#the dick francis thriller

[elodieunderglass]

100% of my jockey knowledge comes from reading Dick Francis books, have you read any/do you have any Thoughts on them?

TBH despite knowing nothing about horse racing I love his writing and plots, they are my comfort read! I especially enjoy how all his protagonists are Stoic Deceptively Intelligent men with high pain tolerance who fall in love with the female love interest at first sight... Original self insert Mary Sue lol

I thought, this is extremely funny, I will write you a funny little pastiche to show my stylish skills in mimicry and make you laugh!

I did actually feel pain, and I didn't think I liked being shot, but it didn't seem to matter much. In the past two years since the racing injury that had destroyed my hand in an unbelievably horrific way, I had only been able to listlessly pick up the rudiments of the most useless things: a master's degree in forensic pathology, unrivalled proficiency in one-handed lockpicking, an entire secret identity as a hard-hitting financial investigator, a deeply informed background in turf maintenance, international one-handed chess-playing fame, a one-handed pilot's license not relevant to the narrative, a full career arc as a noir private detective, one-handed photography skills, a stint as an undercover basketweaving instructor and a working knowledge of ancient Etruscan.

None of them mattered, because they didn't have horse racing in. Nobody wanted me, because I didn't either.

I didn't have any horse racing at all in me any more.

But then I was up all night with the toddler, and pastiche comes really fast for me, and it stopped being a Bit and started being A Lot. Maybe too much.

So I also became, apparently, the first person to use this tag on ao3:

And wrote you this:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62461696

Which is of course a full parody of the whole 1965 Dick Francis thriller, “Odds Against,” and which I mostly wrote because the accordion joke struck me as shatteringly funny.

DOES THIS ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, I HOPE IT DOES.

[purolibro]

Books I’ve bought so far this year:

Queer fantasy ebooks (The Emperor’s Omega and The Sorcerer’s Alpha by Kerr and the danmei University of the Underworld)

Children’s books (Linnea’s Almanac by Björk, 2 Madeline books)

Graphic/comics (Red Winter by Furmark, a travel comic zine called Lex & Juan Go to Europe)

Mystery/thrillers (Shattered by Dick Francis and Sidney Chambers & the Perils of the Night by Runcie)

Also a lot of other zines for work. Sibs and I are heading out to a secondhand bookshop later so I expect this number to double…

[manojnaironline]

Books I want to read

Books I want to read are usually fast-paced action thrillers, the kind that Fredrick Forsyth, Alistair MacLean and Robert Ludlum specialized in. My all-time favorite author remains Dick Francis. I am a big fan of his low-key, underdog hero characters who eventually outsmart the villain. Once in a while I try to read religious or philosophical books, but typically do not go beyond a few…

[dollycas]

Special Guest - Dave Dobson- Author of What Grows From the Dead #AuthorInterview / #Giveaway - Great Escapes Book Tour @GCDaveDobs @davedobsonfromiowaon @frosthelmbooks

What Grows From the Dead by Dave Dobson I am delighted to welcome Dave Dobson to Escape With Dollycas today! Hi Dave, Please tell us a little bit about yourself. What are three things most people don’t know about you? I lived in Dublin for a year in 5th grade and attended public school in a two-room six-grade neighborhood elementary school. I learned a good bit of Gaelic, although I retain little of it now. In March of that year, we went to then-Soviet Russia for a week, because Russia in the winter was the only tour we could afford. I have played the largest tuba in the world in concert back when I graduated college in 1991. I played Asleep in the Deep with backing from the Harvard Band. One of my favorite experiences. If you’re curious how it sounded, I have a recording here. I have drunk a two-liter of Mountain Dew in under two minutes (1:54.84). That was a very stupid thing to do.  LOL - Mountain Dew is my drink of choice.  What books/authors have most inspired you? In mysteries and thrillers, I loved Dick Francis’ horseracing books. My wife shared them with me shortly after we met, and I just loved his dogged characters pursuing what’s right while often being beat up or pushed around. Learning more about horseracing was fascinating too. I also really like Harlan Coben’s early work and have tried to emulate that in what I do. I am also a big fan of lots of fantasy and science fiction. As a younger reader, I loved Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Heinlein, Andre Norton, Ursula K. Leguin, Harry Harrison, and many others. More recently I’ve gotten into John Scalzi and Nnedi Okrafor. I really love Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds and his other books, and William Goldman’s The Princess Bride (book and movie). Both of them are exciting adventures in their own right, mixed with humor and gentle observations about people.    What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book? I write in a very seat-of-the-pants style without a lot of outlining or plotting ahead of time, so most of my research comes up as I go, as I discover a need for it. When I’m working on a project, I actually post a thing I call “This week in author Googling” on Facebook with all the weird facts I’ve had to look up. For What Grows From the Dead, I spent a good bit of time researching complex bits like what happens when you’re arrested and taken to jail, how search warrants work and are executed, and how cell phone towers are identified. I’ve also enjoyed consulting with friends about specific more detailed elements of books, like sailing and guns, neither of which I was very familiar with but wrote myself into. I’m lucky to have friends with a wide range of expertise, many of whom I’m in contact with through my college class of alums. Do you ever suffer from Writer’s Block? Not usually when I’m in a groove, but sometimes after I pause a project (for a vacation, or because a big event comes up) I have trouble restarting. This has gotten better for me as I’ve written more books. I think I’m no longer daunted by the prospect of trying to finish something. When you are not writing what do you like to do? I play a lot of video games and watch a ton of movies. I have been performing improv comedy at my local comedy club for the past 18 years, which lets me enjoy wonderful and fun group of people doing something really silly. I love boardgames and play any chance I get, sometimes including D&D or other RPGs. I’ve designed a few boardgames also, and I’ve self-published a series of puzzle card games. I enjoy walking and going places with my wife and visiting my kids, who are grown and launched into interesting lives. I have been in a couple of community theater productions recently, too, and I’d love to do more of that. I also enjoy trying to conquer the universe on my Attack From Mars pinball machine (from 1996). I still play tuba sometimes with the oompah band at the college where I worked for 25 years. If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why? I have always wanted to see the pyramids and other sites from ancient Egypt. I love ancient places. My favorites in Europe were always the crumbling castles, and the ancestral Puebloan sites in the US like Chaco and Mesa Verde have a special magic for me. Figuring out how to get to Egypt, set up a tour, and avoid risks from regional conflicts is a little daunting, but I’ll get it done before long. What is next on the horizon for you? I just released a new fantasy novel, so I’ve been working a bit on promoting that and also reaching readers for What Grows From the Dead. I haven’t decided whether my next book will be another mystery or whether I’ll do sci-fi next. I do enjoy writing in multiple genres, although that can make it a bit tricky trying to establish myself in any of them. Thank you, Dave, for visiting today! _____ Keep reading for more information about  David and What Grows From The Dead. About What Grows From the Dead What Grows From the Dead Mystery Stand-Alone Setting - North Carolina Independently Published (March 9, 2024) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 367 pages ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8884545977 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CXN1KQ1B Morris Drummond is not at his best. Well, he hasn't been at his best for a while now. But having just suffered two crushing losses, he's almost at rock bottom, which for him means driving ride-share in his mom's beat up Chevy, drowning his sorrows in tacos and spray cheese, and avoiding anything related to ambition, self-care, or laundry. Morris is about to learn that he didn't even know what rock bottom looked like, and it's all thanks to his mom. A secret she left behind comes to light, and that brings down a lot of unwanted attention on Morris, the kind that looks likely to send him either to prison or to the hereafter. Blood and treachery from long ago rise to the surface, and Morris has only his lawyer Annie, who's an old high school friend, and a few unexpected allies to call on as he tries to figure out what his mom was up to and why so many people want him out of the picture. A humorous mystery with elements of suspense and thrillers, What Grows From the Deadis set in present-day small-town North Carolina, not far from the mysterious Uwharrie Forest. Content warnings: Coarse language throughout; some gun violence (not graphic). Great Escapes Praise for What Grows From the Dead by Dave Dobson Warning: Choose carefully your location before beginning What Grows From the Dead. It is known to cause audible chuckling, chortling, guffawing, and even hooting on occasion. Highly recommended. Five Kitties! ~Jane Reads About Dave Dobson  A native of Ames, Iowa, Dave loves writing, reading, board games, computer games, improv comedy, pizza, barbarian movies, and the cheaper end of the Taco Bell menu. Also, his wife and kids. Dave is the author of Snood, Snoodoku, Snood Towers, and other computer games. Dave first published Snood in 1996, and it became one of the most popular shareware games of the early Internet. He's recently published some puzzle card games in the Doctor Esker's Notebook series. Dave taught geology, environmental studies, and computer programming at Guilford College for 24 years. He does improv comedy at the Idiot Box in Greensboro, North Carolina. He's also played the world's largest tuba in concert. Not that that is relevant, but it's still kinda cool. Flames Over Frosthelm was Dave's first novel, released in 2019. He followed it a year later with Traitors Unseen and The Outcast Crown, then Daros in 2021, The Woeling Lass in 2022, and Got Trouble and Kenai in 2023. He released his first mystery novel, What Grows From the Dead, in 2024, and he's currently at work on a humorous epic fantasy novel. Author Links Website   Facebook    Facebook Author Page    Instagram   Twitter/X    BlueSky    Mastodon     GoodReads Link     Purchase Link Amazon  Also Written by Dave Dobson TOUR PARTICIPANTS - Please visit all the stops. June 18 – Jane Reads - REVIEW, AUTHOR GUEST POST June 19 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – SPOTLIGHT June 20 – Sapphyria's Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT June 21 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY  June 22 – Elizabeth McKenna - Author – SPOTLIGHT June 23 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT June 24 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT June 24 – Celticlady's Reviews – SPOTLIGHT June 25 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT June 26 – StoreyBook Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST June 27 – Christy's Cozy Corners – CHARACTER GUEST POST June 27 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT June 28 – Maureen's Musings – SPOTLIGHT June 28 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST June 29 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW June 29 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR INTERVIEW a Rafflecopter giveaway Have you signed up to be a Tour Host? Click Here to Find Details and Sign Up Today! Want to Book a Tour? Click Here Your Escape Into A Good Book Travel Agent This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using my links, I will receive a small commission from the sale at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Escape With Dollycas. Read the full article

[buxberg]

Les années 90 ont été une véritable percée pour Reeves

Il a eu l'opportunité de jouer dans les projets les plus divers de réalisateurs célèbres, de l'art et essai aux thrillers et films d'action.  En 1991, Keanu Reeves a joué un agent infiltr�� du FBI dans On the Crest de Kathryn Bigelow, a repris le rôle de Ted dans la suite Bill et Ted et a travaillé avec Gus Van Sant dans le drame de River Phoenix My Own State of Idaho. Et ce fut juste le début.  Un an plus tard, il donne la réplique à Francis Ford Coppola dans l'adaptation du roman Dracula de Bram Stoker avec Winona Ryder et Gary Oldman.  Puis il y a Little Buddha de Bernardo Bertolucci, le film d'action Speed   avec Sandra Bullock, l'adaptation de l'histoire de science-fiction de William Gibson Johnny Mnemonic et The Devil's Advocate avec Charlize Theron et Al Pacino.

À la fin des années 90, Keanu Reeves incarne Neo dans le film culte des sœurs Wachowski, The Matrix.  La bande est devenue un succès international grâce aux scènes de combat, des effets spéciaux incroyables à l'époque, une mode spéciale et une intrigue passionnante.  En conséquence, deux autres images ont été prises : "The Matrix : Revolution" et "The Matrix : Reboot".

Malgré le succès et la popularité, l'acteur a continué à choisir divers projets pour lui-même: du mélodrame "Sweet November" au film fantastique "Constantine: Lord of Darkness".  En 2006, Reeves a joué dans l'adaptation cinématographique de Richard Linklater de "The Blur" de l'auteur américain populaire Philip Dick.  Il retrouve Sandra Bullock sur le tournage du mélodrame "House by the Lake".  En 2008, Keanu Reeves a joué le rôle de David Ayre dans le film d'action policier "King of the Streets".

[shortstories4al]

What books do you want to read?

What books do you want to read?

Fast paced action thrillers the kind that Fredrick Forsyth, Alistair MacLean and Robert Ludlum specialised in. My all time favourite author remains Dick Francis. I am a big fan of his low key, underdog hero characters who eventually outsmart the villain. Once in a while I try to read religious or philosophical books but usually do not go beyond a few pages. Comics are great and remind me of my…

[mariocki]

The Dick Francis Thriller: The Racing Game: Odds Against (1.1, Yorkshire Television, 1979)

"Mr. Halley, we've operated three times. You're hard, but you can't take any more - and we can't do any more for you. The nerves, the tendons, the sinews: they're gone for good."

"I'm a jockey."

"You were."

[interact-if]

And the final interview for our Pride Month Event, with Jessamine!

Jessamine, Author of The Black River

Somewhere, somehow, you lost your memories. You’re aware that–whatever it was that happened –it involved chanting cultists, and horrible serrated knives, but unfortunately none of those nice gentlemen are around to explain what’s going on to you. Oh… and also it seems that whatever they did with the aforementioned chanting and knives tore a hole in the fabric of reality and opened a gateway from the world of the living to the Underworld.

Which you fell through.

And now you’re stuck, despite your best efforts, on an antique ship from several centuries ago, with a crew of dead sailors and a motley assemblage of others from the living world. You don’t know what’s going on back in the world where you’re supposed to be, but you know that it can’t be good.

In order to get home, you’ll have to help sail the Will-o’-wisp across the length of the Black River, uncovering truths that change the entire way you view the world and fighting villains whose ambitions extend to the very act of deicide.

And you’d quite like to get your memories back, while you’re at it.

Read More about The Black River here. Play the Demo here.

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!]

Q1 - Please, introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your project(s)!

Hi, I’m Jessamine (Jess for short, but not to be confused with Jess, the author of Fields of Asphodel and Diaspora – I’m surprised there isn’t more author name crossover, but it does happen occasionally), and you may have seen me around from time to time. I write The Black River, and I also do editing for other games (sometimes), and art (very rarely). You may also have seen pictures of my cat, Fëanor… she’s very cute.

My main project The Black River is a story chiefly about faith, which is a subject near and dear to my heart, but it’s also about resilience… being taken to the very edge of your limits and knowing that there’s no one coming to save you, that you’re on your own against a seemingly insurmountable foe. It’s fantasy, but it might not be the exact kind of fantasy that you’re particularly familiar with – it was very important to me that it not be Eurocentric, and there are steampunk and science-fantasy elements as well!

I wouldn’t say it’s romance-heavy, since some of the Relationship Options are aromantic, but it’s definitely character-focussed. All of the characters are important to the story and the plot in one way or another, and all of them have unique perspectives and information to give you, if you put the effort into spending time with them.

My secondary project is Boldly, a game that I haven’t really spoken much about (I’m trying to be good), but I’m honestly dying to, because I love it so much. It’s a Star Trek parody (hence the name), but along the lines of Galaxy Quest, with a different breakout scifi TV show hit taking the place of Star Trek in this universe. It’s divided into 16 episodes, a full season, and you get to play as a little spaceship ensign manning your duty desk and repairing lamps or calculating trajectories while the main crew save the day.

At least in theory… there may be some… complications.

Q2 - What or who are some of your biggest inspirations?

I’m a bit of a chameleon in that I’m always constantly taking some degree of inspiration from most things that I read or watch and enjoy… I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being inspired by things, to be honest. A lot of the authors that had the most definite impact on my style in particular are ones that I read a lot growing up, like David Eddings, Emily Rodda, Kate Forsyth, and Sara Douglass, but Tolkien and Terry Pratchett also had a huge impact on me in terms of storytelling inspiration. Also Dick Francis, but… I haven’t come up with an idea for a horse-racing thriller IF… yet.

For The Black River specifically, I don’t jokingly describe it as steampunk fantasy Mass Effect 2 for no reason. There’s also a bunch of other games that have given me some degree of inspiration… the various Dragon Ages, Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft are probably the most prominent. Boldly of course draws on Star Trek a lot, but also Galaxy Quest, and there’s quite a bit of Stargate, and especially my favourite TV show of all time, Stargate: Atlantis, in there, too.

Q3- What excites you most about IF? What drew you to the medium?

This is probably quite a boring answer but for me the most exciting thing about IF as a medium is the variation. That’s always my favourite part about any RPGs with choices (like Bioware games), seeing what things change based on different decisions. The ability to craft a story that is moulded to and by the player is something very special, and it really appeals to my love of storytelling in general.

As for what drew me to the medium, I was really very encouraged by a lot of the first IFs I came across, which were high quality stories told in a way that was very interesting to me, to give it a go myself. A lot of those stories are ones I’m still reading (Virtue’s End, When It Hungers, The Northern Passage, and Fields of Asphodel in particular… though sadly 3150 Dahlia Street is no longer around), and I was lucky enough to become friends with a lot of the authors! I have to admit meeting so many wonderful friends in the community was a huge factor in helping me decide to stay also.

Q4 - Are your characters influenced by your identity? How?

Yes and no. I have a very complex identity for various reasons, and to date I’ve never made a character who was really everything that I am in one person, but I do tend to use separate aspects of my identity in my characters here and there. I also generally default to all of my characters being bi or pansexual, which I suppose is the most obvious influence my identity has on my work overall.

When I first started writing The Black River, there weren’t a lot of ace characters around – there are some more now, but it was definitely more unusual when I started. Our Lady is a character that has quite a bit of me in her, in regards to her asexuality and her relationship to it, and her feelings about it and about romance.

There’s also an RO in Boldly who is intersex and nonbinary in a similar way to how I am… I’ve never been somebody who particularly looked to stories for representation, maybe because I expected to never find any characters that were really much like me, due to the aforementioned complexity. I’m enjoying writing a character that is more like me than any other I’ve read for myself, though… I hope other people will also enjoy it!

Q5 - What are you most excited about sharing related to your project?

All of it, really; I’ve always been excited, in general, by storytelling as a whole. I love when people read things I’ve written and feel emotions about it… I love when people think about my work and it leaves an impact on them. I suppose in a more specific sense I’m looking forward to unravelling some of the mysteries that have already been laid out in The Black River. Some of them probably don’t go quite where people will expect… oh, and soul-familiars. Those are coming towards the end of the next chapter.

When it comes to Boldly I’m just excited to get to the stage where I can share the game haha

Q6 - What would you like to see more of in LGBT+ fiction/IF community?

It feels somewhat trite to say “more acceptance,” but I do think there’s still a ways to go on a lot of issues. Recently some parts of the community took quite a hard stance against intersex representation, which as an intersex person was obviously quite worrying for me. I used to regularly receive hatemail from people about having ace characters, and I still get hate-filled comments about my aro and aroace characters.

The landscape of the community can change slowly sometimes, but I’ve seen nonbinary ROs change from oddities to a norm over time, and I’ve seen a slowly growing acceptance of ace-spectrum characters and binary trans ROs, so I’m hopeful that things can continue to become more accepting as time goes on.

Otherwise… maybe just more understanding that a single character doesn’t have to be universally-applicable representation. If I write a character that specifically reflects my personal relationship with my specific nonbinary gender, it probably won’t be the same as yours or a character based on you– but that won’t make them bad, or wrong. Just different threads in one large tapestry.

Q7- Lastly, what advice would you give to your creators and readers?

I’m not sure that I have much advice to give to readers, and even a lot of what I would say to other creators has probably been said before, many times. I suppose the thing I feel needs to be said the most, from my experience in the varying corners of the author community, is that creators are so often too harsh on themselves, for no real reason.

“Author” as a vocation is a full suite of interconnected skills working together, not just writing but also other things like planning, editing, time management, worldbuilding, critique, and in the case of IF authors, coding and design as well. I’ve seen too many authors, who have spent years and years writing but never edited or outlined before, be frustrated with themselves and expect to be able to perform just as well in a skill they’ve never even tried before as in one that they’ve been honing for years, and then berate themselves when they understandably fall short of that impossible expectation.

It's not odd to find editing hard if you’ve never edited before; it’s not strange to have to fumble through outlining if you’ve never outlined before. It’s normal, actually. You wouldn’t assume that someone can speak fluent German just because they can speak fluent French. They’re separate skills, that need to be worked on separately, and you’ll never metaphorically learn German if you don’t allow yourself to start with the basics and keep expecting to be able to jump straight into complex conversations.

Be gentle with yourself. You’re allowed to be still learning. We all are. And good luck!

[princessanneftw]

I want Anne and Tim to participate in Camilla's reading room and to tell us about their favourite books 📚

Tim could do a history special, with lots of thicc books about battles and political leaders and such that you just know he’s read back to front several times.

Anne would probably be like Philip in that she’d read everything and anything non fiction because she’s just naturally curious and likes to learn. I would be fascinated to know what fiction she likes. I know she likes Dick Francis’s stuff - literally horsey thrillers/murder mysteries so ofc. But otherwise, idk.

[abs0luteb4stard]

WATCHING

[justforbooks]

Alfredo James Pacino was born on April 25, 1940. He is an American actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning over five decades, he has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts. A method actor and former student of the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg, Pacino's film debut came at the age of 29 with a minor role in Me, Natalie (1969). He gained favorable notice for his first lead role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971). Wide acclaim and recognition came with his breakthrough role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, and he would reprise the role in the sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).

Pacino received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and ...And Justice for All (1979), ultimately winning it for playing a blind military veteran in Scent of a Woman (1992). For his performances in The Godfather, Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019), he earned Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations. Other notable portrayals include Tony Montana in Scarface (1983), Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way (1993), Benjamin Ruggiero in Donnie Brasco (1997), and Lowell Bergman in The Insider (1999). He has also starred in the thrillers Heat (1995), The Devil's Advocate (1997), Insomnia (2002), and appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

On television, Pacino has acted in several productions for HBO, including Angels in America (2003) and the Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don't Know Jack (2010), winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for each. Pacino currently stars in the Amazon Video series Hunters (2020–present). He has also had an extensive career on stage. He is a two-time Tony Award winner, in 1969 and 1977, for his performances in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.

Pacino made his filmmaking debut with Looking for Richard (1996), directing and starring in this documentary about Richard III; Pacino had played the lead role on stage in 1977. He has also acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film adaptation and 2010 stage production of The Merchant of Venice. Pacino directed and starred in Chinese Coffee (2000), Wilde Salomé (2011), and Salomé (2013). Since 1994, he has been the joint president of the Actors Studio.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[elodieunderglass]

I’ll write a little story about Killie someday, since stories with jockeys are limited (Dick Francis, Black Stallion, etc - a little Jilly Cooper) and mostly fall into “magical realism for little kids” or “gritty thrillers about all the crime.”

…It would be magical realism about all the crime, mind you.

CONSTANT CONCUSSIONS ARE. NOT GOOD. D:

(In reference to this educational post about Killie the Jockey and the common injuries experienced by racing jockeys.)

Concussions really aren’t good. They kill people. And racing pressures jockeys to normalise them, and punishes them for failing to.

In this 2024 article, a journalist for The Irish Field writing about racing jockeys and concussions begins with an opener that should have people biting their desks in half:

Reported rates of concussion or traumatic brain injuries [in racing jockeys] are higher than those in boxing, rugby and American football.

Before going on to note that jockeys try not to report concussions, with a sporting culture of lying like bastards not showing weakness:

It’s generally accepted that jockeys are extremely resilient and stoic when it comes to injuries, which ironically puts them in more danger and poses serious challenges to their doctors and raceday medical staff trying to help with concussion management. (…)

a study in 2020 showed that 32.4% of Irish amateur jockeys and 19.6% of professional jockeys participating in the study suspected that they had sustained a concussion that was never medically diagnosed, not through a lack of effort on the doctor’s side, but because the jockeys didn’t report their symptoms. (…)

One in two jockeys even said that they would continue to ride out if they had a suspected concussion. Their main reasons being that they didn’t consider a concussion serious (87.5%), not wanting to let anyone down (77.8%) and many even considered it a sign of weakness (74.1%).

Jockeys are almost all freelancers, and contracted ones who are injured on the job don’t receive loyalty from their owners. Winning jockeys are offered the best mounts, but everyone else has to scrounge and scrape for any work available - including taking on dangerous mounts, which creates a downward spiral. Desperate, hungry, anxious, tired, and broke jockeys taking on bad/losing/dangerous/injured mounts are more likely to perform badly, hurt themselves, lose more often, have accidents to themselves and the animals, continue to spiral… and conceal injury.

Jockeys don’t have worker’s unions, and if unable to work (temporarily or permanently) are sometimes supported by Injured Jockeys Funds - small independent charities that they pay into when they can. There’s perceived stigma about leaning on your people too much, though, and they wouldn’t turn to these funds for something “small” like a concussion that only requires a little time off, when the funds also have to stretch to jockeys who are permanently paralysed.

Jockeys are responsible for buying their own safety gear (which comes out of their body weight allowance) meaning that, as the article reports, they often ride in unsuitable equipment. (Remembering that their safety equipment is a lightweight helmet and a lightly padded vest.) the Irish Injured Jockeys Fund offers €100 to buy back broken helmets, but a good helmet costs about €150 and it doesn’t seem to be enough incentive to stop jockeys riding in broken helmets.

Addressing the worry about losing work might help.

There are no binding contracts in racing that guarantee a jockey will still have a career, once he or she has recovered from an injury…

I believe that if jockeys had some security that they wouldn’t effectively be punished by owners and trainers for reporting a head injury then the jockeys would be more comfortable with being honest in reporting symptoms.

As for Killie - he is an idiot. But he has someone on his side!

Even if his boyfriend is only able to say: this is where you stop.

[adrenaline-whump]

Hey do you have any whimper recs? Like blogs you like, stories you enjoyed or drew inspiration from? I really love your stuff btw

Thank you for the lovely compliment! Recommendations: my partner in crime is usually @whumpadoodle -- we enjoy similar whump tropes and I always enjoy her writing. Of course @aliceinwhumperland always inspires with the daily Whump Words. I also like reading stories from @withalittlebitofwhump -- here's a BTHB fill that I loved.  More recently, when I have time to read, I’ve been enjoying @whump-captain‘s Cutter stories. Here’s a delightfully whumpy one from when Cutter came out second-best in an argument with barbed wire.

When I was younger I read a lot of Dick Francis books -- he wrote some very good mysteries, usually with first-person narrators who get whumped a lot. Definitely an influence on my own writing. A lot of thriller writers these days lean into gore, which is not my thing. Francis is more about the mystery and suspense. And I also appreciate the fact that, although Francis' MC's are guys, there's usually at least one strong female character involved in the story.

[arecomicsevengood]

TOP TEN OLDER MAINSTREAM COMICS I READ THIS YEAR

I kept track of all the comics I read this year, and not all of them were new. I have no idea who this will help or benefit but at least the circumstances of me only listing the completely arbitrary older work I read for the first time this year will deter anyone from arguing with me. However, for the sake of possibly being contentious, let me mention two comics that fall outside the top ten, because they’re bad:

Trencher by Keith Giffen. David King did a comic strip about Keith Giffen’s art style on this book in issue 2 of But Is It... Comic Aht that everybody loved, and made me be like, ok, I’ll check it out. But it’s basically just a retread of Lobo in terms of its tone and approach, but without Simon Bisley. I don’t really know why anyone wouldn’t think Bisley is the better cartoonist. Also, those comics are terrible. Thumbs down.

The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, and Steve Oliff. I bought the first year of these comics for a dollar each off a dude doing a sidewalk sale. Found them sort of incoherent? I haven’t liked a new Grant Morrison comic in ages, with All-Star Superman being really the only outlier since like We3. This is clearly modeled off of European comics like Druillet or something, and would maybe benefit from being printed larger, I really dislike the modeled color too. But also it’s just aggressively fast-paced, with issues ending in ways that feel like cliffhangers but aren’t, and no real characters of interest.

As for the top ten list itself, for those who’ve looked at my Letterboxd page, slots 10-8 are approximately “3 stars,” 7-4 are 3 1/2 stars, slots 3 and 2 are 4 stars, with number one being a 4 1/2 star comic. The comics I’m listing on my “Best Of The Year” list that’ll run at the Comics Journal alongside a bunch of people are all 4 1/2 or 5 star comics. This is INSANELY NERDY and pedantic to note, and I eschew star ratings half the time anyway, because assignations of numeric value to art are absurd except within the specific framework of how strong a recommendation is, and on Letterboxd I feel like I’m speaking to a very small and self-selecting group of people whose tastes I generally know. (And I generally would not recommend joining Letterboxd to people!) But what I mean by all of this is just that there is a whole world of work I value more than this stuff, and I’ll recommend the truly outstanding shit to interested readers in good time.

10. Justice Society Of America by Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck. Did some quarantine regressing and bought these comics, a few of which were some of the first comics I ever read, but I didn’t read the whole thing regularly as a kid. Parobeck’s a fun cartoonist, this stuff is readable. It’s faintly generic/baseline competent but there’s a cheap and readable quality to this stuff that modern comics lack. Interestingly, the letters column is made up of old people who remember the characters and feel like it’s marketed towards them, and since that wasn’t profitable, when the book was canceled, Parobeck went over to drawing The Batman Adventures, which was actively marketed towards kids. It’s funny that him and Ty Templeton were basically viewed as “normal” mainline DC Comics for a few years there and then became relegated to this specific subset of cartooning language, which everyone likes and thought was good but didn’t fit inside the corporate self-image, which has basically no aesthetic values.

9. The Shadow 18 & 19 by Andy Helfer and Kyle Baker. I’d been grabbing issues of this run of comics for years and am only now finishing it. Kyle Baker’s art is swell but Helfer writes a demanding script, these are slow reads that cause the eye to glaze over a bit.

8. The Jam 3-8 by Bernie Mireault. I made a post where I suggested Mireault’s The Jam might be one of the better Slave Labor comics. Probably not true but what I ended up getting are some colored reprints Tundra did, and some black and white issues published by Dark Horse after that. Mireault’s art style is kinda like Roger Langridge. After these, he did a crossover with Mike Allred’s Madman and then did a series of backups in those comics, it makes sense to group them together, along with Jay Stephens’ Atomic City Tales and Paul Grist’s Jack Staff, or Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, as this stream that runs parallel to Image Comics but is basically better, a little more readable, but still feeling closer to something commercial in intention as opposed to self-expression. Although it also IS self-expression, just the expression of a self that has internalized a lot of tropes and interests in superhero comics. If you have also read a lot of superhero comics, but also a lot of alternative comics, stuff like this basically reads like nothing. It’s comfort food on the same level of mashed potatoes: I love it when it’s well-done but there’s also a passable version that can be made when depressed and uninspired. But drawing like Roger Langridge is definitely not bad!

7. WildC.A.T.S by Alan Moore, Travis Charest, et al. I wrote a post about these comics a few months ago, but let me reiterate the salient points: There’s two collections, the first one is much better than the second, and the first is incredibly dumbed-down in its nineties Image Comics style but also feels like the best version of that possible, when Charest is doing art. Also, these collections are out of print now, a friend of mine pointed out maybe they can’t be reprinted because they involve characters owned by Todd McFarlane but Wildstorm is owned wholly by DC now.

6. Haywire by Michael Fleischer and Vince Giarrano. I made a post about this comic when I first read a few issues right around the time Michael Fleischer died a few years ago, but didn’t read all of it then. This feels way more deliberately structured than most action comics, with its limited cast and lack of ties to any broader universe, but it’s also dumb and sleazy and fast moving, and feels related to what were the popular movies of the day, splitting its influences evenly between erotic thrillers about yuppies and Stallone-starring action movies. The erotic thriller element is mostly just “a villain in bondage gear” which is sort of standard superhero comics bullshit but it’s also a little bit deeper than that. The first three issues, inked by Kyle Baker, look the best.

5. Dick Tracy by John Moore and Kyle Baker. These look even better! A little unclear which John Moore this is? There’s John Francis Moore, who worked with Howard Chaykin and was scripting TV around this time, but there’s another dude who was a cartoonist who did a miniseries for Piranha Press and then moved on to doing work for Disney on Darkwing Duck comics. Anyway, Kyle Baker colors these, they’re energetically cartooned, each issue is like 64 pages, with every page being close to a strip or scene in a movie. I’m impressed by them, and there’s a nice bulk that makes them a nice thing to keep a kid busy. (For the record, my favorite Kyle Baker solo comic is probably You Are Here.)

4. Chronos by John Francis Moore and Paul Guinan. I was moving on from DC comics by the late nineties, but Grant Morrison’s JLA was surely a positive influence on everyone, especially compared to the vibe there in the subsequent two decades. These are well-crafted. There’s a little stretch where it uses the whole “time-traveling protagonist” thing to do a run of issues which stand alone but fall in sequence too and it’s pretty smooth and smart. The art is strong enough to carry it, the sort of cartoony faces with detailed backgrounds it’s widely agreed works perfectly, but that you rarely see in mainstream comics. The coloring is done digitally, but not over-modeled enough to ruin it.

3. Martha Washington by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. A few miniseries, all of which sort of get weaker as they go, but all in one book it doesn’t feel like it’s becoming trash as it goes or anything. When Miller dumbed down his storytelling in the nineties it really was because he thought it made for better comics, the tension between his interest in manga and Gibbons’ British-comics classicism feels productive. I do kind of feel like the early computer coloring ruins this a little bit.

2. Xombi by John Rozum and JJ Birch. Got a handful of these on paper, read scans of the rest. This is pretty solid stuff, not really transcendent ever, but feels well-crafted on a month-in, month-out level. I read a handful of other Milestone comics, and a lot of them suffered from being so beholden to deadlines that there are fill-in issues constantly. This is the rare one that had the same creators for the entirety of its run. There was a revival with Frazer Irving art a decade ago but I prefer JJ Birch’s black line art with Noelle Giddings’ watercolors seen here. They’re doing an early Vertigo style “weirdness” but with a fun and goofy sense of humor about itself. I haven’t read Clive Barker but this feels pretty influenced by that as well. (The Deathwish miniseries is of roughly comparable quality. I read scans of the rest of that after I made my little post and, yeah, it does actually feel very personal for a genre work, and the JH Williams art with painted color is great.)

1. Tom Strong by Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse, etc. I got bored reading these as a teen but getting them all for cheap and reading them in a go was a pretty satisfying experience. It’s partly a speed-run through Moore’s coverage of the concept of a comic book multiverse seen in his Supreme run, minus the riffing on Mort Weisinger Superman comics, instead adding in a running theme of rehabilitating antagonists whose goals are different but aren’t necessarily evil. It’s more than just Moore in an optimistic or nostalgic mode, it also feels like he’s explaining his leftist morality to an audience that has internalized conflicts being resolved by violence as the genre standard.

[buxberg]

Les années 90 ont été une véritable percée pour Reeves

Il a eu l'opportunité de jouer dans les projets les plus divers de réalisateurs célèbres, de l'art et essai aux thrillers et films d'action.  En 1991, Keanu Reeves a joué un agent infiltré du FBI dans On the Crest de Kathryn Bigelow, a repris le rôle de Ted dans la suite Bill et Ted et a travaillé avec Gus Van Sant dans le drame de River Phoenix My Own State of Idaho. Et ce fut juste le début.  Un an plus tard, il donne la réplique à Francis Ford Coppola dans l'adaptation du roman Dracula de Bram Stoker avec Winona Ryder et Gary Oldman.  Puis il y a Little Buddha de Bernardo Bertolucci, le film d'action Speed   avec Sandra Bullock, l'adaptation de l'histoire de science-fiction de William Gibson Johnny Mnemonic et The Devil's Advocate avec Charlize Theron et Al Pacino.

À la fin des années 90, Keanu Reeves incarne Neo dans le film culte des sœurs Wachowski, The Matrix.  La bande est devenue un succès international grâce aux scènes de combat, des effets spéciaux incroyables à l'époque, une mode spéciale et une intrigue passionnante.  En conséquence, deux autres images ont été prises : "The Matrix : Revolution" et "The Matrix : Reboot".

Malgré le succès et la popularité, l'acteur a continué à choisir divers projets pour lui-même: du mélodrame "Sweet November" au film fantastique "Constantine: Lord of Darkness".  En 2006, Reeves a joué dans l'adaptation cinématographique de Richard Linklater de "The Blur" de l'auteur américain populaire Philip Dick.  Il retrouve Sandra Bullock sur le tournage du mélodrame "House by the Lake".  En 2008, Keanu Reeves a joué le rôle de David Ayre dans le film d'action policier "King of the Streets".

[greenstudies]

My ‘To read’ book list

Everyone seemed to like my ‘to watch’ list of movies so I decided to share my list of books I want to read!

📚 Fantasy

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child J. K. Rowling  5/10 

Eon: Dragoneye Reborn Alison Goodman

Eona: The Last Dragoneye Alison Goodman

The Unbound Victoria Schwab  8/10

The Diabolic S. J. Kincaid  9/10

Kaziměsti Martin Bečan  10/10

Hvězdopravec Martin Bečan

Ink Alice Broadway  7/10

Spark Alice Broadway

Strange the Dreamer Laini Taylor  7/10

The Ruins of Gorlan John Flanagan  8/10

The Burning Bridge John Flanagan  8/10

The Icebound Land John Flanagan  6/10

Oakleaf Bearers John Flanagan

Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin  9/10

A Clash of Kings George R. R. Martin

The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien  8/10

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring J. R. R. Tolkien

The Last Wish Andrzej Sapkowski

Animal Farm George Orwell 9/10

The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett

Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 7/10

Neverwhere Neil Gaiman  9/10

American Gods Neil Gaiman

Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 6/10

The Pied Piper Victor Dyk  8/10

Nikola the Outlaw Ivan Olbracht  5/10

Shadow and Bone Leigh Bardugo

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm Christopher Paolini

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Christopher Paolini

Rozhněvané Malé Děti Zašek

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Rick Riordan

The Priory of the Orange Tree Samantha Shannon  9/10

The Song of Achilles Madelaine Miller

The Midnight Library Matt Haig

Iron Widow Xiran Jay Zhao

A Court of Thorns and Roses Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass Sarah J. Maas

Piranesi Susanna Clark

📚 Sci-Fi

Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer  8/10

Rebels of Eternity Gerd Ruebenstrunk  6/10

Genius: The Game Leopoldo Gout  5/10

The Power Naomi Alderman  9/10

Metro 2033 Dmitry Glukhovsky  10/10

Metro 2034 Dmitry Glukhovsky

Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury  7/10

Authority Jeff VanderMeer

Acceptance Jeff VanderMeer

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Suzanne Collins

1984 George Orwell 9/10

R.U.R Karel Čapek  6/10

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing Hang Green

Scythe Neal Shusterman

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams

📚 Biography

The Wisdom of Wolves Elli H. Radinger  7/10

Talking as Fast as I can Lauren Graham  6/10

📚 Thriller/horror

The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins  8/10

Pet Semetary Stephen King  7/10

Doctor Sleep Stephen King  8/10

Angels and Demons Dan Brown

The Bat Jo Nesbø

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson

You'll Be the Death of Me Karen McManus

📚 Humor

If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists Woody Allen  8/10

Saturnin Zdeněk Jirotka  8/10

📚 Realistic fiction and classic novels

Turtles All the Way Down John Green  8/10

Paper Towns John Green

Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami

Sherlock Holmes: Classic Stories Arthur Conan Doyle

Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery 

The Secret Garden Hodgson Burnett

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder Holly Jackson

The Blackbird Girls Anne Blankman

They Both Die at the End Adam Silvera

📚 Classic Novels 

The Mother Karel Čapek

Great Gatsby Francis Scott Fitzgerald 6/10

The Call of the Wild Jack London 9/10

Bâtard Jack London

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee  6/10

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

Robinson Crusoe Daniel Dafoe

Moby Dick Christopher Chabouté, Herman Melville  5/10

Three Comrades Erich Maria Remarque 8/10

The White Disease Karel Čapek  6/10

📚 Personal Growth and Education

You are a Badass Jen Sincero  7/10

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Mark Manson  2/10

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Marie Kondo  7/10

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living Meik Wiking  5/10

7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey  0/10

The science of staying well Dr Jenna Macciochi  8/10

Atomic Habits James Clear

The Four Agreements Miguel Ángel Ruiz

A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking

The Anthropocene reviewed John Green