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A review by nobodyspoet
X-Files: Secret Agendas by Andy Mangels, John Gilstrap
2.0
My rating stats on this one are fairly informative to the overall experience of slogging through this book. I DNF'd four stories in comparison to only one in each of the previous volumes. This one's were Harris's Thanks and Praise; Schmidt and Corcino's Border Time; Gresh's All Choked Up; and Ochse's Grandmother Black Hands. There were a total of 6 stories that clocked in at 2.5/5 or lower--Beard's Desperately Seeking Mothman was the worst offender, and barely clung to its 0.5/5.
The thing is, the writing isn't even that bad, it's just that everything is so dreadfully boring. The cases in the ten referenced stories above are so uninteresting I failed to find any of the magic of the X-Files in them. That said, I can't give specifics as to what I hated; frankly, I don't remember much of anything about it.
Of the five stories I did enjoy, I thought Ivanoff's Eye for an Eye (4/5) to be best written, and Holder's A Scandal in Moreauvia (3.5/5) to be the most fun. If only they'd received the exorbitant page count as some of the other stories for their pacing to be fleshed out, they probably would have rated higher. They each embodied that special something that reminded me in the best way of the genre-bouncing nature of the show.
All in all, I can say without a doubt I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, fan of the show or not. There just isn't enough good to outweigh the utterly lifeless.
The thing is, the writing isn't even that bad, it's just that everything is so dreadfully boring. The cases in the ten referenced stories above are so uninteresting I failed to find any of the magic of the X-Files in them. That said, I can't give specifics as to what I hated; frankly, I don't remember much of anything about it.
Of the five stories I did enjoy, I thought Ivanoff's Eye for an Eye (4/5) to be best written, and Holder's A Scandal in Moreauvia (3.5/5) to be the most fun. If only they'd received the exorbitant page count as some of the other stories for their pacing to be fleshed out, they probably would have rated higher. They each embodied that special something that reminded me in the best way of the genre-bouncing nature of the show.
All in all, I can say without a doubt I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, fan of the show or not. There just isn't enough good to outweigh the utterly lifeless.