Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are still reeling from the death of their son William as they struggle to find purpose away from the X-Files. Though their current relationship is tenuous, they hope to seize their second chance to be a family, despite the many questions surrounding Scully’s pregnancy.
Then the FBI asks for their help on a case that hits all too close to home: a serial killer in the Washington, DC area who targets pregnant women. The killer appears to possess a mysterious, uncanny power over electricity, which is enough for the Bureau to re-open the X-Files—if Mulder and Scully are willing.
They cautiously agree, concerned about the safety of their own unborn child yet committed to finding justice for the killer’s victims. But their return to the FBI sparks the interest of a shadowy cabal, the heirs to the now-dead Syndicate, and Mulder and Scully soon discover that what at first seems to be just another X-File is connected to a worldwide threat on an unprecedented scale . . . one with their own future at its heart.
STORY
Chapter 1:
A pregnant woman named Lizette Heflin gets killed by a strange man in a parking garage.
Chapter 2:
Dana Scully is getting a prenatal care checkup.
Chapter 3:
3a) Fox Mulder is invited to a podcast called Truth Tells All, but is disillusioned: in today’s age and time, proof or not, people already made up their mind about what they believe in.
3b) Mulder reminisces about the recent events, with the death of the Smoking Man and the revelation that Smoking Man was Scully’s child’s biological father.
3c) Grunier, the podcast’s host, tells Mulder that he wasn’t a great speaker.
3d) Mulder visits Walter Skinner, which is laying in a hospital bed, in a coma.
Chapter 4:
Mulder and Scully share a meal in their new home, a new house in the heart of Washington, DC, then go sleep in different beds.
Chapter 5:
5a) Scully spends some time in Genomica, a medical facility dedicated to genetic conditions, funded by billionaire Troy Alexiares.
5b) Mulder has lunch with Jason Deeks, the founder and CEO of a startup called InsightEye, which focuses on corporate profiling.
5c) An enigmatic email titled X-FILES MEETING is sent out to some FBI agents.
Chapter 6:
6a) A lady named Cherish Craddock runs a luxury wellness retreat dubbed Reinvention and is about to welcome a new group for a retreat.
6b) We learn that Mulder and Scully are going through a paid suspension from the FBI.
6c) Scully receives a phone call from someone at the FBI, asking both her and Mulder to come to the Bureau the next day.
Chapter 7:
FBI Assistant Director Ruth Morrison meet with Mulder and Scully and tell them about the murder of Lizette Heflin and the fact that all the nearby electronic devices either melted down or simply malfunctioned. Hence the need for a unit to deal with these cases. She offers Mulder and Scully to work on such cases on a trial basis. They accept.
Chapter 8:
8a) In New York City, a group of men learn about The X-Files unit being reopened and decide to spy on Mulder and Scully.
8b) Meanwhile, Scully’s colleague from Genomica Dr. Karen Jones is stunned by the results on Scully’s medical samples.
Chapter 9:
9a) Mulder and Scully go to a bar to talk about AD’s offer.
9b) Mulder and Scully interrogate widower Craig Heflin at his home.
9c) Robin Vane works on getting electronic surveillance inside Mulder and Scully’s home.
Chapter 10:
10a) Mulder’s offender’s profile about the killer of Lizette Heflin.
10b) Entry of Scully’s journal, talking about her pregnancy, how women are seen when they are pregnant, as well as William/Jackson and Emily.
10c) Robin Vane watches Scully’s writing her journal, through electronic surveillance secretly installed in her bedroom.
Chapter 11:
11a) Mulder and Scully drive to the FBI for a meeting with Morrison.
11b) Acting Assistant Director Morrison gives Mulder and Scully a new X-File case about a serial killer vanishing into smoke.
11c) Mulder and Scully talk and share that some of the victims of the serial killers were members of the Syndicate.
11d) A mysterious young woman meets Mulder. She is wearing an Avatar: The Last Airbender t-shirt.
Chapter 12:
12a) Scully is against pursuing talking to Avatar, the new informant.
12b) AD Morrison is questioned by a mysterious man known to as Long Fingers about the cases she gave to Mulder and Scully.
12c) Mulder visits Skinner at the hospital.
12d) In Mística, Arizona, Cherish Craddock and her team starts a healing ceremony with their new group. One of the members is a regular and is Robin Vane.
Chapter 13:
13a) Dr. Karen Jones reveals to Scully that she has incredibly powerful DNA. Scully tells Karen about her desire to leave Genomica to go back to the X-Files.
13b) Scully stumbles upon the killer of Lizette Heflin in a maternity store, assaults a young pregnant lady nicknamed Boy Mom (she wears a t-shirt that says « Boy mom in training! »). The killer escapes.
13c) Mulder joins Scully at the maternity store, where the DCPD is already there.
Chapter 14:
14a) Mulder and Scully wake up in their new home and talk about rejoining the Bureau.
14b) Mulder and Scully are back as FBI agents and go to the X-Files unit, realizing that there are hundreds of paranormal cases left for them, hinting towards a rapid increase of paranormal phenomenons that might be related to the introduction of alien DNA into the world.
Chapter 15:
15a) Mulder and Scully talk about the killer and his potential paranormal ability to generate electricity. Mulder then decides to contact Avatar, his new informant, by putting a Batman symbol onto his kitchen’s window.
15b) Robin Vane sees the Bat-Signal on Mulder and Scully’s kitchen window, through his electronic surveillance.
15c) Mulder meets Avatar at a car wash, talking about the rise of mutations and the link to the former Syndicate and the Inheritors.
Chapter 16:
16a) Mulder and Scully talk about Avatar after Mulder shared the details of his meeting with her.
16b) Nurse Casey secretly reads medical documents about Skinner's mysterious health condition.
16c) Entry of Scully's journal, about her return to the X-Files.
16d) Bright Eyes spy on Scully but gets attacked by someone (Robin Vane?)
Chapter 17:
17a) Scully has morning sickness, therefore, Mulder goes alone to the FBI and meets with AAD Morrison and talk about the X-Files cases.
17b) Back home, Mulder tells Scully about his meeting with Morrison. They then argue about William/Jackson. Their microwave dies.
17c) Mulder circles the house, wondering if Bright Eyes might have been near the house. He then sits into his car and wonders if they should not return to the X-Files.
Chapter 18:
18a) A pregnant woman named Erin Koss gets killed by Bright Eyes at a gas station.
18b) Scully lays in bed at home and hears the sound of the music playing at the gas station.
Chapter 19:
19a-b) Mulder wakes up from a bad dream and goes to the gym, thinking on the treadmill about the risks Scully will take by joining the Bureau.
19c) Scully rings him to inform him that Bright Eyes has killed again.
19d) Mulder and Scully go to the crime scene.
Chapter 20:
20a) Scully goes to church and thinks about her sister and William.
20b) In Mística, Cherish Craddock keeps running her therapy session, whilst thinking about her childhood and teenage years and how she developed her gift and ultimately ended up in Mística.
20c) The Inheritors’ Executive watches the therapy session remotely through security surveillance. Cheris Craddock is working for the Inheritors.
Chapter 21:
21a) Mulder thinks that the killer might have started with killing animals and finds two potential suspects through an FBI database about animal cruelty.
21b) Scully goes on the field to interrogate the two suspects on their workplace and finds herself in the presence of Bright Eyes, which escapes.
Chapter 22:
22a) Mulder arrives on the scene.
22b) Scully goes to see her obstetrician, accompanied by Mulder, when suddenly electronic devices go through anomalies and power surges. Mulder understands that Scully might be the source of these paranormal phenomenons.
Chapter 23:
23a-b) Robin Vane talks with Cherish Craddock.
23c) Mulder expands on his theory that Scully is the one provoking the electronic power surges. She doubts it and challenges his theory.
Chapter 24:
Mulder and Scully are at home and experience a power surge in their own home. Mulder comes to the conclusion that this genetic mutation might be spreading like a virus.
Chapter 25:
25a-b)After yet another nightmare, Mulder wakes up and prepares breakfast for Scully. They both receive a message saying they have a meeting at the FBI with AD Morrison.
25c) AD Morrison demands Mulder and Scully to focus their attention on the Shadow killer instead of Bright Eyes. Back in the X-FIles office, Mulder and Scully watch a video surveillance tape of a robbery attempt by the Shadow killer in an LA branch Swiss bank called Credit Dauphine. This bank is apparently where most of the money from the Syndicate used to flow.
25d) Whilst Mulder is going to the vending machines, Scully takes a call intended for Mulder from nurse Casey Spradlin. Scully understands that the Taft Memorial is the place where Skinner is getting cared for.
Chapter 26:
Mulder searches on the dark Web about paranormal phenomenons about characters with the ability to disappear in smoke and finds out a story of a boy, whose family died and was found alive after some reports of a smoke at his home. The boy was named… Robin Vane!
Chapter 27:
27a) Scully tells Mulder that she knows about him visiting Skinner in Taft Memorial. They then drive to see him.
27b) Mulder and Scully visit Skinner and realize he might have alien DNA. Scully decides to unplug him and call an ambulance to get him moved to another hospital, this one closer to DC.
27c) Scully goes to Genomica to meet her friend Dr. Karen Jones, to talk about the fast-increasing DNA anomalies seen all over. Jones confirms seeing it unofficially.
27d) Scully calls Mulder and convinces him to tell the truth about alien DNA to Dr. Jones.
Chapter 28:
28a) Mulder and Scully meet Dr. Karen Jones and tell her about the alien DNA, then ask her if she could find a way to undo the genetic mutations on the population. Jones refuses when she learns that this could potentially put her life in danger.
28b) The Inheritors meet in a boardroom. Robin Vane makes a PowerPoint presentation of his surveillance of Mulder and Scully, whilst the Inheritors weigh the advantages and disadvantages of killing Mulder and/or Scully.
Chapter 29:
29a) Robin Vane meets Cherish Craddock in Mística, appearing through a smoke, telling her about a potential ally.
29b) Mulder and Scully reminisces about their lost family members and friends, then argue about who is making dinner.
29c) Bright Eyes thinks about the best way to kill Scully. He is now also equipped with chloroform, for the first time, which might help him in his crimes.
Chapter 30:
30a) Mulder and Scully think about a way to find another scientist to help them with undoing some of the DNA mutations.
30b) Mulder investigates Robin Vane's travel and financial records and is able to link him to a murder, but wonders how they will be able to capture him, being able to morph into a smoke. He sees that he travels regularly to Mística and decides to go there.
30c) As soon as the Inheritor Walther Nystrom came back home to Stockholm, after his meeting with the Inheritors, he is met by Robin Vane, which kills him before vanishing into a smoke. Vane seems to be working for... the Syndicate!
Chapter 31:
31a) Mulder arrives in Mística and goes to a diner, where a waitress tells him about the weird things happening in Reinvention, the retreat managed by Craddock.
31b) Mulder meets Craddock, which acknowledges that she knows Robin Vane. Then (spoiler alert), the Cigarette Smoking Man appears from the dead through Craddock and says to Mulder that he wants to atone for his sins.
Chapter 32:
Mulder shares his encounter with the Smoking Man, whilst Scully doesn’t believe him.
As he hangs up, Bright Eyes knocks on Scully’s door and attacks her during a thunderstorm. She points a gun at him and catches him.
The police arrives and reveals that Bright Eyes’ name is Rich Eastminster.
Robin Vane appears and takes Scully with him in a smoke.
Chapter 33:
Mulder wakes up from yet another nightmare and gets a phone call from AD Morrison, informing him that Scully has been abducted by the Shadow, aka Robin Vane. Mulder reviews the video footage of her abduction.
Mulder then reminisces of the sufferings Scully had to endure during her time on the X-Files.
Chapter 34:
Scully is secluded in a fancy mansion somewhere in the UK. Robin Vane tells her some details about his plan and that the Smoking Man might actually not be William's son after all. He tells her he will take her to Arizona the next day.
Chapter 35:
35a) AD calls Mulder after he texted her, telling her he will not travel back to DC, but stay in Arizona.
35b) Mulder goes back to Mística and gets a phone call from Dr. Karen Jones, which feels remorseful for not helping and offers to help. Mulder refuses.
Chapter 36:
Robin Vane takes Scully to Mística, where she meets Cherish Craddock, which reveals to her that William is still alive.
Vane then shows Scully that the Mística Reinvention facility is also used to train people with alien DNA into mastering their new paranormal abilities, making them superheroes.
Vane offers Scully to join and become a superhero that can control electricity. She refuses.
Chapter 37:
37a) Mulder stakes out in front of the Reinvention facility.
37b) Scully uses her electric superpower by thinking about many of the drama she went through during her life.
37c) Mulder sees the building's lights flickering and goes towards it.
37d) Scully finds a landline and calls 911.
Chapter 38:
Mulder searches the facility, faces Robin Vane and finds Scully.
They escape the facility.
Chapter 39:
39a) The police searches the facility, which is now empty.
39b) Mulder and Scully go a to a motel and take a shower together.
39c) Back in DC, Mulder and Scully talk about William. Scully acknowledges that it was their son after all.
39d) Scully thinks about alien DNA and decides not to tell Mulder that William might still be alive.
39e) Mulder meets Avatar in a garage.
39f) Some Inheritors demand answers from Robin Vane on the events which happened in Mística, his failed attempt to recruit Scully as well as the secret area of the facility and the location of the next one, which will be in the Caribbean.
Chapter 40:
40a) Dr. Karen Jones calls Scully and tells her she is willing to help find a cure to the modified genomes.
40b) Nurse Casey resigned and now works in the new hospital where Skinner is treated. As she leaves the hospital, she sees a mysterious man apparently spying on her.
40c) Mulder and Scully go see Scully's obstetrician, which tells then they are expecting a healthy baby girl
40d) Mulder reminisces and is pleased that Scully and him are now in a great place, the closest from the Sun. Perihelion.
TRIVIA
This is the first original X-Files novel in 25 years, since the release of Skin in 1999.
The book was announced on October 31, 2023, for a release on July 30, 2024.
The author Claudia Gray wrote multiple Star Wars original novels.
The design of the book has been created by Stephanie Sumulong. Stephanie is a versatile designer with experience in a wide range of book formats. From children's books to cookbooks—from brainstorming to final art. Collaborating with licenses such as Disney, Universal, and Netflix has taught her how to manage and implement brand style guides that result in creative, lovable products. She truly enjoys the art of storytelling and strives to create a fun and engaging experience for anyone who picks up her books.
Jacket design and illustration by Alan Dingman.
ISBN: 978-1-368-08429-1.
Copyright 2024 by 20th Television.
Published by Hyperion Avenue, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc.
The book is 306-page long and is divided into 40 chapters.
The story takes place soon after My Struggle IV, the series finale of The X-Files (season 11).
Mulder sometimes joins a podcast called Truth Tells All.
Mulder has a Substack account.
Mulder and scully decide to live together in a small townhouse in the heart of DC. Both Scully and Mulder left their respective house.
In chapter 9, electronic surveillance is placed in Mulder and Scully’s home. This already took place in E.B.E. (season 1) and Trust No 1 (season 9).
In chapter 10, Mulder’s offender profile refers to the killer as UNSUB. This refers to unknown subject.
The X-Files unit have been reopened for the time since the creation of the series. They were closed in The Erlenmeyer Flask (1x24) and reopened in Ascension (2x06), then closed in The End (5x20) and reopened in The Beginning (6x01) but with new agents. Mulder and Scully are later reassigned to the X-Files unit in One Son (6x12). The X-Files unit is closed in The Truth (9x19-20) and reopened in My Struggle (10x01). The X-Files unit is probably closed in My Struggle IV (10x10) and then reopened again in Perihelion (this book).
In chapter 13, Scully refers to Rosalind Franklin as she watches digital representations of DNA helixes. Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose groundbreaking work significantly advanced the understanding of molecular structures, particularly DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her work on coal and viruses was recognized during her lifetime, Franklin's pivotal role in the discovery of DNA's structure was largely overlooked until after her death. Franklin's X-ray diffraction images of DNA were critical in revealing the double-helix structure, a discovery often attributed primarily to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, who received the Nobel Prize in 1962. Franklin's omission from the Nobel recognition and the overshadowing of her contributions have led to her being remembered as the "wronged heroine," the "dark lady of DNA," the "forgotten heroine," a "feminist icon," and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology." Franklin's legacy continues to be reassessed, with increasing recognition of her essential contributions to science and the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-dominated field.
The music played at the gas station in chapter 18 is from Barry Manilow. He is best known from songs such as Copacabana (At the Copa), Mandy, Can’t Smile Without You, Somewhere Down The Road and Even Now.
X-Files creator Chris Carter about the book: "Since we left with big cliffhanger in season 11, I wanted to make sure it was honest to that ending and to what my ideas would be going forward, if we ever go forward again."
Chris Carter about his involvement with this book: "I'm reluctant to ever domesticate the show, as I put it, the idea that Mulder and Scully are in a house together, cooking, cleaning. That is a different show. Those things... that pushes my buttons. So I appreciated that these things needed to be explored in a novel, but I wanted to always make sure that I was helping, guiding the characters through the novelist in the direction in which I think they would be going in a season 12."
When Chris Carter worked with Claudia Gray, he was not aware that she was a fanfic writer and she never told him about it.
Chris Carter about the book being canon or not: "It's in keeping with the canon. (...) It's a different medium and take on the show and the characters."
Chris Carter about a potential sequel to Perihelion: "If this book works well, I'm sure there will be more books."
CHARACTERS
In order of appearance:
Lizette Heflin, (chapter 1), gets killed in Washington, DC.
Craig Heflin, Lizz’s husband (chapter 1)
"Bright Eyes": the serial killer (chapter 1)
Dana Scully (chapter 2)
Dr. Kang, works at Omega hospital and is Scully’s doctor (chapter 2)
Fox Mulder (chapter 3)
Lewis Grunier, podcast host (chapter 3)
Casey Spradlin, nurse at Taft Memorial Care Facility (chapter 3)
Walter Skinner (chapter 3)
Dr. Wilhite (chapter 3), Skinner’s doctor at Taft
Troy Alexiares, billionaire founder of Genomica, only referenced (chapter 5)
Neena Prasad, first patient of Scully at Genomica (chapter 5, referenced in a flash-back)
Mr. Prasad, father of Neena, referenced in a flash-back (chapter 5)
Dr. Karen Jones, co-worker and friend of Scully at Genomica (chapter 5)
Jason Deeks, founder/CEO of InsightEye (chapter 5)
Cherish Craddock (chapter 6)
Ruth Morrison, FBI Acting Assistant Director (AAD) (chapter 7)
"The Executive", member of the Inheritors (chapter 8)
Robin Vane, member of the Inheritors (chapter 8)
Britton Upshaw, members of the Syndicate, victim of the Shadow killer, referenced (chapter 11)
Katarina Skalbeck, attorney linked to the Syndicate, victim of the Shadow, referenced (chapter 11)
"Avatar", nickname of Mulder’s informant (chapter 11)
"Long Fingers", nickname of the mysterious person giving orders to AAD Morrison at the FBI (chapter 12)
Blair Stawarski, nicknamed "Boy Mom", a young pregnant woman Scully sees at a store (chapter 13, page 94)
Erin Koss, (chapter 18, page 129)
Maura, Erin’s wife (chapter 18, page 129)
Melody Zalinski, highschool friend of Cherish Craddock (page 145, chapter 20)
The screens all continued to glow, even as Lizette's world went dark, forever.
(Page 4, chapter 1)
Omega, Dana Scully thought, is a terrible name for a hospital.
(Page 5, chapter 2)
Scully: I may be having a “geriatric pregnancy”, but at least I'm not an “elderly primigravida”.
Dr. Kang: These days we just say “advanced maternal age.”
(Page 6, chapter 2)
Mulder: We can't be too careful. They’ve manipulated us; they’ve lied to us. They’ve violated the integrity of hospital upon hospital, doctor after doctor. Maybe we find a doula, have a home birth. That may be the only way we can protect you and the baby.
(Page 7, chapter 2)
Mulder: It wouldn’t matter if you brought a yeti to the biggest megachurch in the Bible Belt and gave him the pulpit. Those who want to believe will. Those who don’t won’t. If the last thirty years of my work have taught me anything, it’s that evidence… evidence is irrelevant.
(Page 15, chapter 3)
Mulder: I spent decades of my life searching for the evidence I thought could change the world. Evidence of the UFO cover-up at Roswell. Evidence of alien DNA being artificially seeded into the human genome. Evidence of military extermination of extraterrestrial biological entities on Earth. Hell, I found evidence of the existence of the chupacabra. What did it change? Nothing.
(Page 16, chapter 3)
Mulder: People make up their minds what they want to be real, and what they don’t, and there’s not a shred of proof that can convince them otherwise.
(Page 16, chapter 3)
But there was no mainstream anymore. Just voices. Hundreds of thousands of them, all speaking at once, never listening.
(Page 19, chapter 3)
Mulder: The truth is still out there, Scully, but now, so is everything else.
(Page 26, chapter 4)
Scully’s journal: The Syndicate’s demise was, perhaps, our greatest victory… but now there is no one to fight.
(Page 28, chapter 4)
Mulder: Hunting UFOs is a nontransferable skill.
(Page 35, chapter 5)
Mulder: In some ways, I’ve expected this since the first day I opened an X-File. It was always a project living on borrowed time, and we got to borrow a whole lotta years. Not too shabby, if you ask me.
(Page 43, chapter 6)
The worst time, however, was the only time. The last chance, which turned out to be the one chance they’d ever had.
(Page 48, chapter 7)
Mulder: The FBI has decades of experience in not wanting us, even when we were actually here.
(Page 50, chapter 7)
AD Morrison: In short, Mr. Mulder, Dr. Scully, this woman’s murder seems to have been the epicenter of an inexplicable electrical event. I may not have much experience in that area, but I must say… that sounds like an X-File to me.
(Page 52, chapter 7)
At least for now, back to the basement it was.
(Page 53, chapter 7)
What point is there in silently ruling the world if it involves sitting under fluorescent lighting?
(Page 54, chapter 8)
Scully: Just because I can endure trauma doesn’t mean I should.
(Page 59, chapter 9)
She’d tried her best with Doggett, whom she still liked and respected, and Mulder had gone it alone for a brief time… but the X-Files had only ever truly made progress when she and Mulder worked together.
(Page 59, chapter 9)
Mulder’s offender’s profile: I do not believe UNSUB acts out of a hatred of pregnant women or women in general. Instead, I theorize that the UNSUB is confused about the fundamental beginnings and endings of life. This may arise from a fear of his own mortality, and the death of a family member of other intimate may have proved to be the triggering incident, one which turned UNSUB’s long-standing confusion about and fascination with pregnancy into sufficient motivation to kill.
UNSUB wants to learn where the boundary lies between life and death. He believed he could do so through his gruesome postmortem mutilations of LH. As this is a mystery with no answer, not even at the highest levels of science, UNSUB will have left this murder scene unsatisfied. This means he is highly likely to kill again.
(Page 67, chapter 10)
Scully‘s journal: Women are continually reminded that we are seen as women—as separate, different.
(Page 68, chapter 10)
Scully’s journal: And at no point is a woman made more aware of her separateness than when she is visibly pregnant.
(Page 68, chapter 10)
Scully’s journal: In the eyes of the world, I was not a mother—even while my body still ached, even when I lay awake night after night wondering where my son could be, even when my sleep was stolen by dreams of his improbable return. I had to carry on as though none of it had ever happened.
Finally, ultimately, I learned that he had only been an expriment. Not Mulder’s child at all. Not a conception in love, the miracle we had hoped for, but a violation born from a craven desire for power.
I can’t think about William Jackson any longer.
But my thoughts turn down other, equally perilous paths: to Emily—a child born of my ovum, a little girl I briefly interacted with, and who died cruelly young. She was mine and not mine, known and not known.
(Page 69, chapter 10)
Scully’s journal: My second pregnancy will result in my third child, who will be the first one I will be able to raise myself. The first conceived in love.
(Page 69, chapter 10)
Mulder: You want me to believe you have knowledge of the highest levels of an insidious worldwide conspiracy, but you’re hanging out here in an Avatar: The Last Airbender sweatshirt?
Avatar: Suits are for the office. After hours is another story. It’s called work-life balance, Mulder. Try it sometime.
(Page 77, chapter 11)
Mulder: Okay, Avatar, how am I supposed to reach you?
Avatar: Avatar—I like that. But when you tell Scully about this, be sure to explain that it’s the cool Avatar. Not the one with the blue cat-people.
(Page 78, chapter 11)
Avatar: Use the Bat-Signal if you want to chat. Otherwise—I’ll find you.
(Page 78, chapter 11)
Dr. Karen Jones: Whatever your’e eating, I want a slice of. Maybe whoever did whatever to you wasn’t trying to get you knocked up. Maybe they were trying to extend your life.
(Page 90, chapter 13)
Dr. Karen Jones: It’s possible that your body could be accomplishing the impossible and producing new ova. Normally women are born with all they’ll ever have, but for you, that might not be the case.
(Page 90, chapter 13)
Could Busch have been trying to make her immortal, and only accidentally made her fertile?
(Pages 90-91, chapter 13)
Scully: You should know I’m leaving Genomica to return to the FBI. To the X-Files.
Dr. Karen Jones: You can’t leave, where else will you get crap-ass coffee from plastic pods?
Scully (laughs): I’ll have to endure the deprivation.
(Page 91, chapter 13)
Dr. Karen Jones: Seriously, you want to leave a job with regular hours and good benefits and great coworkers—most particularly myself—to go chase werewolves with your kinda sorta life partner?
(Page 91, chapter 13)
Dr. Karen Jones: Are you doing this for you? For the work? Or are you doing it for Muldoon? Your career isn’t any less important than his. Your life isn’t less important than his.
(Page 92, chapter 13)
Jones: I’d hate to lose you completely to Muldoon and the werewolves.
(Page 93, chapter 13)
Scully: Stop it right there! You heard me! FBI! Let her go and drop to the ground, now!
(Page 96, chapter 13)
Sometimes, when she pulled away, Mulder let her go. Not tonight. « Humor me, » he said, drawing Scully into his arms. After a long moment, she relaxed slightly, letting her head rest against his shoulder. If the beat cops wanted to stare, let them.
(Page 98, chapter 13)
Scully: Yes, I’m coming back to the X-Files, at least for the time being.
(Page 100, chapter 14)
Without a sense of purpose, without his lifelong quest, he became… unmoored.
(Page 100, chapter 14)
During their years on the run, when he’d had to remain so deeply undercover, Scully had been able to find meaning in her medical work, but Mulder had had nothing but her.
(Page 100, chapter 14)
Mulder: You’re sure I can’t keep my old ID photo? It was a really good hair day.
(Page 101, chapter 14)
Mulder: And there’s the Scully I know and love.
(Page 104, chapter 14)
Before, their job at the X-Files had been about dragging what was hidden into the light. Perhaps their job now was to try to stem the flood of these mutations so that it could, possibly, remain dark.
(Page 106, chapter 14)
Scully: We save the world from this, so everyone else can save the world from everything else. We’ve got work to do.
(Page 106, chapter 14)
Mulder: I gotta talk to Avatar.
Scully: What’s the clandestine procedure this time?
Mulder: She said to use the Bat-Signal. I think she means the actual Bat-Signal.
Scully: We’ll have to ask Commissioner Gordon to use his spotlight.
Mulder: Maybe not.
Scully: What happens if you don’t get a response?
Mulder: Our new neighbors assume I’m spending my weekend at a comic con.
(Page 109, chapter 15)
Avatar: Nice retro Bat-Signal. Adam West vibes. I like it.
(Page 110, chapter 15)
Mulder: You ascended to the heights of secret power just to drive a Prius?
(Page 110, chapter 15)
Mulder: What purpose are the Inheritors working toward?
Avatar: None whatsoever, Mulder. Chaos is coming, and the Inheritors have decided that if they can’t govern it, they can at least profit from it.
(Page 111, chapter 15)
Scully: Luckily for us, the truth is often found in the middle.
Mulder: Since when?
(Page 114, chapter 15)
Scully‘s journal: I have not followed Mulder back to the FBI; I fell into step beside him as we each independently made the decision.
(Page 116, chapter 16)
Scully’s journal: I cannot help but be reminded of the heavy price we pay for this work.
(Page 116, chapter 16)
Scully’s journal: Mulder and I, however, have suffered much more than that, more than any career should ever claim. Our families have suffered. Our friends. Our own bodies have sometimes been the battlegrounds. Mulder has emerged thus far without physical scars, but mine can be traced through my skull, along my nerves, even within my reproductive system. No part of me has been left sacred. The word "defiled," patriarcal and archaic as it is, at times feels like the only word that fits.
(Page 117, chapter 16)
Scully’s journal: The light that had so long seemed to be lost is returning to his eyes.
(Page 117, chapter 16)
Scully’s journal: All those long years we struggled to make a life together, our union could never replace the sense of meaning that the X-Files has always given him. Whatever doubts he harbors are surely soon to be banished completely, if they have not been already.
All I can be certain of is that even as Mulder and I return to the work that brought us together, and has held us together for so long, I still feel the distance that keeps us apart.
(Page 117, chapter 16)
Mulder: As the partner of a pregnant woman in the DC area—I've been concentrating on the attacks on pregnant women in the DC area.
(Pages 123-124, chapter 17)
Mulder: You never talk about our son as anything but an experiment any longer. Like—like that erases all the years of loving him, wanting him, not knowing where he was—
Scully: He was not our son. He was never yours; he was barely mine—if mine at all—
Mulder: Will you listen to yourself? It doesn't matter what his DNA was! It doesn't matter what Cancer Man did. I loved that kid for all those years. Saw him in every little boy riding a bike or playing in the park.
(Page 126, chapter 17)
Mulder: Finding out William had another father didn't patch the hole in my gut. It just tore another one.
(Page 127, chapter 17)
Erin Koss: What most people call trivia, I call interesting.
(Page 130, chapter 18)
Erin opened her mouth to scream, but that was the instant that the volume on the speakers rose to its absolute highest, Barry Manilow crooning so loudly that he drowned out everything else, including the rush of cars going by, honking horns, screaming, absolutely everything, until only Barry remained.
(Page 133, chapter 18)
Today Scully felt rage—fury, hotter and brighter than those candles’ flames. She didn’t understand how to look at what had become of those women and feel anything less.
(Page 141, chapter 20)
Mulder: I guess you don’t ask the lifeboat on the Titanic to justify the iceberg.
(Page 141, chapter 20)
One of the people praying at St. Felicity’s that day must have brought some incense to burn. Scully watched and wept, quietly as she could, while the sweet-smelling smoke rose through the church, tendrils drifting through the prisms of light that shone through the stained glass overhead.
(Page 143, chapter 20)
Scully pushed herself harder—she was fast for a little short-legged thing, as Mulder had once said.
(Page 156, chapter 21)
The best way to comfort Scully was to remind her of her strength; the best way to do that was to respect it.
(Page 159, chapter 22)
Mulder: Bright Eyes has no special ability, and he never did. Scully, this power—it's coming from you.
(Page 166, chapter 22)
So often, through the decades, they had come together like this only to push each other away again—sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes for reasons Mulder would regret bitterly until the end of his days. Tonight, however, Scully held him, let herself be held. Every once in a while, they admitted how much they needed each other.
(Page 175, chapter 23)
The proliferation of information online brought into being too many sources, too little clarity on which of those sources were reliable and which were not. (…) The Internet became more and more crowded, infinitely noisier, and unsearchable by any one being.
(Page 192, chapter 26)
Scully: So. Taft Memorial.
Mulder: And here I thought I’d gotten lucky.
(Page 196, chapter 27)
Scully: I’m beginning to believe I’ll never be done with the FBI. Or, rather, it will never be done with me, which amounts to more or less the same thing.
(Page 200, chapter 27)
Dr. Karen Jones: I won’t tell you you’re glowing, because when I was expecting, I heard that so often I wanted to smack people. Throwing up in the morning does not make me glow. That’s the opposite of glowing.
(Page 201, chapter 27)
Dr. Karen Jones: I sound like Muldoon and his werewolves, don’t I?
Scully: I think it’s about time you met Muldoon.
(Page 204, chapter 27)
Dr. Karen Jones: You must be Mulder. I’ve heard a lot about you.
Mulder: And I’m betting some of what you heard made you doubt my sanity—that’s if Scully described me accurately.
Scully: I have.
(Page 206, chapter 28)
Dr. Karen Jones: In the Information Age, you can find most truths and even more lies out there. It’s what you can’t find that ought to scare you.
(Page 207, chapter 28)
Dr. Karen Jones: Instead of another planet, the DNA could potentially come from another dimension. Or an underground or undersea realm previously kept apart from the biome we know—say, maybe in the recently discovered oceans locked within Earth’s crust.
(Page 207, chapter 28)
The Executive: Mulder is one of the earliest bearers of the alien DNA released by the Syndicate.
(Page 212, chapter 28)
She remembered returning to her apartment after, seeing the yellow CRIME SCENE tape everywhere, a pool of her sister’s blood still on her floor. Scully had knelt on the floor to clean it up herself. Melissa’s blood had been under her fingernails.
(Page 215, chapter 29)
Mulder: Not sure how we're supposed to collar a guy who can dissolve himself out of a pair of handcuffs.
(Page 223, chapter 30)
Robin Vane: With the Syndicate's regards.
(Page 228, chapter 30)
Mulder: So, what's weird around here?
Mary Beth: Besides my boss?
Mulder: Yeah, maybe not that weird.
(Page 229, chapter 31)
Cigarette Smoking Man: Well, Fox. You've found me again. I thought I might be beyond your reach this time, but you've always been a persistent man.
(Page 234, chapter 31)
Mulder: What did you do to Scully—what you did to me, everything about William, including killing him—if I didn't already have a million reasons to hate you, that would be enough for me to send you to hell a second time.
(Page 235, chapter 31)
Cigarette Smoking Man: My new vantage point is, shall we say, far superior to any I had during life.
(Page 235, chapter 31)
Robin Vane: You’ve assumed that what Busch said about William is the whole truth. That’s a highly suspect assumption.
Scully: Are you saying that he was lying about my son’s paternity?
Vane: Lying, not necessarily. Busch may well have believed every word he said. But by that point, he was no longer in possession of the full truth.
(Pages 252-253, chapter 34)
Robin Vane: I think it’s entirely possible that Busch didn’t believe himself to be the genetic father at all. He is the one who altered your genes in such a way that your fertility was restored—or, in face, renewed more profoundly than ever before on this Earth. He may have been no more than the father of your conception, if you take my meaning.
(Page 253, chapter 34)
Scully: If I were going to speak to anyone who's already passed, I would want it to be my son.
(Page 267, chapter 36)
Cherish Craddock: Your son isn't on the other side. He's still there, with us!
(Page 267, chapter 36)
Scully: Do I envision myself as some kind of electricity-wielding superhero? No, I do not.
(Page 272, chapter 36)
Scully (thinking): I do believe in Mulder.
(Page 276, chapter 37)
Mulder: Sculllaay!
(Page 283, chapter 38)
Mulder: Are you okay? You weren't harmed?
Scully: I was served an English breakfast.
Mulder: You surprise me every time.
(Page 287, chapter 38)
His mouth found hers, and for a few long moments, neither the blowing sand nor punishing sun could touch them.
(Page 287, chapter 38)
Any moment now, the police would arrive. She and Mulder would report what had happened. And the cops wouldn't believe a single word they said.
(Page 288, chapter 38)
Scully (thinking): Eighty-seventh verse, she thought, same as the first.
(Page 288, chapter 38)
Mulder: It's strange how getting wet makes you want to take a shower, right? Ladies first.
Scully: I don't think we have to take turns.
(Page 291, chapter 39)
Mulder: Too bad we didn't start doing this a lot sooner. Think of all the time we've wasted through the years, sticking to separate motel rooms. Not to mention all those taxpayers dollars.
Scully: Let's not waste any more.
(Page 291, chapter 39)
Mulder: That shower led to another shower than you most definitely do not have to apologize for.
(Page 292, chapter 39)
Scully: In some ways, William wasn't our son, but we were his parents. We still are, and we always will be. We missed him too long—loved him too long—for him not to have changed us forever.
Mulder: I'm just glad I got to share him with you.
(Page 293, chapter 39)
With that Scully curled into his arms. There was no more need for words. They held each other tightly, shutting down everything else, making the world just large enough to contain the two of them.
(Page 293, chapter 39)
False hope corroded the soul.
(Page 294, chapter 39)
Mulder: I thought you dressed up for the office.
Avatar: I do, but that is why the good Lord in his wisdom came up with remote work.
(Page 296, chapter 39)
Scully: Karen—thank you.
Dr. Karen Jones: Thank me after I save the world.
(Page 301, chapter 40)
Dr. Kang: It looks like you're having a girl.
(Page 305, chapter 40)
Mulder's thoughts: What seems to be the end of all things is merely aphelion, the time of year when the Earth is farthest from the sun.
Scully and I have returned to perihelion. However long we remain in this warmth and light, I will not forget that it may once again pass someday.
But it—we—will always return.
(Page 306, chapter 40)
25 YEARS
I have been patiently waiting for a quarter of a century to have the delight to read a new X-Files novel. This one is by far the most exciting release, as it is the first time a new original X-Files novel is released since the series went off the air. And since it’s picking up the storyline after the series, it literally means that the continuation of The X-Files saga was literally in my hands, as I picked up the book in my favorite Vancouver book store, Indigo, located exactly beside the Robson square, where Mulder and Scully meet a character in Space, where Mulder meets Margaret Scully at the end of Ascension, where Mulder leaves a building in One Breath, where the Lone Gunmen are ice-skating, where Scully meets Monica Reyes in season 11, you name it. Quite the location for any X-Phile. I was literally in X-Phile heaven, discovering that I could finally cancel my Amazon order, which showed, for some unknown reason, a delivery date three to six months in the future. No way I was going to wait that long, I waited long enough. So long that I no longer even hoped for a new book.
And then I learned about the incoming release of Perihelion, a brand new X-Files novel set right after the eleventh season of the series.
The last X-Files novel was Skin, release in last century, in 1999. Bill Clinton was the president at the time, let that sink in. The Twin Towers were still standing, global warming didn't seem like such a threat, I was drinking sodas with a plastic straw, had no clue what a nonbinary person was, nor could I put Iraq on a map. iPhones didn't exist, nor Bitcoin or Facebook, people used travel agencies to book trips and read books on paper. Yes, things have changed quite a while since Mulder and Scully last appeared in a novel. We are now all interconnected, thanks to the Internet, and instead of global peace and a more humane and intelligent human race, we are at the brink of World War III. Talk about evolution…
THRILLING START
After having carefully removed the dust jacket—I didn’t want any scratch on this book, which I know I will keep for decades to come and will go out of print at some time and become a rarity, I finally opened the book, whilst overlooking at the Vancouver harbor, seeing the Grouse Mountain ahead of me, also known as Skylar Mountain for every X-Phile. The most glorious epic episode to me: Ascension. Angry and obsessed Mulder running against the clock to find abducted Dana Scully.
But enough with Vancouver, let’s read!
Perihelion starts with a classic X-Files teaser. A pregnant woman named Lizette Heflin gets killed in a parking garage in Washington, DC with a strange phenomenon happening simultaneously. We don’t really know what’s happening and my brain is nurtured and on, thanks to this excellent opening scene.
I absolutely loved this chapter! The idea is simply terrific: linking Scully’s pregnancy with a serial killer which kills pregnant women. Simply perfect. That’s an excellent idea to make the case a personal one and therefore motivate Mulder and Scully to investigate. Not only this, but Mulder’s profile of the killer (a few chapters later) is outstanding: the killer might be obsessed with death and therefore might kill pregnant women to try to understand the beginning of life and therefore death and life itself. What a great concept! I simply loved it.
FALSE START
Since this was the first chapter, I expected the investigation to quickly start, following the first murder of what I imagined would be a series of killings. What does a serial killer do? He kills—multiple times. That’s the classic start of any thriller. I imagined already that perhaps some cops would work on the case and ask Mulder and Scully’s assistance. Or maybe the duo would get involved in a new and more original way, namely being part of a secret group, similar to what Franck Black did in MillenniuM. Or there could simply be a personal connection, making the former agents investigating on their own, making their investigation as rogue as thrilling.
But instead of that, the book takes forever to start, which was already the biggest concern of Goblins, the very first X-Files novel, released all the way back in 1994, thirty years ago.
Hundred pages later, the serial killer has not killed again. He seems more like an unserial killer. I can live with a slow start, but I was beyond disappointed to not have any further murder after reading a third of the book.
Not only that, but nothing else is moving during that time. For instance, the first moment when Mulder and Scully re-enter the X-Files office is at page… 106 out of 306. A third of the entire book is spent witnessing one murder and then… nothing. The story does not move at all. Not one single inch. Nothing whatsoever. Is that the actual X-File? Is the paranormal phenomenon to have a book without a story? This makes Goblins a fast-pace book in comparison!
THE STORY/IES
So let me describe the story of the book, which actually is made of multiple intertwined stories.
The beginning is very simple: taking place after the events of My Struggle IV (season 11), Mulder and Scully are no longer working for the FBI. Mulder is once again deprived of his life purpose and randomly joins podcasts about conspiracies, but his inner flame has vanished in this post-truth era. Everything is true and everything is fake news, nowadays, depending on who you ask or when you ask. Nothing matters anymore.
Meanwhile, Scully is working for a start-up medical company called Genomica, helping kids with rare genetic diseases. But this job is taking a toll on Scully, which emotionally cannot handle the burden of caring for kids that often pass away from their rare disease.
Soon after, they are contacted by a new FBI Assistant Director and are offered to come back to the X-Files unit on a trial basis, as the number of X-Files cases are rapidly increasing, following apparent genome modifications that are spreading and leading to more and more paranormal phenomenons.
The agents are given two cases: one about a serial killer nicknamed Bright Eyes, and one about another serial killer, nicknamed the Smoke Killer. Bright Eyes seems to have the ability to incite power surges nearby, giving him the edge when attacking his victims. Meanwhile, the Smoke Killer seems to have the ability to vanish in thin air after a killing.
As they investigate, they both deeply care about Scully’s second pregnancy (announced at the very end of My Struggle IV) and get some help from a former co-worker of Scully at Genomica, Dr. Karen Jones, which makes some fascinating discoveries on Scully’s DNA, being so young that it seems impossible.
INTERTWINED DELIGHT
I believe the author carefully crafted her story, with the almost magical ability to intertwine multiple storylines and making the entire thing extremely easy to read and, overall, flowing perfectly. We go from one location to another, from Scully’s journal entries, Mulder’s dreams, FBI meetings, a mysterious retreat in Mística, Arizona, without having any problem differentiating the multiple characters. The storylines work admirably and I truly believe that the author worked extremely hard to get there. As easy as it naturally flows and as easy as it is to read, as more difficult it must have been behind the typewriter.
Claudia Gray uses the method—often overutilized in thrillers—of mixing things to make them more interesting and motivate the reader to turn pages. This is the same method used by best-seller author Dan Brown for instance and this feels damn great for a book released in the middle of the summer about The X-Files. Because let's be honest here, we're not expecting high-literature here. We do not expect to be surprised by the wonders of the English language utilized through the novel. This is not F. Scott Fitzgerald and no one is asking for it. Simply put, we want to be entertained.
Contrary to releasing a movie about snow in July (I Want to Believe), this book does the job: it moves the story forward whilst entertaining us. Also, it feels different from most of The X-Files stories and I must admit that in the first half of the book, I had absolutely no idea where this was going, which felt refreshing after knowing The X-Files formula by heart: the “what if…?”, the monster of the week, the acts ending with a bang before the commercials break, etc.
But as much as this method was entertaining, the negative though of using such ploy and so many storylines is that, as a reader, I failed to understand what was the main storyline and the overall purpose, perhaps similarly to Fox Mulder in the beginning of the book. Should I care about Bright Eyes or the Smoke monster? Both of them? None? The book started with a killing from Bright Eyes, but then he seemed to not be the focus any longer. Same for the Smoke killer, which doesn’t really interest Mulder, therefore, why should we care if the protagonist doesn't?
Since there isn’t any clear inciting incident as well, as a reader, I ended up turning the pages with delight but without being sure where the story would go.
A PAGE-TURNER (CHAPTERS WITHIN CHAPTERS)
Not only there were multiple interesting storylines, but another good thing for such a book is the fact that the chapters of Perihelion are split into two, three and sometimes even four mini-chapters (with the exception of six for the penultimate chapter). We are in 2024, where people have an attention span of the duration of a TikTok short clip, so better not have more than 3 or 4 pages without an interruption, otherwise people will put down the book to scroll down indefinitely on their phone instead. So is our fate, as a species directed by our endorphin. These chapters within chapters—but usually with a same thread yet multiple storylines— make Perihelion a real fast page-turner, regardless of the appreciation for the content. If the chapters were long, I believe many readers would have simply stopped reading the book. So I give this as a major plus.
THE LEGACY MYTHOLOGY
Starting page 17, in the third chapter, the author Claudia Gray goes through the risky and futile exercise of summarizing the latest events in The X-Files mythology. The Spartan virus, the Smoking Man’s death and his violation of Scully (sic and sick), making her son Mulder’s brother (sic again). This is such a violent reminder of how disgusting the show’s mythology had become in the revival. My Struggle part 1, 2, 3 and 4 were simply the worst mythology episodes of the entire series. By a wide margin. I’m not going to delve into it, therefore you can read my reviews of My Struggle, My Struggle II, My Struggle III and My Struggle IV if you want to know more about these episodes.
Claudia Gray picks things up precisely as Chris Carter left them: in total agony. This is by very far the worst thing about the book, because it tries to solve an unsolvable equation. There is no way to fix The X-Files mythology. Known as the Chris Carter effect, The X-Files is notorious for having a mythology that was “made up as you go”, which then let everyone down as it was simply impossible to give it a satisfactory ending that ties everything up. Carter might have had a plan in the beginning, but then it became evidently apparent that Carter kept creating more pieces of an unsolvable puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle simply no longer fit with one another. The bees, black oil, virus, vaccine, colonization, hybrids, alien DNA, alien bounty hunters, alien healers, super-soldiers, Scully’s abduction, Mulder’s abduction, Emily, Gibson Praise, etc. etc. etc.
I’m never going to blame Chris Carter for that, since it seems an impossible task to tie up three decades of stories into a solid ending.
But what I blame Chris Carter for is the choices that he made along the way, and especially during the revival (seasons 10 and 11) and towards Dana Scully.
SCULLY’S THIRD BABY (SIC, SIC, SIC)
To summarize, it wasn’t bad enough that we had spent two full seasons of The X-Files talking about Scully’s baby (seasons 8 and 9), Chris Carter wasn’t finished with this story at all and continued it by making this big reveal during season 11: the Smoking Man raped Scully medically. I’m sorry, what? Scully has been so abused during the course of the show it becomes laughable. Carter had Scully abducted (season 2), gave her cancer (season 4), gave Scully a kid named Emily in season 5, only to get her killed in the next episode. Then gave her another child (season 9) only to get her to abandon him and ultimately revealed that she was medically raped by the CSM in season 7 – Carter patiently waited 18 years to share this information, digging the grave of his legacy even further, as if anyone had asked him to do that.
HONESTY IS SUCH A LONELY WORD
Therefore, what to do with this gigantic mess? There were two choices: putting it aside or... inheriting it (pun intended) fully. Claudia Gray is the true Inheritor, except her motives are made out of love for the show and clearly not money. You can evidently sense from every single page that Gray absolutely loves the protagonists and has one very clear and bright quality: her honesty.
Yes, the author is deeply honest in going back to the characters and picking up every single storyline from the past. Claudia Gray not only refers to William, but even goes so far as season 5 and talks about Emily, Scully almost burned to death between Patient X and The Red and the Black, her abduction from Donnie Pfaster, etc. It’s clear that the author knows about the mythology of the series, which normally would be a plus for such exercise. But the problem is that the series had lost its ways for so long, that each mythology reminder rapidly makes the book not only boring but really, really bad. This is just very poor sci-fi that is lightyears away from the original three classic seasons of the show.
Obviously, as a writer, your job is to deeply understand the characters, go through the motions with them and ultimately let them take over the pages. But when the characters have been simply destroyed, the best way is actually to forget about all of that and leave that behind the pages and focus on the new. This might be clearly dishonest to the characters, but I believe it to be the only way to keep the flame burning. Otherwise, you end up with so much drama that it simply is impossible to go through the head of the characters, that should be completely broken from what they lived through. And now that Mulder and Scully are a couple, or, like Scully’s friend Dr. Karen Jones says in the book: “kinda sorta life partners”, it means they are psychologically in a masochist/sadistic relationship.
MASOCHIST SCULLY
Let’s start with Scully. I understand that main characters go through drama, especially multiple times during such a long series, but this becomes too much. People kill themselves for far less, it seems crazy Scully would even want to remotely think about the X-Files anymore, let alone rejoin the unit. I’d be her, I’d want to leave all that sh*t (pardon my French) as fast as possible and as far away as possible to focus on my life and enjoy my remaining years in peace. Time flies.
This mythology was so bad that probably the best course of action would have been to simply forget about all this non-sense and move on.
The author shows that Scully purposely and fully made the choice because of wanting to find truths and helping victims, but this is a drastic change from the second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, when Scully clearly stated « I’m done chasing monsters in the dark. » and asked Mulder to stop his quest and « put it in a book. » These were actually great quotes from the film and I find myself amused to refer positively to this movie. Ironically, to complete that last quote, it’s now been put in a book that Scully wants to go back to the X-Files.
Not only that, but she is pregnant and knows full well that she had to abandon her first child because of the X-Files and the danger her beloved baby, her flesh and blood, risked by staying with her.
I cannot even remotely imagine the deep pain a mother must feel abandoning her child, even more so a sane mother like Scully that has the means to properly care and educate her child. Imagine your entire life and soul being decimated by it. Would you go back to the X-Files to ask for more? Obviously not. Regardless of any colonization master plan or global conspiracy or victims of paranormal phenomenons. You would run towards any other corner of the world, looking for peace and a chance to be happy with your newborn baby, even more so at the sunset of your life.
SADISTIC MULDER
Meanwhile, I’m gonna say it out loud: Fox Mulder is one sorry son of a b*tch, to paraphrase Scully's brother, Bill. And I have a whole lot more to say. Why? It’s very easy: the love of his life, his touchstone, Dana Scully, is pregnant with his unborn child. Even remotely allowing Scully to rejoin the X-Files unit is a grotesque, asinine, vulgar and disgustingly hateful thing. No one in their right mind would allow their spouse to rejoin a unit where he or she would spend virtually every single case near death.
Let me use this cruel but beautifully exchange (wonderfully written by Chris Carter) between Scully’s brother Bill and Mulder in Redux II (season 5), as Scully is about to die from cancer, inoculated during her abduction in Duane Barry/Ascension (season 2):
BILL: You see, she's your big defender, but I think the truth is, she just doesn't want to disappoint you.
MULDER: If it works, I don't care what you think she thinks.
BILL: You're a real piece of work, you know that, Mr. Mulder.
MULDER: Why is that, because I don't think the way you think? Because I won't just sit passively back and watch the family tragedy unfold?
BILL: You're the reason for it. And I've already lost one sister to this quest you're on, now I'm losing another. (Bill has to fight back tears) Has it been worth it? To you, I mean, have you found what you've been looking for?
MULDER: No...
BILL: No. (He nods) You know how that makes me feel?
MULDER: In a way, I think I do. I lost someone very close to me. I lost a sister, I lost my father, all because of this thing I'm looking for.
BILL: These what? Little green aliens?
MULDER: Yeah. Little green aliens.
BILL: You're one sorry son of a bitch. Not a whole lot more to say.
Thanks to Mulder, Dana already got abducted (2x05 Duane Barry), had her beloved sister Melissa killed (3x02 Paper Clip), got cancer (4x14 Memento Mori), nearly passed away from cancer (5x02 Redux II), got a supposedly daughter killed (5x07 Emily), lost her beloved man minutes before learning she was pregnant (7x22 Requiem), saw her beloved man returned but dead (8x14 This Is Not Happening), saw her beloved man literally returning from the dead (8x15 Deadalive), saw her beloved man disappearing minutes after getting her child (9x01 Nothing Important Happened Today), was forced to abandon her child (9x16 William), saw her beloved man getting the death penalty (9x19-20 The Truth), learned that her abandoned child was the source of being medically raped by the Cigarette Smoking Man (11x01 My Struggle), then learned she was pregnant at 56 (11x10 My Struggle IV).
As if this wasn’t enough, Mulder doesn’t strongly oppose her joining the X-Files again. If that’d be me, I’d put a veto so strong that it would be very simple: you have to choose between the X-Files and me. Simple as this. His sole role should be, above anything else, to protect Scully, even more so since she was pregnant. Instead of that, even if he shows plenty of remorse, he still ends up caring only about himself and letting Scully rejoining him, knowing full well that she does it because of her endless love for him, regardless of what she says. The X-Files were always Mulder’s quest, even if I won’t deny that Scully played an equal part and definitely had a passion for it. What more interesting can there be in life than saving the world?
This is why the honesty of the author doesn’t work in this context. If you really want to be honest and go through every single dramatic event of the characters, then you have to take into fact that any normal being would never go back to the X-Files. Period. You cannot have a romantic couple allowing their beloved one to go back to the unit, let alone a romantic couple with a baby on the way. And this proves once again that the show has moved too much away from its core.
This is where we go back to the Pilot episode, to understand what The X-Files was originally about.
A POLICE SHOW
Let me share the obvious. The X-Files was utterly clear in the sense of the simplicity of its premises and structure: two Special FBI Agents were investigating the paranormal. They would not be romantically involved, as clearly demonstrated in the Pilot, when Scully goes half-naked in Mulder’s room, showing him the bite marks on her body, fearing they might be related to the ones shown on the body of abducted victims. Mulder would look at the marks and reassure her female co-worker without trying to seduce her or put her into his bed. Chris Carter clearly stated that the characters would not be romantically involved. He wanted to do something better than so much bad TV you would watch at the time. He had grand ideas and a clear vision and would not deviate from it. Would you imagine a couple investigating monsters? Obviously not, duh!
The type description of The X-Files series on Disney+ is perfect: “Police drama, science-fiction.” That’s it.
We would follow two characters doing police investigation with an exciting twist of sci-fi. We would know absolutely nothing about the protagonists private lives, except for some bits and pieces to tease the fans and make things interesting. Mulder would receive a message on his answering machine from a mysterious female voice: « You’re a pig. » A few episodes might explore their background story, sometimes well (Lazarus, season 1), sometimes awfully bad (Fire, season 1). That was it.
Chris Carter had tried to show loving affairs early on with Scully in both the Pilot and in The Jersey Devil, but it didn’t work. Nobody would care about Ethan Minette (her boyfriend) and the fact that he had holiday plans for him and Scully when she had to go to Oregon to help Mulder on an investigation. This felt totally out of place and still do today. So much that these scenes were actually cut. And the end of The Jersey Devil showed beautifully that Scully was accepting to give up her personal life by following Mulder in his work—thus losing her youth and spending her life in a string of endless drama. She probably should have become a doctor instead and find herself a sane man. But we still needed a show.
The two Special FBI Agents would not date each other nor be romantically involved with anyone. It was a cop show.
Yes, there was a brilliant chemistry between the two characters; yes, there was a sexual tension that we all loved to watch, but the characters were never actual lovers. And it was brilliant. The primary focus were the investigations.
INVESTIGATING
This actually happens in some too rare instances in the book, for instance on page 108, which marks the very first time that Mulder and Scully really investigate and talk about the killer and both run through some hypotheses. This is simply fascinating and works every time. It’s actually quite simple. Mulder goes towards a paranormal phenomenon whilst Scully focuses on the most tangible and often medical (or in this case technical) aspects. The concept was always brilliant and absolutely perfect and still work equally as well thirty years later. Why the author would not use it sooner is beyond me. It’s like having the philosopher stone and deciding to find a 9 to 5 job instead.
Why deciding to produce a generic coke when you have the secret recipe of the classic Coca-Cola, as Walter White would rightfully explain?
But of course, whilst the concept of The X-Files is simple, its actual execution is far more complex, meaning how to find cases that the characters can analyze, without making it bad, as it is often the case with sci-fi. You almost have to work in reverse, finding a story where characters can argue. Definitely not a simple task.
It’s far much easier, as a writer, to have the characters talking about their feelings and going through mundane situations, similar to so many fanfics, which is unfortunately most of the book and my second biggest concern, alongside the constant reminders of the bad legacy mythology. The X-Files have become Mulder and Scully and this is now the major problem of the saga.
DAMAGED GOODS
Now, the characters are too old (Mulder is now 62 years old and Scully is 60), lived through too many things and had enough drama for ten lifetimes. It’s time to pull the plug and branch out with new and younger characters. There is simply no other way. And you can move things around any way you want, Mulder and Scully are now the worst part of The X-Files, as crazy as it sounds. These once awesome and brilliant characters have to go, or any new X-Files instance will forever darken its legacy.
Chris Carter initially said The X-Files could only go on for five seasons before becoming bad, then said The X-Files could go on forever, then changed his tone once again and said that The X-Files was Mulder and Scully. If he’s right, it means that there’s no future for The X-Files, because The X-Files is not about two 60-year old non-agents not investigating the paranormal and talking about their lives whilst cooking dinner at home. Example on page 216, in the midst of a historical discovery of the world facing alien DNA mutations spreading like a virus:
« Maybe I should handle dinner, » Mulder said.
« It’s my turn. »
« I don’t mind. »
« No, I’ve got it. »
This is really horrendous and going against everything the Pilot stood for. Imagine Captain Kirk being in a gay relationship with Spock and talking about the current universe-changing mission with the highest of stakes with his lover Spock over dinner? There is, to me, absolutely nothing remotely interesting in witnessing two Federal Agents spooning all the time whilst talking about their case, but actually mostly talking about past events and their feelings and resentments. This makes their storyline really awful and painful to read. My beloved characters, the rock stars Mulder and Scully are now painful losers, not even being able to commit to their own relationship at 60 years old. Shall I remind them of the clock ticking?
Mulder and Scully being roommates at their age whilst evidently loving each others makes absolutely no sense. It reminds me of Ross and Rachel deeply loving each others but not saying it (because of what?) and living together because they have a baby. We are really at a sitcom level and I’m quite ashamed by it.
TIMELINE
By the way, since the book seems to take place in today’s world, there is therefore clearly a gap of multiple years between My Struggle IV, which is very odd. Since Scully revealed that she was pregnant at the end of My Struggle IV and is still pregnant in Perihelion (in the beginning of the book, she says she is just starting to show), it means there were perhaps 10 to 12 weeks between the two—according to WebMD, which says the belly starts showing at this moment.
Let’s say three or even four months. Why would they make such a fuss about rejoining The X-Files, which was barely closed for a quarter? Also, it means Scully is still 56 and not 60.
But regardless, another mammoth in the room is their age. Whether at 56 or 60, there is no way the FBI would still let them being Special Agents:
“To become a special agent in the FBI, candidates must meet certain age requirements. As of current guidelines:
- Minimum age: Applicants must be at least 23 years old at the time of applying.
- Maximum age: Applicants must be no older than 36 years old upon appointment (i.e., when starting as a special agent), though there are exceptions for those with prior federal law enforcement or military service, which can extend the age limit.
These requirements ensure that agents can serve for a full 20 years before reaching the federal law enforcement retirement age of 57.”
Another reason to move on from Mulder and Scully spending their entire life leaving and joining The X-Files again.
FANFICHELION
Beyond the characters, the way Mulder and Scully keep talking about their feelings in mundane situations is clear fanfic territory. As coined by Gruic, the book could have been titled Fanfichelion, without any disrespect for the fanfic writers nor readers.
My question is: did it deserve a worldwide publishing of a $30 book?
For instance, the summary of chapter 29 part 2 is: "Mulder and Scully reminisce about their lost family members and friends, then argue about who is making dinner." This is, once more, pure fanfic territory and clearly miles away from the initial vision of The X-Files, which, once again, was mostly focused on the investigations of the paranormal, often with action sequences, which seem almost absent here.
Because no, Mulder and Scully sharing a plate of pasta together is not remotely interesting. We witness the utterly mundane personal stories of Mulder and Scully and there was a reason we never got to see this before: this is out of place and uninteresting. In chapter 1, the story starts with some sort of a teaser: a pregnant woman gets killed. Then nothing until chapter 7. The beginning is really boring, there is virtually no inciting incident and, similar to the personal story of Hank Moody in Californication, the emotional situations can move on from one place to another in a split second, without any real rationale. Although I must say that Claudia Gray does a far better job at it than Chris Carter, which produced such amateur writing in the My Struggle tetralogy, ending with Scully suddenly not caring anymore about William and being pregnant, again.
At least, Gray goes through the difficult and hard work of writing a concrete story and an emotional arc, so that we end up with Scully once more caring about William. I’ll applaud her for giving the time, instead of Chris Carter rushing through his new scrips like a virgin teenager.
THE FUTURE OF THE X-FILES
As we are once more at a cornerstone of being at the end of The X-Files saga, there is only one way to move forward: bringing new blood into the series. Star Trek did it decades before as well. Star Trek: Next Generation is what The X-Files seasons 8 and 9 should have been. I believe that Gillian Anderson should have left The X-Files at the end of season 7, so that Doggett and Reyes could have a real chance. John Doggett was actually a great character! He was completely different from Mulder and that was the fun part of it, even though the book seems to disregard his character, as seen on page 59 (chapter 9):
“She’d tried her best with Doggett, whom she still liked and respected, and Mulder had gone it alone for a brief time… but the X-Files had only ever truly made progress when she and Mulder worked together.”
This is exactly what NOT to do. You cannot expect continuing The X-Files franchise by stating that nothing else matters apart from Mulder and Scully. Do I need to share the obvious? Mulder and Scully will die. (Actually, Scully might not, but let’s not even go into that…)
As honest as Claudia Gray is, I found that line on Doggett highly disrespectful, knowing that he was such a big part of the series for two years out of the original nine. That’s more than 20% of the time.
And what about Monica Reyes? She is not mentioned once. There are serial killers and monsters such as Donnie Pfaster which appear in the book, but not Monica Reyes.
If you want to take the entire legacy, you cannot omit such an integral part of the series.
I’m not a sports fan, but it feels like putting all your efforts and money on your oldest players and suddenly realizing that these players are now too old to play and you are left with nothing. Once more, we need new characters or The X-Files will die.
Hell, even Sylvester Stallone learned it with the Rocky series. When he became too old to portray a boxer, he moved the stories onto new characters. The character of Adonis Creed is actually very exciting! Yes, he’s never going to be as great as Rocky Balboa, but we still get to see new and exciting material. Ironically enough, the Rocky franchise was saved by Ryan Coogler, which is currently working on a reboot of The X-Files, how exciting! I’m sure he’ll have the guts to move on from the current mess.
Staying with the Rocky series, after the utterly bad Rocky V, Stallone went ahead and killed Talia Shire’s character, Rocky’s wife Adrian, making the next instalment a very profound and interesting one. Rocky Balboa is far better than Rocky V and yes, Mulder without Scully or vice-versa would have been a far better story. It’s time to either exit the characters or only use them for brief apparitions as coaches or informants.
I would be against rebooting entirely the series with a new Fox Mulder and a new Dana Scully, because no one will ever be able to replace them. As Rocky said to his son in Rocky Balboa, you gotta be ready to take the hits, and even if it won’t work at first, you have to keep moving forward:
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!
Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you! You’re better than that!”
But as much as it seems clear what needs to be done, I believe that no one will have the guts to kill off the characters. Instead of that, we will have to sit through years and years of non-sense with these two characters staying exactly at the same place in their lives. Kill them or change their lives drastically, don’t keep the same story year after year.
A PATCHWORK WITH NO SCOPE
If this book was made into a movie, it would be extremely boring. There is absolutely no cinematic scope in this book, which is so sad knowing that you can write whatever you want, without having to face the technical and budget constraints of shooting a TV show or a feature film. I am obviously not saying that any X-Files novel should have big explosions and countless action scenes at every page, but you have to give something to the reader to get excited. Most of the scenes are exposition and have no cinematic tone. Mulder visits Skinner at the hospital, then again in another chapter. Scully has a journal entry. Mulder writes a profile. It feels like a patchwork of extremely short scenes, which do not turn into anything truly exhilarating. In Perihelion, Mulder and Scully talk about their emotions and their lives whilst Mulder cuts the cucumbers. Then they go to a cafe talking about mundane things. They eat pasta talking about their jobs. They talk so much—like I'm actually doing in this review—that there is absolutely no action. Nothing takes place, except for some very brief passages. You have to wait for page 225 out of 306 before Mulder finally decides to take the road to travel and investigate, which actually ends up going to a diner in Arizona and asking the waitress: “So, what’s weird?” in order to find the location of the Mística retreat camp. In Fight the Future, Mulder and Scully are on the field from the very second you see them. Too much exposition kills everything and too much time is spent on the past and going through The X-Files encyclopaedia.
REFERENCES AND MORE REFERENCES (AKA THE X-FILES ENCYCLOPAEDIA)
The author goes to so many different places, almost trying to prove that she knows everything about the series that she throws every single thing at it, making the book far from being focused. There are flashbacks with Scully’s sisters Melissa, we go so much back and forth that it becomes just too much. Often, I wished the narrator to shut up and just let the main story live its own life without trying to put everything at it from all angles.
Claudia refers to the Pilot (page 102), Beyond the Sea (page 276), Darkness Falls (page 278, chapter 37), Tooms (page 107), Humbug (page 114), Ascension (page 135), Irresistible (page 135), 2x25 Anasazi (page 276), 3x02 Paper Clip (page 215, chapter 29), Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (before page 107, I have to check again where exactly), 3x17 Pusher (page 193), Memento Mori (page 135), Unruhe (page 276, chapter 37), Max and Tempus Fugit (page 216, chapter 29), The Post-modern Prometheus (page 114), Fight the Future (page 278, chapter 37) and more.
What is actually very interesting though is when the author not just randomly cites references, but expands on them by adding scenes we have not witnessed during the series, such as when she refers in page 215 to Scully seeing the pool of blood of Melissa after she’s been shot in Paper Clip (3x02). That worked beautifully and that filled a gap that the writers created when they rushed killing Scully’s sister without truly focusing on the ramifications of this event—even if they tried fixing it in later episodes.
But as much as I liked this reference, most of the other references were just adding no value whatsoever. Even as a die-hard fan of The X-Files, I actually had to Google Lanny and Leonard, the second characters from Humbug—which I happened to have rewatched only a month ago. What is the point of mentioning Agent Pendrell? Who remotely cares about Agent Pendrell? How is that helping continuing and brining new fans to the saga?
NEW AUDIENCE
Not everyone has seen every single of the 217 episodes of The X-Files. I put myself in the shoes of someone which has just seen a few episodes of the series and remembers it fondly and wants to buy this book during the summer, hoping to have a nice summer read for the beach or a cozy rainy afternoon in a hotel room. I don’t imagine the pain and I’m quite certain that the new audience would quickly regret the purchase and never again buy any other X-Files novel.
I’m not saying you cannot and shouldn’t go back to the past, but by going so much into the past and listing so many storylines that run over 30 years, it is bound to make it a failure.
Chris Carter knew this when he co-wrote the first X-Files movie Fight the Future. In it, Mulder is seen very early on summarizing his life in a very clever way towards the audience, by being drunk at a bar and telling the waitress his life story in a minute or so. We don’t need more to enjoy the ride. I believe the same applies in the novel form.
But talking about references, there is a gargantuesque elephant in a room, so big that it might be a mammoth instead.
THE ONLY REFERENCE MISSING…
Gray talks about so many episodes and spans thirty years of investigations but fail to mention the only one that actually should have been referred to here: I'm talking about The X-Files episode D.P.O. (3x03). In this excellent loner from season 3, the equally excellent Giovanni Ribisi portrayed Darin Peter Oswald, a young man who had the power of... electricity! Not only could he control lightning, he could also make electronic devices explode and cellphones burn. I entirely fail to understand how the author would refer to so many characters, even referring to “Lanny and Leonard” but not mention Darin Oswald, which was such an iconic character in the series. If she was truly as honest with the characters, she would have mentioned it. I fail to understand why William and Carl Busch are mentioned every three pages, but no mention of this case is made throughout this book. Obviously, the author didn't want to show she drew inspiration from this episode and therefore ghosted it, but I find it hard to believe, as you cannot hide this from any core X-Phile, which is exactly the core audience for this particular book. I find it highly insincere and a slap to the faces of the fans. As much as the paranormal story works extremely well, it is simply copied from the excellent script from Howard Gordon.
To summarize, in her thank you pages, Gray explains that she spent countless hours rewatching the series to prep for this book. Well, ironically, I am absolutely convinced that she should saved this time to enjoy life and take the essence of the series instead. Sometimes, in life and in art, less is more... except for this review of course!
POP REFERENCES
I also disliked the endless references to pop culture, some will definitely be completely unknown for future readers, but I know full well this book is already an archive and that most likely very few people will even read it today, let alone thirty years from now.
These countless pop references make the story less real. Because you cannot build an alternate universe and always hinting at the reader.
This is so bad that at page 94, a new character is introduced named… Blair Stawarski. Comon, seriously. This is utterly bad.
In the next book, let’s limit these to just half a dozen, not more. If you actually carefully rewatch the show, you'll almost never see pop references. Only very rarely. And also, by doing it so rarely, it makes them so much more interesting, such Scully talking about Carrie at the prom or saying "they're heeere."
THE SMOKE MONSTER
Since early on in the book, we are told about a killer vanishing into smoke. Later on, we realize he can travel far distances as a kind of smoke monster. This feels copied from the famous smoke monster, which was the primary mystery of the entire LOST series and only revealed in the series finale.
I gladly acknowledge that in our day and age, everything seems to have already existed, but this felt a little bit too similar to LOST for my taste. And it was a very uninteresting version of it and pushed way too much the boundaries of the paranormal, as if The X-Files had become Star Trek in DC.
I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE (AKA THE WOKE AGENDA)
The final nail in the coffin for me was the fact that the book was overly woke. For instance, there is a nonbinary character in the book, the nurse Casey Spradlin, introduced in chapter 3. It took me some time to understand why would the author refer to a character as « they » (page 115), before quickly realizing that the character was nonbinary.
A few pages later, at page 129, a female character talks about her wife. That’s already three LGBT characters in the book, plus the final chapter in which Scully's obstetrician tells her “It's too early to really know gender, of course...”
Of course…
I'm so sick of the current climate, where artists force their political views and agenda down the throat of their audience. I find it highly disrespectful, especially for a saga like The X-Files, which was a police show. Contrary to Star Trek: The Original Series, which had a profound cultural aspect embedded into the series, The X-Files had not. Sure, there would be a few references to sexism in some episodes, sure you can say that Scully was a strong female character, but things were done without showing you LGBT flags nor telling you what to think. Except in the always metaphysical episodes written by Darin Morgan, most of the episodes would focus on the investigations and scaring the audience every week, not pushing a political agenda.
Looking back, this is actually quite fun to rewatch and enjoy a show that didn’t want to enforce you anything, until that infamous shot of George W. Bush with the X-Files musical cue from the I Want to Believe movie. This felt like a jump the shark moment for so many reasons, but you can read my review of the film if you are interested about this element.
I do not care if Claudia Gray is heterosexual, lesbian, nonbinary, transgender or whatever word is the politically correct way to say nowardays. I do not care if she votes Republican or Democrat or if she doesn’t vote at all. Her job was to entertain me. Nothing more, nothing else. She had to find a story of a monster with a paranormal twist and have two FBI agents investigating it. I wasn’t asking for much. Instead, I get told that girls can be boys and vice-versa. What if I don’t believe in it? What if I don't want to believe? Am I suddenly put aside as a reader? Am I ostracized? Like Dr. Kang said: “Of course.” That’s how I felt, at least. Better put the politics aside in the next novel and focus more on the investigations instead.
I ACCEPT DEFEAT (AKA NOROMO VS SHIPPER)
Overall, I have to accept, once again, defeat. Over the years, women have taken control of the fandom of The X-Files, and now of The X-Files itself. What started as a violent cop show with a paranormal twist and ugly monsters aimed to scare the audience every week has become a romantic saga where the characters talk about their feelings all the time... with a paranormal twist.
Women are by far the most active part of The X-Files fandom, and therefore I kneel to them and congratulate them. The shippers have won. They’ve spent so much energy and decades into being there today, they deserve their crown. Meanwhile, the noromos became slowly extinct and fell one by one onto the battlefield.
We will see if the future brings, once more, a noromo version of The X-Files. Until then, I yield.
MULDER AND SCULLY? NO: SCULLY AND MULDER
Similarly, in this book, it seems evident that the author puts herself constantly in Scully’s head and far less in Mulder’s. The narrator talks about virtually every trauma Scully went through as well as her relationships with family members and more. Scully thinks multiple times about her late sister Melissa. She thinks about her mother, her brothers, her abduction, her child, etc.
When it comes to Mulder, we almost don’t get a word about his father Bill or his mother Teena. Almost nothing on his beloved sister Samantha, apart from a paragraph here and there. I’m just reminding everyone that Samantha was the cornerstone of the series.
This feels like a woke exercise focused on making Scully the central character and trying to fix thirty years of being Mulder’s side-kick, to the detriment of Mulder, which is clearly now lost and a shadow of himself.
Let me say it: Mulder has become a total simp. A cockless secondary character which has absolutely nothing to say, except picking up coffee for Scully, like in this excerpt from page 221:
Scully: What would I have to bribe you with to get a coffee?
Mulder: One decaf, coming up.
Scully keeps calling the shots, not laughing at his jokes, deciding where to go and when, such as on page 225:
Mulder: Ready to hit the road?
Scully: You should go without me. (...)
Mulder: Out of the question.
Then Mulder leaves... alone. Years ago, he was the one keeping going to places without even letting her know where he would go, and asking her to do autopsies. He was the alpha man. But this was before women took over the world.
Scully even decides when Mulder gets to fuck.
Scully even ends up denying Mulder’s own scars, which I believe is one of the rare encyclopaedic mistakes of the book. Scully writes in her journal on page 117 that "Mulder has emerged thus far without physical scars". Wasn’t Mulder’s actual skull cracked opened in The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati, when he then came back with a huge bandage? Wasn’t he also shot multiple times, including one time by Scully herself? It's quite amusing she says he has no scars when she actually shot him!
Almost using the metaphysical element from the title of the book, it seems that we went from one extreme (Mulder being the original hero and Duchovny being paid more than Anderson) to the other extreme (Scully victimizes herself and Mulder is now the side-kick).
NEW MYTHOLOGY
Now, back onto some good parts. Gray goes the complex route by actually coming up with a brand new mythology and links it with the old one. And yes, her mythology is far more interesting than any of the mythology written by Chris Carter during the revival of the series and even before that during season 9. This shows that some new blood is needed not just in terms of characters, but most importantly behind the typewriter (or the keyboard). It might not be what I want, but at least it’s fresh and not the same old stories Chris Carter kept repeating over and over (and over) again.
Gray creates a new Syndicated called the Inheritors. Instead of making their mission to have an overly ambitious agenda, she makes it about one thing: money. Which makes sense in today’s world, even though it appears to me perhaps almost outdated, in a current world where everything is about power. But money equals power and vice versa, so we’re not far off.
One of her most imaginative ideas is by far the fact that there is a rapid increase of paranormal phenomenons based on mutations in nature. For instance, carnivorous plants start to appear. This is fascinating and nurturing our brain, like the original series did for so long. I miss The X-Files so very much and crave for such stories. Maybe this is once more too Star Trekky, but it’s, again, fresh.
KILLER
Even though the number of times the Bright Eyes serial killer kills (or tries to) is exceptionally rare, the result is truly excellent. My favorite time is the killing from chapter 18, with the victim at first not realizing what is happening to her, then the depiction of the loud music and the volume increasing. I absolutely loved it. A killing on a hopeful song by Barry Manilow (I imagined the song Mandy playing during the murder). Thank you, Claudia, for making me feel like I felt decades ago, as a kid, getting the chills of watching a creepy killing scene with fun old music! This took me back to D.P.O.’s (3x13) outstanding teaser or the gruesome murder from Home (4x02) or the killing behind closed doors in Never Again (4x13).
Just excellent and what you’d expect from such a book. This proves that The X-Files is a franchise that can live long after its main protagonists and that we shouldn’t have to wait 25 years to read the next chapter of the saga.
Also, some ideas were truly excellent and original, such as learning that some killers start to kill animals and that the FBI had therefore created a dedicated database focused on animal cruelty. Those are the type of things that are truly interesting and fascinating—and yes, creepy.
Once again, Claudia Gray worked really hard and it shows. She even rightfully depicts the contemporary Swiss banking system, which is fascinating for such type of book.
But, as often with this book, even the good parts are often disappointing. For instance, the resolution of the Bright Eyes serial killer is extremely dull. He knocks on Scully’s door, which points her gun onto him. The end. This is the worst resolution I’ve seen in my entire life about a serial killer.
THE RE-RE-RE-RETURN OF THE CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN (CHAPTER 31)
Right from the moment I read that the character of Cherish Craddock could talk to the dead, I instantly feared that we might not be done with... the Cigarette Smoking Man… which is exactly what happened.
I cannot stress how asinine this felt. I despise it so very much that it almost feels that someone would do such a thing to mock fans and make their experience even worse.
This accurately describes my feeling towards this book, being at times extremely fun and original, and at times in very low fanfic territory.
Page 234 is the moment the book simply jumps the shark, far higher than Fonzie ever dreamed on:
Cigarette Smoking Man: Well, Fox, you found me again.
It seems that X-Philes are bound to live forever and ever the same stories and that the only solace will not come from the death of the characters, but by the deaths of the fans themselves. Maybe my own death will be the one that will stop me from discovering more scenes with the Smoking Man. Imagine spending thirty years and not being able to find a decent character to replace him. Pathetic.
Maybe I should simply put a bullet in between my two eyes and give up my Sisyphean life.
Even though the book wasn't great, I still had some fun turning the pages and focusing on the investigation on Bright Eyes. But chapter 31 was the moment I closed the book for the evening. I felt betrayed, but I already knew the feeling. I could picture Chris Carter and Claudia Gray, sharing a Morley and having fun at my expense, whilst I laid in my bed, now in Newfoundland Island, looking at the window at the red blinking light of St John’s harbor. What have I done with my life? How could I have spent so much time loving a saga that kept betraying me over and over and over again. I was there in 1998 when the Smoking Man came back from the dead in The Red and the Black. I was there when he came back from the dead in 2002 in The Truth. I was still there but didn't care anymore in 2015, when the Smoking Man came back from the dead after receiving multiple rockets right through his face.
And I am still here in 2024, seeing the Smoking Man still manipulating things but this time as a fuc**** ghost.
This is such an awful idea that I simply fail to understand the rationale. I really thought the second half of the book was better but chapter 31 killed it for me.
THE X-MEN FILES (CHAPTER 36)
Later, in a book where nothing takes places and everything is resolved in just a few chapters, readers will be surprised to know how much the series will have been perverted when discovering chapter 36 and learning that the Mística Reinvention center is actually a training center... for superheroes and that the people running the organization want Scully to join their team of superheroes and becoming one. Apparently, the X from The X-Files actually was the one from X-Men. I wonder if anyone other than the publishing company had the role of going through the book and ensure it fitted with The X-Files saga. In only a few chapters, we go from witnessing the return of the Smoking Man as well as Scully being offered to join a school of superheroes. Shall I even use adjectives to describe my feelings? The Chris Carter from the early 90's would have obviously never remotely accepted a story like that. I go back to the sublime text from Chris Carter in Songs in the Key of X. But time flew and destroyed everything with it. Tempus fucking fugit.
SALES
My personal view is that this book will not sell well at all. I don’t see a single fan of The X-Files buying this book and telling his or her friends (casual viewers or not) to go buy it. I remember being on a Spanish beach reading Whirlwhind and giving it to a female friend (I was secretly in love with her!). She read it entirely and, I guess, had fun with it. My current life partner is an avid reader and she loves crime books and thrillers, but I would never imagine suggesting lending this book to her, not to anyone. Therefore, what’s the point? The point is that instead of trying to please some fans, Disney should go back to the roots of the show and coming up with interesting and brand new material, not rehashing a web of thirty years of both sublime and horrendous storylines, in a melting pot that means absolutely nothing to virtually anyone nowadays.
I’m not saying that a new exciting book with new agents would actually do more in terms of sales, because probably many fans would not be interested to read X-Files stories without Mulder and Scully as the protagonists.
VERDICT
To summarize, Mulder and Scully were, ironically, and by far, the worst part of this book. The rest was actually quite interesting, like a James Patterson or Dan Brown intrigue that you read before moving onto the next book. Unfortunately, we needed more of that and no immature stories about the asinine personal lives of Mulder and Scully. I’ll always love these characters for what they were, but I’m way passed the point of no return.
Therefore, giving a score to this book is very, very difficult. On one side, I would like to recognize the extraordinary amount of work that the author has put into this book. Creating a new mythology, linking it with the previous mythology, creating new stories, intertwining storylines, a great package with very uneven content.
Yet, in art and in business (and anywhere in between), there are situations where you can fail with lots of efforts and you can win with finding the least path of resistance and spending the minimum efforts. Claudia Gray worked hard, very hard. She went back through so many episodes of the series, deeply analyzed the mythology about the characters (although absolutely nothing about the earlier and best mythology though with bees, black oil, etc.). She’s put as many references as humanly possible and was able to write an extremely professional book that fits perfectly in 300-or-so-pages. Therefore, as much as I completely disagree with most of the editorial choices (the tone, the constant wishy-washy feelings, the wokeness, the countless pop references, the millions of lines about Carl Busch and William, the gaps in the too little investigations, etc.), I respect her work. The author did the, or shall I say, [i]her[/i] work. Yes, it was the entire opposite of the work I would have chosen if I was asked to write a book about [i]The X-Files[/i]. In that sense, I truly respect her and I hope that when she reads this review, she will appreciate that I might be cruel with some of the choices, but I still respect her and her work. If she is so much into being woke and respecting someone’s feelings, then she will surely respect my opinion.
Because it is so much focused on Mulder and Scully’s feelings and because there isn’t enough investigative work and because the new stories are fresh but too far out there ([i]X-Men[/i] superheroes), and because there are some jump the shark moments (chapter 31), I give the book 1 out of 5. I initially wanted to give a 2 but it's just too bad.
CODA
As a hopeless romantic, I would want to believe that this book was the coda we deserved, and that its goal was to close the legacy mythology to move onto the next part. But there are still so many unresolved storylines, such as:
- Will the Smoking Man’s appear again?
- Where are Cherish Craddock and Robin Vane?
- Will the Inheritors continue their plan of training superheroes in the Caribbean?
- Will William reappear and unite with Mulder and Scully?
- Who is the strange character that Nurse Casey saw spying on her?
- Will Skinner wake up from his coma? (It seems obvious he will, otherwise they would be no point of having him still alive).
- Will Skinner become a superhero too?
- Is Mulder a superhero that can control the rain and perhaps unite with Scully to create thunderstorms? I’m saying this because at the end of the book, Mulder is running around looking for Scully and therefore going through some dramatic emotions and then end up soaking wet and refer to an odd phenomenon, which I believe might not be related to Robin Vane at all.
- Who is Avatar?
- Will Dr. Karen Jones find a cure to the genome modifications?
- What about the power struggle between the Syndicate and the Inheritors?
- Will Scully’s daughter become a superhero?
TO BE CONTINUED…
Therefore, I think this book acts nicely as both a coda and a new chapter. In a sense, we end up with Mulder and Scully living together, being romantically involved and waiting for a new healthy daughter. This is definitely much brighter than at the end of My Struggle IV, although not so much different…
Do I believe this is what I want? No, I want the opposite and think that The X-Files is at its farthest point from the Sun. I am living in aphelion, and I know better days are ahead. I still believe that the future of The X-Files is outside Mulder and Scully, and surely not in their kids.
I think this overall begs for a sequel and you know what? Even though I made some very negative comments towards the book, I actually will gladly welcome the next chapter, because I might not have alien DNA, but I have something else: X-Phile DNA. Days, weeks, months, years and decades go by, and I will forever remain an X-Phile.
This is who I am.
This is who we are. ___________________________________________
In fanfichelion, we don't give a shit about the X-Files. It's like giving the show to a teenager shipper in 1990.
Even the title, Perihelion, is not a reference to the (non) case of the book but to Mulder and Scully relation. This is how bad it is.
So Scully becomes an X-Men and met with Emma Frost (Craddock) and Nightcrawler (Vane) and Mulder speaks with the ghost of the smoking man about not the mythology (of course) but about William. William is everywhere. It's like in season 9 where Mulder is not in it but everybody talks about him.
That's sad because the first chapter and some field work are well write, but it's 10% of the book and the only thing the author wants is to quickly write about Mulder and Scully taking a shower.
At a moment in the book, Scully says that Doggett was a good guy but the X-Files needs Mulder and Scully to work. What an insolent and irrelevant moment. At least, with Doggett, we would have got a real true X-Files investigation ! Not Mulder cutting leeks and carots !
Long time ago. Chris Carter created gold. Then, with the years, it turns it to shit. Admitted he does not remember a damn thing of what he planed with Spotnitz for the mythology, it's a confession of how we were abused and how he does not care about his fans. Only shippers remains involved in the fandom because every single fan who liked the mythology are gone, tired of being mistreated by Carter. So Perihelion is shipper because nothing else remains of the X-Files. The author deals with the ridiculously bad My struggle IV, so for that, I wish her the best. But without me. ___________________________________________
VIDEOS
HISTORY
2024-09-22 11:33:29 - Pike:
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2024-09-06 19:45:50 - Pike:
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2024-09-06 19:16:04 - Pike:
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2024-09-06 02:39:46 - Pike:
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2024-09-05 02:27:48 - Pike:
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2024-09-03 19:06:19 - Pike:
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2024-09-03 18:58:22 - Pike:
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2024-09-03 18:05:33 - Pike:
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2024-09-02 17:26:17 - Pike:
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2024-09-01 03:55:13 - Pike:
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2024-08-31 14:32:03 - Pike:
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2024-08-31 05:06:40 - Pike:
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2024-08-30 05:16:27 - Pike:
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2024-08-29 05:31:21 - Pike:
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2024-08-29 05:27:03 - Pike:
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2024-08-29 05:23:58 - Pike:
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