Doom #4: Endgame Book

I've finally made it... I made it to the end of this absolutely awful series. If this wasn't the last book in the series, I never would have bothered reading this thing. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why ID agreed to commission this book after the third book had almost nothing to do with the Doom series. Or why they didn't kill the contract at this point. "Endgame" has even less to do with the Doom series and even if this wasn't a Doom book this would still rank amongst the worst books I have ever read. If this had been a stand alone book and not the last in this series I probably would have called it quits by page 50. I'm usually fairly easy to please in the sci-fi department, so for me to say this is pretty out there, usually I can find some reason to kick things to a 2 or 3 star... but this book has nothing worth reading. I would actually give this book zero stars if that was actually an option. I don't even know where to begin...

If you'll remember, I complained in the last review that "Infernal Sky" had way too many first person voices, well "Endgame" brings us back to basics like "Knee-Deep in the Dead", so all we hear is Fly Taggart's narrative. At least that aspect of the book the authors made better.

As we've been subjected to the entire series, the naming convention chosen by Dafydd and Brad are just terrible. Even the first book deviated from the actual game by naming the monsters differently and that should have given us all red flags from day one. The naming conventions created by the characters in the first book were terrible and that theme just gets progressively worse as this novel series continues. It was already a literary tragedy when they named the species at fault for the Doom monsters "Freds", but they took it to all new heights of stupidity in this book. In this book, they find an even more threatening alien species and they call them the "Newbies". Are you serious??! When this happened I just wanted to throw the book across the room. Somehow these two authors managed to take bad writing and make it worse.

One of the big climaxes of "Infernal Sky" was that they were finally on their way to the Fred planet, who were the species responsible for sending the Doom monsters to Earth. When they finally arrive, after pages and pages of just nothing about what the characters do on a near deserted space ship, they get to the Fred planet to find out they've all been killed off by these Newbies. WTF. So... no big boss battle... in a book, allegedly, in the Doom franchise... right. THEN they go after the Newbies and get to the planet they're supposed to be. Deserted. No battle. (They find some humans there, but read on for the next rant.) Eventually, the main characters finally get back to Earth... no battle. Also, deserted. So, like, the fourth book in Doom is 95% "character development", because there's nothing to really fight anywhere the heroes go. What in the world is the point of even writing this?

When our heroes finally catch up to the Newbies on a different planet they actually run into a group of humans there. But they're infected by the Newbies. The Newbies evolve ultra fast and by the time our heroes get there they've evolved into microbes instead of whole humanoid like beings! You heard me... they evolved INTO microbes. Now these microbes can take over the human body/mind, but not our heroes. Oh no, they have a secret immunity. Faith. Fly has faith in god and Arlene has faith in humanity... it has to be one of the stupidest attempts at inserting some sort of religious concept into a book I have ever stumbled into. It's like this whole veiled attempt to tell readers "See, faith can save you!" This series was already getting a little preachy with the Mormon's showing up, but now it's gone full tilt.

Aside from the religious dogma being thrown at us, which they try to make seem "inclusive" by having Arlene, an atheist (and having faith in whatever you want)... this book takes a whole new turn into political systems and economics. See, the authors find the time in this book to rail against socialism and communism for some reason. Based on their assessment of human society I feel like neither author even remotely knows what either of these things are. Apparently, while building a society based on community and serving society as a whole, people will become so individualistic that they won't be able to have a working military anymore. Why? Well, because you can't take orders if you're an individual... or so their theory goes. Last time I ran into books about actual Communism it didn't stop Stalin from having an army... Also, Capitalism is the only possible way for the human race to survive, because even though under this new Socialist government the authors dreamed up they were able to advance technology to extreme levels, people just can't function as a group and don't know how their technology works... it's starting to feel awful Brave New World up in here.

The authors also take whatever chances they can get to take pot shots at college educated people. Never mind the fact that Arlene is apparently smart and college educated, Fly hates colleges. Teaching people how to think is bad in Fly's book and he hates officers because of it. I mean, who could ever want an educated population?

They try to wrap up the Jill and Albert story lines, albeit horribly. They even have a section where Jill wrote a thing about why the Freds and the rest of the Aliens in the galaxy were even having a war. They were fighting over a literary interpretation of ancient texts, which was brought up in the third book... guess what. This "explanation" just rehashes the same explanation from the prior novel. It's almost like the authors forgot they said this already. It provides no new insight and they don't even say what these texts are. Give me a break. To make matters even more idiotic, Jill also wrote two books on the history of the Fred invasion... guess what their titles are? That's right! The first two books in the Doom series written by our authors.

Anyway, Jill figured out how to clone herself and Albert. Fly and Arlene find their clones frozen in stasis awaiting revival. Jill had her clone grown to the age of 15 and no further... why? Probably because the authors wanted the original party to be exactly back to where it was. Oh yeah, and this is on an entirely abandoned Earth mind you. What happened to the rest of humanity? They don't even say. Yeah... Oh and the Klave characters just leave once they make it to Earth. That's it. They just go home.

The only combat we really run into is in a simulation where Fly and Arlene's souls are trapped into a computer by the Newbies. Guess what? It's a simulation of the first novel! And our authors spend pages upon pages going through the first book again. Sure there are some changes, but WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!?

Oh, and I can't forget the sexism. The sexism is infuriating at this point in the four books. I mean, it's pretty constant throughout the series, but it just feels so excessive at this point. Every chance the authors get Fly quips in about how he noticed Arlene's breasts jiggle under her shirt. Just to constantly remind us that Fly is a hot blooded American manly man? Okay, I have no issue with it being brought up at all, because guys do notice this, but the constancy with which they bring it up is what's disturbing. But then they spend an obscene amount of time with Fly explaining over and over how he would never have sex with Arlene, because they are just friends... but, just so you now, she's pretty hot... que topless scene. The constant explanation just feels like page filler at this point, because the authors have to meet their commission, and what better filler than constant objectification of women. I think the real horrific part was the end of the book where it features the 15 year old Jill clone naked and "Fly trying not to look where he shouldn't". Are you serious right now? In the earlier book they even mention how Jill tried to seduce Fly, but yet her clone is 15? But let's not forget Jill is a genius... and, obviously, her best chances at landing Fly is in her 15 year old form. Authors... I have questions about your interests...

Finally, the book closes with "The End...?" No, dude, no. No question mark. This series needs to be done. Save trees and hard drive space by never writing in franchise ever again.

At the heart of things, I feel like these authors wanted to write an entirely different book and from day one they were thinking of how they could possibly start with the premise of the Doom video game and somehow transform it into veiled lecture about being over educated, faith being essential to human survival and capitalism being the only possible economic system that bestows individuality on our species.

Please, don't read this book. I read it so you don't have to. The book really makes no sense and is just bad writing and bad story telling all around. It's so inane that this is like an incredibly bad fever dream. I'd say it was like a bad acid trip, but that would probably be more interesting. This is like the authors taking acid and they trip out and do nothing, except make up stupid names for things. Just absolutely awful. I hated this book... but I assumed that going in and it lived up to my expectations. Even exceeding them in some cases. Please, don't read this.