Fairy Tale Spotlight: Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead [Book Review]

I was pleasantly surprised to find out this book even exists!

"Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead" was a novel written by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver. It was published in 1995 and is a part of a decently sized book series.

His name is Flynn Taggart. That's "Doom-Guy." The book follows the adventures of the gun-wielding, killing-anything-that-moves, rip-and-tear protagonist of the Doom game series. The book is told from his perspective. That, for your information, is a first person perspective, just like the game. It's absolutely the way this book should have been written, and that's all there is to it.

As far as comparisons to the game, it follows the game logic to a fault. Enemies in the book seem to act and react based on the game programming, but the authors never do this in a way that ruins the story. You can also follow their journey by simply playing the game, because most of the places they go are in the same order and have similar architecture.

There was an amusing part in the Cyberdemon fight where it seemed a certain glitch was being exploited. I think maybe the authors were very close to the game's developers and a lot of information was being passed out to help them write an accurate story.

My only real beef with the story was the inclusion of Arlene Sanders, his girlfriend I guess. She's... FINE. I GUESS. The thing is that the character from the game is long known to be a lone killer. I kind of wanted to keep it that way. Even so, she is an okay character, and I didn't mind her so much.

The story is pretty bloody and brutal throughout, as should be expected. The subtitle of "Knee-Deep in the Dead" was actually pretty accurate! There's no misrepresentation here. The book reflects the terrific number of enemy counts that the game had, and it was fun watching Flynn blast through them like the brutal space marine that he was.

One last thing I wanted to mention was that Flynn Taggard actually had a Catholic upbringing. So he had already been taught a thing or two about demons. The book suggests that this did help him in his fight. He even prays in the story as a means to help him deal with the problem at hand. Good stuff!

Despite my nitpick with the inclusion of a girlfriend, I actually still recommend the book. It was a fun 90's movie-like ride that hit all my happy spots pretty accurately. I'd be curious to see where the series goes from here.

This blog was written on June 27, 2022.

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