I love The X-Files. I was an impressionable youth when the first episode premiered, and despite scaring the hell out of me, I fell in love with it. So much so that I never missed an episode throughout the years, and I devoured every single piece of media that came out of it; comics, video games, books, and so on.

Of course, the show, and some of its spin-off media, had its issues, but I always overcame them. I loved the storytelling and fell in love with the characters. It had just the right amount of weirdness, and it will forever hold a place in my heart.

I was excited when they announced the revival, premiering early next year, because it was a chance to reconnect with these characters again. Sure, we saw them recently in their last film, but back on TV? Count me in!

It was shortly after that when I learned about this anthology book, The X-Files: Trust No One, being edited by Jonathan Maberry. Taking a look at the names involved, it was like a who’s who of X-Files fans who just so happened to be great writers or worked on the show in some way. Admittedly, there were also some names I didn’t recognize, but who cared? 15 new stories set in one of my favorite universes? I’m in!

Overall, I have to say I am a huge fan of the book. For the most part. While some of the stories told within are set within more recent years, the bulk of them take place within the early shows of the show, before all the really crazy stuff happened. That said, the stories range from “oh-my-god, why weren’t these episodes” to “that was pretty good” to “do you even X-Files, bro?” When a story hits, it hits hard. I’m not joking when I say some of these rank up there with some of the best X-Files episodes I’ve seen. The mysteries were solid, and the interplay between the characters felt like it was taken right off the screen.

Some stand outs, for me at least, were “Dusk” by Paul Crilley, who parodies the Twilight craze quite nicely, but also adds an X-Files creepiness to it, “Non Gratum Anus Rodentum” by Brian Keene, which highlights Skinner in a solo outing, “Loving the Alien” by Stefan Petrucha, which is told from Scully’s point of view, and “Paranormal Quest” by Ray Garton, which turns a reality TV show on its head. And those are just a handful of the ones I really liked.

That said, there were a few stories, perhaps two or three, that felt largely out of place in this anthology. While reading them, I almost felt like the writer had never seen an episode of the show before, because the characters were doing things so distinctly unlike themselves. It was almost as if the stories were written for other characters, but Scully and Mulder were dropped in as to fit this book.

I also have to mention the editing, which seems to be a complaint amongst many fans who have read this book. While Maberry is given top billing on the cover, there is another person who is credited as the actual editor of the book itself. Unfortunately, the job he did was pretty lackluster. The book is filled with typos, continuity errors, and just plain mess-ups. For example, in one story, supposedly set in 1994, Skinner breaks out his cell phone to conduct a web search. That must have been one hell of a cell phone!

Another issue I had was with the time stamp motifs that are within each story. Whenever there is a break, a time stamp is presented, much like episodes of the show. However, it just seems like they are thrown in, regardless of the content of the story. One time stamp set the action in December at 4:41 AM, while the first sentence, literally right after it, set it in November, right after school. These kind of things were distracting and took me out of the story a bit. The book could have used a much deeper editing pass to correct all of these errors, and would have been that much better for it.

Despite my complaining, I did quite enjoy the book. It did bring me back to some of the hey-days of the show, and allowed me to see these old friends in new situations. If you’re a dedicated The X-Files fan, it is definitely worth picking up. You’ll love seeing Mulder and Scully in action again, and is a great way to hold you over until new episodes arrive.