A Vision Of Fire

Try not to think of Scully…

Release Date: OUT NOW!

290 pages | £ 12.99 ( hardback)/£ 6.49 ( ebook) Authors: Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin Publisher: Simon & Schuster near impossible. At some point while reading Gillian Anderson’s debut novel, you will think, “This is like an X- File.”

Admittedly, protagonist Caitlin O’Hara – a psychiatrist – is more like Anderson’s character from Hannibal than Scully ( and a lot less sceptical), but the central conceit is pure Mulder- fodder. When the Indian ambassador narrowly avoids assassination during UN peace talks, his daughter’s reaction seems over- extreme; she’s not just in shock, she’s acting like she’s possessed. Caitlin, called in to help, discovers cataclysmic secrets spanning millennia and continents.

The novel – the first in series The Earthend Saga – reads suspiciously like the pilot for a TV show. At just shy of 300 pages you might expect something lean and mean; instead it feels stodgy and padded. Not much actually happens bar an awful lot of speculation tinged with cheesy pseudo- science that borders on Californian New Age hippyshit ( not excused by the fact that the characters admit it sounds like Californian New Age hippyshit).

In its favour, the prose is crisp, the main characters are welldefined and likeable, and the story takes place in a vividly real modern world of international crises, Google hangouts and psychological neuroses. There’s also an intriguing conspiracy arc plot going on in the background. Which is a bit like… oh, you know where this is going. Dave Golder

You can’t help it. It’s