DOOM Novels

I know ID Software is sold out of them, but has anyone read all four ot even just 1/4? Are they good? Just wondering because I just ordered the first one "Knee Deep in the Dead."

The near-unanimous opinion around these parts is that they sucked. Badly.

Hrmm... thats odd. They got really really good reviews on Amazon from people who bought them.

The first one was pretty good. The second one was OK. Based on what I've heard, I wouldn't bother with the third or fourth.

Those books are awesome. I didn't even care that it went into a different direction. The fact that it ended with a question mark pissed me off.

Eitherway They're still good books. Very well written also, not to mention very depressing in the last two.

The first one was pretty good. The second one was OK. Based on what I've heard, I wouldn't bother with the third or fourth.

Bit like the hitch-hikers guide series really heh, well if you take a cult radio series, turn it into a half arsed tv series, then try and extrapolate 5 novels out of it, a few things will be lost in translation

Heh, you don't want BBG's opinions on these books :P

I liked the first two, three is okay, and four is just dumb.

They're just a waste of money. The first and second books have some good parts, but the third and fourth are waaaaaaaaaaaay too fucked up to be Doom-ish so avoid them at all costs.

I think the first two are respectably classic in their own way. I'm about a third of the way through #3 right now, and it's pretty good, if not "different," but I'm certainly not against the books at all.

S1lent said:

Hrmm... thats odd. They got really really good reviews on Amazon from people who bought them.

That's because people around here don't realize that not all books can equal up to Stephen King or the Lord of the Rings novels or the such, if you wanna be honest you're part of a forum of a bunch of elitists who 1. hate console systems, 2. will beat you when they think you're dumb to the point of leaving and 3. like to argue, a lot, and no one man can be the winner because there's a huge mass of fanboys frequenting this forum. :) Have a nice stay!

Anyways, I think the first book was great, and the 2nd book was even okay. The 3rd book sucked and the 4th to this day I still don't understand. But to those who constantly bitch about the novels,

Does it refer to the demons as "aliens" or "alien invaders?" Because thats pretty stupid considering most of them have either the word "Demon" or "Hell" in their name... Anyways, they looked pretty good. I love the game so I'll look at the books. Then I might move and look at the HALO series. I wish there was a Wolfenstein series as well lol. Anyways, like I said, they looked good, I've read the first few pages on Amazon.com and it seems very descriptive and very cool. Anyways, thanks for the input.

S1lent said:

Does it refer to the demons as "aliens" or "alien invaders?"

Yup.

S1lent then said:

Because thats pretty stupid

Right again.

Dang, that sux. I wonder why they changed it.....it was so much more interesting than aliens or "invaders."

Maybe the author ate Bibles for breakfast or something.

Doesn't matter...I mean, how is killing a demon sacreligious to Christianity? I mean, I'm Christian, but, I don't find DOOM to be evil or anything. It's a game, no different than LOTR. There's a side of good battling a side of evil. Tell me what's changed?

S1lent said:

Doesn't matter...I mean, how is killing a demon sacreligious to Christianity? I mean, I'm Christian, but, I don't find DOOM to be evil or anything. It's a game, no different than LOTR. There's a side of good battling a side of evil. Tell me what's changed?

Nothing. But the media sure does like to use the part about demons and hell against it just so they have something to use as a scapegoat.

Because apparently, in the opinions of some extremists, KILLING Demons from Hell to protect yourself and your land is a highly Satanic thing to do.....uhhhh, durrrrr. :S

Geeze, DOOM could almost be marketed off as a purely Christian game, to some who don't like Demons and such. But I'm not going to go into any of that.

I'd love to know why he really didnt want them to be demons. Perhaps he was a total geek and it didnt sit well in his sci-fi mind. Maybe he did fear the media (were they before or after everyone was using Doom as a poster child for violent games?). Maybe (shudder to think) he just didn't find the idea very intresting or original. Maybe he had already written the book, but couldn't get it published, so he went back and changed all references to his hero "Gerald 'Leaping Albatross' McFarlane" into "Flynn 'DOOM' Taggart" and tacked on a bit about the UAC and space and stuff...

Maybe he's an athiest who doesn't believe in demons and thinks that it's more probable for them to be aliens rather than demons...

Maybe they were from a different planet's hell, or maybe a planet in hell

chilvence said:

Maybe the author ate Bibles for breakfast or something.

The author was apparently a Mormon (thats what I've been told).

Damn Mormons ruin everything.

I read the first one and it wasn't worth the time except as a slight amusement simply because it was DOOM-based; it had lame Sci Fi explanations and the writing style was boring and standard. The DOOM comic is art compared to the novel(s).

Heh, i remember my first girlfriend saying she had the doom books, but after columbine her parents wouldnt let her read them (ok, she must have been about 11 at the time..). When i was talking about the memento mori fanfic for doom and said that the zombies smelled like lemons, she asked if it was just a scanned-in verison of the books cause thats what it was like in them..ah well, that fanfic did also have sci-fi explanations for the monsters rather than saying there where demons

The DOOM com.. I mean novels rock. The authors thought up a really "doomguy"-sounding name for the Doom marine and all the names are really fitting for the other characters.

Oh yeah, and the first book is definitely the best, because it really describes the Doom 1 environments in detail and has lots of situations where the Doomguy shoots ali..I mean demons and the way the heroes manage to escape to Earth was really clever thought out.

The other books are ok, but the best thing about 'em is that they gave the demons funny names - and speaking of hilarious names, those aliens presented in the last two books are funny too.

The story in these four novels is very deep and compelling to the point where it's really difficult to put the book down once you've started reading and once you finish one of the books, you'll want to carry on to the next one immediately! In the end, everything is tied nicely together in a big surprise ending that will make you want to read the books again right away.

Definitely recommended - go out and buy those books right away! Shoo! shoo!

I'd much rather "rip and tear" my way through them...

S1lent said:

Does it refer to the demons as "aliens" or "alien invaders?"

Some of them ARE actually aliens. The Mancubii are hellified aliens.

Why would you say the Mancubus in particular is an alien? Why not just a rotund cybernetic demonic creature, or a former human demoniacally mutated to brutal and grotesque proportions? My issue with imagining any as aliens, in addition to the fact that I simply prefer demonic monsters, is that mixing both extraterrestrials and fiends from Hell produces an overly eclectic theme.

Shaviro said:

Some of them ARE actually aliens. The Mancubii are hellified aliens.

So the cyberdemon is an alien too, the spider mastermind is an alien too?

Who say they can't have tech in hell?

So the cyberdemon is an alien too, the spider mastermind is an alien too?

No, but the mancubus is