DOOM: Knee-Deep in the Dead

Mass Market Paperback, 250 pages

English language

Published July 31, 1995 by Pocket Star.

ISBN:: 978-0-671-52555-2

(2 reviews)

The Gates were there on Phobos when mankind first arrived. Inert, unyielding, impossibly alien constructs, for twenty years they sat lifeless, mute testaments to their long-vanished creators, their secrets hidden. Then one day, they sprang to life...

Meet Corporal Flynn Taggart, United States Marine Corps; serial number 888-23-9912. He's the best warrior the twenty-first century has to offer, which is a damn good thing. Because Flynn Taggart is all that's standing between the hell that just dropped in on Mars and an unsuspecting planet Earth...

2 editions

[email protected] reviewed Doom: Hell on Earth by Daffyd Ab Hugh

DOOM: Hell on Earth

3 stars

1) "Comes a time when you have to say the hell with it, if only for a moment. Arlene and I had recently faced the worst thing anyone can face, worse than the monsters or dying in space. We knew what it meant to lose your sanity... and come back to yourself again. Arlene started whistling 'Molly Malone.' She'd picked one of the few songs to which I knew the words. I sang along. All that was missing was a bottle of Tullamore Dew, the world's finest sipping whiskey. As it was, our duet seemed to transform the lengthening shadows of dusk in Utah into the cool glades of Ireland. I wondered if doom had come there. Were there demons in Dublin?"

2) "'In space,' she said finally, 'on Phobos, we found a giant swastika.' She let her observation hang in the air, waiting for the Mormon to respond. 'What …

1) "Comes a time when you have to say the hell with it, if only for a moment. Arlene and I had recently faced the worst thing anyone can face, worse than the monsters or dying in space. We knew what it meant to lose your sanity... and come back to yourself again. Arlene started whistling 'Molly Malone.' She'd picked one of the few songs to which I knew the words. I sang along. All that was missing was a bottle of Tullamore Dew, the world's finest sipping whiskey. As it was, our duet seemed to transform the lengthening shadows of dusk in Utah into the cool glades of Ireland. I wondered if doom had come there. Were there demons in Dublin?"

2) "'In space,' she said finally, 'on Phobos, we found a giant swastika.' She let her observation hang in the air, waiting for the Mormon to respond. 'What do you think it means?' he asked. Arlene sighed. 'I don't know; except it's a reason for me to hate them more.' 'I would hate them just as much,' said Albert, 'if you had found the cross up there, or the flag of the United States, which I believe was also inspired by God. A symbol used by aliens means nothing to me. We know them by their fruits.' 'Oh, fug,' said Jill. 'This is like being back in class. Don't give me a test, Albert.'"

3) "The next town along the line was Buckeye. We ditched the truck cab, then waited for night. We found an alley and enjoyed the busy sounds of night life in this modern world: troop trucks every few minutes, the tramping of little zombie feet, screams of pain, howled orders from hell-princes, and the occasional earthshaking tread of steam-demons. Even more soothing to our shattered nerves were mechanical sounds that reminded me of the spidermind, evidently a smaller model. I wondered if this one got better mileage. 'Have you noticed an odd thing?' whispered Arlene. 'You mean besides everything?' I replied."

3) "Inside the main part of the store, the fluorescent lights were on and burning steady. But the refrigeration was off, and there was a rotten smell of all kinds of produce, milk, and meat that had been let go before its time. 'Ew,' said my Mormon buddy, and he hit the center of the bull's-eye. The meat smelled a lot worse than the bad vegetable matter. And oh, that fish! If I hadn't been wide awake on adrenaline—compared to which caffeine is harmless kid stuff—I would never have believed what I saw next. Nothing on Phobos or Deimos had the feeling of a fever dream compared to the spectacle of... 'Hell in the aisles,' breathed Albert. The grocery store was as busy as a Saturday afternoon in the good old world. Mom and Dad and the kids were there. Young lovers wandered the aisles. Middle-class guys with middle-sized guts in ugly T-shirts pushed shopping carts down the center aisle with no regard for who got in the way. Nothing had changed from the way it used to be... except that everyone was dead. [...] They didn't eat any of the groceries. They seemed caught up in the behavior of the past, as if the program had been so hard-wired into their skulls that not even losing their souls could erase the ritual of going to the grocery store."

4) "'Don't worry about me,' Jill said, following my example and kicking the corpse. 'They're just bags of blood, and we've got the pins. It's no big thing.' No one was joking now. Arlene looked at me with a worried expression. This was no time to psycho-analyze a fourteen-year-old who was doing her best to feel nothing. This sort of cold attitude was par for the course in an adult, a mood that would be turned off (hopefully) in peacetime; but hearing it from a kid was unnerving. The words just out of her lips were the cold truth we created. Do only the youngest soldiers develop the attitude necessary to win a war? Until this moment, I wouldn't have thought of Arlene and myself as old-fashioned sentimentalists; but if the future human race became cold and machine-like to fight the monsters, then maybe the monsters win, regardless of the outcome."

5) "'As I said, his name's Ken Estes. He's a computer software designer slumming as a CIA analyst. Low-level stuff, not a field agent or anything. He was born in—' 'No time for the family background,' I interrupted. 'Keep him focused on how and why he became a cybermummy.' Somewhere, water was dripping. I hadn't noticed it before, but it was very annoying while waiting for Jill to pass on the messages in silence. Finally, she spoke again: 'When the aliens landed and started the war, Ken was told by his superiors that the agency had developed a new computer which the operator accessed in V.R. mode.' 'What's V.R.?' Albert asked. 'Old term; this guy's in his thirties! Virtual Reality; we call it burfing now, from 'body surfing,' I think.' 'Oh, the net,' said Albert."

6) "We took Sig-Cows off'n the first two zombies we killed; better than the pistols, even though they were still just 10mm. The next one had a beautiful, wonderful shotgun. I'd take it, even if it was a fascist pump-action."

[email protected] reviewed DOOM: Knee-Deep in the Dead by Dafydd ab Hugh

DOOM

3 stars

Content warning rip & tear

1) "I stared in horror. Even eighteen months of picking up after the Scythe of Glory and their Shining Path buddies didn't prepare me for what was left of pik Nizganij. It was a Bosch canvas, severed limbs and hollowed-out trunks — eaten out by animals, I prayed — planted through the fields like stalks of corn, blood painting doors and walls like the first Passover... except it was human blood, not lamb's blood. Corporal Flynn Taggart, Fox Company, 15th Light Drop Infantry Regiment, United States Marine Corps; 888-23-9912. Everyone calls me Fly, except when they're pissed."

2) "At least for the one day we spent on Mars, we had a view. The domes were made of super-thick, insulated plastic, but were cleverly designed to give the illusion of being thin as a soap bubble. The only trouble was that the view wasn't very impressive — a blank expanse of empty desert broken by an equally barren, dark purple sky. I was only so thrilled with looking at stars. I liked something bigger up there. Although we could see Phobos from Mars base camp, it was so tiny it almost looked like a bright star trucking across the sky. Not enough moon for a melancholy mood. But now as I crawled the land-cart out under the black, airless sky of Phobos, I enjoyed my first genuine feeling of freedom since I left Earth. Mars loomed in the sky, three-quarters full, larger than any moon and burning red as all the blood of all the armies ever spilled in uncountable battles across the stupid, drooling face of eternity — the face of a monster."

3) "Bill didn't stop; he came closer. Desperate, feeling like Cain, I returned fire. Given the half-dead condition Bill was in, killing him all the way should have been easy. The first bullet took him in the throat, above his Kevlar armor. That should have done the job, but he kept on coming. I pumped more rounds at Bill, and finally one connected with his head. That dropped him. But even as brains and blood oozed onto the corridor floor, his body continued to flop around the way a chicken does when its head has been removed. Humans don't do that... and they don't have a sour-lemon smell either, which was suddenly so overpowering that I could barely breathe. I stared, shaking like a California earthquake. I was looking — at — a zombie."

4) "I felt like a ghoul, but feelings were a luxury. With a shotgun in my arsenal, my survival rating took a big leap up the charts. I checked the bore and found no obstructions. There were plenty of shells in the bandoleer around her body. I thanked Dudette for being a Marine to the end... semper fi, Mac."

5) "The alien grimaced, facial muscles finally growing rigid. Then for a moment it relaxed. 'We could eat anybody onccce,'' it declared. Then it stopped moving; even the cilia in its mouth stood up straight and froze. The demon was dead."

6) "The simplicity of the layout and the big blocks of stone made secret doors less likely here, although I would pause occasionally and try pushing against anything that looked remotely promising."

7) "Then it died the messiest monster death I had seen so far. One moment the ball was bouncing against the walls; the next, there came a spray of sticky, blue goo that smelled like caramelized pumpkin pie and sounded like an overripe squash dropped ten stories. I seriously considered losing the lunch I had struggled so hard to ingest. 'Oo-rah!' exulted Arlene. 'Smashing pumpkins into small pieces of putrid debris! What the hell was that?'"

8) "We found a cozy room with four doors and a single switch in the center. 'Do you hear that?' Arlene asked. Until she mentioned it, I hadn't heard anything but our heavy breathing; but then I noticed something so unbelievably loud that a deaf man should have felt it; concentration is a funny thing. It sounded like the World Trade Center taking a stroll just outside. We rotated slowly, tracking the noise, and I thought about that movie with the tyrannosaurus stomping around."

9) "To exit the room we had to squeeze through a narrow opening that looked exactly like... well, I didn't like to even think about it. I volunteered to go first, and she didn't object. 'Fly,' came her voice as we wriggled and writhed through the orifice, 'do you ever get the feeling you're being born again?'"

10) "Suddenly, Arlene gasped; her eyes opened wide. 'Fly, I have it!' 'What?' 'I know how to do it!' 'Do what damn it?' Her lips moved, silently calculating. Then she grinned. 'I know how to get us across to Earth, Fly!'"

Subjects

Fantasy
Science Fiction
Science Fiction - General
Fiction
Fiction - Science Fiction
Fiction / Science Fiction / General