Back to an Old Favorite

The title is "Back to an Old Favorite" but can I really say that when it's the son of a favorite?

Whenever I'm casting about for something to read I will commonly go back to the old standards and favorite authors. Go look through this blog and you'll see some of those favorites quite easily. There's Lawrence Sanders (see here), Dick Francis (here), Fredrick Forsyth (here), even some Evanovich (here) and several others. They are safe, secure, you know what you're going to get and it's like walking into a party where you know everyone and there will be some, but not too many, surprises.

This time it's Dick Francis' Damage (buy it here) . . .but it's really by Felix Francis his son. Why is it "Dick Francis' Damage?" Did Dick Francis outline the novel and Felix just complete it? Is he just drawing off the fame and reputation of his father by using his name? (I know, I know . . . it's this . . . but bear with me). Before I continue, let me share with you the first line. I love compiling this list of first lines (see here) and going back and reading them all. This one may be one that I skip over.

I’ve had the test results and the news isn’t good.” 

I couldn’t get the words out of my head. 

I was sitting in the shadows at the back of a race-program kiosk near the north entrance to Cheltenham racetrack, scanning the faces of the crowd as they flooded through the turnstiles. 

I was looking out for any one of the fifty or so individuals who were banned from British racetracks, but my mind kept drifting back to the telephone conversation I’d had that morning with my sister. 

“I’ve had the test results and the news isn’t good.” 

“In what way?” I asked with rising dread.

“It’s cancer,” she said quietly.

Francis, Felix - Dick Francis's Damage

Now, one my suspect that whipping out a word like "cancer" would instantly make for a good first line, but for my money, that could be one of the more boring story openings in existence (that could be hyperbole . . . I still have quite a few more to read).

Now back to Felix. Nothing against my own pops, but I wouldn't want people coming to a train meet that I called "David Hannah's Train Meet" when in effect there was no trace of my father in it. Felix should break out on his own I say. I understand the need to make a living and the desire to continue the work of his father, but have some courage to just call it, Felix Francis' Damage.

Not to mention the fact that as far as books go, his aren't too bad. I don't think they're as solidly good as his father's but they're pretty close (see here). Also, there were some stinker Dick Francis books out there. Felix I hope will one day drop the Dick Francis banner at the top of his books and go fly free on his own.

This is an irksome to me in many ways, not least of which I find Felix not quite as good as his father, but also because of Vincent Lardo. I feel dismayed whenever I go out to read a new Lawrence Sanders book because there are no new ones. His Archy McNally character could be one of my favorite characters ever (despite being a blatant rip off of Archie Goodwin of the Nero Wolf series . . . see here), but there is old Vincent Lardo continuing the series in Sanders' absence.

On the one hand I think it's the height of patheticism to have to use someone else's characters and fame to create your own. On the other hand it sure is nice to have even the semblance of a growing library out there of some of my favorite authors. I'd love to know what others think about this as well.

Old School

Now that I've finished old Trav McGee and Nightmare in Pink (see HERE), I've moved on to more Dick Francis. This time it's High Stakes see (HERE). 

I'm really looking forward to this one. I have never read it and it's among the older version of Dick Francis' work.

Within the first few lines the reader is reminded that this is from a bygone(ish) era. 

Book Review - Longshot - Is Meekness Even Minorly Heroic?

I just finished reading Longshot by Dick Francis. I was particularly engaged by this book in that I thought I had read all of Dick Francis' books. Longshot was new to me. Or I read it so long ago I've completely forgotten it.

Two passages stuck out.

The first is at the very end of the book. The hero is a travel adventure writer and the killer is using the hero's manuals on shooting game and survival against him. By the end of the book, when the hero is about to reveal who the killer is, the killer commits suicide and tries to make it look like an accident.

"A copy of Return Safe from the Wilderness lay on a workbench, and I picked it up idly and looked through it. Traps. Bows and arrows. All the familiar ideas. I flipped the pages resignedly and they fell open as if from use at the diagram in the first-aid section showing the pressure points for stopping arterial bleeding. I stared blankly at the carefully drawn and accurate illustration of exactly where the main arteries could be found nearest the surface in the arms and wrists...and in the legs.
Dear God, I thought numbly. I taught him that too."

I thought this was excellent if only for the O-Henry-esque ending. Loved it. Saw it coming just a bit, but not so much that it wasn't fun to read.

The second passage occurs early in the book.

"The letter from Ronnie Curzon came on a particularly cold morning when there was ice like a half-descended curtain over the inside of my friend's aunt's attic window. The window, with its high view over the Thames at Chiswick, over the ebb-tide mud and the wind-sailing sea gulls, that window, my delight had done most, I reckoned, to release invention into words. I'd rigged a chair onto a platform so that I could sit there to write with a long view to the tree-chopped horizon over Kew Gardens. I'd never yet managed an even passable sentence when faced with a blank wall."

Finally, the title of this post alludes to an aspect of this book juxtaposed against my own endeavor. My editor revealed to me that he has never read a Dick Francis book. I was impressed when upon receipt of my manuscript he went out and borrowed one from the library, ostensibly to read. I say ostensibly because I found out later that he did not actually read it.

Throughout the manuscript he has written "your hero is too meek, not showing even minor heroic qualities" or words to that effect. In Longshot, as in most of Dick Francis' books, the hero is meek. Strikingly meek. These two things, reading Longshot, reviewing my edited manuscript, brought this into focus. Is it bad to have a meek hero? Can't he act as a foil, as so many of Francis' heroes do, to all of the characters that interact around and with him? A sponge? An everyman who plays off others and travels through his story reacting instead of acting?

At the very least I can be thankful that according to Matthew writing about Jesus in the Beatitudes, my hero is blessed and will inherit the earth.

Comeback to Comback

I just finished reading come back by Dick Francis. Are used to think I had read every single Dick Francis books there was, but now I see there are a few out there I'll be there forgotten or I have not read. Truthfully I think that I've just forgotten them. I believe if I did read come back I read it when I was 16. That's 25 years ago. It's not remarkable think I may have forgotten it.

What's even sadder is that it's a completely forgettable book. That being said it was incredibly inspirational. One of the things I love about reading Dick Francis book is that I feel like I can go and do it better or just as good at the very least. While reading the last couple of books by him that I read I sell myself putting the book down running upstairs to my study and starting to knock out looks of my own. I don't know what it is but I feel like I can write just as well as he can. No I consider that a good thing he inspires me to write.

It was not that good a bug but it was decent, solid, well that written and worthwhile. There were a few too many characters to keep up with. The main character was the same main character that's in everything go Dick Francis book. The ending came way too soon. The romance was too superficial. One would think I didn't enjoy it, but I enjoyed it immensely.

 Now I'm on to a commitment book. One of those books I'm going to read and commit myself to not because I want to read it because I feel like I should. War and peace by Leo Tolstoy. I am Magent you will not hear a review from me quite a while. That's a solid chunk of book.

Wrapping Myself in an Old Friend

 Now that class has come to an end, or should we say pause, I have a little more than a month off at the moment. 

In the past few months I’ve taken: 1) Learning and the Adult Brain, 2) Doctoral Studies Introduction and Literature Review 3) Online Adult Teaching and now 4) Statistical Methods. Killer to pack all that in in just 6 months. I’m smoked. 

So I am taking a break. 

What’s my break? 

A novel. That’s it. Just a novel. I used to read a novel a week. Now days, I barely have time for one a year. I read so many articles and other books on adult learning that there’s never any time for novels. I should actually be working on fleshing out my dissertation a bit more, but I’m taking a break. 

What am I reading? 

Dick Francis. I’m reading Nerve for two reasons. It’s one of the few Dick Francis mysteries that I have not read (see here . . . although now that I’m a quarter the way into it, I think I may have read it as a teen. It’s seeming rather familiar).

The second reason? Well, as you may know I like to write a draft of a novel every November as a part of NaNo (see here). This year I think I’ll be knee deep in two classes in November, both Qualitative Statistics and Measurements and Administrative Adult Leadership, so I think NaNo will be put on the back burner. I may try to sneak in fifty thousand words in August or July. Dick Francis is a great warm up for getting me in the right frame of mind. 

The first line got me, and I’ve been reading with a smile ever since, even if those first lines were a bit gruesome to warrant a smile.

First Line Right Now

 The other day I mentioned how I'm trying to get back into writing via reading. Well, to help spur that along I picked up a Travis McGee and a Dick Francis. I'm mid way through the Travis McGee and just started the Dick Francis. 

The Dick Francis (unlike some of his others, see HERE) has a less than inspiring first line, but it's not that bad. Makes me want to find out what happened. But the Trav McGee won out!

Enquiry Might Be the Last For a While

I may have OD'd on my favorite authors, especially Dick Francis. I wrote a couple weeks back (see HERE) about my reading lately, between classes. 

This last one was Enquiry, and it was really good. It's simple, quick, fun, and fast. Love it. I've been writing alot about covers lately (see HERE), so I wanted to get you an update on Enquiry's covers.

Like the last Dick Francis, this one too has a TON of covers associated with it over the years. My favorite is the top one here. Love the sunset (or maybe a sunrise). I'm also still a fan of the puzzle blocks style that is the second down. Then that third one down is pretty fun too, it captures the whole story and all the sub-plots in one cover.

Following a New Blog

If you look to the right you'll find links to the blogs that I commonly go check out. I've added to the list recently. I've found that most bloggers who run their own blogs, as compared to blogs that have a host of writers who write an article once a week or once every two weeks a la The Kill Zone, are far more apt to stop posting for several weeks even months at a time. This is an occurrence that I try to avoid.

Nevertheless whilst rambling around Thriller Ink I found this article by James N. Roses entitled Maybe I Write My Book Backward. It's a really good article. It was good enough, anyway, to make me eschew reposting an article on writer self discipline that was posted on The Kill Zone.

Mr. Roses is experiencing a bit of an author identity crisis. He's not sure what genre his books truly fall into. He says:

I guess I could always label my books as dramatic, contemporary thriller/mystery fiction novels, but I’m yet to come across that section in the bookshop.

Then goes on to say:

I feel it is important to just tell the story I want to tell. So far my novels are based in the real world, no sci-fi as yet, and because of this, my work will always include the highs and the lows, the problems and the solutions if there any, and good and the bad, the serious and the funny.

So, why do I find this compelling? Years ago while shopping around Toe the Line I ran across an agent who disagreed with a premise in my query. I wrote imagine Dick Francis with a focus on adventure racing instead of horse racing. Then later I wrote that it was a mystery. This agent said that I was wrong in choosing mystery as a genre and saying that I write like a thriller writer like Dick Francis.

I remember I chose mystery for a reason. I read many many books on writing and publishing (see here) and most of them identified or defined mystery in a certain way and thrillers in a different way. I chose mystery for a specific reason. Among many other reasons I remember an editor I had defined Thrillers as needing to have international destinations and globe trotting protagonists.

Slightly simplistic? Sure. I found it funny that that editor, who had several oddities, his thriller definition not at all the strangest, but that there are so many blurred lines in the industry. Does Dick Francis write thrillers or mysteries? Does Diane Mott Davidson write thrillers or mysteries? Its a funny, blurry line in so many cases.

Who Hasn't Started a Book with "Medic! Medic!"

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I love writing about and logging my first lines and paragraphs from books that I read. My most recent one is this one:

Medic! Medic!” 

I could see that my platoon sergeant was shouting, but strangely, the sound of his voice seemed muffled, as if I was in a neighboring room rather than out here in the open. 

I was lying on the dusty ground with my back up against a low bank so that I was actually half sitting. Sergeant O’Leary was kneeling beside me on my left.

Francis, Dick; Francis, Felix - Crossfire

It's not a bad start. And of course as anyone can guess the main character is the one who is severely hurt.

I've never read a Felix Francis book. I love his pop Dick, but Felix is new to me. So far, a few pages in, I'm quite happy with it. I'm looking forward to more. I'm seeing the difference. Dick Francis has a bit more sophistication to his writing, whereas Felix sounds like he's just trying to get the story out. But, it's not a bad book thus far.

Another Morning, this Time from Felix

I just finished Crossfire by Felix Francis and it wasn't too bad. Not as good as Dick Francis, but a solid try. 

All that being said, Felix is a typical writer in that he too falls for descriptions of the morning. Anyone who reads this blog should know by now that finding morning descriptions are a particular fondness of mine (see here). Felix provides his own offering below.

The sky was lightening in the east with a lovely display of blues, purples and reds. In spite of being completely at home in the dark, I had always loved the coming of the dawn, the start of a new day. 

The arrival of the sun, bringing light and warmth and driving away the cold and darkness of the night, was like a piece of daily magic, revered and worshipped by man and beast alike. How does it happen? And why? Let us just be thankful that it did. If the sun went out, we would all be in the poop, and no mistake. 

The rim of the fiery ball popped up over the horizon and flooded the hillside with an orange glow, banishing the gloom from beneath the bushes.

Francis, Dick; Francis, Felix - Crossfire

A little more than is common from what I find in other works, still just as prototypical. I'll probably keep reading Felix's stuff, even though I think "fiery ball" is a tad trite.

Running Back to an Old Standby

I'm reading Comeback, by Dick Francis, I think "again." I feel certain as a teenager I read this one. I must have loved it. There are few Dick Francis books that I don't love (see here). After giving up on Dance with the Enemy (here) I'm looking forward to Comeback.

Even the first line has me excited:

I’m Peter Darwin. 

Everyone asks, so I may as well say at once that no, I’m not related to Charles. 

I was in fact born Peter Perry, but John Darwin, marrying my widowed mother when I was twelve, gave me, among many other things, a new life, a new name and a new identity. 

Twenty years rolled like mist over the memories of my distant childhood in Gloucestershire, and now I, Peter Darwin, was thirty-two, adopted son of a diplomat, in the diplomatic service myself. 

As my stepfather’s postings and later my own were all at the whim of the Foreign Office, I’d mostly lived those twenty years abroad in scattered three- or four-year segments, some blazing, some boring, from Caracas to Lima, from Moscow to Cairo to Madrid, housed in Foreign Office lodgings from one-bedroom concrete to gilt-decked mansions, counting nowhere home. 

Friendships were transitory. Locals, left behind. Other diplomats and their children came and went. I was rootless and nomadic, well used to it and content.

Francis, Dick - Comeback

"Twenty years rolled like mist over the memories of my distant childhood in Gloucestershire," . . . what I wouldn't give to be able to write like that.

Hot Money . . . Never Knew It Existed

I thought I had read all the Dick Francis books. I'm so glad I was wrong. Lately, as I reread them, I naturally find them less than original, less fun to read. It's so nice to find one I didn't know existed and recapture that fun and esteem that comes from reading a book like Hot Money.

It's a typical Dick Francis novel. A mild-mannered protagonist who is forced into helping someone out of a jam inspired by a murder, usually involving a strange or estranged family and always involving horse racing. Nothing new to see here, except I really liked it. I guess the newness came from finding it in the first place.

The last lines are also typical, the main character has gone through an adventure and grown, usually spiritually and closer to a loved one, but ultimately he is the same person who started the novel.

“Did you notice I’d taken the golden dolphin and the amethyst tree and so on out of the wall and put them in the sitting room?” he asked casually. 

“Yes, I did.” 

“I sold the gold too.” 

I glanced at him. He looked quizzically back. 

“The price rose sharply this year, as I thought it would. I took the profit. There’s nothing in the wall now except spiders and dust.” 

“Never mind.” 

“I’m leaving the clause in the will, though.” 

The family had been curious about his leaving me the piece of wire, and he’d refused to explain.

 “I’ll buy more gold, and sell it. Buy and sell. Forward and backward. One of these days”— his blue eyes gleamed—“ you may win on the nod.”

Francis, Dick - Hot Money

Back to an Old Friend

The problem with having a favorite author who is no longer around is that once you've read all their stuff, it's hard to go back and enjoy their works in the same way that you enjoyed them the first time around. I'm going back to read an old friend. Dick Francis. One of my many favorite authors. I'm sure I've read Reflex before, but now that I don't remember it, I think now is a great time to go back and reacquaint myself.

The first line isn't too bad considering some of the others (see here):

Winded and coughing, I lay on one elbow and spat out a mouthful of grass and mud. The horse I’d been riding raised its weight off my ankle, scrambled untidily to its feet and departed at an unfeeling gallop. I waited for things to settle: chest heaving, bones still rattling from the bang, sense of balance recovering from a thirty-mile-an-hour somersault and a few tumbling rolls. No harm done. Nothing broken. Just another fall.

Francis, Dick - Reflex

One of the few good things about going back and re-reading novels is that I like to remember where I was when I read them, and think about who I used for the character models and what places I used for the setting. When I was younger and had a very small history of English country houses to pull from, I always used my parent's friends, the Turner's house as the setting for so many of Dick Francis' novels. It's a tudor style home and was the closest I could get to envisioning British homes.

I also like to remember who it was I envisioned in different roles. Whenever I read a Stephanie Plum mystery (see evidence of that guilty pleasure here) I have a very clear image of the real person in my life who I use in that role. She's perfect for it even though she looks nothing like the way Stephanie Plum is described. Same goes for Jack Ryan. Got me a person for that role too. I like to read these old novels and remember who I used. Usually I remember then think to myself, "What were you thinking!"

Book Review: Second Wind

UGH! Don't you just hate when your favorite author writes a horrible book? This is Second Wind. Easily the worst Dick Francis book I've ever read. The plot was ridiculous and was full of non sequiturs, the dialogue didn't seem natural, the characters were forgettable and the writing was bad. Throughout the story I kept thinking, "Wow, my novel is better than this." And I stand by that.

Thankfully, Dick Francis has alot of "political capital" with me. I'm not off him for life. The sad part is, while I was looking for my next book to read, I realized that there were only a couple of Francis book Kindle-ized. If they don't quickly Kindle more, I fear I'll be stuck with the dregs.

Dick Hannah Stayed Here

I read Maria Finn’s article in the WSJ The Write Stuff (here) last weekend and was less than inspired. Do I think it’s a neat idea to stay in hotels or apartments where famous literary heroes may have stayed? Sure. Would I want to stay in any that are highlighted in the novel? No. A thousand times no.

Despite being less than inspired to go travel as Miss Finn suggests, I was inspired to think about where I would want to go and where I would want to stay.
First, I think it would be fun to start a trail ride down on the border and ride it north just like they did in Lonesome Dove. You could camp out along the way and read passages of the book along the way. What a spectacular way to both camp, and to read a great novel.

Secondly, a Dick Francis tour. I’m sure they have these and if I ever get over to England I’m determined to join one, but a tour of the horse racing venues that Dick Francis uses as backdrops for his mysteries would be incredible. The problem? There would be too many.

Probably not what others would like, but certainly more personal and personally inspirational than those listed in the article.

Book Review: The Danger

I finished The Danger by Dick Francis at about midnight on Tuesday. I don't know if I've read this one before or not. I suspect that I have as there were one or two scenes I felt I could just about have predicted before they were complete, but that could be because I consider myself such a Dick Franciscan.

One of the aspects of his writing that I enjoy, and have a new respect for now that I've tried it myself, is Francis' ability to have a story that revolves around horse racing and not have the main character be a part of the horse racing world. In The Danger, the main character is a hostage negotiator. He happens to fall into the racing world when a spate of kidnaps infects the horse racing world.

Not much in the way of vocabulary, but I highlighted some passages.

In this first the main character is describing to another character a father who is upset by the kidnapping of his son. A great sample of an interesting simile.

"John Nerrity is like one of those snowstorm paperweights, all shaken up, with bits of guilt and fear and relief and meanness all floating around in a turmoil. It takes a while after something as traumatic as the last few days for everything in someone's character to settle, like the snowstorm, so to speak, and for all the old patterns to reassert."

This next describes the main character talking to the police chief. I like the way Francis allows his own character to describe a dominant feature of himself, phrasing suggestions as questions.

"'Andrew!' The beginnings of exasperation. 'What's been going on?'

'Will you be coming here yourself?'

A short pause came down the line. He'd told me once that I always put suggestions into the form of questions, and I supposed that it was true that I did. Implant the thought, seek the decision. He knew the tap was on the telephone, he'd ordered it himself, with every word recorded. He would guess there were things I might tell him privately.'"

This final passage describes the way that the main character feels about America.

"I felt liberated, as always in America, a feeling which I thought had something to do with the country's own vastness, as if the wide-apartness of everything flooded into the mind and put spaces between everyday problems."

It's a good, solid, Francis book. I enjoyed it. Unlike many of his and other mystery books, this one ends rather abruptly. There is no denouement, just a quick sentence or two after the climax. The reader is forced to imagine the rest. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

High Stakes Cover

Yesterday and last week I wrote about what i'm reading right now (see HERE). The week before that I wrote about the first line from that book, as I often like to do (see HERE for all my first lines and why I catalog them). As anyone who follows this blog knows, I am currently in a phase of liking to see all the different varieties of covers that go along with the books I read (see HERE). 

This first one is what I like best about Dick Francis books. This style. this is what I was trying to mimic with my first series of covers for my own books. I failed. I do still like this style though. 

Funny Ole World of Writing

This week, I didn't have a tone of meetings, so I thought I would have a ton of time to write. I have that writing bug right now, I was hoping to capitalize on it. Sadly, I did not.   

Work piled up quickly. Tons of little things, a couple of big ones, and more politics and personnel decisions than I normally have to deal with. It's the end of the year, and so we are dealing with wage increases and bonuses, and no matter how generous you think you might be, it's never as generous as your employees hope. 

Next First Line

This is a new one for me. I thought I had read all of Dick Francis' work, . . . nope . . . looks like I missed one.

I intensely disliked my father's fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.

Dick Francis -  Hot Money

Based on the comments, it looks like this is out of print, so thank goodness for the ole Kindle.

Readers might also note that I've reading a lot of first person, genre mystries. I'm trying to get the mindset right for finishing up Vapor Trail, my third novel. I wouldn't call it "writer's block" so much as "writer's ennui." It works though. The more of the style I read the more I think, "Hey, I can do this. I can knock this out."

Still, glad to be reading something new at the same time.

Finally Done with my Final Edit

So I finished the last read through and last edit of my manuscript. Now what? Well, first I'm going to ask several more people to read it for me. Stephen King inspired me. This was part of his advice. I even know the folks I want to read it. Mystery lovers. Already picked em out, have one of them on the hook. Won't make the same mistake I made with the edit.

What mistake? Having an editor who did not read mysteries edit my book. When I read my manuscript this last time I did so while reading a Dick Francis novel. It helped me get in the right frame of mind. I believe I've written here before that I was encouraged when I saw that my editor had a Dick Francis book on his shelf when I took him my manuscript. I was discouraged to find out that he'd never read it.

I think I've made the decision to go ahead and e-publish the book. First I want to look into several successful marketing campaigns that have accompanied an e-book release from relative unknowns and try to mimic them.