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The X-Files: Young Adult #1
The Calusari
First Charlie's little brother is killed by an oncoming train. Then his father dies in a bizarre accident. Both times, Charlie is present - watching. Is it just an eerie coincidence? Mulder and Scully don't think so. Neither does Charlie's grandmother. Believing that Charlie caused the horrors,she calls in the Calusari to cleanse his soul. But is Charlie truly evil? Or is there an even darker force at hand?
112 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
2 people are currently reading
317 people want to read
About the author
Garth Nix
236 books15k followersGarth Nix was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia, to the sound of the Salvation Army band outside playing 'Hail the Conquering Hero Comes' or possibly 'Roll Out the Barrel'. Garth left Melbourne at an early age for Canberra (the federal capital) and stayed there till he was nineteen, when he left to drive around the UK in a beat-up Austin with a boot full of books and a Silver-Reed typewriter.
Despite a wheel literally falling off the Austin, Garth survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. After finishing his degree in 1986 he worked in a bookshop, then as a book publicist, a publisher's sales representative, and editor. Along the way he was also a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve, serving in an Assault Pioneer platoon for four years. Garth left publishing to work as a public relations and marketing consultant from 1994-1997, till he became a full-time writer in 1998. He did that for a year before joining Curtis Brown Australia as a part-time literary agent in 1999. In January 2002 Garth went back to dedicated writer again, despite his belief that full-time writing explains the strange behaviour of many authors.
He now lives in Sydney with his wife, two sons and lots of books.
Despite a wheel literally falling off the Austin, Garth survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. After finishing his degree in 1986 he worked in a bookshop, then as a book publicist, a publisher's sales representative, and editor. Along the way he was also a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve, serving in an Assault Pioneer platoon for four years. Garth left publishing to work as a public relations and marketing consultant from 1994-1997, till he became a full-time writer in 1998. He did that for a year before joining Curtis Brown Australia as a part-time literary agent in 1999. In January 2002 Garth went back to dedicated writer again, despite his belief that full-time writing explains the strange behaviour of many authors.
He now lives in Sydney with his wife, two sons and lots of books.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 26, 2019
If there is any doubt about it, I am really a great fan of the X-Files tv show and each summer I do enjoy a season of so of their adventures while on vacation. When I came across this little booklet aimed at the young adult market I decided to pick it up also because it one of the better monster of the week episodes of season 2, especially episode 21.
I was somewhat disappointed as the book is the story but all the mood that the tv show put into the story was certainly not put into the tale. It is a fairly flawless retold story as the episode went but anyone who ever watched the show and even this episode knows that X-files are a mood driven series and that has translated not at all into this story. Which makes a fairly powerful and scary episode in a rather tame affair. Not sure why the show decided to go for such a cash-cow that does nothing to enhance the fandom for their show. The later newly written stories were a far better affair and did bring the TV show back alive, and the stories were actually beter than some of the season 10/11 X-files stories.
Even for hardcore fans something of a letdown. And if you get a more than decent writer to do novelize your episode give him some free reign to enhance the story, I do not blame Garth Nix but perhaps this is the essence of bread writing.
I was somewhat disappointed as the book is the story but all the mood that the tv show put into the story was certainly not put into the tale. It is a fairly flawless retold story as the episode went but anyone who ever watched the show and even this episode knows that X-files are a mood driven series and that has translated not at all into this story. Which makes a fairly powerful and scary episode in a rather tame affair. Not sure why the show decided to go for such a cash-cow that does nothing to enhance the fandom for their show. The later newly written stories were a far better affair and did bring the TV show back alive, and the stories were actually beter than some of the season 10/11 X-files stories.
Even for hardcore fans something of a letdown. And if you get a more than decent writer to do novelize your episode give him some free reign to enhance the story, I do not blame Garth Nix but perhaps this is the essence of bread writing.
January 30, 2017
"Neither innocence nor vigilance may be protection against the howling heart of evil" — Mulder (p.100).
Old-world superstitions and the existence of Evil is explored in The Calusari, a young-adult adaptation of The X-Files episode of same name, a tepid novelization that more or less captures the creepiness of the 1994 teleplay. When a two-year old boy is inexplicably led to his death, a photograph of the incident yields evidence of supernatural goings-on that piques Agent Mulder's curiosity, prompting he and Agent Scully to investigate. When another unexplained death in the family occurs, the grandmother of the remaining child seeks to cleanse the boy's spirit with the aid of a mysterious sect of Romanian ritualists, the eponymous Calusari.
While I never found this episode all that memorable, the book itself does a satisfactory job of maintaining the mystery throughout its 100-page run. The reader is unsure what to make of Charlie, the sullen boy with an air of darkness enveloping him, or his superstitious grandmother's seemingly injurious treatment of him. Scully's theory of Munchausen by proxy as a cause of the familial woes is reasonable, unlike some of her other bull-headed rationalizations (i.e. her "mountain-lion" explanation in "Shapes"). To the book’s credit, the story never slackens, nor does the suspense waver. The novella is well-plotted, moderately tense, and possesses an ominous atmosphere that's laced with dark, sectarian undertones—though it doesn’t quite delve as deeply into the Eastern European religion and folklore that older readers like myself would’ve appreciated. I wished the author had devoted another page or two to the exorcism scene, in order to give the book’s climax a proper treatment. On the plus side, though, the family drama is quite compelling and fleshed out adequately enough to keep young readers interested; the mother’s fear came across palpable and genuine.
One minor yet interesting character worth mentioning is Dr. Charles "Chuck" Burk(s), who makes his first appearance in this story, assisting our favorite FBI agents with his technical expertise and knowledge of bizarre phenomena. A renounced hippie, Chuck is delightfully quirky in his present-day doctoral position; he's a fun character. It's a shame his appearance in this story is so brief. Interested readers can also find him in Regeneration, Book #14 of this YA series.
To put it mildly, The Calusari is a far cry from William Blatty’s The Exorcist. What we have here, at best, is a solid adaptation of a mediocre episode. While the book isn’t without its flaws, its eerie ambiance and creepy Cliff Nielsen cover may give younger readers the chills.
Old-world superstitions and the existence of Evil is explored in The Calusari, a young-adult adaptation of The X-Files episode of same name, a tepid novelization that more or less captures the creepiness of the 1994 teleplay. When a two-year old boy is inexplicably led to his death, a photograph of the incident yields evidence of supernatural goings-on that piques Agent Mulder's curiosity, prompting he and Agent Scully to investigate. When another unexplained death in the family occurs, the grandmother of the remaining child seeks to cleanse the boy's spirit with the aid of a mysterious sect of Romanian ritualists, the eponymous Calusari.
While I never found this episode all that memorable, the book itself does a satisfactory job of maintaining the mystery throughout its 100-page run. The reader is unsure what to make of Charlie, the sullen boy with an air of darkness enveloping him, or his superstitious grandmother's seemingly injurious treatment of him. Scully's theory of Munchausen by proxy as a cause of the familial woes is reasonable, unlike some of her other bull-headed rationalizations (i.e. her "mountain-lion" explanation in "Shapes"). To the book’s credit, the story never slackens, nor does the suspense waver. The novella is well-plotted, moderately tense, and possesses an ominous atmosphere that's laced with dark, sectarian undertones—though it doesn’t quite delve as deeply into the Eastern European religion and folklore that older readers like myself would’ve appreciated. I wished the author had devoted another page or two to the exorcism scene, in order to give the book’s climax a proper treatment. On the plus side, though, the family drama is quite compelling and fleshed out adequately enough to keep young readers interested; the mother’s fear came across palpable and genuine.
One minor yet interesting character worth mentioning is Dr. Charles "Chuck" Burk(s), who makes his first appearance in this story, assisting our favorite FBI agents with his technical expertise and knowledge of bizarre phenomena. A renounced hippie, Chuck is delightfully quirky in his present-day doctoral position; he's a fun character. It's a shame his appearance in this story is so brief. Interested readers can also find him in Regeneration, Book #14 of this YA series.
To put it mildly, The Calusari is a far cry from William Blatty’s The Exorcist. What we have here, at best, is a solid adaptation of a mediocre episode. While the book isn’t without its flaws, its eerie ambiance and creepy Cliff Nielsen cover may give younger readers the chills.
March 20, 2017
I picked this up as a fan of Garth Nix, who has adapted well-known tales quite successfully before—Hellboy, Sherlock Holmes, Merlin, Rapunzel, etc.—but two things became clear pretty soon into THE CALUSARI: 1) this is based on someone else's teleplay, which limits Nix's usual creative freedoms; and 2) Nix clearly took this gig some 20 years ago as a paycheck. Incredibly cliché, stereotypical, derivative, and vanilla in all aspects.
January 5, 2020
This book stuck out to me because I was nearing the end of december and did not know what to read because after 10 pages of every book I tried to read I would get bored. This is a very short book but also was pretty good because first of all i am into demons and paranormal activity like this book. This book was 120 pages and was a quick read for me to get through this month. Next month i will try and read two of the books #2 and #3 for January.
The Calusari starts off with a family at a park. Two little boys named charlie and Teddy, Charlie is a year or two older than Teddy. Teddy is taken to the bathroom with his mom and put so he can't get out. His mom checks on him while going to the bathroom twice and then as soon as she gets out he is gone. She comes out of the bathroom looking for teddy right away and notices he is trying to go for the balloon but then notices that the balloon is going into the train tracks where the train goes by every 15 min for the little kids. The train kills teddy. Charlie watched the whole thing happen. FbI agents see this and when looked at again there is a figure holding the balloon leading Teddy towards the train. Soon they figure out that Charlie is possessed by a demon after his Father and Grandmother are killed while Charlie is present. Charlie almost kills his mother as well but he is stopped before he could do so.
For a small book it was pretty good but the bad thing about reading a small book is that no one really gets to know the characters and see what they feel and get their sense of personality. Also it was very easy to figure out what was going to happen next, very predictable. I would say that would be the only two bad things about this book.
The book had a lot of good things about it too. It had a lot of action and had a very good plot line. I really liked how they started out the book with Teddy dying right away because it shows thats the least of the action in the book. I am really into action type books like this because you will never get bored or tired of reading.
The Calusari starts off with a family at a park. Two little boys named charlie and Teddy, Charlie is a year or two older than Teddy. Teddy is taken to the bathroom with his mom and put so he can't get out. His mom checks on him while going to the bathroom twice and then as soon as she gets out he is gone. She comes out of the bathroom looking for teddy right away and notices he is trying to go for the balloon but then notices that the balloon is going into the train tracks where the train goes by every 15 min for the little kids. The train kills teddy. Charlie watched the whole thing happen. FbI agents see this and when looked at again there is a figure holding the balloon leading Teddy towards the train. Soon they figure out that Charlie is possessed by a demon after his Father and Grandmother are killed while Charlie is present. Charlie almost kills his mother as well but he is stopped before he could do so.
For a small book it was pretty good but the bad thing about reading a small book is that no one really gets to know the characters and see what they feel and get their sense of personality. Also it was very easy to figure out what was going to happen next, very predictable. I would say that would be the only two bad things about this book.
The book had a lot of good things about it too. It had a lot of action and had a very good plot line. I really liked how they started out the book with Teddy dying right away because it shows thats the least of the action in the book. I am really into action type books like this because you will never get bored or tired of reading.
November 10, 2017
It's a very short story to why I chose this book. I was strapped for time. To elaborate on that I had tried to read two books already, and neither captured my interest all that much. As I realized that It was nearing the end of October, and I was not even close to finishing a book, I searched Ms.Hughes's library for the shortest book I could find. My eyes found the X-Files series, which I had never read before, but I thought I would try it out, besides, the book is very short, so my experience would be over soon if I did not like it.
This book is about a series of supernatural events that happened within a family. I was slightly confused about what was happening at first, as I was not familiar with the X-Files series before picking up this book. Essentially there is a boy names Charlie who possesses a demon inside of him. This demon systematically kills everyone who he lives with including his grandmother, father, and little brother. He makes an attempt to kill his mother, but is stopped before this happens. The story does have some character development, but It is hard to fit a big story into 120 pages.
I think the fast pace of the book worked well, as it was an adaptation of the TV show. Though at times I wish that Garth Nix had slowed down and explained more. I think that the introduction of characters was done well, there were enough details of each character to get a sense of their personality, and get to know them a little, while keeping some things hidden from the reader. A good job was also done to illustrate why some characters played a role in the story. Each character had a specific role that they portrayed, and I quite liked that.
My only gripe with this book is the amount of detail. I feel like some things could have been elaborated on.Though with only 120 pages, I imagine it would be hard to fit detail in. I was in need of a short book, and this is a very short book, so I cant really do much complaining there.
This book is about a series of supernatural events that happened within a family. I was slightly confused about what was happening at first, as I was not familiar with the X-Files series before picking up this book. Essentially there is a boy names Charlie who possesses a demon inside of him. This demon systematically kills everyone who he lives with including his grandmother, father, and little brother. He makes an attempt to kill his mother, but is stopped before this happens. The story does have some character development, but It is hard to fit a big story into 120 pages.
I think the fast pace of the book worked well, as it was an adaptation of the TV show. Though at times I wish that Garth Nix had slowed down and explained more. I think that the introduction of characters was done well, there were enough details of each character to get a sense of their personality, and get to know them a little, while keeping some things hidden from the reader. A good job was also done to illustrate why some characters played a role in the story. Each character had a specific role that they portrayed, and I quite liked that.
My only gripe with this book is the amount of detail. I feel like some things could have been elaborated on.Though with only 120 pages, I imagine it would be hard to fit detail in. I was in need of a short book, and this is a very short book, so I cant really do much complaining there.
September 6, 2018
Una amiga interrumpió mí lectura para prestarme este libro, cuando lo comencé estaba fascinada porque wOW ES DE LOS EXPEDIENTES X, la fan que llevo adentro resurgió. Pero no termino siendo la graan cosa o mis expectativas lo arruinaron, sin embargo es bueno y muy entretenido, así que es un 3.5
September 18, 2018
Rating 3
not bad adaptation of the television episode. no extra details added to the story from what i can remember. I think it would have worked better as a short/novella length story published in a collection of stories rather than as an individual book.
not bad adaptation of the television episode. no extra details added to the story from what i can remember. I think it would have worked better as a short/novella length story published in a collection of stories rather than as an individual book.
August 2, 2019
Eine wirklich gut geschriebene Story war diese Kurzgeschichte.
Spannend vom Anfang bis zum Ende, unerwartete Entwicklungen und das Quäntchen Akte X-Thema durfte natürlich auch nicht fehlen. Eine kurzweilige Leseunterhaltung für mich, die 4 Sterne von mir verdient hat.
Spannend vom Anfang bis zum Ende, unerwartete Entwicklungen und das Quäntchen Akte X-Thema durfte natürlich auch nicht fehlen. Eine kurzweilige Leseunterhaltung für mich, die 4 Sterne von mir verdient hat.
January 3, 2018
Papitas sabor sobrenatural.
June 3, 2019
Eine nette kleine Geschichte aus der AkteX-Reihe. Hat sich gut weglesen lassen.
December 9, 2022
Es un libro corto pero interesante que te mantiene leyendo hasta el final. Ademas me ayudó a poner fin a mi bloqueo de lector.
April 1, 2023
A great slice of the unexplainable.
Read
April 1, 2020Este libro es exactamente igual al capítulo, que bonito
June 16, 2025
Si lo que buscas es un poco de miedo en tu vida sin que el libro de tantas vueltas para llegar a ese punto, este es ese libro.
Todo se pone a punto desde la página 1, incluso antes de que inicie la historia, no se anda con medias tintas, sin tantas vueltas va a lo que va y lo hace bien. Creo que me ha impactado más por que la historia trata sobre niños y no cualquier tema, no, sobre niños poseidos, y creo que es ahí donde me ha impactado más. Es una historia corta con apenas 110 páginas, pero es que no necesitas más es concretamente lo justo para darte el suspenso, el terror e incluso conocer a los personajes. Un hombre que cree en lo paranormal y que si le cuentas algo "loco" o "descabellado" no lo desacreditara y aún así lo investigara como tal y claro una mujer que es escéptica pero que a medida que va viendo las pruebas pues no le queda de otra que aceptar que no sucede nada normal en ese caso. Los expedientes secretos la serie nunca me decepciono y el libro lo transmite exactamente igual.
Todo se pone a punto desde la página 1, incluso antes de que inicie la historia, no se anda con medias tintas, sin tantas vueltas va a lo que va y lo hace bien. Creo que me ha impactado más por que la historia trata sobre niños y no cualquier tema, no, sobre niños poseidos, y creo que es ahí donde me ha impactado más. Es una historia corta con apenas 110 páginas, pero es que no necesitas más es concretamente lo justo para darte el suspenso, el terror e incluso conocer a los personajes. Un hombre que cree en lo paranormal y que si le cuentas algo "loco" o "descabellado" no lo desacreditara y aún así lo investigara como tal y claro una mujer que es escéptica pero que a medida que va viendo las pruebas pues no le queda de otra que aceptar que no sucede nada normal en ese caso. Los expedientes secretos la serie nunca me decepciono y el libro lo transmite exactamente igual.
January 13, 2009
3.5 of 5
The Calusari (English version) was a well written version of the often creepy TV show the x files. If you love the show and have about half the time to spare. Pick the the series.
This story centers around the haunting of a family. A little boy who's parents Romanian roots are both a blessing and a curse.
The Calusari (English version) was a well written version of the often creepy TV show the x files. If you love the show and have about half the time to spare. Pick the the series.
This story centers around the haunting of a family. A little boy who's parents Romanian roots are both a blessing and a curse.
January 30, 2011
124th - 2011
Ini salah satu episode X-Files di Season 2.
Entah bagaimana caranya Dana Scully merasionalisasi semua kasus yang di luar nalar, meskipun telah menyaksikan dengan mata kepalanya sendiri.
Ini salah satu episode X-Files di Season 2.
Entah bagaimana caranya Dana Scully merasionalisasi semua kasus yang di luar nalar, meskipun telah menyaksikan dengan mata kepalanya sendiri.
June 26, 2007
#10 - Materia Oscura
August 18, 2009
A nice short read that follows x-files. Didn't drag on in one part of the book too long. Overall a nice relaxing read.
June 6, 2013
Pretty standard but enjoyable tale of Mulder and Scully with a bit more of the religious supernatural than is usual in an X-Files story.
December 27, 2015
I've never seen X Files, but I thought this story was interesting and a little creepy/scary. This book makes me want to watch the show.
August 27, 2016
Good reminiscing of one of my favorite X-Files episodes!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews