thisbluespirit | rec: Odds Abridged

I had tags in the Sid Halley bins and at a "comedy retelling of the book" clicked out of curiosity, and was rewarded beyond all bounds of my expectation, which is to say that I just died laughing while reading this fic, and I can run here and complain about it to you because I am not a jockey and am therefore allowed to feel humour. And pain.

Anyway, it's Very Accurate. I laughed a lot. Canon knowledge is not required. It's just even funnier because Accuracy, and I thought quite a few of you would appreciate it, or know someone else who would appreciate it. XD

Odds Abridged (4816 words) by sousverre
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sid Halley - Dick Francis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Sid Halley
Additional Tags: Jockeys, Jockeyposting, Jockey related violence, the condition of horselessness, a comedy retelling of the book
Summary:

It is not true that jockeys don't feel pain. We do. We just don't talk about it, even when our skeletons are torn out; we don't feel the pain until people say something hurtful like "why aren't there any horses," and then we have to take all of that toughness and try not to break down and sob, because we are bastards and bastards don't cry, because if bastards start crying even a little bit then they just end up laying on the floor drinking their full bodyweight in brandy, empty, pitied; not having any horses at all, the horseless men of the horseless world.

Instead I said, "because when I put the menaces on people it works strangely well, because I'm so much smaller than them, and it makes them go, oh, look, he's so little and menacing, Gladys, give him a biscuit."

Then I thought about it some more and added, "And then I keep the biscuit."

Or,

An abridged retelling of the 1965 Dick Francis novel “Odds Against.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

osprey_archer

Thank you for posting this link! I've never read the book but now I want to read the book because this is HILARIOUS.

From:

thisbluespirit

Ha, well, it is absolutely not inaccurate in its summarising, so good luck! And my pleasure, I don't think I've laughed THAT hard at a fic in ages.

From:

purplecat

I've read about two Dick Francis books, but I think this was one of them! I remember the hand and the girl with the burnt face! Though not much else.

From:

thisbluespirit

Hee, just enough to appreciate the fic! XD

From:

philomytha

Thank you for the link, that's fantastic!

From:

thisbluespirit

It really was, wasn't it? Usually if I get intrigued by the tags in my wrangling bins it rarely ends well, but I followed those & then spent my wrangling time this morning laughing like a drain at that and not actually wrangling many tags. (I have no regrets.) I had to share!