competence; Dick Francis

[kate_nepveu]

My new motivational reminder is "be the competence porn you want to see in the world," because I realized that I get the same nice warm glow when I accomplish what I know that I'm capable of. (Shocking, I know.) We'll see how long that is effective.

Meanwhile, rec your favorite competence porn, ideally text because time and access, and ideally not dude-heavy, as I have just finished an Aubrey-Maturin skim/skip re-read and am likely about to embark on a Dick Francis binge.

Also, speaking of Dick Francis, rec me your favorites. I think all I've read is Proof--or at least if I've read more, I don't remember a thing about them. I've already checked rachelmanija's tag and seen skygiants's review of The Edge.

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[sovay]

Also, speaking of Dick Francis, rec me your favorites.

I love Reflex (1981). I described why here.

[minoanmiss]

Batgirl: Year One is awesome for competence porn. She's just starting out, she's new, but she's good and she gets better and better.

The King Must Die -- the bull-leapers are made of competence porn and glory. Even as a captive in a strange land Theseus recognizes the value and valor of being a bull-leaper and works towards it.

[lomedet]

Oooh, Dick Francis! I went through a serious Francis phase when I was much, much younger. Take this with tablespoons of salt, but here are the ones I remember most fondly:

-Rat Race
-Break-In (and also Bolt, which has many of the same characters)
-Hot Money
-The Edge

[readinggeek451]

Dick Francis favorites:

The Edge
Banker
Hot Money

[dancing_crow]

I think I must have read all of the Dick Francis as they came out because horse-mad + mysteries = catnip. I didn't recognize them as competence porn until much later.

I have a preference for the ones from the late 1970s - Reflex, Twice Shy, Banker (my favorite, I think) and The Danger.

Of the later ones, I liked To The Hilt best.

[rosefox]

The only Dick Francis I have in hardcover is Straight. I remember it being tremendously good, but it's been a long time. I also remember reading High Stakes until it nearly fell to pieces; the main character is an inventor of children's toys, and there are wonderful details of that as well as the horse racing.

[genarti]

The Edge is high on my list of favorite Dick Francis books! So is To The Hilt. Also honorable mentions are the Kit Fielding duology (Break In and Bolt) and Comeback. I can give further details about any of them if you like!

I went on a Brother Cadfael kick this fall, and I think that could well count as competence porn, though certainly the historical research porn gets equal billing there.

Laurie R. King's Mary Russell books are somewhat divisive depending on various factors including (but not limited to) one's liking for her interpretation of the Sherlock Holmes characters and one's liking for the central romance of the books (absent from the first book but present thereafter). But they're definitely competence porn! I can't speak to the later books in the series, and haven't reread the earlier ones in some while, but I've been meaning to, because I have a lot of fondness for them.

Diane Duane's Star Trek novels, too.

And Watership Down, in its way.

[oracne]

Some Dick Francis faves: Reflex, Nerve, For Kicks (so very 60s!), Decider, the first couple of Sid Halley books.

[watersword]

I remember enjoying Hot Money and To The Hilt.

One of the things I love most about my favorite Heyer novel, Frederica, is that Frederica is so capable, and it's one of the things that the hero falls for.

[carbonel]

One of the reasons I like the TV show FBI is because it's about competent people. I've watched way too many crime-based TV shows (which I have a weakness for) where the usual plot is where the heroes get themselves in trouble after doing something stupid and the rest of the episode is spent getting themselves out of or covering up said stupidity.

That's what's keeping me watching The Rookie, too, though the whole thing is really pretty minor.

[damerell]

I'm quite fond of Drake's Republic of Cinnabar books, which are basically Aubrey/Maturin in space (except I didn't like Aubrey/Maturin at all [1]); Adele Mundy is extremely capable in at least two areas, although given that it's written by Drake, one of them is murder (and the books are generally full of Drake-ish unpleasantness [2]). They're set in the standard mil-sf space navy universe, but OTOH that offers a chance to read something set in that universe that isn't written by a ghastly right-wing headbanger like Weber. [3]

Cadfael was mentioned upthread and I really like the books. They're a bit Murder-She-Caused, but it's a violent time and he's best mates with the deputy Chief of Police, so that provides a reasonable excuse for a supply of corpses to turn up on demand.

[1] I read an essay in the C.S. Forester society newsletter about how the author thought Hornblower was a ripping good read and much better than O'Brien, nodding to myself about how right the author was, and got to the end to find it was written by bloody Boris Johnson. I felt a bit dirty after that.

[2] I was particularly struck by this on reading a short story by him in a Thieves' World anthology. It featured the standard Drake protagonist who is compelled to do terrible things by force of circumstances... who looks rather out of place in Thieves' World, where every second other person does terrible things for fun and profit.

[3] This is absolutely not a recommendation, it's a long rambling gripe, but Weber loves competence a bit too much, hence Honor Harrington's transformation from a highly capable military officer to making Kimball Kinnison [4] look like a bit of an underachiever. When I gave up Weber was desperately retconning new medals and statusses into the universe so she could be awarded them. There's one of the spinoff books where we find that someone broke all kinds of records at the Academy, except of course the sailplane record set by Duchess Harrington, and we ask why? Does she have to be top at literally everything? When she blows her nose, does it sound a musical note of unearthly beauty?

He does it everywhere; there's three books about Bahzell, who's a hradan- let's just put it in familiar terms. He's an orc who turns to good and gets to be a paladin of one of the good gods. He's from the Horse Stealer clan, who steal horses for culinary purposes, who are naturally terrible enemies with the Riders of Rohan. In the third book we find out there's a special kind of Rider of Rohan who links telepathically with a special kind of intelligent horse (this idea also seems familiar, like maybe Mercedes Lackey might have written a book or two on this basis)... and the experienced Weber watcher knows that there is no possibility at all that Bahzell will _not_ become one of these "windriders" by the end of the book, because it's the biggest and most unlikely award going.

[4] GURPS Lensman strongly favours the idea that EES's protagonists are all polymath supermen because EES himself was a bit of a polymath superman.

[rachelmanija]

Missed this till now! My favorite Dick Francis books are Odds Against, Straight, Proof, Flying Finish, The Edge, Bonecrack, Hot Money... Honestly I could name many more, but I will stop myself.

[fitzcamel]

[belated] Second the recs for Flying Finish and Rat Race.

(As for non-Francis competence porn, Mary Stewart's Madame Will You Talk has some great car chases. And it's a very different sort of thing in mood/affect, butNicola Griffith's Blue Place/sequels definitely seems to fit. Would the cricket chapter of Murder Must Advertise count?) [/belated]