Ground Zero

(The X-Files 3)
by
Kevin J. Anderson

Harper, December 1995, 292 pp.
ISBN: 0-06-105677-4

Genre: Science Fiction
Subgenre: TV Tie-In / Paranormal
Reviewed: 5/27/2002

Reviewed by: Conan Tigard

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Read Part of the Book

Teller Nuclear Research Facility

Tuesday, 10:13 A.M.

Scully and Mulder stood beside each other at the threshold and peered inside

It looked as if an incendiary bomb had gone off in Dr. Gregory's lab office.

Every surface had been singed with a burst of heat so intense, yet so brief, it had curled and crisped the papers attached to Gregory's bulletin board--but had not ignited them. His four computer terminals had melted at the edges and slumped in on themselves, the heavy glass cathode-ray tubes on the screens tilting cockeyed like the gaze of a dead man. Even the metal desks bowed and sagged from the brief molten weakness.

An erasable white board had turned black, its enamel finish dark and blistered, though the colored trails of scrawled equations and notes left identifiable paths of soot.

Scully spotted Gregory's body against the far wall. All that remained of the old weapons researcher was a horribly crisped scarecrow of a man. His arms and legs were drawn up from the contraction of muscles in intense heat, like some sort of insect sprayed with poison and curled up to die. His skin and the twisted rictus on his face made him look as if he had been doused with napalm.

Mulder stared at the destruction in the room, while Scully focused on the corpse, her mouth partially open, her mind already set in that curious mixture of human horror and detached analysis she slipped into when inspecting a crime scene. The only way she could stave off her revulsion was to look for answers. She stepped forward.

Before she could enter the room, though, Carrera placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "No, not yet," she said. "You can't go in there."

Mulder gave Carrera a sharp look, as if she had pulled on his leash. "How are we supposed to investigate a crime scene if we can't go inside?"

Scully could tell that her partner's interest had already been piqued. From what she could see at first glance she was going to have a hard time coming up with a simple, rational explanation for what had happened here in the sealed lab.

"Too much residual radiation," Carrera said.

Review

Dr. Gregory, a leading scientist in nuclear weapon research, and lead researcher on the Bright Anvil project, a fallout free nuclear bomb, dies most horribly in his office, as if a hydrogen bomb had gone off. On the site of the first hydrogen bomb test in Nevada in the 1940's, the descendant of the rancher that had sold his ranch to the government for the test also meets the same fate. Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths. In a deep Minuteman III bunker in Vandenburg AFB, two captains also get burned to a crisp. As Mulder and Scully delve deeper into the mystery of these deaths, they run across the name "Bright Anvil." Finally, as the latest victim of the massive heat dies, Mulder gets a break in the case that will lead both he and Scully into one of the greatest dangers they could ever hope to face. Nuclear annihilation.

This is the third X-Files book. It is a book based on the hit FOX television show. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are FBI agents that investigate the paranormal and weird happening that occur in the United States. Scully is the skeptic while Mulder is the believer. This story takes place pretty early on in the shows life when Mulder and Scully have just gotten Skinner as their boss, who just barely appears in this book. 

I love the X-Files. It kills me that the last episode aired on 5/19/02, just a week ago. Recently, it was rated in the top fifty shows to ever be produced for television. I will miss it greatly. In this third X-Files book, Kevin J. Anderson does a great job of nailing Mulder's sense of humor. Scully is still quite the skeptic in this book, as it was written only two years after the series began. Skinner is quite cutting in his speech, as he has not yet become friends of Mulder and Scully. Anderson has created a story that would be too large to tell on the show. The story is fun and the mystery of the killings is not easily solved, either by the FBI agents or the reader. If you are looking for more X-Files material, now that the show is over, you have no choice but to turn to the measly six books that have been printed by Harper. The good news is, at least in this case, is that Ground Zero is a fun X-Files book that will keep you up late at night reading and wondering what is going to happen next.

I rated this book an 8 out of 10.