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Doom #4
Endgame
They left behind everything that mattered to them-- friends, lovers, country-- to journey to the stars. Now Sergeant Flynn Taggart and Pfc. Arlene Sanders, USMC, have reached their destination... the homeworld of the demon invaders who destroyed Earth. But there, they find a scene of destruction that rivals any they left back on Earth. And suddenly, "Fly" and Arlene find themselves face-to-face with an even deadlier enemy than the demons they came to fight. The war for Earth is over. But the battle for the stars has just begun...
256 pages, ebook
First published May 1, 1996
18 people are currently reading
515 people want to read
About the author
Dafydd ab Hugh
31 books46 followersDafydd ab Hugh (born David Friedman) is a U.S. science fiction author.
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August 20, 2017
Read the review of the entire series (plus much more ranting on the overuse of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at The Books in My Life.
Let’s get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Beware of spoilers, I think. I mean let’s face it, if you can make it to the end of this novel, the more power to you. The only reason I did was for the sake of this review. Two hundred fifty pages of pure chore. You’re welcome.
The Freds (ugh) are dead. Well, the ones on the ship our intrepid heroes are travelling on are. The ship will arrive on Fredworld (ugh) in several weeks’ time, which means centuries will pass on Earth, and Albert and Jill will be no more. The gang figures they’re not going to survive very long after landing once the Freds (aargh) start firing.
Twist! The entire species of Freds (…) are dead, killed by a rapidly evolving alien species dubbed the Newbies. (I swear I’m not lying.) One Newbie remains on Fredworld, and the gang realizes the rest of the Newbies are headed for the planet Skinwalker and then Earth. How they obtained this information, I have no idea. I nodded off and skipped a few pages.
So they crash-land on Skinwalker or Skinworld (doesn’t matter) only to find a desert planet and a handful of humans. These humans are hundreds of years younger than Fly and Arlene would have been had they remained on Earth. As you can imagine, humanity has changed quite a bit over the past couple centuries. The entire planet is now a communist state, and humans are terrified of death, being the only species in the universe that can die. Everyone else just hangs out in their corpse until rebirth. I shit you not.
Being that they fear death, they look out only for themselves and have no sense of unity. Fly is horrified by this, despite claiming to be an unapologetic individualist in the previous novel. These humans kill the two Klaves (I think. They end up dead somehow. Does it matter?) and imprison Fly and Arlene on a ship bound for Earth.
What I am about to describe actually happens in the book. I swear.
Fly somehow deduces (with the help of a bowling ball type robot dubbed Ninepin…ugh) that the Newbies have evolved to a molecular stage and have infiltrated the humans’ bloodstreams. Fly then realizes he can destroy the Newbies by convincing the humans of the value of faith.
Let me say that again: Fly then realizes he can destroy the Newbies by convincing the humans of the value of faith.
What kind of faith? Faith in God or other humans, but if they remain with their current lack of any kind of belief, the Newbies will survive. Fly and Arlene then preach their way to victory or so it would seem. They rescue a lot of humans but are eventually overwhelmed and tied down.
I’m going to try and rush through the rest of this nonsense. It’s so ludicrous, it doesn’t deserve full explanation. You’re welcome.
The Newbie-infected humans force Fly and Arlene into a computer simulation of the demon-infested Phobos, where Fly has to repeat the efforts detailed in the first book. Being forced into this program seemingly destroys his soul because why wouldn’t it? When he encounters the first imp, he realizes he can preach to the imp and thus get it to join forces with him. He imparts faith to the imp and makes it realize it’s part of a computer simulation.
Fly then gets the imp to preach the good word of blah blah blah to the other demons, thus forming a rag-tag band of brothers blasting their way through Phobos. They eventually find Arlene.
We switch to a new chapter and find Fly and Arlene arriving on Earth. Seems their souls weren’t destroyed but copied. They then go to Salt Lake City to find Albert, hoping he succeeded in cryogenically freezing himself. He didn’t. They find his ashes and a naked clone of Jill, which Fly ogles over, which is creepy because Jill is fifteen years old.
Then we change chapters again and Fly and Arlene are back in the simulation. They destroy a giant-sized Newbie, realize they’re stuck with these born-again demons, and they accept their fate. After all, they can manipulate their environment, so it’s not all bad.
Oh, and this version of Fly and Arlene is their copy. I didn’t realize this at first and was hopelessly confused. Am I dense? Did I nod off one too many times? No. Hugh and Linaweaver mentioned the copy nonsense once, then neglected to transition between the chapters concerning the copies and the ones concerning actual version of Fly and Arlene.
This book is diabolically bad. For several reasons.
For one thing, it’s a story of one-upmanship and is thus no story. Let’s kill one set of aliens. Oh look, they’ve been killed by another set! Let’s kill them now! No, wait, now they’ve been one-upped! Let’s exclaim a lot!!!!! If you cut out most of the aliens and focused on one set of them (and cut out all the exclamation points), the story would be too short to print.
Additionally, schools of literary thought are warring on each other. The only possible way to end this war is to preach the merits of faith. It occurs to me now that we are dealing with self-published Christian hack writer nonsense, but the problem is that this book has been published. Did no one other than the two writers read this before sending it to the printer? Probably not, and I doubt the writers read their final draft either.
Also, this book is filled with propaganda, even going so far as to name drop one of Linaweaver’s favorite authors that I don’t currently recall, but you can look him up. I’d do the leg work, but he’s a writer who pens right wing sci-fi short stories and treatises on the second amendment. Moreover, Fly becomes increasingly hostile to college students for no fucking valid reason other than Linaweaver hates leftie college students. There are no college students in this story! Granted Arlene briefly went to college, but Fly “won’t hold that against her.” There are no more colleges! There’s only pinko future Earth, but give Fly and Arlene enough time and they’ll convert the masses back to 1996.
I’m blaming all this bullshit rhetoric on Linaweaver because he’s the only one of the two still working and spewing rightie nonsense all over the internet to scores of—who exactly? Perhaps people who made it to the end of this series and said to themselves, “I get it. Faith solves all problems.” Dafydd ab Hugh (pseudonym for David Friedman because why the hell not?) hasn’t published anything since the nineties, and his prior work (mainly novelizations) were not, in a surprise to no one, well-received. I blame him for all those friggin’ exclamation points.
I should have been tipped off to this nonsense by the lack of violence in these novels. That’s right, the lack of violence. For a series about gunning down zombies and demons, the descriptions of the deaths are not graphic in the slightest. Instead, Fly tiptoes around these descriptions, opting more often to react rather than depict, like when he describes turning the “pumpkins” into “pumpkin pie” over and over and over again.
The curious use of expletives, or lack thereof, should have tipped me off as well. For a series about hardline marines, “fuck” is uttered once. “Butthead” is uttered about two dozen times.
Maybe they wanted to spread their faithful message to the heathen players of violent videos games, and they knew if they could hook them with the first two volumes, then readers would be obligated to finish the series. I realize this sounds conspiratorial, but what possible reason could they have for penning these stories? There’s bad, and then there’s Doom bad.
A garbage plot is fine. I want that. I mean, look at the covers. I’m not expecting Oscar Wilde here. To inject a message into a series about aliens and demons (though they’re not really demons, just estimates of what we think demons should look like because who the fuck knows why) is nonsense. Give me Fly and Arlene, an arsenal of weapons, and room after room of baddies to eliminate. I would read a thousand pages of that. A thousand pages of this? There are so many more productive and entertaining things I could be doing, like ironing my socks or cutting my lawn with a pair of scissors.
So my curiosity is satisfied. I now know that the final two novels are bad. I just never would have guessed the exact reason why, and if you had told me, I wouldn’t have believed you. You probably don’t even believe me. Go ahead and find out for yourself. There’s a twenty dollar copy of book three on Abebooks. The price is so high because the sellers don’t want you to subject yourself to reading it.
Let’s get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Beware of spoilers, I think. I mean let’s face it, if you can make it to the end of this novel, the more power to you. The only reason I did was for the sake of this review. Two hundred fifty pages of pure chore. You’re welcome.
The Freds (ugh) are dead. Well, the ones on the ship our intrepid heroes are travelling on are. The ship will arrive on Fredworld (ugh) in several weeks’ time, which means centuries will pass on Earth, and Albert and Jill will be no more. The gang figures they’re not going to survive very long after landing once the Freds (aargh) start firing.
Twist! The entire species of Freds (…) are dead, killed by a rapidly evolving alien species dubbed the Newbies. (I swear I’m not lying.) One Newbie remains on Fredworld, and the gang realizes the rest of the Newbies are headed for the planet Skinwalker and then Earth. How they obtained this information, I have no idea. I nodded off and skipped a few pages.
So they crash-land on Skinwalker or Skinworld (doesn’t matter) only to find a desert planet and a handful of humans. These humans are hundreds of years younger than Fly and Arlene would have been had they remained on Earth. As you can imagine, humanity has changed quite a bit over the past couple centuries. The entire planet is now a communist state, and humans are terrified of death, being the only species in the universe that can die. Everyone else just hangs out in their corpse until rebirth. I shit you not.
Being that they fear death, they look out only for themselves and have no sense of unity. Fly is horrified by this, despite claiming to be an unapologetic individualist in the previous novel. These humans kill the two Klaves (I think. They end up dead somehow. Does it matter?) and imprison Fly and Arlene on a ship bound for Earth.
What I am about to describe actually happens in the book. I swear.
Fly somehow deduces (with the help of a bowling ball type robot dubbed Ninepin…ugh) that the Newbies have evolved to a molecular stage and have infiltrated the humans’ bloodstreams. Fly then realizes he can destroy the Newbies by convincing the humans of the value of faith.
Let me say that again: Fly then realizes he can destroy the Newbies by convincing the humans of the value of faith.
What kind of faith? Faith in God or other humans, but if they remain with their current lack of any kind of belief, the Newbies will survive. Fly and Arlene then preach their way to victory or so it would seem. They rescue a lot of humans but are eventually overwhelmed and tied down.
I’m going to try and rush through the rest of this nonsense. It’s so ludicrous, it doesn’t deserve full explanation. You’re welcome.
The Newbie-infected humans force Fly and Arlene into a computer simulation of the demon-infested Phobos, where Fly has to repeat the efforts detailed in the first book. Being forced into this program seemingly destroys his soul because why wouldn’t it? When he encounters the first imp, he realizes he can preach to the imp and thus get it to join forces with him. He imparts faith to the imp and makes it realize it’s part of a computer simulation.
Fly then gets the imp to preach the good word of blah blah blah to the other demons, thus forming a rag-tag band of brothers blasting their way through Phobos. They eventually find Arlene.
We switch to a new chapter and find Fly and Arlene arriving on Earth. Seems their souls weren’t destroyed but copied. They then go to Salt Lake City to find Albert, hoping he succeeded in cryogenically freezing himself. He didn’t. They find his ashes and a naked clone of Jill, which Fly ogles over, which is creepy because Jill is fifteen years old.
Then we change chapters again and Fly and Arlene are back in the simulation. They destroy a giant-sized Newbie, realize they’re stuck with these born-again demons, and they accept their fate. After all, they can manipulate their environment, so it’s not all bad.
Oh, and this version of Fly and Arlene is their copy. I didn’t realize this at first and was hopelessly confused. Am I dense? Did I nod off one too many times? No. Hugh and Linaweaver mentioned the copy nonsense once, then neglected to transition between the chapters concerning the copies and the ones concerning actual version of Fly and Arlene.
This book is diabolically bad. For several reasons.
For one thing, it’s a story of one-upmanship and is thus no story. Let’s kill one set of aliens. Oh look, they’ve been killed by another set! Let’s kill them now! No, wait, now they’ve been one-upped! Let’s exclaim a lot!!!!! If you cut out most of the aliens and focused on one set of them (and cut out all the exclamation points), the story would be too short to print.
Additionally, schools of literary thought are warring on each other. The only possible way to end this war is to preach the merits of faith. It occurs to me now that we are dealing with self-published Christian hack writer nonsense, but the problem is that this book has been published. Did no one other than the two writers read this before sending it to the printer? Probably not, and I doubt the writers read their final draft either.
Also, this book is filled with propaganda, even going so far as to name drop one of Linaweaver’s favorite authors that I don’t currently recall, but you can look him up. I’d do the leg work, but he’s a writer who pens right wing sci-fi short stories and treatises on the second amendment. Moreover, Fly becomes increasingly hostile to college students for no fucking valid reason other than Linaweaver hates leftie college students. There are no college students in this story! Granted Arlene briefly went to college, but Fly “won’t hold that against her.” There are no more colleges! There’s only pinko future Earth, but give Fly and Arlene enough time and they’ll convert the masses back to 1996.
I’m blaming all this bullshit rhetoric on Linaweaver because he’s the only one of the two still working and spewing rightie nonsense all over the internet to scores of—who exactly? Perhaps people who made it to the end of this series and said to themselves, “I get it. Faith solves all problems.” Dafydd ab Hugh (pseudonym for David Friedman because why the hell not?) hasn’t published anything since the nineties, and his prior work (mainly novelizations) were not, in a surprise to no one, well-received. I blame him for all those friggin’ exclamation points.
I should have been tipped off to this nonsense by the lack of violence in these novels. That’s right, the lack of violence. For a series about gunning down zombies and demons, the descriptions of the deaths are not graphic in the slightest. Instead, Fly tiptoes around these descriptions, opting more often to react rather than depict, like when he describes turning the “pumpkins” into “pumpkin pie” over and over and over again.
The curious use of expletives, or lack thereof, should have tipped me off as well. For a series about hardline marines, “fuck” is uttered once. “Butthead” is uttered about two dozen times.
Maybe they wanted to spread their faithful message to the heathen players of violent videos games, and they knew if they could hook them with the first two volumes, then readers would be obligated to finish the series. I realize this sounds conspiratorial, but what possible reason could they have for penning these stories? There’s bad, and then there’s Doom bad.
A garbage plot is fine. I want that. I mean, look at the covers. I’m not expecting Oscar Wilde here. To inject a message into a series about aliens and demons (though they’re not really demons, just estimates of what we think demons should look like because who the fuck knows why) is nonsense. Give me Fly and Arlene, an arsenal of weapons, and room after room of baddies to eliminate. I would read a thousand pages of that. A thousand pages of this? There are so many more productive and entertaining things I could be doing, like ironing my socks or cutting my lawn with a pair of scissors.
So my curiosity is satisfied. I now know that the final two novels are bad. I just never would have guessed the exact reason why, and if you had told me, I wouldn’t have believed you. You probably don’t even believe me. Go ahead and find out for yourself. There’s a twenty dollar copy of book three on Abebooks. The price is so high because the sellers don’t want you to subject yourself to reading it.
June 16, 2020
I've finally made it... I made it to the end of this absolutely awful series. If this wasn't the last book in the series, I never would have bothered reading this thing. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why ID agreed to commission this book after the third book had almost nothing to do with the Doom series. Or why they didn't kill the contract at this point. "Endgame" has even less to do with the Doom series and even if this wasn't a Doom book this would still rank amongst the worst books I have ever read. If this had been a stand alone book and not the last in this series I probably would have called it quits by page 50. I'm usually fairly easy to please in the sci-fi department, so for me to say this is pretty out there, usually I can find some reason to kick things to a 2 or 3 star... but this book has nothing worth reading. I would actually give this book zero stars if that was actually an option. I don't even know where to begin...
If you'll remember, I complained in the last review that "Infernal Sky" had way too many first person voices, well "Endgame" brings us back to basics like "Knee-Deep in the Dead", so all we hear is Fly Taggart's narrative. At least that aspect of the book the authors made better.
As we've been subjected to the entire series, the naming convention chosen by Dafydd and Brad are just terrible. Even the first book deviated from the actual game by naming the monsters differently and that should have given us all red flags from day one. The naming conventions created by the characters in the first book were terrible and that theme just gets progressively worse as this novel series continues. It was already a literary tragedy when they named the species at fault for the Doom monsters "Freds", but they took it to all new heights of stupidity in this book. In this book, they find an even more threatening alien species and they call them the "Newbies". Are you serious??! When this happened I just wanted to throw the book across the room. Somehow these two authors managed to take bad writing and make it worse.
One of the big climaxes of "Infernal Sky" was that they were finally on their way to the Fred planet, who were the species responsible for sending the Doom monsters to Earth. When they finally arrive, after pages and pages of just nothing about what the characters do on a near deserted space ship, they get to the Fred planet to find out they've all been killed off by these Newbies. WTF. So... no big boss battle... in a book, allegedly, in the Doom franchise... right. THEN they go after the Newbies and get to the planet they're supposed to be. Deserted. No battle. (They find some humans there, but read on for the next rant.) Eventually, the main characters finally get back to Earth... no battle. Also, deserted. So, like, the fourth book in Doom is 95% "character development", because there's nothing to really fight anywhere the heroes go. What in the world is the point of even writing this?
When our heroes finally catch up to the Newbies on a different planet they actually run into a group of humans there. But they're infected by the Newbies. The Newbies evolve ultra fast and by the time our heroes get there they've evolved into microbes instead of whole humanoid like beings! You heard me... they evolved INTO microbes. Now these microbes can take over the human body/mind, but not our heroes. Oh no, they have a secret immunity. Faith. Fly has faith in god and Arlene has faith in humanity... it has to be one of the stupidest attempts at inserting some sort of religious concept into a book I have ever stumbled into. It's like this whole veiled attempt to tell readers "See, faith can save you!" This series was already getting a little preachy with the Mormon's showing up, but now it's gone full tilt.
Aside from the religious dogma being thrown at us, which they try to make seem "inclusive" by having Arlene, an atheist (and having faith in whatever you want)... this book takes a whole new turn into political systems and economics. See, the authors find the time in this book to rail against socialism and communism for some reason. Based on their assessment of human society I feel like neither author even remotely knows what either of these things are. Apparently, while building a society based on community and serving society as a whole, people will become so individualistic that they won't be able to have a working military anymore. Why? Well, because you can't take orders if you're an individual... or so their theory goes. Last time I ran into books about actual Communism it didn't stop Stalin from having an army... Also, Capitalism is the only possible way for the human race to survive, because even though under this new Socialist government the authors dreamed up they were able to advance technology to extreme levels, people just can't function as a group and don't know how their technology works... it's starting to feel awful Brave New World up in here.
The authors also take whatever chances they can get to take pot shots at college educated people. Never mind the fact that Arlene is apparently smart and college educated, Fly hates colleges. Teaching people how to think is bad in Fly's book and he hates officers because of it. I mean, who could ever want an educated population?
They try to wrap up the Jill and Albert story lines, albeit horribly. They even have a section where Jill wrote a thing about why the Freds and the rest of the Aliens in the galaxy were even having a war. They were fighting over a literary interpretation of ancient texts, which was brought up in the third book... guess what. This "explanation" just rehashes the same explanation from the prior novel. It's almost like the authors forgot they said this already. It provides no new insight and they don't even say what these texts are. Give me a break. To make matters even more idiotic, Jill also wrote two books on the history of the Fred invasion... guess what their titles are? That's right! The first two books in the Doom series written by our authors.
Anyway, Jill figured out how to clone herself and Albert. Fly and Arlene find their clones frozen in stasis awaiting revival. Jill had her clone grown to the age of 15 and no further... why? Probably because the authors wanted the original party to be exactly back to where it was. Oh yeah, and this is on an entirely abandoned Earth mind you. What happened to the rest of humanity? They don't even say. Yeah... Oh and the Klave characters just leave once they make it to Earth. That's it. They just go home.
The only combat we really run into is in a simulation where Fly and Arlene's souls are trapped into a computer by the Newbies. Guess what? It's a simulation of the first novel! And our authors spend pages upon pages going through the first book again. Sure there are some changes, but WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!?
Oh, and I can't forget the sexism. The sexism is infuriating at this point in the four books. I mean, it's pretty constant throughout the series, but it just feels so excessive at this point. Every chance the authors get Fly quips in about how he noticed Arlene's breasts jiggle under her shirt. Just to constantly remind us that Fly is a hot blooded American manly man? Okay, I have no issue with it being brought up at all, because guys do notice this, but the constancy with which they bring it up is what's disturbing. But then they spend an obscene amount of time with Fly explaining over and over how he would never have sex with Arlene, because they are just friends... but, just so you now, she's pretty hot... que topless scene. The constant explanation just feels like page filler at this point, because the authors have to meet their commission, and what better filler than constant objectification of women. I think the real horrific part was the end of the book where it features the 15 year old Jill clone naked and "Fly trying not to look where he shouldn't". Are you serious right now? In the earlier book they even mention how Jill tried to seduce Fly, but yet her clone is 15? But let's not forget Jill is a genius... and, obviously, her best chances at landing Fly is in her 15 year old form. Authors... I have questions about your interests...
Finally, the book closes with "The End...?" No, dude, no. No question mark. This series needs to be done. Save trees and hard drive space by never writing in franchise ever again.
At the heart of things, I feel like these authors wanted to write an entirely different book and from day one they were thinking of how they could possibly start with the premise of the Doom video game and somehow transform it into veiled lecture about being over educated, faith being essential to human survival and capitalism being the only possible economic system that bestows individuality on our species.
Please, don't read this book. I read it so you don't have to. The book really makes no sense and is just bad writing and bad story telling all around. It's so inane that this is like an incredibly bad fever dream. I'd say it was like a bad acid trip, but that would probably be more interesting. This is like the authors taking acid and they trip out and do nothing, except make up stupid names for things. Just absolutely awful. I hated this book... but I assumed that going in and it lived up to my expectations. Even exceeding them in some cases. Please, don't read this.
If you'll remember, I complained in the last review that "Infernal Sky" had way too many first person voices, well "Endgame" brings us back to basics like "Knee-Deep in the Dead", so all we hear is Fly Taggart's narrative. At least that aspect of the book the authors made better.
As we've been subjected to the entire series, the naming convention chosen by Dafydd and Brad are just terrible. Even the first book deviated from the actual game by naming the monsters differently and that should have given us all red flags from day one. The naming conventions created by the characters in the first book were terrible and that theme just gets progressively worse as this novel series continues. It was already a literary tragedy when they named the species at fault for the Doom monsters "Freds", but they took it to all new heights of stupidity in this book. In this book, they find an even more threatening alien species and they call them the "Newbies". Are you serious??! When this happened I just wanted to throw the book across the room. Somehow these two authors managed to take bad writing and make it worse.
One of the big climaxes of "Infernal Sky" was that they were finally on their way to the Fred planet, who were the species responsible for sending the Doom monsters to Earth. When they finally arrive, after pages and pages of just nothing about what the characters do on a near deserted space ship, they get to the Fred planet to find out they've all been killed off by these Newbies. WTF. So... no big boss battle... in a book, allegedly, in the Doom franchise... right. THEN they go after the Newbies and get to the planet they're supposed to be. Deserted. No battle. (They find some humans there, but read on for the next rant.) Eventually, the main characters finally get back to Earth... no battle. Also, deserted. So, like, the fourth book in Doom is 95% "character development", because there's nothing to really fight anywhere the heroes go. What in the world is the point of even writing this?
When our heroes finally catch up to the Newbies on a different planet they actually run into a group of humans there. But they're infected by the Newbies. The Newbies evolve ultra fast and by the time our heroes get there they've evolved into microbes instead of whole humanoid like beings! You heard me... they evolved INTO microbes. Now these microbes can take over the human body/mind, but not our heroes. Oh no, they have a secret immunity. Faith. Fly has faith in god and Arlene has faith in humanity... it has to be one of the stupidest attempts at inserting some sort of religious concept into a book I have ever stumbled into. It's like this whole veiled attempt to tell readers "See, faith can save you!" This series was already getting a little preachy with the Mormon's showing up, but now it's gone full tilt.
Aside from the religious dogma being thrown at us, which they try to make seem "inclusive" by having Arlene, an atheist (and having faith in whatever you want)... this book takes a whole new turn into political systems and economics. See, the authors find the time in this book to rail against socialism and communism for some reason. Based on their assessment of human society I feel like neither author even remotely knows what either of these things are. Apparently, while building a society based on community and serving society as a whole, people will become so individualistic that they won't be able to have a working military anymore. Why? Well, because you can't take orders if you're an individual... or so their theory goes. Last time I ran into books about actual Communism it didn't stop Stalin from having an army... Also, Capitalism is the only possible way for the human race to survive, because even though under this new Socialist government the authors dreamed up they were able to advance technology to extreme levels, people just can't function as a group and don't know how their technology works... it's starting to feel awful Brave New World up in here.
The authors also take whatever chances they can get to take pot shots at college educated people. Never mind the fact that Arlene is apparently smart and college educated, Fly hates colleges. Teaching people how to think is bad in Fly's book and he hates officers because of it. I mean, who could ever want an educated population?
They try to wrap up the Jill and Albert story lines, albeit horribly. They even have a section where Jill wrote a thing about why the Freds and the rest of the Aliens in the galaxy were even having a war. They were fighting over a literary interpretation of ancient texts, which was brought up in the third book... guess what. This "explanation" just rehashes the same explanation from the prior novel. It's almost like the authors forgot they said this already. It provides no new insight and they don't even say what these texts are. Give me a break. To make matters even more idiotic, Jill also wrote two books on the history of the Fred invasion... guess what their titles are? That's right! The first two books in the Doom series written by our authors.
Anyway, Jill figured out how to clone herself and Albert. Fly and Arlene find their clones frozen in stasis awaiting revival. Jill had her clone grown to the age of 15 and no further... why? Probably because the authors wanted the original party to be exactly back to where it was. Oh yeah, and this is on an entirely abandoned Earth mind you. What happened to the rest of humanity? They don't even say. Yeah... Oh and the Klave characters just leave once they make it to Earth. That's it. They just go home.
The only combat we really run into is in a simulation where Fly and Arlene's souls are trapped into a computer by the Newbies. Guess what? It's a simulation of the first novel! And our authors spend pages upon pages going through the first book again. Sure there are some changes, but WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!?
Oh, and I can't forget the sexism. The sexism is infuriating at this point in the four books. I mean, it's pretty constant throughout the series, but it just feels so excessive at this point. Every chance the authors get Fly quips in about how he noticed Arlene's breasts jiggle under her shirt. Just to constantly remind us that Fly is a hot blooded American manly man? Okay, I have no issue with it being brought up at all, because guys do notice this, but the constancy with which they bring it up is what's disturbing. But then they spend an obscene amount of time with Fly explaining over and over how he would never have sex with Arlene, because they are just friends... but, just so you now, she's pretty hot... que topless scene. The constant explanation just feels like page filler at this point, because the authors have to meet their commission, and what better filler than constant objectification of women. I think the real horrific part was the end of the book where it features the 15 year old Jill clone naked and "Fly trying not to look where he shouldn't". Are you serious right now? In the earlier book they even mention how Jill tried to seduce Fly, but yet her clone is 15? But let's not forget Jill is a genius... and, obviously, her best chances at landing Fly is in her 15 year old form. Authors... I have questions about your interests...
Finally, the book closes with "The End...?" No, dude, no. No question mark. This series needs to be done. Save trees and hard drive space by never writing in franchise ever again.
At the heart of things, I feel like these authors wanted to write an entirely different book and from day one they were thinking of how they could possibly start with the premise of the Doom video game and somehow transform it into veiled lecture about being over educated, faith being essential to human survival and capitalism being the only possible economic system that bestows individuality on our species.
Please, don't read this book. I read it so you don't have to. The book really makes no sense and is just bad writing and bad story telling all around. It's so inane that this is like an incredibly bad fever dream. I'd say it was like a bad acid trip, but that would probably be more interesting. This is like the authors taking acid and they trip out and do nothing, except make up stupid names for things. Just absolutely awful. I hated this book... but I assumed that going in and it lived up to my expectations. Even exceeding them in some cases. Please, don't read this.
September 6, 2019
In this series the DOOM® imp is called a spiny, which the first two novels pluralised as spinys before some merciful editor caught it and changed it to spinies for the third book. In this one the reprehensible authors have wrested back control and spell it spineys.
Not that it matters—the series hasn't been about DOOM® since the first book ended, and apart from two brief dream sequences (effectively) no DOOM® monsters or locations feature in Endgame at all. For the first hundred or so pages it looks as if Friedman and Linaweaver have accidentally written an extremely generic science fiction story instead, but then they remember themselves again and the whole thing turns into a roaring screed against the worms in their brains in a way that even the last two books didn't. I wish I could give this less than one star.
Not that it matters—the series hasn't been about DOOM® since the first book ended, and apart from two brief dream sequences (effectively) no DOOM® monsters or locations feature in Endgame at all. For the first hundred or so pages it looks as if Friedman and Linaweaver have accidentally written an extremely generic science fiction story instead, but then they remember themselves again and the whole thing turns into a roaring screed against the worms in their brains in a way that even the last two books didn't. I wish I could give this less than one star.
August 16, 2017
One of the worst books I've ever read. This is NOT Doom. It's a religious book (yeah, believe it, religious) with sci-fi, it's nothing to do with the "Doom" franchise. It's a sad, sad end to a series that started with a bang (the first two books are awesome and the third one is good).
February 15, 2018
Awful. Just awful.
December 1, 2023
I absolutely LOATHE this book! I hate it!! It’s absolute gutter rubbish. Possibly one of the absolute worst books I’ve ever read and laid eyes on. The authors literally wrote this with zero effort and care. This almost has zero relation to Doom, it shouldn’t even be linked to it it’s that bad. It’s oddly religious and preachy in a dumb way. A very dumb way.
I understand if you have to read the damn thing out of curiosity’s sake, I was that too. But for the sake of all that’s holy and your own sanity, godspeed. Literally read as fast as possible because it becomes obnoxiously stupid and boring very fast.
If I could incinerate every copy of this book I would. I’m so bloody glad it’s over. The entire series is a kick in the nob and yarbles. The authors have no shame for this abomination.
I understand if you have to read the damn thing out of curiosity’s sake, I was that too. But for the sake of all that’s holy and your own sanity, godspeed. Literally read as fast as possible because it becomes obnoxiously stupid and boring very fast.
If I could incinerate every copy of this book I would. I’m so bloody glad it’s over. The entire series is a kick in the nob and yarbles. The authors have no shame for this abomination.
August 29, 2023
Oof what did I just put myself through.
There is almost no Doom in these books past the first one.
Most of the last two books are just spent in space travel, hardly any action.
It is clear that the author was a Star Trek writer because I’m sure this is just a recycled trek story, but even if you take the Doom out of it, the story just isn’t that good.
Wouldn’t recommend, and I wouldn’t have finished it if I wasn’t rereading my childhood books
There is almost no Doom in these books past the first one.
Most of the last two books are just spent in space travel, hardly any action.
It is clear that the author was a Star Trek writer because I’m sure this is just a recycled trek story, but even if you take the Doom out of it, the story just isn’t that good.
Wouldn’t recommend, and I wouldn’t have finished it if I wasn’t rereading my childhood books
July 28, 2022
1) "A Fred alien, and everybody else except a human, can never die. Even when you shoot his body to Swiss cheese, so his blue guts and red blood dribble out the holes onto the deck, his consciousness remains intact. Blow his head apart, and it floats as a ghost, drifting like invisible smoke—still thinking, hearing and seeing, feeling and desperately dreaming. You can talk to them; they actually hear you.
The Freds and other races pile their dead in fantastic cenotaph theaters where they are entertained day and night by elaborate operas and dances of great beauty, all to keep the 'dead' vibrant and interested until such time as they're needed for revivification—assuming there's enough left of the body and enough interest on the part of an animate Fred to pay for it. I'd shot the captain nine days ago as he lay on the floor, reaching up to implement and lock in the preprogrammed course for Fredworld. Despite the best efforts of me and Arlene and our contractor-advisors Sears and Roebuck—a Klave binary pair who each looked like a cross between Magilla Gorilla and Alley Oop—we couldn't figure out how to change course or even shut off the engines."
2) "Jesus, I felt homesick. Just a few months ago—my time—I was wasting my life at Camp Pendleton, loafing and pulling the occasional watch, thinking of not reupping and dropping back into the world instead. I had a fiancee, now deceased; I had parents and high-school friends; I had the expectation that the world would look pretty much the same twenty years later. Then we got sent to Kefiristan, but even that was all right; it was crap, but it was the crap I'd always known was possible in my chosen profession. But when they yanked us out of the Pearl Triangle and boosted Fox Company up to Phobos... well, they yanked me out of my comfortable reality and threw me into primordial chaos. So now I was jogging the length and circumference of an alien spaceship, hurling toward an unknown star at nearly lightspeed, with a plural alien as ally and a mutable thing for a guide; the only constancy was Arlene Sanders, now my last and only friend."
3) "'Christ, S and R—do something!' Having issued my first military command in a week, I did what any good military man does when confronted with an invisible enemy: I ran in circles, screaming and shouting. Sears and Roebuck looked frustrated, being constitutionally unable to follow the order 'do something.'
Then Arlene, whirling rapidly in every direction with her magazine-fed shotgun, thought of the obvious: 'Fly! Isn't this stupid Fred ship steered by consensus?'
'Yes! I don't know what that means!'"
4) "Then the overcaptain's face softened. 'Actually studied first mission in school; strange to meet legends in flesh.'
'You read about it?' I asked. 'There's a book?'
'Two books. Many books, but two originals: Knee-Deep in the Dead and Hell on Earth. Woman named Lovelace Jill wrote them, said was on mission with you.'"
5) "I came to the room with the sabotaged radio and the incinerated map. No matter—the floor plan of the facility was burned into my brain, either by the sheer horror of the memory or else by the Resuscitators when they resurrected me here. Didn't need the map, in any event, and the radios were useless inside the RAM of an alien computer. I felt like I'd been drafted into a computer game, jerked by electronic strings like a meat puppet."
6) "The brain is a gifted storyteller. 'We are all greater artists than we realize,' or whatever the hell that guy said, whoever the hell he was."
7) "'You're a product of genetic engineering, created by a race of creatures we call the Freds, who have heads like an artichoke, if you know what that is—covered with colored leaves—and grow taller and smaller as part of their mating cycle. You've seen them, right? Is my description right on, or what?'
'Sssssspeak!' demanded the spiney, but it closed its mouth, swallowing the rest of its spittle. I took that as a good sign.
'You know they're members of a grand galaxy-wide conspiracy of philosophical-literary criticism that is reasonably well-translated into English as the Deconstructionists. They're fighting the other school, called the Hyper-realists. You were sent here to prepare us for invasion and conquest by the Freds, and they told you that we would roll over and beg for mercy if you came looking like our ancient demons, right?'"
8) "Above us was sky, horribly enough; we had come down more than two kilometers through the solid rock of Phobos... and here, at the bottom, directly overhead we saw the stars! It made no geographic sense, but, of course, it didn't have to—it was nothing but computer software, after all."
9) "I shrugged. I know when I'm beat. 'So long, boys, can't say it's always been a treat, but it's been real.' Even Arlene turned her attention away from her true love's final resting place to smile in farewell. 'Don't take any wooden Fredpills,' she said, thoroughly confusing the Klave.
'Has been it a slice,' said the pair of Magilla Gorillas. Without another word, they turned left and strode off, marching in unison, subvocalizing all the way to each other. They disappeared around a tall ancient-looking column that supported a statue of what looked like Brigham Young, and we never saw Sears and Roebuck again."
10) "The End...?"
The Freds and other races pile their dead in fantastic cenotaph theaters where they are entertained day and night by elaborate operas and dances of great beauty, all to keep the 'dead' vibrant and interested until such time as they're needed for revivification—assuming there's enough left of the body and enough interest on the part of an animate Fred to pay for it. I'd shot the captain nine days ago as he lay on the floor, reaching up to implement and lock in the preprogrammed course for Fredworld. Despite the best efforts of me and Arlene and our contractor-advisors Sears and Roebuck—a Klave binary pair who each looked like a cross between Magilla Gorilla and Alley Oop—we couldn't figure out how to change course or even shut off the engines."
2) "Jesus, I felt homesick. Just a few months ago—my time—I was wasting my life at Camp Pendleton, loafing and pulling the occasional watch, thinking of not reupping and dropping back into the world instead. I had a fiancee, now deceased; I had parents and high-school friends; I had the expectation that the world would look pretty much the same twenty years later. Then we got sent to Kefiristan, but even that was all right; it was crap, but it was the crap I'd always known was possible in my chosen profession. But when they yanked us out of the Pearl Triangle and boosted Fox Company up to Phobos... well, they yanked me out of my comfortable reality and threw me into primordial chaos. So now I was jogging the length and circumference of an alien spaceship, hurling toward an unknown star at nearly lightspeed, with a plural alien as ally and a mutable thing for a guide; the only constancy was Arlene Sanders, now my last and only friend."
3) "'Christ, S and R—do something!' Having issued my first military command in a week, I did what any good military man does when confronted with an invisible enemy: I ran in circles, screaming and shouting. Sears and Roebuck looked frustrated, being constitutionally unable to follow the order 'do something.'
Then Arlene, whirling rapidly in every direction with her magazine-fed shotgun, thought of the obvious: 'Fly! Isn't this stupid Fred ship steered by consensus?'
'Yes! I don't know what that means!'"
4) "Then the overcaptain's face softened. 'Actually studied first mission in school; strange to meet legends in flesh.'
'You read about it?' I asked. 'There's a book?'
'Two books. Many books, but two originals: Knee-Deep in the Dead and Hell on Earth. Woman named Lovelace Jill wrote them, said was on mission with you.'"
5) "I came to the room with the sabotaged radio and the incinerated map. No matter—the floor plan of the facility was burned into my brain, either by the sheer horror of the memory or else by the Resuscitators when they resurrected me here. Didn't need the map, in any event, and the radios were useless inside the RAM of an alien computer. I felt like I'd been drafted into a computer game, jerked by electronic strings like a meat puppet."
6) "The brain is a gifted storyteller. 'We are all greater artists than we realize,' or whatever the hell that guy said, whoever the hell he was."
7) "'You're a product of genetic engineering, created by a race of creatures we call the Freds, who have heads like an artichoke, if you know what that is—covered with colored leaves—and grow taller and smaller as part of their mating cycle. You've seen them, right? Is my description right on, or what?'
'Sssssspeak!' demanded the spiney, but it closed its mouth, swallowing the rest of its spittle. I took that as a good sign.
'You know they're members of a grand galaxy-wide conspiracy of philosophical-literary criticism that is reasonably well-translated into English as the Deconstructionists. They're fighting the other school, called the Hyper-realists. You were sent here to prepare us for invasion and conquest by the Freds, and they told you that we would roll over and beg for mercy if you came looking like our ancient demons, right?'"
8) "Above us was sky, horribly enough; we had come down more than two kilometers through the solid rock of Phobos... and here, at the bottom, directly overhead we saw the stars! It made no geographic sense, but, of course, it didn't have to—it was nothing but computer software, after all."
9) "I shrugged. I know when I'm beat. 'So long, boys, can't say it's always been a treat, but it's been real.' Even Arlene turned her attention away from her true love's final resting place to smile in farewell. 'Don't take any wooden Fredpills,' she said, thoroughly confusing the Klave.
'Has been it a slice,' said the pair of Magilla Gorillas. Without another word, they turned left and strode off, marching in unison, subvocalizing all the way to each other. They disappeared around a tall ancient-looking column that supported a statue of what looked like Brigham Young, and we never saw Sears and Roebuck again."
10) "The End...?"
May 24, 2010
No better title for what sums up the story. If you are buying this POS then it is endgame for your taste in books. This work should have been stillborn as it does nothing for the story or characters and even leaves off on a unfinished cliffhanger. Avoid at all costs
November 18, 2021
This book was written on Fred-World...you know...where the demons came from...why?
September 3, 2023
This is the first time I have given a book 1 star on goodreads and rest assured, it is a well earned rating. I can forgive the story not being doom related (DESPITE THE BOOK BEING CALLED DOOM: ENDGAME......) IF the story was compelling and interesting. It was not. Boredom is the last emotion a fictionial story should invoke. I have plenty of greivances with this series but only endgame itself gets 1 star. Allow me to do the people considering buying this book a service and warn you of the issues this book has.
-The story is nonsensical and uninteresting. Linaweaver and ab Hugh often add details to things after they have been in the story for a while which messes up the tone and immersiveness of the story. For example, imagine having a few chapters take place on a planet and then afterward the color of the planets surface is described......
-The characters are 2D cutouts with absolutely cringey and ridiculous dialogue. Clearly neither author has met a marine or any military veteran in their life. I understand that the dialogue was kept pg-13 to appeal to a wider demographic but that doesnt change the fact that the dialogues and monologues of the characters are awful.
-The environments and aliens are not interesting at all.
-The authors try to explore meaningful ideas regarding theology and I truly beleive they could not have done a worse job. I often believe that you should only chastize someone if you believe you can do a better job. Well at the risk of sounding arrogant, I could certainly write a more interesting novel then these guys. Let this book be an oddly inspirationial one. If your a new writer and worried your story is too bad to be published well..... its not. Odds are its better then this AND BY A LOT.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my warning of a review. There are plenty of great stories across all genres that a reader can spend time with. Avoid wasting time and energy on this one and I personally will not ever be reading a story be either of these two ever again.
-The story is nonsensical and uninteresting. Linaweaver and ab Hugh often add details to things after they have been in the story for a while which messes up the tone and immersiveness of the story. For example, imagine having a few chapters take place on a planet and then afterward the color of the planets surface is described......
-The characters are 2D cutouts with absolutely cringey and ridiculous dialogue. Clearly neither author has met a marine or any military veteran in their life. I understand that the dialogue was kept pg-13 to appeal to a wider demographic but that doesnt change the fact that the dialogues and monologues of the characters are awful.
-The environments and aliens are not interesting at all.
-The authors try to explore meaningful ideas regarding theology and I truly beleive they could not have done a worse job. I often believe that you should only chastize someone if you believe you can do a better job. Well at the risk of sounding arrogant, I could certainly write a more interesting novel then these guys. Let this book be an oddly inspirationial one. If your a new writer and worried your story is too bad to be published well..... its not. Odds are its better then this AND BY A LOT.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my warning of a review. There are plenty of great stories across all genres that a reader can spend time with. Avoid wasting time and energy on this one and I personally will not ever be reading a story be either of these two ever again.
May 22, 2025
la neta el primer y segundo libro me gustaron y ya veía un declive clarisimo en el tercero pero este libro, dios mio, es cáncer.
No puedo dejar de lado el hecho de que Arlene se redujo a un personaje usado para situaciones incómodas o sexuales, se mencionan varias veces sus pechos sin necesidad, por alguna razon agregaron una parte donde orina enfrente de Fly, Sears y Roebuck (odio los putos nombres de esos 2) y del mismo modo se nos menciona sin puta necesidad que tuvo sexo en frente de todo el pelotón estando borracha. Redujeron a un personaje medianamente bueno a solo una imagen plana y sexual.
En cuanto a Fly, en los otros libros lo sentí más nerdo, hacia más referencias y chistes de papá, ahora es más enfocado y un poco más serio, mi única queja con este es que se echo tremendo taco de ojos a una Jill desnuda (ADOLESCENTE.)
El final lo odié, simplemente no le vi sentido a las copias digitalizadas de Flynn y Arlene, no me gustó el final de repetir Deimoss una y otra vez, tampoco me gustó su final en la tierra porque quedó asquerosamente abierto y ambiguo.
Este libro no vale nada la pena, le pongo 2 estrellas porque a pesar de ser malos me entretuvieron.
P.D. Los únicos personajes que me parecieron buenos fueron Jill, Flynn Taggart y Bill Ritch (del primer libro) todos los otros fueron desperdiciados, arruinados o simplemente no llegué a empatizar con ellos (Albert) aún así, recomiendo el primer y segundo libro si piensas NO leer el 3 y 4.
No puedo dejar de lado el hecho de que Arlene se redujo a un personaje usado para situaciones incómodas o sexuales, se mencionan varias veces sus pechos sin necesidad, por alguna razon agregaron una parte donde orina enfrente de Fly, Sears y Roebuck (odio los putos nombres de esos 2) y del mismo modo se nos menciona sin puta necesidad que tuvo sexo en frente de todo el pelotón estando borracha. Redujeron a un personaje medianamente bueno a solo una imagen plana y sexual.
En cuanto a Fly, en los otros libros lo sentí más nerdo, hacia más referencias y chistes de papá, ahora es más enfocado y un poco más serio, mi única queja con este es que se echo tremendo taco de ojos a una Jill desnuda (ADOLESCENTE.)
El final lo odié, simplemente no le vi sentido a las copias digitalizadas de Flynn y Arlene, no me gustó el final de repetir Deimoss una y otra vez, tampoco me gustó su final en la tierra porque quedó asquerosamente abierto y ambiguo.
Este libro no vale nada la pena, le pongo 2 estrellas porque a pesar de ser malos me entretuvieron.
P.D. Los únicos personajes que me parecieron buenos fueron Jill, Flynn Taggart y Bill Ritch (del primer libro) todos los otros fueron desperdiciados, arruinados o simplemente no llegué a empatizar con ellos (Albert) aún así, recomiendo el primer y segundo libro si piensas NO leer el 3 y 4.
October 6, 2018
I don't mind that it deviates from the traditional DOOM story line. However, there were parts of this book (the beginning and middle) that were just so confusing and tedious to read. It almost seemed like they were paid to write exactly 250 pages for each of the four books and they were just winging it for for the first 200. Like, staying up all night, doin some lines, gettin it done kind of thing. I was personally surprised that there weren't any spelling errors, which I find even in first edition Stephen King novels.
But yeah. I did highly appreciate the use of big words, literary allusions, and all in all the general Science Fiction angle and prose. These guys definitely are 100% sci-fi readers and writers, they definitely aren't hacks.
I did highly enjoy the last 50 pages or so. They incorporated great techniques to involve a lot of the game's "meta" feel.
But yeah, I think that covers it all. I really enjoyed their writing and style of writing and reading the first 3 books were just so great. Like actually good books and fun to read.
But yeah. I did highly appreciate the use of big words, literary allusions, and all in all the general Science Fiction angle and prose. These guys definitely are 100% sci-fi readers and writers, they definitely aren't hacks.
I did highly enjoy the last 50 pages or so. They incorporated great techniques to involve a lot of the game's "meta" feel.
But yeah, I think that covers it all. I really enjoyed their writing and style of writing and reading the first 3 books were just so great. Like actually good books and fun to read.
August 23, 2025
This book is complete and utter garbage. It's not even close to being Doom anymore. The authors have you go to the home world of the main antagonist for the last three books just to have the entire world wiped out by a new alien species. The new species is called the Newbies because why would anything be creative and interesting? So, Fly and Arlene find a lone member of the Newbie species under their ship. Death means nothing to aliens, so even though it was dead, they revive it and it's terrified of its own hivemind, and Fly kills it. The story just gets worse and worse. It's terrible, so terrible that I didn't even finish it. Don't bother with this trash.
September 26, 2023
THIS is how the 4 part series ends? The whole series started out molten hot. And ended in a cold slag. That never really answers the questions it creates. I didn't even mind that it blazes it's own path as a stand alone series. But damn its just confusing for no reason. Go to the future. Find some things out. Simulate stuff. Cut back to reality. Then just never mention what happened right when reality got good. Just a mess.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2025
Non sono abbastanza esperto della saga videoulica, quindi non scaglierò le mie frecce contro imprecisioni e modifiche, limitandomi a parlare della lettura.
Ho esagerato con la terza stellina perché, in una saga a dir poco disastrosa, almeno questo è scritto bene, senza errori grammaticali e con uno stile che finalmente ricordi... un libro vero e proprio!
Il finale è orribile, ma la trama solleva spunti interessanti.
Ho esagerato con la terza stellina perché, in una saga a dir poco disastrosa, almeno questo è scritto bene, senza errori grammaticali e con uno stile che finalmente ricordi... un libro vero e proprio!
Il finale è orribile, ma la trama solleva spunti interessanti.
December 27, 2024
Boring Sci-Fi
This last book was a mess. Was a mess when I read it years ago. And it’s still a mess. Boring. Characters make choices that are uncharacteristic of them. It’s like the authors had 4 book contract, ran out of material and made this mess up in a span of a day. It has very few redeemable moments.
This last book was a mess. Was a mess when I read it years ago. And it’s still a mess. Boring. Characters make choices that are uncharacteristic of them. It’s like the authors had 4 book contract, ran out of material and made this mess up in a span of a day. It has very few redeemable moments.
May 26, 2024
Updating my review after reading a few other reviews. I was only after reading those reviews di it remind me of how awful the book really was. I think my brain was deleting the memories as I read along. This isn't DOOM. Do not read. Avoid at all costs. Would give 0/5 if I could.
November 18, 2014
The last book in the series was, unfortunately, this reader’s least favorite, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a real gem. The reality of the series ending was saddening and expectations tend to be very high as a story culminates to its final chapters. Regardless, every series must conclude and writers must reveal the ultimate purpose for their character’s life. And for Fly and Arlene, it is only to be cursed by the fate of one of the two literary schools of galactic criticism, which debate the being of the architects of the Gates. If you haven’t read books one and two in the series, they are a must read. If you have read book three, then, please, by all means finish the series and judge for yourself.
Book three, Infernal Sky, left our diehard protagonists, Fly and Arlene, and their new binary friends, Sears and Roebuck, on an alien ship headed to the Freds’ home world. The conclusion of book three was intense and fun! And thankfully book four continued that excited in the first few chapters. At the risk of spoilers, I will keep my descriptions brief and highlight, as I did for book three, the best aspects of Endgame.
Doom is brain-candy. By this, I mean that so many fun ideas concerning space travel, alien races, and the origins of life are explored and debated by our beloved characters, leaving the reader to join in on the conversation as the plot progresses. One of the best brain-candies is the impact of losing “religion,” or faith. Its consequence is devastating, and the reasons are perplexing, yet simple: death’s finality scares men, all men. In one scene, robust men cower when a rebel dinner knife flings accidentally into the air during a prestigious meal between “newbie-infected humans” and Fly and Arlene.
One spoiler: Becoming a “type of prophet” by necessity, Fly uses the weapon of “faith in a leader” to raise an army! The consequences are too interesting to be summarized… come on, you know you want to read this one, now!
Back to the critique…
What remains of Earth is for the reader to cope with since Fly and Arlene discover something about the galactic war and the state of advanced technology that exists now in the universe. Fortunately, an ending that no one could expect is delivered. thankfully, it does deliver our two protagonist back into the fray that readers of book one, Knee-Deep in the Dead, will savor and take away either the best and/or saddest aspects of the series’ epic finale.
DOOM as a series is a 5 Star!
Originally reviewed for SFbook.com
Book three, Infernal Sky, left our diehard protagonists, Fly and Arlene, and their new binary friends, Sears and Roebuck, on an alien ship headed to the Freds’ home world. The conclusion of book three was intense and fun! And thankfully book four continued that excited in the first few chapters. At the risk of spoilers, I will keep my descriptions brief and highlight, as I did for book three, the best aspects of Endgame.
Doom is brain-candy. By this, I mean that so many fun ideas concerning space travel, alien races, and the origins of life are explored and debated by our beloved characters, leaving the reader to join in on the conversation as the plot progresses. One of the best brain-candies is the impact of losing “religion,” or faith. Its consequence is devastating, and the reasons are perplexing, yet simple: death’s finality scares men, all men. In one scene, robust men cower when a rebel dinner knife flings accidentally into the air during a prestigious meal between “newbie-infected humans” and Fly and Arlene.
One spoiler: Becoming a “type of prophet” by necessity, Fly uses the weapon of “faith in a leader” to raise an army! The consequences are too interesting to be summarized… come on, you know you want to read this one, now!
Back to the critique…
What remains of Earth is for the reader to cope with since Fly and Arlene discover something about the galactic war and the state of advanced technology that exists now in the universe. Fortunately, an ending that no one could expect is delivered. thankfully, it does deliver our two protagonist back into the fray that readers of book one, Knee-Deep in the Dead, will savor and take away either the best and/or saddest aspects of the series’ epic finale.
DOOM as a series is a 5 Star!
Originally reviewed for SFbook.com
September 6, 2016
So I am kind of glad that I reread this series for the first time since elementary school as I was able to comprehend a lot more of what was going on compared to me comprehension back then. I also feel comfortable knowing that there will most likely never be a reason to reread book 3 and 4 again.
Books 1 and 2 were great because first you feel nostalgic following a linear pace that matches completing each level. Than with book 2 we can experience an original story full of horrors. Starting with book 3, the original story turns kind of ridiculous all the way through book 4, explaining that the Doom demons are not even the real enemy. The real enemy turns out to be tall figures that look like asparagus. We also introduced to two new alien species that play a role in what turns out to be a universal game of chess on religion.
That is what the whole series is apparently based on. Arguments over religion and interpretation of said religion. When book 2 began to introduced the topic of a soldier coping with faith, or lack there of, it seemed relevant and interesting without being entirely overbearing. With the last two books, it became overbearing and essentially made the Doom demons no longer relevant. The amount of horrors our heroes experience takes a decline and instead is replaced with characters consistently described as Magilla Gorilla and microscopic evolved aliens that effect everyone. I suppose one could look at the series of becoming full fledged science fiction but I prefer to keep the series as a horror story with Hell On Earth.
I couldn't help but feel book 3 and 4 tried too hard by simply reenacting the Phoebos/Deimos missions in both books. It feels like the equivalent to hitting the reset button on a game system. The book ends in two different ways. It seems kind of weird to look at it. I guess both are happy endings...?
Books 1 and 2 were great because first you feel nostalgic following a linear pace that matches completing each level. Than with book 2 we can experience an original story full of horrors. Starting with book 3, the original story turns kind of ridiculous all the way through book 4, explaining that the Doom demons are not even the real enemy. The real enemy turns out to be tall figures that look like asparagus. We also introduced to two new alien species that play a role in what turns out to be a universal game of chess on religion.
That is what the whole series is apparently based on. Arguments over religion and interpretation of said religion. When book 2 began to introduced the topic of a soldier coping with faith, or lack there of, it seemed relevant and interesting without being entirely overbearing. With the last two books, it became overbearing and essentially made the Doom demons no longer relevant. The amount of horrors our heroes experience takes a decline and instead is replaced with characters consistently described as Magilla Gorilla and microscopic evolved aliens that effect everyone. I suppose one could look at the series of becoming full fledged science fiction but I prefer to keep the series as a horror story with Hell On Earth.
I couldn't help but feel book 3 and 4 tried too hard by simply reenacting the Phoebos/Deimos missions in both books. It feels like the equivalent to hitting the reset button on a game system. The book ends in two different ways. It seems kind of weird to look at it. I guess both are happy endings...?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 14, 2013
The last book in the series. Flynn and Arlene have arrived at the homeworld of the Freds, only to find that their greatest enemies have been wiped out by a fast-evolving race dubbed 'Newbies'. They find humanity already at war with the new species, but everything is not quite as it seems. In an effort to return to earth, the two marines discover that the Newbies are more devious than they think.
I enjoyed the last book - it had a sense of humour, even though the ending left you hanging just a bit. I loved the idea of a military unit where everyone is an individual - to the extent that they choose their own uniforms and discuss whether to follow an order - priceless :)
I enjoyed the last book - it had a sense of humour, even though the ending left you hanging just a bit. I loved the idea of a military unit where everyone is an individual - to the extent that they choose their own uniforms and discuss whether to follow an order - priceless :)
February 18, 2014
Based on the video game series, but only as a jumping off point (which makes sense since the video game had an extremely simple plot).
Rather than "demons" they're aliens, and the whole situation of Earth is actually a very small conflict, almost insignificant to a greater multi-galaxy war. Interesting idea.
I was probably too young to read it at the time, but it did inspire me to be able to read more complex books.
Rather than "demons" they're aliens, and the whole situation of Earth is actually a very small conflict, almost insignificant to a greater multi-galaxy war. Interesting idea.
I was probably too young to read it at the time, but it did inspire me to be able to read more complex books.
February 8, 2015
The fourth and final book in the Doom series picks up in pace as everything comes together.
Nevertheless, I was disappointed by the very, very open ending. It's one thing to leave things amiguous but this ending reads like the authors stopped right in the middle and left it at that. I don't know whether there was hope for another book or whether it was wanted that way. It's not that I can't deal with an open ending, it just didn't feel complete to me.
Nevertheless, I was disappointed by the very, very open ending. It's one thing to leave things amiguous but this ending reads like the authors stopped right in the middle and left it at that. I don't know whether there was hope for another book or whether it was wanted that way. It's not that I can't deal with an open ending, it just didn't feel complete to me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2013
I have spent so many hours on the video game I was wondering what the background story may be. Was not even aware there were books on doom. Thanks to ebay I bought the lot cheap. Usually I don't read to much science fiction. I thought they were ok. Books 1 and 2 kind of explained what happen in the game. # and 4 took it much further. Not a bad light read.
April 18, 2014
WTF about sums it up. Again, its a decent read but its taken the odd tangent of book 3 and has run with it. By this point the book has almost no common threads with the first few books, or the source material.
It's like the author was instructed to wring a few more drops out of the already pretty depleted series, and to conclude it with the strangest things he could think of.
It's like the author was instructed to wring a few more drops out of the already pretty depleted series, and to conclude it with the strangest things he could think of.
September 4, 2025
I remember this book. it was the last entry I read about the adventures of Flynn and his partner who beat the bad guys. Even though, the descriptions of the monsters in this book were pretty good, I found that I'd get a little bored or even lost with the context because of the fictional narrative that kept me hooked.
January 7, 2025
Opustili všechno, na čem jim záleželo – své přátele, milované i svou zemi – a vydali se ke hvězdám. Tak to začíná a pokračuje přímým masakrem zástupu démonů. Válka o Zemi sice skončila, ale o galaxii právě začala. Dobře čtivé a poutavé dílo.
October 13, 2010
very good book, wasn't a fan of the ending.
February 27, 2012
Did you like the videogames? You'll probably enjoy the books. Are you looking for a serious read? Look elsewhere. These books are a goofy romp in the Doom universe that I enjoyed reading.
December 30, 2013
Despite the story seeming a little bit artificial, it did catch on my imagination and was interesting till the very end, where it was left a bit more open than my taste would like.
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