Deleted_Account Posted March 10, 2017 Piper Maru said:An excerpt from Doom Hell On Earth: Then the thing materialized. It wasn't a recruit for humanity's army. And it wasn't a zombie, an imp, or any other old friend. The bastards had sent us a new monster. There was something especially odd about the appearance. This sucker wore clothes! He had on red shorts and a white T-shirt. At a quick glance, it looked like a living skeleton in lederhosen. There wasn't time for a closer look--we already delayed firing a second too long. The idiotic wardrobe threw us off. The thing jumped at me, picked me up with one hand and threw me at the wall. I rolled with the impact and scrambled to my feet, still holding onto my twelve-gauge; but before I could fire, the monster had Arlene in one claw and Albert in the other. Thin as it was, we were like rag dolls in its hands. Jill was shouting through the partition, wondering what was wrong. I would have loved to tell her, but I was otherwise occupied, waiting for a clear shot. The skeleton flung Albert down, but kept hold of Arlene. The angle made Arlene a shield, so I started maneuvering around, trying to maintain my footing with Jill's increasingly panicked driving. As I tried for a better position, the damned bone pile turned and punched out Albert! I mean, it hauled off and slugged him, and he went down for the count. The stupid red shorts suddenly seemed like boxing shorts. If the invaders were devel- oping a sense of humor, I knew the true meaning of horror. https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1663515 1 Share this post Link to post
Doomkid Posted March 10, 2017 ^Thank you Piper, this is a perfect example of what I was getting at.. 0 Share this post Link to post
idbeholdME Posted March 10, 2017 Piper Maru said:An excerpt from Doom Hell On Earth: --REVENANT HILLARITY ENSUES-- See, I was slogging my way through the second one even though I didn't like it much, just because it was a Doom novel and I'd hate myself if I didn't try to read it. Then this part comes up and I'm like "WTF?". Stopped reading right there and never got to even try the third and fourth one. All because of the way they butchered revenant and made a boxer out of him. I heard that the 3rd and 4th one are even worse than the 2nd, so it was probably good that I abandoned ship right there. 0 Share this post Link to post
Koko Ricky Posted March 10, 2017 Good god, that revenant excerpt is just pure garbage. I have the first three novels somewhere but I refuse to read them. They're just too stupid. 0 Share this post Link to post
Gerardo194 Posted March 10, 2017 Ok, I will start to write my own Doom novels soon, I think this must be funny to get some new ideas turning up in my head and re-playing the games too, but this thread and its comments makes me to get the Doom novels again. 0 Share this post Link to post
Xegethra Posted March 10, 2017 It seems like they are trying to make a joke about that Revenant, about how his armour and flesh look like clothing. But I'm not laughing. I've not read the books, can't really see it hapenning... >_> 0 Share this post Link to post
Deleted_Account Posted March 11, 2017 I know the Doom series isn't plot heavy, but I'm positive if you get good writers you can spin a good story based on the established 'mythology'. Heck I think you can tell a good horror story with action in it. Take the Imp for example, Imps in folklore are supposed to be mischievous demons who like playing tricks on people. I can easily imagine a scene where the Doom marine, or whomever is lured by the sound of someone crying out for help, and turns out it's an ambush by a pack of Imps who were mimicking the vocalizations of their human victims. 0 Share this post Link to post
General Rainbow Bacon Posted March 11, 2017 ^ So now you want the demons in Doom to be like skinwalkers? 0 Share this post Link to post
Deleted_Account Posted March 11, 2017 General Rainbow Bacon said:^ So now you want the demons in Doom to be like skinwalkers? Yes. 0 Share this post Link to post
Magnusblitz Posted March 11, 2017 I still think the revenant thing gets a bad rap. I mean, yeah, if you don't like them going with alien invaders rather than demons, I get that. But with that premise already in mind, I thought it was a creative way to explain the new Doom 2 monsters as failed experiments in making human infiltrators. The revenants are mostly bones but wear clothes, the mancubus is the other end (all flesh), and then they finally hit the mark with the chaingunners (who in the novels are all clones). It certainly isn't the direction I would've gone writing it, but there's an obvious plot thread throughout it that shows there was some planning and creativity involved, and I can respect that. Jon said:At least in my case, I'm open minded enough to evaluate them as stand alone works. The first one is probably only interesting in the context of being a doom novel - and that's the only one I like. When I consider book 4 outside of that context, it's a mediocre SF novel and there are hundreds of those already. And lots of good ones that deserve to be read and re-read instead :) I freely admit I haven't read enough classic sci-fi, so it's quite possible that my lack of exposure to better stuff is why I don't find the novels as bad as others. 0 Share this post Link to post
Deleted_Account Posted March 11, 2017 An excerpt from Doom: Knee Deep In The Dead. Here our heroes have found the secret exit in Command Center. Arlene found a switch that opened a hidden room; we went with the flow. Entering the chamber, we marveled at how different it was from what we'd seen before. The entire room was constructed of that black, oily, ulcerat- ing wood. There was one object in the room, placed at dead center: a bas relief of a demonic monster more horrible, or more ridiculous, than any we'd fought. Every physical attribute of the thing was exaggerated so that it almost seemed to be a cartoon. The largest protuberance of all was its penis, sticking out at a 45-degree angle. "They've got to be kidding," said Arlene. "I hate to bring it up, but that's probably another switch," I suggested. "I've handled worse," she admitted. 2 Share this post Link to post
Gerardo194 Posted March 11, 2017 I remember reading that. How stupid it was. 0 Share this post Link to post
Koko Ricky Posted March 11, 2017 The idea of a phallic switch is perverse and entertaining. Touches like that were interesting. But there were too many attempts to realize aspects of the game in ways that were excessively juvenile. Personally, I think there's more to work with, plot-wise, than Doom is generally given credit for. You've got the UAC, a multinational corporation operating outside of Earth jurisdiction by setting up R&D facilities on Mars and its two moons. That alone is fascinating and exploring UAC's history would have been a good move. Then you've got the marine, whose point-blank sense of morality landed him on Deimos in the first place, plus the various experiments, in particular the teleportation gates, and the sudden appearance of technologically armed invaders. This could have all been handled much more maturely than it was. 0 Share this post Link to post
Deleted_Account Posted March 12, 2017 Oh I definitely agree it could have been done much better. The Doom 3 novels are light years better. 0 Share this post Link to post
Blastfrog Posted March 12, 2017 I always thought the UAAF concept from the Doom Bible had potential. Too bad they seem to have dropped the idea even before the alphas were developed. 1 Share this post Link to post
Gerardo194 Posted March 12, 2017 Though these novels sucks or not, I admmit the first one had a good potential to start with, but It became silly after Flynn teleported himself to Deimos. I still remember Flynn saying "outerspace is an unsafe place" if I can recall correctly, I really liked when I read that paragraph. 0 Share this post Link to post
Megalyth Posted March 15, 2017 On the topic of Doom writings, this seems like a good place to mention Impie's novellas. I would recommend them to anyone who was disappointed with the original novels as they adhere much more strictly to the source material, with a very strong horror theme. 0 Share this post Link to post
Gerardo194 Posted March 15, 2017 I remember reading some of Impie's Novellas some years ago, they were worth to read. Good you mentioned them here. I will also write my own Doom novels when I take time, I have some crazy Ideas to add up. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ichor Posted March 15, 2017 On Tuesday, March 07, 2017 at 2:24 PM, Blastfrog said: "Chapter two in a classic new space opera" HAHAHAHAHA ok yeah sure It's not over until the mancubus sings. 0 Share this post Link to post
DMPhobos Posted March 15, 2017 Wow, those fragments from the novels are some of the worst writing i've ever read on a book, i always thought that they were just average, not this bad. Been reading impie's novels, never knew of them, quite interesting. I might read em if i find the time to do so 0 Share this post Link to post
Deleted_Account Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) An excerpt fro Doom: Infernal Sky. Revenants and Archviles bullying a Demon. Some of the monsters naturally fought each other, but the bonies and fire eaters had a truce going. The same couldn't be said for the demon caught between them, one of the chubby pink ones Arlene likes to call pinkies. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the thing. The bonies--Dr. Ackerman called them revenants--were all lined up on one side in a semicircle. The fire eaters--also known by a really weird name, arch- viles--were lined up on the other side, completing the circle. A bonfire blazed between them. The fire eaters could control their fire better than I realized. They'd send out thin lines of flame that would burn the pinkie's butt. He'd squeal. Fly always said the pinkies made him think of pigs. The pinkie would jump over the fire and run straight for the bonies. They made a sound that was half rattling bones and half choking laughter. They couldn't use their rockets without spoiling the game. They seemed to have picked up a trick from human bullies on a playground. They used sticks to beat and prod their victim. One had an actual pitchfork he'd probably stolen from a farm. When the pinkie turned to run away from his tormentors the bony poked him in the ass with the pitchfork. If it hadn't been so sick, I would have laughed. But there was nothing funny about the pink demon finally falling right into the center of the fire where he grunted and squealed and died. I wondered if the bonies and fire eaters would eat him. 3 Share this post Link to post
Bauul Posted March 16, 2017 2 hours ago, DMPhobos said: Wow, those fragments from the novels are some of the worst writing i've ever read on a book, i always thought that they were just average, not this bad. In their defense, those are among the two absolute worst moments of writing in the books. The rest isn't good exactly, but it's not quite that bad. 0 Share this post Link to post
Gerardo194 Posted March 16, 2017 Piper Maru, nice excerpt, it was nice to read. Simplistic but funny. I haven't read that book, though 0 Share this post Link to post
Megalyth Posted March 16, 2017 32 minutes ago, Piper Maru said: I wondered if the bonies and fire eaters would eat him. "I wondered if they ate." Yeah, I remembered that off the top of my head. Maybe I've read them too many times. :v 0 Share this post Link to post
RightField Posted March 16, 2017 I think the major issue isn't even the ideas itself but how badly it's written. It reads like something written by a 14 year old. I don't know about you but I prefer to read books written by people who really know how to write. Pick up some Kafka and compare it to this horseshit for instance. 0 Share this post Link to post
esselfortium Posted March 16, 2017 31 minutes ago, RightField said: I think the major issue isn't even the ideas itself but how badly it's written. It reads like something written by a 14 year old. I don't know about you but I prefer to read books written by people who really know how to write. Pick up some Kafka and compare it to this horseshit for instance. I don't know if it's really fair to compare Kafka's classics against pulpy action novels written about a video game. 0 Share this post Link to post
Koko Ricky Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Yeah, I mean, a whole paragraph about archviles literally burning the butts of pinkies is just...painful to read. I mean these guys were adults, how did they manage to write such corny shit? 1 Share this post Link to post
Man of Doom Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) As poorly written as the Doom novels are (not even including the shameless author self-inserts), I was actually surprised to find that Doom had even got a set of novels in the first place. That being said, though, at least with the first novel, the locations that showed similarities to the original actually were a pretty big positive, not to mention some of the monster concepts were fairly interesting. Such examples include the Spectres not bleeding when shot at, the only appearance of the Pain Elemental where its existence is not only to spawn Lost Souls but also disorient the protagonists with bizarre lights, and the body temperatures of Arch-Viles being hot enough to melt bullets. Interestingly enough, Doom 2016 actually seems to have taken some ideas from these novels, even if it's only a couple of things. In the Doom novels, Pinkies/Spectres are described as making pig-snuffling sound effects, and Revenants are essentially failed attempts at recreating humans. In Doom 2016, Pinkies/Spectres make snuffling sounds and squeals not unlike that of a pig, and Revenants are essentially former humans that have been experimented with to create demonic supersoldiers (essentially, an inverse of the novel's version). Additionally, Spectres in D2016 have a shimmering and watery appearance that is also described as such in the novels. As for Mancubi, the guns mounted on their arms supposedly have three mouths that shoot white phosphorus. Both variations of Mancubi in D2016 have cannons with two mouths each that shoot out bile, and the bile from the Cyber-Mancubus acts more like white phosphorus. I may be grasping at straws with the last example, but I felt it was worth pointing out. 0 Share this post Link to post
Bauul Posted March 16, 2017 On 3/14/2017 at 8:17 PM, Megalyth said: On the topic of Doom writings, this seems like a good place to mention Impie's novellas. I started reading these last night, they're actually pretty good! Also perhaps makes me realize my soft-spot for the Doom novels is far more down to the subject matter than the writing quality... 0 Share this post Link to post
RightField Posted March 16, 2017 2 hours ago, esselfortium said: I don't know if it's really fair to compare Kafka's classics against pulpy action novels written about a video game. Well that's fair I guess, but there's good pulpy stuff and bad. Tarantino (although movies) is a good example how you can do stuff like this right. 0 Share this post Link to post