Literateur: "Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead"

Your first question is probably "Why did you read a 'Doom' franchise book from 1994?"

My answer: Mormonism.

I happened to read somewhere in some dark corner of the interwebs that these old "Doom" books had Mormon characters and Mormon references and- as a Mormon who likes weird stuff- I wondered how I'd never heard of this.

Well, some things were meant to remain unheard of.¹

The first "Doom" book, "Knee-Deep in the Dead," is sewage in print.

It's a wretched, virulent pustule on the buttocks of literature.

It's not good, is what I'm saying here.

First things first- there's not a single Mormon reference in the book. I cried "False advertising!" to anyone who would listen, but then took a closer look at the books' Wikipedia page.

Yeah, looks like all the Mormon stuff pops up in the second book, "Hell on Earth." ARGH!

You'd think they'd at least foreshadow that with maybe some remote hint that there's something Mormon or ex-Mormon about the characters in this first book. But nothing. We get NOTHING.

And no- I'm not gonna get the second book and suffer through that in order to finally see what kooky Mormon stuff is going on there. It might be better than this book. But that's no challenge. "Twilight" is better than this book.²

So- this book. Like the game it's based on, it's a first-person shooter. There's nothing approaching a plot. Some stuff happens. Some people and monsters get shot. And then it ends on the least compelling cliffhanger of all time.³

I'm telling and not showing here, so allow me to show you, dear reader, how this book rolls. When the first space zombie appears to our protagonist, behold his response:

"Maybe Arlene could believe in all that crap and bullroar; she watched those damned, damned horror movies all the- I wasn't never going to watch anything like...a freakin' zombie! I was crazy, buggin', freaked like some hippie punk snot flying on belladonna."

The whole book is like that. This is one of the less criminally offensive passages, but merits a moment's consideration:

"The head was inhumanly large, with maddened slits of red for eyes. It was a monster! It was a demon."

So was it a monster or was it a demon? Why the exclamation mark on "monster" but being totally cool about it being a "demon," instead?

The only thing I'll give the book credit for is mixing zombies and space opera long before the "Star Wars" literary universe made that leap with "Death Troopers."⁴

So there you go. This book is the perfect stocking stuffer for your worst enemy. I read it so you won't have to. You owe me.

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1. The author tips his hat to legendarily bad schlockmeister Fred Olen Ray in his dedication before the book even starts- there's a sign of clear and present danger.

2. Now you may say- "You won't know unless you read it!" To which I would triumphantly say "I've never shot myself in the head with a .45 magnum, either. So I won't know if I like that unless I try that, either!"

3. The threat of more stuff happening in this literary world is scarier than anything in this book.

4. "Death Troopers" is the only "Star Wars" book I ever read. Only because of the zombies. It wasn't good, but compared to this book it's "The Grapes of Wrath."

-Phony McFakename

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