Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #668520 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Synopsis
An American archaeologist disappears while exploring the lost Mayan city of Xitaclan - and FBI agents Mulder and Scully are flown to the Yutucan jungles to investigate. Mulder decides there may be more to this case than simply a missing team of scientists.

Customer Reviews

So..So
This is a good story that has merit but also does not reach the levels I was expecting. The narrative flows well enough and the 'reveal' at the end is satisfying but the inclusion of covert US forces was a useless part of the plot. The banter between Mulder and Scully is well handled but the villains of the piece are not, especially when viewed in light of the insight Mr Anderson gives us as to the priestly rituals of the Mayans. Now they are villains.

Lightweight entertainment
Novelisations of television shows are essentially paper fodder -an attempt to cash in on a lucrative televisual franchise that will undoubtedly raise cash. We pretty much find ourselves in that same territory here with the fourth X-Files novel. Whereas the television series was intelligent, innnovative, zeitgeist-affirming paranoia, the books can ever only really hope to imitate the sensations of the series. It would therefore be a mistake to expect anything more from this book than just entertainment - value for money. This is what it provides, up to a point (The final chapters leave something to be desired).

The plot is pretty predictable stuff. In fact, the only surprise is that The X-Files hasn't covered this area of the paranormal before (That being the possibility of an alien influence on the ancient civilisations of the Yucatan peninsula). With the leaf of the book, we know that an archaelogical team disappears around the ruins of a recently discovered ancient Mayan city in the Meican jungle. Mulder and Scully head there to investigate only to arrive in the middle of a civil war and between conflicting drug barons. We already know that the book will give us half-baked explanations of the paranormal theories and that Scully's skepticism will, as ever, remain unshaken. But that's one of the things we expect from the series, so we don't hold it against it.

This is Kevin Anderson's second X-Files novel and is perhaps the best, but that is faint praise considering Ruins comes after his middling freshman effort Ground Zero and the dire brace of Charles Grant novels, Goblins and Whirlwind. It is here, in the core writing of the book, his technique in other words, that the novel truly falls down. Anderson's writing is at best competent and at worst banal ("She sure hoped Mulder hadn't been shot by the terrorists"). Fortunately, he knows how to keep the story flowing at a good pace and although some of the characterisation is stereotypical (seedy Mexican guides, panicky natives, pseudo-intellectual drug lords) it never breaks up the narrative.

Ruins is good lightweight entertainment that you'll consume in a day. It's never going to push back the boundaries of storytelling, but if you're an X-Files fan and you're taking a long train/plane journey somewhere, this is a good read. Stylistic and entertaining, yet instantly forgettable.

The best X-Files book yet
This has to be my favourite X-Files book yet. The plot is original and the settings are excellant. The charactors are also portrayed very well. Brillant reading whether you watch the TV show or not.