Customer Reviews

Endgame: A Novel (Doom #4)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have read all four doom books, some more than others. Though it has been some time since I read this one, it is still fresh in my mind. I will explain that I have been a fan of the Doom series ever since I first played the SNES version at this time ten years ago(while I was reading HOE for the first time), even though I have since found other similar game series that have gained much more of my attention(Resident Evil in particular). So as fan of the game I feel that, like many other reviewers, there is one completely undeniable flaw here that takes presidence over any of the others:

This is not Doom in any way.

While the first two books(especially the first one) synchronized with the vibes of the game whilst giving it an enhanced story it never originally had, this last one merely takes the characters and events from the first two books and transplants them into a whole new field of space exploration that is not in anyway related to the seek-and-destroy-to-survive motif that the book series began with, and is only read by doom fans because it has the Doom logo in its cover. This plot error all began in Infernal sky when two of our heroes were assigned to return to Phobos and make contact with friendly aliens that sent a warning message about the demons' planned attack on earth. It went downhill fast from there, basically to the point of self-satarization. In the game, the monsters were mythical demons from the abyss that sought to slaughter life on earth. In Infernal sky, we find out that they were merely genetically engineered by a superor alien race to be used for war against another, and the planet earth as well as the UAC bases on the Martian moons were simply caught in the middle. All that mysticism is gone, as is the whole survival premise. The sci-fi idea might have been a good idea had an attempt to futilly link it to Doom not been made. This off-topic plot is not the only thing that brings the book down.

It is written in a way that lacks imagination. One exapmle is on page 187, where the ship captain says he saw Fly and Arlene in the computer fighting mosnters from the books. When Arlene asks what books, Fly says "Knee Deep In The Dead and Hell On Earth. The books that Jill Wrote". Wow, a sub-series of books within an initial series. And what do we call the sub-series? Let's think for a minute....oh, let's just use the titles of previuos books in the initial series, and we'll have the sub-series written by a character who was not present during part of the initial series. Jill did not show up until HOE but is now credited with writing about the events from KDITD in a book of the exact same title. She wrote about things she didn't experience. How much sense does this make? Even my disjumled rough storyboard-ish scenarios that I drew on binder paper during class in 7th grade(oddly when I most obsessively played Doom and ambitioned to actually one day write books like Knee-Deep' and Hell On Earth)made more sense than this. I wonder if this is how the idea for Endgame's plot was created.

And don't get me started on the ending. Though I liked the setting of the first book, I did not care what happened to the F&A who were sucked into a VR computer program based on their memories from KDITD(actually this is too is a blunder, as the virtual Arlene makes the recollection of going into a room with grouped teleport pads in each corner, meaning the level Unholy Cathedral from the first Doom game, which was never mentioned in KDITD) where time passes 1000 times faster than the real world. The chapters where we find out what happened to this pair were a waste that could have been used to further build upon the ending of the real F&A. This is how the series ends, huh? Well maybe it shouldn't be too much of a letdown since the series was pretty much a lost cause part way through Infernal Sky.

The first two books are just over a decade old, and the last two are nealry that old, as is Final Doom, the supposed end to the Doom series. That is until the recent Doom 3 came out last year. But Doom 3 from what I hear actually builds upon the Doom plot while still keeping consistant with it. So no matter how much you hope for or want such things, you can best bet that the series of Doom books is done for, and has been for a long time. So my word of advice to those of you who are curious is to pass this one by completely. Just because is has a Doom logo in its cover and uses characters and events from the better part of the series does not mean it keep consistant with those ealier books or the game. It does not, pure and simple.

Since, well, that seems to be the largest problem with the book everyone is having, heh.

Yes, the book is great. Not argueing it is not wholly different than Doom 1, but it does a wonderful job of expanding upon the universe and making the bad guys far more than just "demons that want to eat your face!". Others have said everything I could hope to about the book, so instead shall get right to the chase

OK, the ending.... endings I suppose

First half, the computer sims of Fly and Arlene that end up stuck in the computer simulation of the memories of their battles. Them being there forever is the ending to it, here is how you should look at it. At that point in the story, after returning to Earth, the 'marine' in both the real Fly and Arlene was dead. There was no more war to fight, there was no more marine corps, there was no more people. They had to rebuild, not destroy. Think of it as Valhalla, the viking heaven where warriors went to fight an endless battle for all eternity. The warriors parts of them died and ended up in a valhalla of their own creation, the parts of them that could never stop fighting now never have to, fighting a war of their creation.

Meanwhile, the living Fly and Arlene return to Earth, find the tower and the new human clones inside. What kind of ending is that? That is finally beating the aliens once and for all. Remember earlier that the aliens had evolved so much they became a part of human DNA, making them unkillable by the humans in the process, but also trapping them. Well, the humans beat that, new human clones of the humans of the past in the tower, who are free of the alien DNA and able to rebuild civilization fresh, while the aliens off on their planets hide in corners and fear death at every turn.

It was a victory, the aliens used their final tactic, make the two species become one in order to intermingle the fates, can't stop the other without killing yourself. But because of Albert's love for Arlene, they won, they beat the aliens at their own game and preserved the human race until the aliens had left.

I always have loved the books, I felt the endings were excellent, really good way to tie them together. Highly reccommended :)

This was a very good book. Risking sounding stupid, I have to say the ending blew my mind. So much happens in this book it would be very hard to review (unless you enjoy reading reviews all day). This series of books was one of the best I have ever read. I wish they were still in print. The ending was not as confusing as many people say it is. I will explain it in the next two paragraphs, so if you don't want the ending given away, read no further.
Okay, in chapter 17 Fly and Arlene have their souls removed from their bodies and put into a computer program. The Newbies (or Resuscitators) thought Fly and Arlene's bodies were dead, so they gave the bodies to Fly's converts. The bodies then came back to life. The converts say they saw Fly and Arlene fighting demons in the computer program, but F+A have no memory of this. F+A come to the conclusion that since the soul machine was not designed for human souls, it made copies of Fly and Arlene's souls, which are now permanently trapped in the computer program. The reason the newbies were not on earth was because they evolved into something non-physical.
Chapters 20-21 are the ending for the physical F+A. Chapters 22-23 are the ending for the F+A stuck in the computer program. I enjoyed the way the series ended(?).

Doom: Endgame
By: Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver

This had to be the strangest book that I have ever read. The ending left me confused as could be until I saw the review by David T. Hadley (an Amazon Reviewer) and frankly now that I understand that there are indeed two separate endings, I'm left with the reminder of the conclusion to Matrix Revolutions, there's all the hype and then everything seems to be crammed into the last few minutes of the movie. Well, in this case, I feel that the book crammed way too much into the last 50 pages or so. All four of the books had pages totally 250 pages exactly, except for the third book in which I believe that there was 247 pages. Personally, I feel that the two writer's could have spent some more time to give reader's a more complete ending to a really good story.

In this book, our heroes, Fly, Arlene, and the two Klave (Sears and Roebuck) continue to travel the galaxy to stop the Fred invaders that attacked Earth. Eventually, they discover that there is a whole new threat to the remaining humans of Earth, a group of aliens that travel the galaxy in an attempt to "fix" other species. But, unbeknownst to them (at least until later) they unwittingly meet up with the new species and attempt to "fix" the "flaws" in Fly and Arlene. This is the final book in the Doom series.

Again, as I stated, this book seemed to be rushed quite a bit. I really wished that the "physical" ending would have continued on more, solving a few more mysteries instead of stopping dead in the middle of a "surprise" and they jumping into the second ending. I was half-a-tick away from giving this book a really poor review until I read through an explanation of the ending. So I'm gonna give this book a 8/10, though it had an ending that reminding me of "Revolutions", so yeah it was quite disappointing but still a good book except for the confusion.

Am I still reading about Doom?
It would have been better if Dafydd stopped at around book 2 or 3. At this point it seems he's running on fumes. Taking away the Doom story altogether, this book is pretty bad Sci-Fi writing on it's own.

The book Final doom was good. I have read the whole series and I loved them. Because I could not ever put them down, I always wanted to know what would happen next. What was around the next corner, what the new monster was. The Doom series was more than books, it felt like I was actually there. The authors made a great series out of a game that I liked to play. The last two were more adventure than action but good none-the-less. I just can't wait for the new book to come out. After Final Doom they can't end the series the way they did. They hav e made it big and very good. It's a gripping book that says "Read me". This is deffinately the best series of books I have ever read before in my life.

I have read the entire series of these books at least six times through, and I still love them! Yeah, you can say that after the second book they had nothing to do with the original game, since the entire first three episodes were in Knee Deep in the Dead, and then DOOM II being in Hell on Earth. The two after that were completely original in story....well, okay as original as anything can get. I think they were really great, the characters seemed to me as old friends once I had been through all of them. Yes, even those wacky Klave, Sears and Roebuck. All in all, a great book, you should read them in order, though, or you'll lose the story. Goes to show you that you just may be able to teach that old dog some new tricks.

The books go way beyond the game and have so much detail it's amazing. They should make a movie of it and have Bruce Willis as Flynn Taggart.

I am not sure which of the books is better, Knee deep in the dead or Endgame. Knee deep in the dead had a better plot and was more action packed, but Endgame was just really interesting and had alot in it. The ending to Endgame sometimes confuses people but after you read it if you think about it, it will make sense. If you haven't read the book don't read this part! The Newbies evolved so much that they lost interest in the human race, thats why they were not waiting for them on Earth. And the last part of the story explained what happened to the other versions of Fly and Arlenes soul. They were trapped in the weird program forever.

The fourth and seemingly last chapter in the DOOM novel series is excellent! It really doesn't have too much to do with DOOM, but it still has an excellent story all it's own, filled with suspense, drama, and that old Fly Taggart humor you come to expect. This one is my favorite in the series next to the original, "Knee-Deep in the Dead". And I, too, hope that a DOOM movie comes out! That's my two cents.