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What exactly are the doom novels and are they any good?

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i was reading up on some doom related stuff and found out that there exist doom novels written after doom came out and i was wanting to get some more info from here about these books and see if there worth a read thanks!

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The Doom novels came out after Doom 2 and the first one is called "knee deep in the dead" - there are a few similarities with the game, but that's about where it ends. The doomguy is given a 'personality' and there are other characters, and the first book loosely describes the event of the first game. Some people like the books for a fun read, while some fans find them annoying. The other books in the series start splitting off more and more from the game storyline, so if that's a good thing would be up to the reader, I suppose.

 

I personally found it hard to make sense of, I haven't read the book in a long time though. There are some sections of the book where there are bizarre things that happen which have no original source in Doom, though I understand to write a book on a game which only has a few paragraphs of text, the author would have to make different situations happen. I only read the first book and I wasn't a fan of it really, there was tons of game-related pocketbooks back then but there were very few really good ones imo. 

 

So it can be interesting from a fan standpoint for someone who wants to see anything Doom related, there are some interesting parts but mostly I found it kind of strange and confusing.

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I read the first one back in the day, it was crap.  

I mean, I suppose it had some cool bits - detailing the backstory of Doomguy (sent to Mars for assaulting a superior officer); describing the details of pretty much all the levels of the first two episodes - but there's too much cringey humor, some of the badguys are described weirdly (apparently the cacodemon had a tube mouth instead of a grin, lost souls were mechanical), and was just generally a sucky read.  And it was written by two dudes. 

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I own "Knee Deep in the Dead"--I remember reading it back when I was in high school. If you're looking for classic literature, look elsewhere, but it's not bad. Doomguy (named Flynn Taggert) has a personality, friends, etc. Some of the weirdness about the descriptions comes from the monsters are being described by the characters, not by some omnipotent third person narrator, hence the imps throw "flaming snot," the cyberdemon is the "steam demon," etc. The first book is just the first three episodes; in fact, it leads directly into the second book, which is based (loosely) on Doom 2.

 

I haven't read any of the other books, but I think there are 4 of them. The second one is basically about Doom 2, although with a number of new twists, such as the government working with the demons. Quickly looking up the 3rd and 4th books, it looks like they are completely new material, continuing with the same characters ultimately taking the fight to the "homeworld of the demon invaders." Some people might be upset that isn't Hell, but it's actually consistent with the text on the back of the shareware box, which says "From the cold void of space, the demon brood came."

 

There are apparently also Doom 3 novels, but all I know if they're based loosely on Doom 3, with a similar treatment as the aforementioned Doom novels (although by a different author).

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I would actually like to read the Doom 3 novels one day.

And before anyone asks, the third and forth of the older Doom novels are NOT about the events of Final Doom.

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All you need to know about the Doom novels is that the demons are just aliens who disguised themselves as demons to frighten humans, but by the time they arrived on Earth (because they don't have FTL travel, what do you mean "teleporters are the starting point of the plot"?) their own homeworld has been destroyed by another race of aliens, microscopic parasite aliens who then also destroy human civilization, except in Salt Lake City because Mormon faith kills the alien microbes. Then they play World of Warcraft to convert the NPCs to Mormonism so as to make the microbe aliens vanish from reality.

 

Not. kidding.

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