YMMV / Dick Francis

• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Sometimes at play. For example, part of the plot of Straight revolves around an electronic organiser called a Wizard which, while obviously dated to modern readers due to it not being a smartphone, is seemingly ahead of its time for a novel that was published in 1989. However, the first model of the Sharp Wizard (one of the earliest electronic organisers) did indeed first go on sale in that year. The use of an iron lung to treat a polio victim in Forfeit (published in 1968) may well come across as an example of this to modern readers.
• Ending Fatigue: Some readers of 10 LB. Penalty dislike the Time Skip the last fifty pages or so cover, and George Juilliard's further political career, and feel that his initial election to MP would have been a good stopping point if the villains' comeuppance had been moved forward to that point.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The short story "Raid at Kingdom Hill" is about a bomb scare at the titular (fictional) racecourse. It was written in 1975, over twenty years before the 1997 Grand National was postponed due to a bomb scare. As Dick put it in Field of 13, "time has an uncanny way of laughing at fiction".
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Reflex has two.
    • George Millace is a racing photographer known for his cynical and mocking worldview and sense of humor, which carries over into the pictures he takes. George's wife and son adore him but are alone in that respect. Using his inquisitive nature and skills as a photographer, George discovers various crimes and scandals in the racing world. Instead of exposing the wrongdoers, he gathers evidence and then blackmails them for donations to a charity for injured jockeys while also forcing them to stop the activities he's blackmailing them over. George does this partially out of a sense of righteousness, but primarily out of a desire to "[extort] frustration". Even when he ends up killed by one of his victims, George has his photographs kept away from the obvious places where anyone but another photographer will look for them, while using different kinds of film for each picture so it will be harder for snooping laymen to develop. His pictures end up with Phillip Nore, who ultimately chooses to use George's work to blackmail a man into exposing various drug dealers, and keep another from engaging in a brutal form of Insurance Fraud.
    • Victor Briggs is the calculating and reserved owner of several gaming clubs and racehorses. He holds drug users in both pity and contempt and dislikes violence, but has no qualms about making his jockey, Phillip Nore, lose several races for gambling purposes. When Victor is found out and blackmailed by George, he responds by making a recording of their meeting to counter-blackmail the guy, only to decide against using it when he finds George's terms to make a charitable donation and stop throwing races reasonable. After George's death, Victor tries to go back to throwing races but finds Phillip reluctant to do so even before Phillip gets hold of George's pictures. He avoids using violence, bribery, or threats to try and suppress or destroy George's information like several other blackmail victims do, merely patiently waits for Phillip to approach him for a civil talk. Victor respects how Phillip refuses to throw races anymore but never tries to blackmail him and agrees to let Phillip run honest races, while showing bemused admiration for Phillip and George.
• Narm: Several otherwise serious and emotional moments in Hot Money where the narrator and his father sadly reflect on his late Good Stepmother are undermined by the fact that her name was Coochie (a word which is also slang for genitalia). Similarly, in The Danger, a supporting character and friend of the narrator being named Popsy can feel unintentionally silly.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Given that Dick wrote a novel a year from 1962 onwards, it would be surprising if this didn't come up here and there. Examples include:
  • Any reference to 'old money' (ie. pounds, shillings and pence) in the earlier novels (Britain decimalised its currency in 1971 — see here for more information).
  • A polio victim being treated with an iron lung in Forfeit (1968).
  • The various clues and plot twists connected to film photography, including quite a bit of detail on developing film, in Reflex (1980).
  • The electronic organiser that isn't a mobile phone in Straight (1989); for more details, see the Aluminium Christmas Trees entry above.
• Values Dissonance: In Wild Horses (written in 1994), a movie producer openly admits he is sleeping with the leading lady (who is repeatedly mentioned as someone desperate to do a picture that will earn her respect) and subtly threatens the narrator not to to take her away from him, with the narrator treating this as normal and acceptable. In the Me Too era, the producer looks more like a Yandere engaged in an Unequal Pairing, and the narrator's indifference to this has aged equally poorly.

---