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| A thief, a swindler, a con man, a liar and a rogue At least, he left that impression. |
SPOILER
ALERT for the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel The
Light Fantastic (and probably also Immortal Coil and the
Cold Equations trilogy and I'm sure there's more but those are
the titles I remember in this series-ette).
MUDD
“... of
course, I left.”
KIRK
“He broke
jail.”
MUDD
“I borrowed
transportation.”
KIRK
“He stole a
spaceship.”
MUDD
“The patrol
reacted in a hostile manner.”
KIRK
“They fired
at him!”
MUDD
“They've
got no respect for private property! They damaged the bloody
spaceship!”
- ST:TOS:
I, Mudd by Stephen Kandel
So I've
nearly finished the latest (I think) in a loose series of TNG
novels about Data and various other Star Trek artificial
intelligences, Jeffrey Lang's The Light Fantastic.
This one deals with the sentient hologram Professor Moriarty, long
ago shoved into a free-roaming simulation of the galaxy towards the
end of the TV series and left there evr since. Obviously, there
wouldn't be much of a novel if that happy ending stayed happy so now
he's pissed and has kidnapped someone close to Data (spoilers...) so
Data will find him a real world body to inhabit.
The
novel also features flashbacks to my favourite Original Series
villain ever, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, that glorious rogue, and his fate
after his last appearance in I, Mudd.
Unfortunately, they don't stay flashbacks.
Not
that I have any problem with the idea of Mudd interacting with later
crews, in fact there's probably a lot of mileage to be had there. Its
not even (particularly) a problem for me that this is yet another
TOS-era character who has somehow contrived to live to the era
following the Dominion War alongside, by my count, Jim Kirk, Spock,
Bones, Uhuru, Chekov and Scotty. You know, I think at this point Sulu
is the only person on that crew who had the decency to die in
anything resembling a timely fashion.
Rather
dents Picard's insistence that Spock's “cowboy diplomacy” belongs
to a bygone age if everyone from that bygone age is still knocking
around, is what I'm saying.
No,
the problem is that Lang decides to try and delve into the psychology
of Mudd. Lang's conclusion is that Mudd is a classic narcissist and
his survival this long is down to spending a large fortune he
acquires before the last of the flashbacks (sometime circa The
Voyage Home) on life-extending
technology because he can't bear to leave the universe without the
privilege of having him in it.
I
mean... Lang's not wrong, exactly, not in his basic conclusion. Its
hard to say that Mudd isn't
a narcissistic personality. Its just that the final flashback with
Mudd in a bar, richer than he ever imagined, and running into Uhuru
who greats him like an old friend felt like such a good ending, such
a right ending. He has
everything he ever wanted but he still feels the pull of wanting to
cheat people (he desperately refers to meeting his banker as “a
job” like he was robbing the guy, just to feel like himself for a
moment) and maybe he'll fritter it all away and do one last job and
maybe he learns to live with his happy ending and it was just such a
nice note to leave him on.
Then
he turns up in the 2380s at a hundred and god knows years old in a
mech suit that's part wheelchair and part hospice bed trying to find
a way to become immortal using salvaged AI bits.
Its
sad. I don't even care if he gets a happy ending out of it, its just
sad and as much as half the fun of a character like Harry Mudd is
seeing them be constantly frustrated they aren't meant to make you
feel sad.
Characters
like Mudd are meant to be fun! There's no reason to bring psychology
into it or realistic consequences. They're just there to be fun.
Maybe its because I was practically raised on Robert Holmes' Doctor
Who stories but I've always
loved a good comedy rogue.
KIRK
“Harcourt
Fenton Mudd. Thief -”
MUDD
“Come
now.”
KIRK
“Swindler
and con man...”
MUDD
“Entrepeneur!”
KIRK
“Liar
and rogue.”
MUDD
“Did
I leave you with that impression?”
-
also I, Mudd
I
realise that if Mudd were a real person I wouldn't want him to get
away with the things he does. Hell, even as a fictional person I
rather enjoy the inevitable commeuppence that's an essential part of
any story he appears in, but I also admit that he's there for me to
enjoy. He's a note of absurb and adorable criminality in the ever so
orderly and lawful world of Star Trek. There's so much to relish
about the character, not least of which the highly distinctive voice
given to him by actor Roger C. Carmel.
As
much as Lang captures the voice and the essential psychology of Mudd,
I wonder whether he felt the joy a character like that is meant to
give a writer: the deliciously naughty glee at writing someone
dishonest that you know the reader is going to root for anyway, just
a little.
I
can't root for this version of Mudd. I just can't. He's a bitter old
man whose fits of anger are genuine rage instead of wounded pride,
who takes no joy in his schemes because now they really are life or
death instead of get rich quick shenanigans.
Still,
at least Lang has finally written one of the dream scenes of Star
Trek: Data meeting Vic Fontaine.
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