X-treme Possibilities, by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping (Virgin, £4.99 in UK)

What's this? An intellectual's guide to The X-Files? You might think so from the introduction, with its modest claim: "The X-Files has changed everything." Devotees of the super terrestrial TV show will be on familiar territory here aware of the debt to Twin Peaks and Hill Street Blues, the millennial myth making, but, let's face it, even the most devoted devotee is baffled and occasionally dumbfounded by the storylines - and this is the book that explains it all. From the pilot episode, broadcast in the US in September 1993, right through to (no peeping, now) episodes which still haven't been shown on this side of the Atlantic, the authors trudge dutifully through every single episode, selecting the best and worst of the dialogue, evaluating, criticising, connecting. And oh, the trivia. No doubt about it, fans the truth is in here.