Skin (The X Files) [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Ben Mezrich (Author), Bruce Harwood (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1999

It's a fairly common, if ghoulish, procedure: the "harvesting" of skin from corpses for temporary use on emergency burn victims until their own grafts are ready. But when a team of moonlighting medical students accidentally takes skin from the wrong donor, the results are catastrophic: a New York City hospital ward is destroyed in a psychotic bloodbath, and an elderly professor, admitted for a routine skin graft, is suddenly the city's most wanted fugitive.

Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the only ones to suspect something more ominous than a medical procedure gone awry. As the FBI agents investigating the "X-Files" strange and inexplicable cases the Bureau wants to keep hidden, Mulder and Scully are determined to track down the forces they suspect are behind the murderer. While the police hunt the fleeing professor, Mulder and Scully track the skin that was mistakenly grafted onto him. The trail leads from the morgue to the headquarters of a cutting-edge biotech company.

Soon Mulder and Scully are in Thailand, searching the jungles for an abandoned MASH Unit, where napalm victims were treated with an amazing recovery rate'even though none of the hundreds of men who were nursed back to health ever returned to their families. Scully is looking for an experimental medical technology with disastrous side effects. Mulder suspects the stakes are even higher, a fear gruesomely confirmed as they begin to uncover an unholy and totally deniable alliance between a battle-trained plastic surgeon, international politicians, and a legendary Thai monster known as the "Skin-Eater."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Skin has an authentic X-Files feel to it--the right mixture of scientific plausibility and mystical overtones to keep both Scully and Mulder interested and on the trail. Skin taken from an unknown body found at the site of a road accident is grafted over the burns suffered by a mild-mannered professor who then goes berserk, killing a nurse. Mulder and Scully try to trace the source of the skin graft and uncover links with a biotech company called Fibrol International, whose deceased CEO, Emile Paladin, was in charge of a MASH unit in a village in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Traveling to the remote village, Mulder is intrigued to learn about a local cult that worships a mythical monster, the Gin-Korng-Pew, or Skin Eater. Meanwhile, Scully follows more prosaic leads in search of Paladin's reclusive brother.

Mezrich's descriptions of medical procedures feel authentic, and he keeps the story moving along at a good pace, with several dangerous moments for both Mulder and Scully and a significant body count among the witnesses. The mixture of FBI investigation, horror, and the occult, with overtones of paranoia about the activities of the military, should appeal to X-Files fans, while others may enjoy it as an entertaining adventure. --Liz Sourbut, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

When a mild-mannered history professor goes on a bloody rampage after receiving a skin graft mistakenly harvested from the wrong cadaver, the violent episode draws FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully into another eerie X-Files investigation. Though the cadaver, a John Doe found at the scene of a multiple-car pileup, has mysteriously vanished from the morgue, traces of red powder from the accident site lead the agents to Fibrol, a biotech company founded by former MASH surgeon Emile Paladin, who specialized in treating napalm burn victims. Records indicate that Paladin died in a hiking accident in the mountains of Thailand 15 years ago, but word that Paladin's brother, Andrew, is still alive in Thailand sends Scully and Mulder across the Pacific to learn more. There they discover that Paladin was obsessed with creating the perfect synthetic skinAand that his research coincided with the apparent reappearance of a horrific monster of local legend, Gin-Korng-Pew: the Skin Eater. Their penetration into the heart of the mystery uncovers a fiendish secret that will surprise no one. Though the story has plenty of the X-Files' usual matter-of-fact gore, there's little here to cause genuine shivers. Mezrich (Reaper) tells the tale largely from Mulder's point-of-view, but he and other characters are little more than animated clich?sAevidence that one needs more than a series of bizarre events to make a convincing X-file.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: HarperAudio; Abridged edition (April 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0694519138
• ISBN-13: 978-0694519132
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,000,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of nine books, at the moment, including Bringing Down The House, The True Story of Six MIT kids Who Took Vegas- which sort of made me a vegas expert. I live in Boston with my fiance and pug, Bugsy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad, Not Bad, August 3, 2007

By 

danakscully64 (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: X-Files: Skin (The X-Files) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book took me almost 2 years to read (not because it was bad, but I have a hard time reading a book without putting it down for months at a time). I've owned it for 7 years, finally finished it last night and was actually quite impressed with it. I've read all but "Ruins" of the X-Files novels (that is next) and once I picked this back up about a month ago, I had a hard time putting it down. I found "Antibodies" to be the best of the series though.

Quick Plot: (Lets see if I remember this right) Mulder and Scully are investigating the case where a man who received a skin transplant from a John Doe became excessively violent and powerful. They travel and uncover a gruesome secret that has been going on for more than 25 years.

One note: There is a mistake in the book. The author mentions that Scully has a cross necklace, but mistakenly identifies it as being silver, not gold.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This X-File did not get my skin tingling., September 3, 2002

By 

Chadwick H. Saxelid "Bookworm" (Concord, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: X-Files: Skin (The X-Files) (Mass Market Paperback)

Perhaps it was the proximity to the similarly themed Antibodies (the old contaminated man on the run plot again, so soon?), or maybe it was the unnecessary use of profanity (which calls attention to itself in a bad way, is the author that desperate to keep the book out of the YA section?), but this franchise novel (apparently the series last) did not come to life for me. There was little atmosphere to the proceedings and plot twists and clues seemed contrived (rather than increasing the suspense they seem to happen just to keep the plot moving forward and, contrary to X-Files logic, FBI agents cannot barge in on Police investigations and make them their own just satiate curiosity - they have to be assigned - and they just can't fly all over the globe tracking down clues on a whim - there is paperwork to be filled and expenses to be approved). For the record, a skin graft goes wrong when the wrong doner is used, causing a formerly meek college professor to go on a killing spree. This novel maintains interest, but it lacks the feel of the show and is hampered by its shopworn premise. If this is the best that the hired writers could come up with it is not surprising why the spin-off novels never caught on.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad medicine, July 29, 2002

By 

Scott A. Henderson (Westchester, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: X-Files: Skin (The X-Files) (Mass Market Paperback)

It takes only a rudimentary knowledge of medicine (heck, even if you watch "ER" a few times), to pick apart the erroneous medical scenes and dialogue in this book. I know, I know. This wasn't meant to be a textbook, but a little research would have gone a long way in making this book more enjoyable to read. For my wife and I, who are big fans of the show, it was very frustrating.

As far as this being a good "x-files" book? "Whirlwind", "Antibodies", and "Goblins" were far better.