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Doom #3
Infernal Sky
Hawaii -- the last outpost of civilization on an Earth overrun by demons, traitors, and nightmarish creatures straight out of the pits of Hell. Humanity seems doomed to a bloody ending. Then Hawaii receives a message from aliens claiming to be on our side of the battle. Our last chance: make contact.
The only man for the job -- Corporal Flynn Taggart, U.S. Marine Corps -- "Fly" to his friends. He led the fight against the demon invaders when they swarmed through the Gates at Phobos Base. Now Fly has to face the toughest task of his dirty career: return to Phobos -- and fight his way past those demons to contact mankind's would-be-rescuers...
The only man for the job -- Corporal Flynn Taggart, U.S. Marine Corps -- "Fly" to his friends. He led the fight against the demon invaders when they swarmed through the Gates at Phobos Base. Now Fly has to face the toughest task of his dirty career: return to Phobos -- and fight his way past those demons to contact mankind's would-be-rescuers...
247 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1996
About the author
Dafydd ab Hugh
27 books42 followersDafydd ab Hugh (born David Friedman) is a U.S. science fiction author.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 9, 2012
There was very little action. The plot focused on Arlene and Albert, and I didn't particularly like the way either one was portrayed in this novel. And most irritatingly, the novel was full of self-indulgent nerd references that take the reader completely out of the narrative, because why would marines in an apocalyptic world fighting for survival be making constant literary and film references? They lost me the moment Albert started talking about something in Star Trek. The militant Mormon at his moment of greatest terror is referencing a specific moment in a specific Star Trek film, really? It felt like this book was more about the authors than about the characters.
June 3, 2020
I've owned all the books in this original Doom series for a while and as I was going through my shelves I realized I didn't finish the series. One of the major reasons I didn't immediately delve into book 3, even though these are quick reads, is because of how much I didn't like book 2. Book 1 was a decent representation of the first video game, but Book 2 deviated quite a bit from the Doom II story and here, book 3, just deviates entirely from the Doom universe as far as I can tell.
First things first, this book is incredibly annoying to read. I forgot how much so. Every character is written from a first person perspective. If the book adds a new character, bam, new first person internal dialogue. It's absolutely infuriating and I can't believe any publisher gave the green light to do this. There's about six or so characters in this book and they all get first person, every single one of them. Sometimes the first person perspective switches characters mid-chapter, making the reading of this book all kinds of fun... not.
This book begins with the main group of survivors from Book 2 lounging at a military base in Hawaii. Now that they've linked up with the rest of the organized surviving humans, they start having the Doom standard names for the Demons. Now, you'd think the book would adopt these new names, because these would be familiar to the game players, but no... instead it uses the made up names and they reference back to what they're actually called in the game. Over and over... it's total madness and outright bad writing. It was a bad idea to do it that way from the first book and it's still a bad idea.
So, the biggest bulk of this book is about how they are contacted by another group of aliens and they request to meet. Now, the marines need to get back to the gate on Mars to go meet these new aliens. The varying excuses to kill people and break off characters was absolutely mind numbing. In any event this heavily deviates from the Doom universe and the authors just start making up their own stuff. I think they wanted the book to get more comedic, but it just came off as even worse writing than before. The aliens they run into are "funny", as in they look goofy, and they talk funny. They have silly antics etc. This is not Doom... this is just something else entirely. Throwing in a couple passages of fighting and gore does not suddenly salvage this nonsense. These creatures and the section of the book are entirely made up and have no presence in the Doom universe.
One of the most maddening parts of the book was how they would introduce new people and just kill them off. Or have a need to bring a recurring character along to just have their story trail off. It felt like by the end the whole thing trailed off. There was no real "final boss" like you'd expect from a video game... it just ends.
Okay, I'm going to read the last book. They don't take long to read, but I'm going to make it through this nonsense series! If you are a Doom fan, don't even bother with these stuff. At this point the writing has gotten so progressively bad that it makes me wonder if this was more about the authors creating marine characters or trying to write within the Doom universe... because they certainly gave up on the latter.
First things first, this book is incredibly annoying to read. I forgot how much so. Every character is written from a first person perspective. If the book adds a new character, bam, new first person internal dialogue. It's absolutely infuriating and I can't believe any publisher gave the green light to do this. There's about six or so characters in this book and they all get first person, every single one of them. Sometimes the first person perspective switches characters mid-chapter, making the reading of this book all kinds of fun... not.
This book begins with the main group of survivors from Book 2 lounging at a military base in Hawaii. Now that they've linked up with the rest of the organized surviving humans, they start having the Doom standard names for the Demons. Now, you'd think the book would adopt these new names, because these would be familiar to the game players, but no... instead it uses the made up names and they reference back to what they're actually called in the game. Over and over... it's total madness and outright bad writing. It was a bad idea to do it that way from the first book and it's still a bad idea.
So, the biggest bulk of this book is about how they are contacted by another group of aliens and they request to meet. Now, the marines need to get back to the gate on Mars to go meet these new aliens. The varying excuses to kill people and break off characters was absolutely mind numbing. In any event this heavily deviates from the Doom universe and the authors just start making up their own stuff. I think they wanted the book to get more comedic, but it just came off as even worse writing than before. The aliens they run into are "funny", as in they look goofy, and they talk funny. They have silly antics etc. This is not Doom... this is just something else entirely. Throwing in a couple passages of fighting and gore does not suddenly salvage this nonsense. These creatures and the section of the book are entirely made up and have no presence in the Doom universe.
One of the most maddening parts of the book was how they would introduce new people and just kill them off. Or have a need to bring a recurring character along to just have their story trail off. It felt like by the end the whole thing trailed off. There was no real "final boss" like you'd expect from a video game... it just ends.
Okay, I'm going to read the last book. They don't take long to read, but I'm going to make it through this nonsense series! If you are a Doom fan, don't even bother with these stuff. At this point the writing has gotten so progressively bad that it makes me wonder if this was more about the authors creating marine characters or trying to write within the Doom universe... because they certainly gave up on the latter.
July 19, 2019
Doom is just a distant memory now, and even the notion of writing a novel takes a backseat to the authors just advertising the many ways in which they're shitty people for page after page in this one (there aren't that many ways, actually, but they keep repeating). Ab Hugh and Linaweaver seem hopeful that just name-dropping actual (if usually also terrible) science fiction writers incessantly will confuse readers into believing that Infernal Sky is also a science fiction novel, but they can't keep themselves from also name-dropping Ludwig von Mises in the process (is that better than Oswald Spengler in the last one?), and they never come within a million miles of hiding that the zero-effort ``world building'' they do is just another way to unload more of their bad opinions on you.
I know these books were just a soulless cash grab and that literally nobody involved with them on any level ever gave any kind of shit about them, but I can't imagine even an inveterate grifter like Romero being happy with what they did to the games. No wonder they rebooted the whole setting for Doom 3.
I know these books were just a soulless cash grab and that literally nobody involved with them on any level ever gave any kind of shit about them, but I can't imagine even an inveterate grifter like Romero being happy with what they did to the games. No wonder they rebooted the whole setting for Doom 3.
August 22, 2023
Fucking hell, make it stop… but also don’t.
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.
Oh boy. The beginning of the end. Infernal Sky isn’t godawful, though godawful is coming in the final entry, but it is a wild deviation that becomes increasing nonsensical over the course of the narrative. It appears that in an effort to turn the lack-of-narrative of the video game into a coherent story, the authors have attempted to justify everything that happens in a game with the same amount of plot as Pong, creating something entirely incoherent.
This one picks up on the beaches of Hawaii, where Fly and Arlene are vacationing. No kidding. Also, Arlene is naked during these scenes and her body is now a constant subject of Fly’s internal monologue. It’s as if the two writers suddenly popped boners at the start of writing the final two books and never got rid of them. Fly’s hard-on for Arlene, which never really existed before because they’re both “best buddies” as he likes to remind every five seconds, never subsists, and the deviation is frustrating, skewering what was once a strong female lead. Now her inclusion seems obligatory, as evidence by the constant references to political correctness. (Arlene is a man, goddammit. If you’re a Marine, then you’re a man. But when she’s naked, she’s a woman.)
So the whole gang is hanging out in Hawaii, putting out the occasional zombie fire and prepping to save the world. How so? Fly and Arlene must return to Phobos and fight their way through the hordes of zombies once again. How does this help? Something about getting to the real aliens responsible for the attack, the ones who created these imitation hell spawn in the first place.
And find them they do. With the short-lived help of Albert and a strict military captain, Hidalgo, they progress through the levels once more, but when they jump through the gate that originally led from Phobos to Deimos, they’re intercepted by Sears and Roebuck, a pair of Klavians fighting the Freds (the real bad guys). These two Klaves operate as a single being, and they closely resemble a pair of Magilla Gorillas that talk like Yoda.
Can we go back to demon killing? Er, faux demon killing.
The Klavians and the Freds have been fighting for a long time, and Earth has been caught in the crossfire for reasons that were probably explained, but you can probably now see why I don’t remember what they were. They are fighting over differing interpretations of what are essentially spiritual texts. One of them represents deconstructionism and the other hyperrealists. It is a galactic war of literary criticism.
Also, the Freds are humanoids with brains in their chests and artichoke-like leaves for heads.
I really can’t bear to continue describing this plot. Is it original? Sure. I guess. Compared to the source material, it certainly is. Going off the rails with a wild plot filled with unbelievable characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, this series attempts an ever-graver serious tone and, worse, a message. The mashup is a boring, inconsistent escapade.
Fly is becoming unbearable, starting with the addition of Hidalgo. Hidalgo is a strict leader who doesn’t know what he’s doing, which clashes with Fly’s rugged individualist nature. Rugged individualist? The guy who bleeds red, white, and blue and is obsessed with weaponry? Essentially, he’s a staunch conservative stereotype parading around as some literary-minded dude who is somehow a rugged individualist maintaining military status despite the military being essentially destroyed. Basically, he’s Brad Linaweaver (Google his blog and you’ll see what I mean) pretending to be a fictional character. The inconsistency is grating, as he’s now obsessed with Arlene’s bodacious bod (it’s the nineties, yo), being a rugged individualist, saying “oo-rah,” and constantly reminding the reader that he hates college students. He trashes college students as much as he employs the exclamation point, which is still constant.
Hidalgo’s nonsensical addition can be summed up in the dumbest line of the serious, and believe me, most of the sentences are pretty inane. Hidalgo is given a backstory, despite not remaining in the narrative for long. His wife was killed by a cyber-demon (formerly a steam demon), even though he originally says it was a baron of hell that did her in. (Exclamation points and typos galore!) However, he’s not saddened about her death:
“I thought about killing her. I even started to formulate a plan. Then the monsters came, and our personal problems went on the back burner for a while. I was off fighting the war to begin all wars, and she was safe at home, just waiting for a big red minotaur to turn her into a taco with special sauce.”
Don’t ask me why I didn’t give up on the series right there. I was in too deep. Knee deep in the dead, you might say.
But the cardinal sin of this one is the waste of time that is the first half. There are whole chapters devoted to Fly and Arlene relaying different accounts explaining how they made it out of the tower at the end of Hell on Earth, and both renditions are so poorly detailed, I’m not entirely sure how they did it, but I know the biggest goddamn boot they could find was involved. This is deliberate stalling to reach the obligatory two hundred fifty pages, and its inclusion allows Hugh and Linaweaver to forgo coming up with a creative way for their characters to escape. Thing is, the escape didn’t need to be realistic. The escape from Phobos wasn’t realistic, and that was perfectly fine.
Also, the zombies being studied on the Hawaii base à la Day of the Dead (yes, yet another George A. Romero rip-off scene) escape and cause some mayhem for a chapter or two. They escaped because the scientists neglected their procedures. I’m only kidding. They escaped in order to inject some action into an exposition-plagued novel.
Infernal Sky is trash, and not trash in the same manner the first two are trash. It’s trash in the sense that it’s so poorly crafted. I’ll take derivative. I’ll take fan service, and there’s a fair amount of that here. I’ll take the authors taking a creative jab at a kooky storyline. But this is shoddy storytelling and the voices of the characters have become vehicles for the authors to spout uninteresting, chauvinistic opinions.
It’s not the worst read, though. That’s reserved for the final volume, Endgame.
Oh boy. The beginning of the end. Infernal Sky isn’t godawful, though godawful is coming in the final entry, but it is a wild deviation that becomes increasing nonsensical over the course of the narrative. It appears that in an effort to turn the lack-of-narrative of the video game into a coherent story, the authors have attempted to justify everything that happens in a game with the same amount of plot as Pong, creating something entirely incoherent.
This one picks up on the beaches of Hawaii, where Fly and Arlene are vacationing. No kidding. Also, Arlene is naked during these scenes and her body is now a constant subject of Fly’s internal monologue. It’s as if the two writers suddenly popped boners at the start of writing the final two books and never got rid of them. Fly’s hard-on for Arlene, which never really existed before because they’re both “best buddies” as he likes to remind every five seconds, never subsists, and the deviation is frustrating, skewering what was once a strong female lead. Now her inclusion seems obligatory, as evidence by the constant references to political correctness. (Arlene is a man, goddammit. If you’re a Marine, then you’re a man. But when she’s naked, she’s a woman.)
So the whole gang is hanging out in Hawaii, putting out the occasional zombie fire and prepping to save the world. How so? Fly and Arlene must return to Phobos and fight their way through the hordes of zombies once again. How does this help? Something about getting to the real aliens responsible for the attack, the ones who created these imitation hell spawn in the first place.
And find them they do. With the short-lived help of Albert and a strict military captain, Hidalgo, they progress through the levels once more, but when they jump through the gate that originally led from Phobos to Deimos, they’re intercepted by Sears and Roebuck, a pair of Klavians fighting the Freds (the real bad guys). These two Klaves operate as a single being, and they closely resemble a pair of Magilla Gorillas that talk like Yoda.
Can we go back to demon killing? Er, faux demon killing.
The Klavians and the Freds have been fighting for a long time, and Earth has been caught in the crossfire for reasons that were probably explained, but you can probably now see why I don’t remember what they were. They are fighting over differing interpretations of what are essentially spiritual texts. One of them represents deconstructionism and the other hyperrealists. It is a galactic war of literary criticism.
Also, the Freds are humanoids with brains in their chests and artichoke-like leaves for heads.
I really can’t bear to continue describing this plot. Is it original? Sure. I guess. Compared to the source material, it certainly is. Going off the rails with a wild plot filled with unbelievable characters isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, this series attempts an ever-graver serious tone and, worse, a message. The mashup is a boring, inconsistent escapade.
Fly is becoming unbearable, starting with the addition of Hidalgo. Hidalgo is a strict leader who doesn’t know what he’s doing, which clashes with Fly’s rugged individualist nature. Rugged individualist? The guy who bleeds red, white, and blue and is obsessed with weaponry? Essentially, he’s a staunch conservative stereotype parading around as some literary-minded dude who is somehow a rugged individualist maintaining military status despite the military being essentially destroyed. Basically, he’s Brad Linaweaver (Google his blog and you’ll see what I mean) pretending to be a fictional character. The inconsistency is grating, as he’s now obsessed with Arlene’s bodacious bod (it’s the nineties, yo), being a rugged individualist, saying “oo-rah,” and constantly reminding the reader that he hates college students. He trashes college students as much as he employs the exclamation point, which is still constant.
Hidalgo’s nonsensical addition can be summed up in the dumbest line of the serious, and believe me, most of the sentences are pretty inane. Hidalgo is given a backstory, despite not remaining in the narrative for long. His wife was killed by a cyber-demon (formerly a steam demon), even though he originally says it was a baron of hell that did her in. (Exclamation points and typos galore!) However, he’s not saddened about her death:
“I thought about killing her. I even started to formulate a plan. Then the monsters came, and our personal problems went on the back burner for a while. I was off fighting the war to begin all wars, and she was safe at home, just waiting for a big red minotaur to turn her into a taco with special sauce.”
Don’t ask me why I didn’t give up on the series right there. I was in too deep. Knee deep in the dead, you might say.
But the cardinal sin of this one is the waste of time that is the first half. There are whole chapters devoted to Fly and Arlene relaying different accounts explaining how they made it out of the tower at the end of Hell on Earth, and both renditions are so poorly detailed, I’m not entirely sure how they did it, but I know the biggest goddamn boot they could find was involved. This is deliberate stalling to reach the obligatory two hundred fifty pages, and its inclusion allows Hugh and Linaweaver to forgo coming up with a creative way for their characters to escape. Thing is, the escape didn’t need to be realistic. The escape from Phobos wasn’t realistic, and that was perfectly fine.
Also, the zombies being studied on the Hawaii base à la Day of the Dead (yes, yet another George A. Romero rip-off scene) escape and cause some mayhem for a chapter or two. They escaped because the scientists neglected their procedures. I’m only kidding. They escaped in order to inject some action into an exposition-plagued novel.
Infernal Sky is trash, and not trash in the same manner the first two are trash. It’s trash in the sense that it’s so poorly crafted. I’ll take derivative. I’ll take fan service, and there’s a fair amount of that here. I’ll take the authors taking a creative jab at a kooky storyline. But this is shoddy storytelling and the voices of the characters have become vehicles for the authors to spout uninteresting, chauvinistic opinions.
It’s not the worst read, though. That’s reserved for the final volume, Endgame.
November 23, 2023
This book is absolute rubbish. If I had to put this on a number line scale, it would be at 0.5 in relation to Doom. It barely has anything to do with it, and is just a cringy slab of garbage that seems written by a 12 year old boy. The use of “my buddy, my best buddy” throughout the book, is incredibly annoying and dull. The writing is just absolutely daft, and regrettably I will finish the last book in the series. Just avoid it all.
July 22, 2022
1) "What could be more dangerous than when I was almost crushed like a bug when I helped save Ken from the spider-mind and the steam demon on the train? Or when I was driving the truck and the two missiles from the bony almost got me? (Poor Dr. Ackerman called those things revenants. Boy, he sure came up with some weird names. He said all the creatures were like monsters from the id. I wonder what he meant.)"
2) "My parents took me to a horror film when I was only six, one of the dozens of movies about the Aztec mummy. The monster didn’t really frighten me; but the sight of young maidens being sacrificed by evil priests gave me nightmares for a week. Their idol looked like Moloch.
As I grew older, I began seeking out the image of Moloch. I found it in the old silent German movie, Metropolis, and it showed up in a frightening picture about devil worship. But I’ll never forget how effectively it was used in the movie they used to make the transition from the old series, Star Trek Ten, to the new one, Star Trek: Exodus."
3) "ALBERT GALLATIN: I like being here.
SANDERS: Albert? You don’t feel you’ve been sacrificed to Moloch?
GALLATIN: The opposite. This is wonderful. It’s better than sex.
SANDERS: Well, I’ll grant you it’s up there.
HIDALGO: What do you think about that, Sergeant Taggart?
TAGGART: About what, sir?
HIDALGO: Do you think this disembodied condition is better than sex?
TAGGART: Nothing is better than a clearly delineated chain of command, sir!"
4) "'How did it begin?' asked Arlene, suddenly as enthusiastic as Albert.
'You call them books,' said S&R. 'The Holy Tests.'
'Texts,' I did it again, almost unconsciously.
'Texts,' they said. I felt like giving them an A-plus. 'Books are twelve million years old. The Freds disagree with us.'
'With the Klave?' I asked.
'All of us. Not only Klave-us, but all that are here us. We bring you for going to the war.'
'Literary criticism,' marveled Arlene. I wasn’t about to forget that she’d been an English major for a while.
Albert clapped like a little kid who’d just been given the present he always wanted—understanding. 'The two sides are literary critics, conquering stellar systems to promote their own school of criticism. I love it. It’s too insane not to love. What is their primary disagreement over the twelve-million-year-old books?'
S&R gave us one of their best sentences: 'The Freds want to take the books apart.'
Arlene screamed, but it was a happy kind of scream. 'Oh, my God,' she said, 'they’re deconstructionists!'"
5) "I shouldered the burden of command. Sergeant Taggart had a plan. 'Let’s go!' covered both my strategy and my tactics."
2) "My parents took me to a horror film when I was only six, one of the dozens of movies about the Aztec mummy. The monster didn’t really frighten me; but the sight of young maidens being sacrificed by evil priests gave me nightmares for a week. Their idol looked like Moloch.
As I grew older, I began seeking out the image of Moloch. I found it in the old silent German movie, Metropolis, and it showed up in a frightening picture about devil worship. But I’ll never forget how effectively it was used in the movie they used to make the transition from the old series, Star Trek Ten, to the new one, Star Trek: Exodus."
3) "ALBERT GALLATIN: I like being here.
SANDERS: Albert? You don’t feel you’ve been sacrificed to Moloch?
GALLATIN: The opposite. This is wonderful. It’s better than sex.
SANDERS: Well, I’ll grant you it’s up there.
HIDALGO: What do you think about that, Sergeant Taggart?
TAGGART: About what, sir?
HIDALGO: Do you think this disembodied condition is better than sex?
TAGGART: Nothing is better than a clearly delineated chain of command, sir!"
4) "'How did it begin?' asked Arlene, suddenly as enthusiastic as Albert.
'You call them books,' said S&R. 'The Holy Tests.'
'Texts,' I did it again, almost unconsciously.
'Texts,' they said. I felt like giving them an A-plus. 'Books are twelve million years old. The Freds disagree with us.'
'With the Klave?' I asked.
'All of us. Not only Klave-us, but all that are here us. We bring you for going to the war.'
'Literary criticism,' marveled Arlene. I wasn’t about to forget that she’d been an English major for a while.
Albert clapped like a little kid who’d just been given the present he always wanted—understanding. 'The two sides are literary critics, conquering stellar systems to promote their own school of criticism. I love it. It’s too insane not to love. What is their primary disagreement over the twelve-million-year-old books?'
S&R gave us one of their best sentences: 'The Freds want to take the books apart.'
Arlene screamed, but it was a happy kind of scream. 'Oh, my God,' she said, 'they’re deconstructionists!'"
5) "I shouldered the burden of command. Sergeant Taggart had a plan. 'Let’s go!' covered both my strategy and my tactics."
January 19, 2019
Doom: Infernal Sky, the third installment of the Doom book series from the 90's. It's the first of the quadrilogy to not be based, even in part, on one of the games. It's surprisingly sparse in terms of demon-killing action, but it does go to great lengths to add in a fair amount of plot regarding the reasons behind the demonic invasion and about the universe at large. Without any source material to draw from, the result has a lot more comedy than I'd expect outta a Doom book, but it's not terrible. Probably the weakest of the series so far, overall, but if you've read through the first two books, it's fun to see the continuation of the story. Arlene Sanders remains to be the Doom Chick we need but do not deserve.
November 8, 2017
This was a great book, a terrific third chapter in the DOOM book-series. I loved that this book went way beyond the video game and was just as exciting. I know people give this book flack from deviating from the video games in this book, but I didn't mind that at all. It only seemed natural to go the route it goes in this novel. I also love science fiction, and this book is a bit more "extra-terrestrial" oriented than Satanic. Also, this book definitely has more gore than the preceding novels, more horror, and much more depth added to each character. A great book for sure.
January 20, 2023
Weird book. The plot is poorly paced and fails to engage one’s attention. There are some interesting revelations. It turns out that the war between the aliens/demons is over the interpretation of ancient texts. Fly and Arlene have to travel into space again, where they encounter friendly aliens that are unable to distinguish them as individuals. Sears and Roebuck are the good aliens, whereas the Fred are the bad aliens.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2017
It's a good book, but it's a bit far for the previous two. In this one there isn't as much action as on the first and second books, and the focus is more on the characters feelings and on the sci-fi stuff. The end is a bit strange, but if used correctly (which I guess it was) could lead to a nice outcome on the fourth and last book.
March 20, 2019
Not bad. Fairly solid tale. =)
May 31, 2020
I remember buying this in June 1996 as soon as it was released. I was at the local BX at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City - remember it like it was yesterday.
June 25, 2021
This book is a very good sequel, it can be compared with its first part.
September 21, 2021
Je to dobrá kniha, jen v ní není tolik akce jako v prvních dvou knihách. Autor se zde více zaměřuje na
pocity postav stejně jako na sci-fi. Konec mi přišel poněkud zvláštní.
pocity postav stejně jako na sci-fi. Konec mi přišel poněkud zvláštní.
September 26, 2023
Shit starts veering off of what made Doom, Doom. The fun characters we meet change. And the story just goes everywhere.
November 18, 2014
After saving the world twice, the fight continues for Flynn “Fly” Taggart and Arlene Sanders!
Hugh and Linaweaver do a lot of things right with the series. As an obvious fan of the franchise since childhood, I will do my best to highlight the best aspects of the novel. Despite my opinions, this review is redundant if you have not yet enjoyed the first two novels of the Doom series, which are far superior to the last two books: Knee-Deep in the Dead and Hell on Earth.
While the mission in Hell on Earth is still underway, Fly and Arlene find themselves soaking up some rays in Hawaii, awaiting the next phase of the mission. Circumstances send them, along with Arlene’s Mormon sweetheart Albert, back to Mars and into an active portal. To avoid too many spoilers, I will stray from what happens next and begin highlighting the novel’s strengths.
First, the love story between Arlene and Albert, coupled with Fly’s mixed emotions for Arlene drives the story line and, also, Earth’s fate. Also, time plays an important part, a force acting against the characters’ mission to save those they love who remain on Earth, as well as Pluto (Remember! In 1996, Pluto is a planet). Time is always against us, especially when considering close to light speed travel. Additionally, two new characters are introduced to the novel. From the military base in Hawaii, Esteban Hidalgo accompanies them throughout the mission, officially leading the mission. Despite his type-A personality and brass and balls approach to the mission, Fly works hard to discover the man’s true virtue and heart while on a suicidal mission to save their planet. Yet, they learn that not only their planet is at risk. Worlds have been destroyed and Sears and Roebuck, two binary aliens, know all about it!
Perhaps the most depressing element of the plotline is that our beloved Fly and Arlene discover that Earth might not be the most important planet… And that a galactic struggle—unlike Earth’s religious wars—might be the very undoing of not just the blue planet but all galactic life.
Originally reviewed for SFbook.com
August 1, 2016
Compared to the previous two books, this one has little action that makes the story go by quicker. I couldnt help but have this feeling that the books spent a lot of time on Hawaii where not a lot was going on and then a lot of down time spent on ships. Nearing the end, the novel then felt as though it was rushing to get to the Gate, to the Fred base, and then post-Fred base.
Despite any short comings, there is some good character development in Captain Hidalgo. Our heroes have an initial resentment to him but there are times in which we are viewing the events of the novel from the perspective of Captain Hidalgo. His character grows and changes which even comes as a pleasant surprise to even him.
Also worth noting are the author's efforts to continue holding a dialogue about religion and personal faith. Reading these books at an older age compared to the elementary school kid I was when these first came out, its definitely interesting. It helps that the world in the story makes a lot more sense for a person that has had a greater level of experience living in the real world.
Despite any short comings, there is some good character development in Captain Hidalgo. Our heroes have an initial resentment to him but there are times in which we are viewing the events of the novel from the perspective of Captain Hidalgo. His character grows and changes which even comes as a pleasant surprise to even him.
Also worth noting are the author's efforts to continue holding a dialogue about religion and personal faith. Reading these books at an older age compared to the elementary school kid I was when these first came out, its definitely interesting. It helps that the world in the story makes a lot more sense for a person that has had a greater level of experience living in the real world.
April 14, 2013
The third book in the series. Flynn, Arlene, Albert and Jill have made it to Hawaii, where those humans that haven't started working with the aliens, are planning a resistance. When a message comes through the gate from a different set of aliens, ones claiming to be enemies of the 'Freds', Fly and Arlene have to go back to the moons of Mars, fight there way through the base and enter the gates on a possible suicide mission to contact potential allies.
This one wasn't as good the as the previous two - the story was just a bit too weird!! An attempt to explain the alien's motives just gets a bit boring and needlessly complicated - these books don't warrant it. Also, the reason for all the alien's being interested in humans is just nonsensical - even more so than the rest of the plot lines :) Still, it was entertaining enough and I'm looking forward to finishing off the rest of the series.
This one wasn't as good the as the previous two - the story was just a bit too weird!! An attempt to explain the alien's motives just gets a bit boring and needlessly complicated - these books don't warrant it. Also, the reason for all the alien's being interested in humans is just nonsensical - even more so than the rest of the plot lines :) Still, it was entertaining enough and I'm looking forward to finishing off the rest of the series.
January 31, 2017
Probably the most repetitive, boring, corny of the entire book series. I did not have a good time reading this, to be honest, except for a few parts. I'll be honest I skipped from page 20 to 40 and the only thing I missed was them taking a trip down memory lane that had no relevance to the current story at all. Literally, most of the "climax" scenarios were in those flashbacks but, I'm sorry, flashbacks that have no meaning are tedious and aggravating. The second book was alright and the first, I personally, really enjoyed. I will read the next book in hopes that the series redeems itself because my two favorite mediums of art are video games and books and Doom is one of my favorite video games of all time, but this book made me sigh every time I turned the page it seems.
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.
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.
May 24, 2010
Where did it all go wrong. Right here. This abomination of a story should have ended at the last book, yet here we are with a whole bunch of tripe that they feel needs to be extended. A very poor work.
December 30, 2013
You cannot tell a story about A and B in the first two books, and then unveil a whole new alphaben in the third. The story seemed farfetched and written 'due to demand'.
The humoristic style of writing persists, though, and it is still a fun read, despite not being very mind-catching.
The humoristic style of writing persists, though, and it is still a fun read, despite not being very mind-catching.
May 28, 2014
I'm not a fan of first-person, and writing from three or four characters' perspectives in this way is messy and confusing. I had a lot of trouble realizing which character I was following in a given scene.
April 18, 2014
Still an enjoyable read, however I feel this book is where the series starts to go off on a bit of a strange tangent from the source materials.
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September 6, 2015I was a kid.
I liked the video game, when I had the chance to play it.
All the nutso Turner Diaries-ish militia fantasies and LDS evangelising flew over my head.
I liked the video game, when I had the chance to play it.
All the nutso Turner Diaries-ish militia fantasies and LDS evangelising flew over my head.
January 2, 2016
This book was great. I highly suggest it if you like doom and like a good read. Well written,story is great. Keeps true to the doom universe and feeling
April 29, 2017
I loooved this book.
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