regards,

Martin La Grange

Email reply from Roy

Subject: Re: Friday on Wikipedia Date: 9/16/2009

I'm sorry I didn't read your email until now. I was away and hadn't opened my mailbox for a couple of weeks.

Did you post your reply on Wikipedia? If so, where is it? I take it from the email above that you did not read my long reply dated August 20th on the talk page of Friday. If you haven't read it until now, please do so. It starts with "Dear Martin (Deepshark5),". My email was a summary of that reply. Unless you read all of that response, we'll just be going over the same material.

In looking over your comments above, it seems to me that you regard this dispute as essentially between you and me. I do not view it that way. I see it as a disagreement over the material in those nine sections. In my opinion, those sections violate many of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I do not set those policies and neither do you.

It is not me you should be making the case for inclusion of those sections. I'm only following Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. You should be making your case to WikiProject Novels. (Access by entering WP:NOVELS in the search box.) If they say what you're doing is OK and change the policies accordingly, I would be delighted to not remove the sections and even add new, in-universe perspective material myself. But you've got to get their approval and consensus, not mine.

For example, I said I would support a trial exception to using the text of a novel as an unqualified reliable source. But you have to submit the proposal to WikiProject Novels and baby it through the consensus process. I won't do it for you.

Please read my long reply beginning with Dear Martin on the talk page of Friday (novel). Then:

• If you have any difficulties with my interpretation of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (or don't understand them), please reply on Friday's talk page. For example, if you think that the bulk of one or more sections is not in-universe perspective, make that case to me. But don't tell me that the whole policy of In-Universe Perspective is wrong; I can't change it.
• If you disagree with the policies themselves, please start a discussion on WikiProject Novels. If you do, I will delay removing the nine sections until it’s resolved. I will accept anything they say.

At any rate, please post a couple of lines to the bottom of Friday's talk section so I will know that you have read my reply. If you want to start a discussion on WikiProject Novels, please tell me what page your discussion is on so that I can participate.

Sincerely, RoyGoldsmith

More developments

I'm inserting a fourth warning to the nine sections under discussion like this:

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

---

As much as I like Deepshark5's thourough collection of information from the novel, I have to agree with RoyGoldsmith that Wikipedia isn't the right place for it. But I suspect that there are more than a few other sites that could use this info. --Aron.Foster

---

I replied to Martin/Deepshark5 via email, addressing some of his points and suggesting that we continue our discussion on this talk page. He never replied to me.

Unless someone objects, I will be removing the nine offending sections within the next week or two. Final warning. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Section Deletion

I have deleted the nine sections (from A New Future History to Religious references) from the article and moved them to User:RoyGoldsmith/Friday. These sections can also be found in the article's history tab for 20:51, 12 November 2009.

In my opinion, a small portion of the deleted material should be moved to the Plot section and/or a new section on Characters. I'm going to wait for a few weeks before I tackle this, just to make sure my deletions aren't reverted. If any of you wish to start adding real-world material yourself, I'd certainly appreciate it. RoyGoldsmith (talk) 21:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

"Literary significance and reception"

The section about critical reaction to the book is one sentence long.

As I recall, when the paperback came out, its first dozen or so pages—I don't think I'm exaggerating—consisted of quotations from favorable reviews, many of which said more or less "Heinlein has returned to writing good books after his recent string of unreadable ones." It seemed clear to me that the point was to convince people who'd given up on Heinlein that they should try again.

Am I remembering correctly? If so, shouldn't the article say something about this? (I am not suggesting that Wikipedia take a position on the quality of the books in question; rather that the article could reasonably note that a number of reviewers felt that way.) Briankharvey (talk) 05:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you find secondary sources that discuss that?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

This is the Speculative Fiction Database page on Friday. It has links to bibliographic info (but not the text of) nineteen different published reviews of Friday, including Spider Robinson's review of it in the Mid-September 1982 issue of Analog. Hope this helps. loupgarous (talk) 20:41, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

The article now has 2 consecutive sections headed "Literary significance and reception" and "Reception". This seems like an oversight. They should either be separated into "Literary significance" and "Reception", or merged. IMO they should be merged as they are fairly short. I'm not sure which heading is more appropriate; I'll review the content & compare a couple of similar articles before proceeding. --D Anthony Patriarche, BSc (talk)

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