Mudd in Your Eye (Mass Market Paperback)

A well written story that keeps your intrest, we get one of Capt. James T. Kirk's antagonists, Harcourt Fenton Mudd. The antipathical Mudd is thought to be the person that has brought peace to the planets of Pastor and Distrel who have been fighting an ongoing war for twelve hundred years.

Now, the Federation wants to find out if this war is over and sends the crew of the Enterprise to investigate. When Kirk begins to investigate he finds Mudd... now Kirk becomes suspicious and doubts that Mudd is telling the truth. Oh the humor... as Kirk et. al. get involved with Mudd and the inhabitants of these two planets.

You see, this interplanetary war is over who is going to eat the white half of a piece of fruit. Crazy, I know, but the author's imagination is running wild as people die, resurect, die, and resurect over and over just to be closer to their heaven. All along the antics of Mudd and the author has written Mudd's wife (Stella) into this story get more and more whimsical.

This is a well told light-hearted story with the clownish Mudd working his extravagace to the max by saying that he's a changed man. If you want a laugh... and like TREK... then read this story you will chuckle. I reread this story as I pulled it off the shelf of long ago read books and it was as funny now as it was then.

Then the war starts up again, and the book falls apart.

The kitchen sink apparently wasn't enough for this author -- he had to throw in the whole subdivision. The plot quickly becomes a humorless mess, with most of the Enterprise crew dying and being resurrected in bath houses (my best guess is that the two planets are monitored by a supercomputer that controls the resurrections through a systemwide transporter system -- and therefore perpetuates the war -- in order to teach people to cherish life) and character consistency thrown to the solar winds. We even have Spock using phrases like "That's the beauty of it" and "I am willing to bet" -- when's the last time the author even watched the show??

A good idea executed badly. Even Harry Mudd deserves better than this.