Today being 1121 (aka the other important X-Files-related numerical date), I spent the day reading
The X-Files™: Secret Agendas edited by
Jonathan Maberry, which is the 3rd in IDW's new series of prose short story tie-in anthologies with contributions from fairly prominent horror and comic book writers (according to their bio-blurbs in the back; I wouldn't know since I don't usually read horror), which I requested from the library after
having read the 1st one on 1013.
They finally got it in just before the weekend, and it was another nicely entertaining read of more case adventures. A bit more on the continuity-heavy side this time around with more references to characters and stuff that appeared on the TV show, since three books in, these are more for hardcore fans rather than casual readers. I was a bit disappointed that almost all the stories were purely for Mulder and Scully this time around (1st anthology had two rather nice pieces focusing on AD Skinner), but there were some good guest moments from old supporting characters, which was nice to see.
No particularly standout stories this time around, but there were some entertaining casefiles with Sherlock Holmes tributes, another look at how bizarre and dysfunctional the entire concept of the X-Files and its investigating agents seem from an outside perspective (I always love those), an interesting speculative follow-up to some major mythology plot points from the show, and “Kanashibari”, a story about a Japanese folktale which just happened to share its title and concept with a rather good issue of the old tie-in comic book series, which I was interested in to see how this version would do a take on the same concept, and turned out to be a rather nice alternative.
Overall pretty enjoyable and recommended if one likes the X-Files mythos and would like to read more set in it. All the stories were of at least decent professional fanfic quality and had perfectly cromulent cases. Although some of them suffered by having been grouped too closely together for the ones which happened to have similar concepts/culprits in them, inviting immediate comparison after reading in a short span of time, and a few of them felt shaky on characterization grounds (I think I'll have to agree to disagree with one particular author on what Mulder's 1st person POV narrative internal voice would sound like, although the other author who did Scully POV felt mostly okay) and a certain frustrating tendency towards case cut-offs lacking in closure (to be fair, that is pretty typical of the X-Files), although the cases themselves were fine.
Maybe it's just the nostalgia goggles speaking, but I rather like these and hope that IDW will keep putting out more (and the library will keep getting them in, if IDW apparently continues to not make them available as e-books outside of Humble Bundle, for some unfathomable reason).