Reviews for Marscape

The average rating for Marscape based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-21 00:00:00 Chase Carpenter Robert Anson Heinlein…shame on you, sir. W…T…everwomanhating…F were you thinking when you wrote this drivel? Friday is, in my irritated opinion, the most offensive and childishly ridiculous female protagonist since Russ Meyer and Roger Corman teamed up to co-direct Planet of the Nympho Bimbos Part II: Attack of the Soapy Breast Monsters.** ** Not a real film, so don't bother searching Amazon for it. Pardon my soap boxing, but this is a despicable pile of misogynistic shit that should have been dropped, wiped away and flushed from the literary world before it ever plopped on the printing press. Sorry for the dysphemism, but "I really didn't like it" just doesn't adequately express my loathe-on for this book. Previously, I'd read and enjoyed a handful of Robert Heinlein's novels and many of his short stories and considered myself a fan of his work. I have also read some reviews where people took issue with his attitudes on sex and women, but hadn't personally come across anything I found excessively off-putting…UNTIL NOW. This noxious crap pissed me off the roof of the RAH Fan club and had me losing respect for the man all the way down. Before I get to my major problems with the book, let me pause, slow my heart rate and give you a quick run down of the plot: PLOT SUMMARY Set in the future on a balkanized Earth that has splintered into a collection of rival city-states, corporate fiefdoms and criminal enclaves, Friday Baldwin is an artificial person (AP) who works as a combat courier for a mysterious employer. Her job is making deliveries and pick ups to sensitive to be entrusted to normal channels. As an AP, she is stronger, faster and supposedly more intelligent than normal humans though she hides her true nature because APs are held in contempt by society (similar to Robots in Asimov's much better Robot novels). Early on in the book Friday finds herself out of a job and then travels from situation to situation acting as the reader's eyes and ears for Heinlein to share with us his vision of a dystopic future and expound on his political views. Of the almost 400 pages in the book, there's about 100 or so that are decent, Heinlein world building. MY PROBLEMS WITH THIS BOOK For all of her strength, speed and deadly fighting ability, Friday is nothing more than an insecure, bubble-headed skank who thinks that SEX is the only valuable commodity she has to offer in this world. Countless times in the book, she either sleeps with, or tells the reader she would be willing to sleep with, someone as nothing more than a courteous "thank you" for being nice. Don't get me wrong, sexual independence and equality…fine by me. But I got no inkling in Heinlein's prose of sex being an uninhibited display of physicality between equals free to express themselves. Nope, didn't see it. I saw tawdry, lowbrow objectification grounded in atavistic chauvinism rather than new age "free loveism." Granted, most of the sex Friday has in the book is consensual and she's a willing participant. I say "most" because there's an instance at the beginning of the book when Friday is kidnapped and gang-raped by 4 guys (I'm not kidding folks). Of course, Friday, for the most part, doesn't hold a grudge against the rapists as she believes they are just "softening" her up for interrogation which she completely understands. Whoa…full stop…major HUH? Moment ahead. Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall in frustration. As a proud: 1. Father of two brilliant, happy and outgoing little girls, 2. Husband of a smart, confident, self-motivated woman, 3. Younger brother of two well-educated, independent sisters, and 4. Youngest son of an intelligent, successful businesswoman (and mom of 5)… …I just wanted to bitch-slap Heinlein until I knocked the skeevy right out of him. Please don't interpret this as some indulgent display of gender enlightenment by the PC police as I am about as opposed to militant PCness as I am about this book. Hell, the women I know can more than take care of themselves without my blundering around getting in the way. However, this book is horrible. It's crap and I don't want to avoid calling it what it is simply at the risk of appearing to pander. There were dozens of instances in the book where I wanted to throw the book (with Heinlein attached) against the wall, but I'm going to mention just three of them to give you an idea of our protagonist. 1. A young man offers Friday his seat on a crowded passenger train. She accepts and then proceeds to lean forward as he stands next to her so as to allow him to look down her shirt. She does this as a gesture of thanks. 2. Friday explains her belief that it is inappropriate for her to allow someone to buy her a meal unless she is willing to give them a legitimate shot at sleeping with her. Now that's class. 3. I don't want to give away a spoiler so let me just tease you by saying that one of the 4 rapists from the beginning of the book reappears later in the novel and Friday's interaction with him will cause you to fume, spit blood and hack up bile….TRUST ME ON THIS. This is not some strong, independent woman who isn't afraid of her sexuality and explores it with confidence and on her own terms. This is a timid, naïve woman with a massive inferiority complex who feels she "owes" a guy the opportunity of getting her into her pants because he offered her his seat on a passenger train. Are you F@#KING kidding me? This book was a big, hairy Neanderthal of a novel with its knuckles dragging along the floor and had more in common with the soft-core porn of John Norman's Gor novels than the previous work I've read by Mr. Heinlein. A horrible, massive disappointment and it will be a while before I give one of his books my time. For now, Mr. Heinlein, let me just say:

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-30 00:00:00 David Seidenfeld Two months before the 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner was released, Robert A. Heinlein first published Friday. Blade Runner was the film adaption of Philip K. Dicks' 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but Heinlein may also have been influenced by PKD, in that Friday concerns the creation of "enhanced" humans. Both works also feature and highlight a strong female lead character. Friday for Heinlein and Priss in Blade Runner have created in speculative fiction an archetypal female: inhumanly strong, sexually active and dancing to the beat of a different drummer. This archetype may be seen in other later works like Neuromancer and Snow Crash. Heinlein readers will not be shocked to read page after page of sexual discussions, sex talk and long dissertations of sexual freedoms. What was edgy and fresh in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land in the 60s had become less so by the early 80s. This was still better than the studied creepiness Heinlein had devolved to in other of his later works. Like many of his works, this is also a vehicle whereby RAH can explore and comment upon many of his ubiquitous themes like family structures, government (particularly a libertarian aversion) and social mores. This is also like Snow Crash in that Heinlein has described a balkanized, anarcho-capitalistic world order. Fans will also be glad to see much mention of Heinlein's Past History universe and in style and pace this is also reminiscent of his work The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Fast moving and fun, Friday is a shining light in his later canon. *** 2021 reread - Of course with most of Heinlein's later works, from 1970 on, we are reminded that the old gentleman still liked the ladies. First published in 1982, when our hero was a spry and virile man of 75, Friday reveals Heinlein to be the senior statesman of SF writers keeping his finger on the pulse of what's going on. BTW - Pfizer first discovered Viagra in 1989, a year after the grandmaster's death. Too bad because if he had been able to take the little blue pill, Heinlein might be alive today at 113, still randy as an old goat. Heinlein had the sign of the times as in the early 80s we see many seemingly unrelated art expressions describing a mildly dystopian, anarcho-capitalistic society where social mores and cultural differences have been blurred and merged. Bladerunner, Neuromancer are two but I can also think of Rush's 1982 album Signals and Howard Chaykin's 1983 comic American Flagg!. RAH joins these other expressions while revealing much of the same kind of vision with Friday. This time around I also noted the exploration of Friday as a meta-human, as an enhanced life form, not necessarily artificial, and the prejudice she experiences and also loneliness trying to fit in. I had also forgotten how violent this book was and even though it is somewhat softened by Heinlein's homely comic delivery, it may not be suitable for many readers.