Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson

(pb; 1964)

From the back cover

“Nick Corey is a terrible sheriff. He doesn’t solve problems, enforce rules, or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in Potts County actually wants to follow the law, and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women.

“Still, Nick has some very complex situations to deal with. Two local pimps have been sassing him, ruining his already tattered reputation. His girlfriend, Rose, is being terrorized by her husband. And then there’s his wife and her brother Lennie, who won’t stop troubling Nick’s already stressed mind. Are they a little too close for a brother and sister?

“With an election coming up, Nick needs to fix his problems and fast. Because the one thing Nick does know is that he will do anything to stay sheriff. And, as it turns out, Sheriff Nick Corey is not nearly as dumb as he seems.”

Review

Pop. 1280 is one of my favorite Thompson novels─it is sly, darkly hilarious and reworks the Southern, moralistic crime and punishment set-up by smashing it and putting it back together again in a twisted patchwork fashion. This is a masterful book, one of my favorite reads of 2019.

Dune: The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

(hb; 2003: second book in the Legends of Dune series)

From the back cover

“More than two decades have passed since the events chronicled in Dune: The Butlerian Jihad. The crusade against thinking robots has ground on for years; the human worlds have grown weary of war, of the bloody inconclusive swing from victory to defeat.

“The fearsome cymeks, led by Agamemnon, hatch new plots to regain their lost power from Omnius. Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva are on the verge of the most important discovery in human history─a way to ‘fold’ space and travel instantaneously to any place in the galaxy.

“And on the faraway, nearby worthless planet of Arrakis, Selim Wormrider and his band of outlaws take the first steps toward making themselves the feared fighters who will change the course of mankind: the Fremen.”

Review

Crusade, like its prequel Butlerian, is a good, action-packed read by sometimes-excellent authors, a solid─if unnecessary and overlong─addition to the extended Dune series. Set twenty years after the events of Butlerian, this is a more reader-involving work, largely because Machine is not a set-up novel. Rather, it is a deepening-of-characters work. The authors sometimes overwrite, especially when they repeatedly and unnecessarily recap characters’ histories. That said, it is worth reading, though not a vital-to-the-Dune-storyline offering. Pick up an inexpensive copy or borrow it from the library before committing serious cash to it.

Followed by Dune: The Battle of Corrin.