Doom novels

The Doom novels are a series of four officially licensed books, written by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver. They were released by Pocket Books in 1995.

The four titles, Knee-Deep in the Dead, Hell on Earth, Infernal Sky, and Endgame, comprise a continuing narrative centering around Space Marine Flynn "Fly" Taggart and a ragtag band of human survivors.

Knee-Deep In The Dead
The first book opens with a prologue in the Middle Eastern country of Kefiristan. Fox Company leader Lt. Weems orders his men to open fire on civilians. Flynn "Fly" Taggart, the "Doomguy", attacks him.

Before he can be sent for court martial, however, Fox Company is called to the UAC research facility on Phobos to deal with a disturbance. Fly is kept prisoner by two Privates while the rest are sent off. This may be Fly's saving grace, as Fox Company is literally wiped out by the invading forces. Escaping, Fly encounters several zombies, then a run-in with an Imp.

Moving deeper into the complex, Fly finds more monsters, as well as "A.S." arrwow marks on the walls- PFC Arlene Sanders, his friend, has survived and is leaving him directions. Ultimately, Fly reaches the two Barons, defeats them, and is transported to Deimos Base, completely naked. On Deimos, he finds Arlene, regains clothes and weapons, and the two eventually find the Cyberdemon and defeat it. Teleported again, the two find themselves inside a gigantic fleshy enclosure, and field-strip corpses for clothes and weapons once more.

Here, they meet Bill Ritch, a UAC computer programmer whom the Spider Mastermind captured and tried to interrogate. The three make their way through this complex, ultimately defetaing the Spider Mastermind, at the cost of bill Ritch's life.

Returning to the surface, they find they are still on Deimos, which has been moved to Earth orbit. And the giant dome that holds int he oxygen has cracked. Worst of all, they can see explosions all over Earth's surface- the invasion has already reached Earth.

Hell On Earth
The second book opens right as the first ends, with Fly and Arlene stranded on deimos, in Earth's orbit and the oxygen leaking out of the base. Fly gets the idea to build a shuttle craft to cary them to Earth- a risky, improbbale plan, and while they have the parts from "mail tube" unmanned shuttle parts, their experience lies in the fact that Fly once built a car out of spare parts.

Over the next month, the two build their craft, but as the oxygen runs low and they start to hallucinate and run out of food, they fly their shuttle, managing to survive the trip, eventually landing several miles away from Salt Lake City. A several days' walk leads them to the city, and the truth- humanity is an endangered species. SLC is one of the few human resistance strongholds, as the Mormons had a survival plan and years worth of supplies for such an event.

Arlene expresses displeasure over their surrpundings, as her brother had converted to mormonism during his own downward spiral in life. Fly makes things worse when he contacts Marine HQ. As it turns out, world governments turned traitor to the aliens, as did their militaries. Within hours, armed forces fromt he Marines, FBI, Army, ATF, and IRS(a "revenue collection" armed branch) attack the city.

The President of the Twelve, displeased at Fly and Arlene's failure, offer them a chance to make amends- lead a team into Los Angeles, recover vital information, disable the aliens' shields, and fly the information to a Marine resistance center in Hawaii. With them will be Albert, an ex-Marine sniper and converted mormon, and Jill Lovelace, a fourteen-year-old former computer hacker who lost her parents in the invasion.

The book follows their trip west. On the trip, Arlene falls in love with Albert despite his religion. Jumping a train headed west, the team kills a Spider Mastermind and a Cyberdemon and recover their human hostage- Ken, a young man with numerous computer implants in his body. Reaching LA, they find that the chemical brew that turns corpses into zombies are made by stoners and other drug addicts, those allowed to remain alive by the aliens for turning traitor.

Having determined Ken to be the information they need, they reach the airport. Albert is burned severely by an Imp fireball, but is luckier than Bill Ritch and survives. Albert and Jill remain behind to fly the plane to Hawaii while Fly and Arlene head to the Disney Building to disable the massive force shield. They succeed, but a gathering of monsters has them trapped. But Arlene has an escape plan...

Infernal Sky
Fly and Arlene are resting comfortably in Hawaii, along with Albert and Jill at the final Marine base. Fly and Arlene both tell their own version of how they escaped Los Angeles. It is here that Fly is promoted to Sergeant and Arlene to Corporal, and without the need for a chain of command or red tape, the Marines wipe Fly's record clean of his assaulting a superior officer.

Albert and Jill also learn bad news- Salt Lake City has been nuked. And the war is about to take a turn, as the military has decoded a signal sent from an alien race warning of the attacks, and giving coordinates to find help. The mission entails a return to Phobos, and activating a gate to send a team to parts unknown.

Meanwhile, Ken, the "cyber mummy" from the previous book, has had surgery and is awake, but his implants are left functioning to tap into the enemy systems. But Ken also reads into Marine plans, and he does not like the plans he hears of the future.

Under a new CO that comes off as a stubborn "by the book" type, Fly, Albert, and Arlene prepare to head back to Phobos- which will require a return to Los Angeles to steal a shuttle. No easy task, and Jill is neeeded to infiltrate- but an escape plan is set for her on her own. And to further complicate matters, Albert proposes to Arlene.

Securing the shuttle, the flight leaves, a six week long long trip to Phobos. Jill, left behind, misses her escape, left in enemy territory. In perhaps the most haunting scene of the book, Jill is forced to kill two human traitors with poison gas.

Back on Phobos, the team eventually reaches the Gate, and are sent off to a strange facility where they meet many other laiens, their allies against the demons. The chief representatives, the Klave serve as their liasons. Few details are gained, but it seems Earth is another stop along a six million year war against the two alien sides. And humans have angered the demons, as humans, it seems, are the only species that actually dies.

It is explained that, for most races, when the body dies, the soul remains behind until a birth gives them a new body. Otherwise, the dead are arranged in theaters and entertained in the meantime. Humans do not work this way, they die.

The plan is simple- fly to the alien invader homeworld- called the "Freds" by Marine HQ, and take the war to their front door. But without faster than light travel, while they will experience the trip in weeks, the actual trip will be twenty years each way. And when an accident leaves Albert unable to go, Arlene marries him- knowing when she meets him again, he will be in his sixties.

To complicate matters, the trip is interfered when a large spaceborne creature attacks their ship. They fight it off, but extensive damage forces them to a nearby planet to another gate. Transporting, the gate malfunctions, killing their CO, leaving Fly and Arlene alone with Sears and Roebuck, their two Klave escorts. And they are trapped on a Fred ship. No clothes or weapons due to the Gate transport, they fight bare handed, killing the Fred and taking the ship.

But this ship is not as fast. It may be on a direct course for the Fred homeworld, but at their rate of speed, they will take an eight week trip- or, in actual years outside of their travel, two hundred years.

Endgame
Aboard the Fred ship, Arlene sulks over knowing she will never see Albert alive again. They have synthesized new clothes and weapons, but her ring is gone.

Upon reaching the Fred homeworld, they find nothing shy of a single Fred corpse. Recovering it and healing it, they question the Fred- a new species which the Fred calls "Newbies" in broken translation they had encountered long ago, that evolves even faster than humans, attacked them. And this new species is headed for Earth.

Unsure if this new species is a trheat or an ally, Fly explores and finds one member, dead. An alien gray type creature, they revive it. However, this species evolves at a rapid pace, and tries to disable the ship, fearing what it will find when it meets the rest of its kind. Following the coordinates from the alien of where the Newbies were headed, a hundred year trip lands them on an unknown desert planet. The trip takes a hundred years outside of the ship.

They find humans. Humanity, as it turned out, survived the Doom Wars. Albert lived and focused on cryogenic research, only to die before it became reality. Jill survived Los Angeles, to become an author and die of old age.

However, these humans are odd. They fear death and take no risks. And they have personality switches. Fly and Arlene, recognized as legendary heroes, are given a computer sphere to answer questions. But Fly needs one question answered to settle his supicions, Capturing the captain, they take him to the medical lab and confirms his fears- the Newbies have evolved into a microscopic entity which lives inside humans.

But humans now have no faith in anything. And Fly determines that faith is harmful to the Newbies, for unknown reasons, But his sermons on faith somehow start to cure people of Newbie infection. And he and his converted lead a battle to take the ship.

The Newbies win, however. Fly and Arlene are strapped down and with needles in their brains, their "souls" are extracted and placed into computer simulations of Phobos to examine the human soul. Realizing that the simulation feeds off memories, he changes the events, literally recruiting the first Imp to his side in a sermon, and, determined to find Arlene, recruits other monsters.

Arlene and Fly, however, wake up outside the ship. Their souls were not extracted, but merely their minds copied. The real Fly and Arlene, with their human converts and the bodies of Sears and Roebuck, escape the ship's launch rockets. Reaching their destroyed ship, medical machines revive S&R. And, as it turns out, the moon of that planet is a hollow space port.

Using a Fred escape pod to fly to the moonbase, the band of survivors secure a ship, knowing that, at best, they will arrive a month after the Newbies. The Newbies, as it turns out, had not yet been to Earth, but had just encountered humans on this world. Another hundred years in real time, mere weeks to them, they reach Earth. Fly an Arlene have returned four hundred years after they last saw their home planet.

Humans survived the Doom Wars, but while signs of civilization remain, all that's left is covered in uncontrolled plant growth. No humans are found. To the rest of the survivors, it has been two hundred years to them. Fkying over the united States, they reach Salt Lake City- rebuilt, and the Mormon Tabernacle bigger than ever. And stranger, the Newbies are nowhere to be seen.

Arlene, realizing what this means, contacts the Tabernacle. Jill's mind had been copied and now operates within the building. Allowing the hsip to land and them to enter, Fly and Arlene quickly meet a hologram of Jill, slightly older than when they last saw her, who explains everything.

It seems this war started six million years ago due to the Gate builder race. Twelve million years ago, this race had left behind eleven fragments of an ancient text. For the past six million years, the Klave and the Freds have been fighting a war over the interpretation of these texts, a sort of intergalactic chess game. But humans, in addition to death, also evolve faster than any other race. When the Freds encountered Earth in the 1400s, they set to motion a plan to impersonate Hell demons. But the time of the trip coupled with the time to prepare allowed centuries to pass. Humans had evolved, fought back, and ultimately won.

As to Earth, the survivors slept in cryogenic stasis, awaiting the return of the Doom heroes of legend. Jill, cloned and resting, is found. and Arlene is led to a room where a button waits for her to press it. Albert is waiting for her.

The final chapters explain why the Newbies never arrived. The computer copies of Fly and Arlene continued through the recreations of phobos and Deimos, building an army of "converted" demons and zombies, and find the back door escape from the program.

But this door does not lead to escape. It leads to a Newbie, connected to the program. Dragging the large black slug body into the program, the fast run time of the simulation causes something unexpected- the Newbie evolves much more rapidly, until it literally vanishes. And Newbies are all linked telepathically. It appears the entire species was evolved out of existence by this act.

Believing themselves to be genuine and with no way out, "Fly" and "Arlene" decide to continue on, but alter events by remembering things differently. This time, Bill Ritch will not die, the Spider Mastermind will die a gruesome death, and Earth will not have been invaded.

Changes
The Doomguy is given a name and his backstory of a court-martial is expanded on. The rest of his team are also given names.

The UAC facilities are described as having been built to go into the moons, which means there are no open skies like in the games, only ceilings. Certain game levels are included, some are not. Others are heavily modified. Green slime pools and exploding barrels remain, as do keycard doors.

The game weapons are included, with additions made.

The monsters are often referred to by new names by the characters. The exception being the Imps, as well as from one character, a scientist who uses the proper game names. His reasoning behind the names is that they are "creatures from the id".

Book one follows the first game closely. Book two features a settong on Earth, but a much different story. The resisitance against the monsters was also not unified, as many Earth governments turned traitor. Book three diverges further with contact with an alien race that is on humanity's side. Book four splits further, by moving Fly and Arlene into the future and introdcing more aliens.

The Doom monsters are not demons, but rather aliens engineered to look like demons. The invading species first encountered humans in the 15th century, and had not expected such an evolutionary leap. In their natural state, the aliens are described as being tall creatures with heads like artichokes- covered in numerous eyes and leaves. they have long sharp finegrs like poseable chopsticks. Though many of the creatures may be other races as well, subjigated and cloned for an army. Some creatures seem to have a natural hatred of others, noted by the fact that Barons and Cacodemons willingly kill each other. The Icon of Sin never appears.

A society of opposing aliens who have allied with humans also exists. They supplied the blue soul spheres found throughout the game and books. The main race is the Klave, a binary pair race in which members are found in linked mental pairs. The Klave do not understand individuality and can only deal with people in pairs. The two in the books who accompany Fly and Arlene take the name Sears and Roebuck for themselves after scanning human minds.

Criticism
The Doom novels have been heavily criticised by some members of the Doom community. Much of the criticism comes from the ways the story differs from the game.

While the story is set in the Doom universe, the authors take several artistic liberties. The novels also introduce several other characters not suggested by the video games.

Beginning with Infernal Sky, the storyline departs dramatically from anything related to the computer game, becoming more reminiscent of science-fiction space operas such as The Forever War.

ISBN numbers

 * Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead - ISBN 0671525557
 * Doom: Hell on Earth - ISBN 067152562X