Welcome to the bedroom of Doom.

In an unassuming upstairs room of a house in Hudson, lit by the glow of a computer screen, Hank Leukart has done what the Internet allows 16-year-olds to do. He has become famous. Get on the Net with a question about Doom, the intoxicating and wildly popular shoot-'em-up computer game, and Leukart's name will probably come up. He had written a FAQ (frequently asked questions) guide about the game even before Doom made its debut in December 1993. People call him a guru.

And now, with the release of his new book, The Doom Hacker's Guide (MIS:Press, $21.95), the Western Reserve Academy sophomore is on the verge of mainstream celebrity. He's profiled in this week's People magazine. The Washington Post has been courting him. Letterman is not out of the question. He's also making an in-store appearance Saturday at Borders Books and Music in Fairlawn, where he'll sign copies of The Doom Hacker's Guide and answer questions about the game.

For Leukart, whose last big life-altering event was receiving his driver's license, this is one wicked ride.

In an interview, the slender, blond-haired Leukart comes across as intelligent and focused, less self-conscious than one might expect a teen-ager to be as he answers questions about himself and has his picture taken.

The Doom Hacker's Guide is written in conversational prose for players with a basic working knowledge of the game and of their personal computer. For the uninitiated, Doom is a game in which the player, armed with any one of a variety of weapons, fights his way past soldiers and various monsters as he works through a multitude of levels.

It is violent — enemy after enemy crumples into a bloody mess upon being killed. And it is engrossing — completing one level fires up the player to tackle another. A night of Doom can pass in the blink of an eye.

Leukart's Guide helps players customize the game, changing, for instance, the demons to look like friends (or enemies) or the layout of rooms to resemble places they know. Tired of blowing away demons that look like they came from the Black Lagoon? Leukart's book will help you transform them into Barney the Dinosaur.

"I was trying to make it clear and concise," Leukart says.

He has played and customized the game enough to know what areas give him and other Doom fiends the most trouble. So that's where he focused his energy.

Leukart was approached by a couple of publishers to write a book about Doom before MIS:Press, a subsidiary of Henry Holt and Co., reeled him in late last year. He began the book in November and finished it in late January.

A good student, he saw his grades suffer as he labored on the project. His free time, too. But his net worth has improved considerably. He prefers not to reveal what he was paid, but his advance and royalty arrangement are pretty good for a first-time author—enough for him to have bought a new computer system.

Leukart kept his book project to himself as it was under way, revealing the details only to his parents and his closest friend.

"It's pretty incredible for someone to write a book — anyone," Leukart says.

But now the word is out, and Leukart, whose Doom FAQ is packaged with Doom and the more recent Doom II, has found himself answering more questions than ever about the game. And about himself.

He's in kind of a tough position — a normal 16-year-old portrayed as a computer nerd. Really he's neither — or, rather, he's a little of both.

He puts in a lot of time at the computer, admitting a little hesitantly that he spends around six hours a day surfing the Internet.

But he quickly roots out the underlying implication when he's asked whether he has more friends in the faceless, nebulous online world, or in the "real" world in and around Hudson.

"I'm friends with a lot of people on the Internet, and I'm friends with a lot of people at school," he says. "Obviously, I'm not normal. But nobody's normal."

Even though he seems to have opened a door to his future, Leukart, like any other teen-ager, really has no idea what he wants to do when he grows up.

"I may want to do computer journalism, but who knows? I may feel burned out in a few years and never want to write another word," he says.

MIS:Press has discussed his writing another book, a similar guide to the not-yet-released game Quake, which Leukart is firmly convinced will be the Next Big Thing.

Right now, though, he's just trying to get through the school year.

That, and one more level of Doom.