Bare with me while I work through the nostalgia and I'm sure I'll manage a proper review.



When I was a ten or eleven, I considered this the first serious book I'd ever read. Prior to this, it had been the goosebumps novels and the like which at the time I considered to "kids stuff" while this, for some reason I'll never understand, seemed like the kind of thing a mature individual like 11 year old me should be reading. (There's a gorilla fighting a blood red T-Rex on the cover with lightening and

Bare with me while I work through the nostalgia and I'm sure I'll manage a proper review.



When I was a ten or eleven, I considered this the first serious book I'd ever read. Prior to this, it had been the goosebumps novels and the like which at the time I considered to "kids stuff" while this, for some reason I'll never understand, seemed like the kind of thing a mature individual like 11 year old me should be reading. (There's a gorilla fighting a blood red T-Rex on the cover with lightening and Stonehenge in the background. Obviously, it's for adults.) I feel in love with it and read it repeatedly, almost abusively, before finally moving on to other books. The characters were varied and interesting, the bad guy was cool, fun and interesting and the story was fittingly fantastic.



To this day, some fifteen years later I will pull it out every so often and give it a read or just skip to a specific chapter I feel like reading at the time. While my tastes have grown since I first read the book and my perspective of it has changed I still cherish it. Though, it's difficult to tell how much of that is just nostalgia.



I'm going to assume you're at least passingly familiar with the original game for which this story is based but just in case you're not a rock hits the earth releasing a bunch of god-like creatures that had been laying dormant. These giant creatures consist of two gorillas, two T-rex, a snake headed dinosaur thing, a spiky armored one and raptor with a mohawk. Once free they for whatever reason start fighting for control of the planet whose land masses have shifted to shape a dino-skull spitting a fireball. That's the story of the game this book based on. How could an author ask for better source material? Well, it's what Vornholt had to work with and I think he did a great job.



The story is better than what you might expect but consists of the standard affair of love, deception, courage, lust and the like in either a blatant or "barely there" format. It's full of amusing dialogue and moments, great action (although, he occasionally mixes up his characters during these sections) and a mature twist for added fun.



The gods (characters from the video game) really aren't the focus of the book but each of the gods gets a moment in the spot light with only Blizzard and Vertigo getting the most focus. (Vornholt's portrayal of Vertigo was odd even to eleven year old me.) Still, I give him credit for doing a decent job characterizing a group of dinosaur-esque type creatures from a fighting game in 1992 that I think were made out of clay.



One could argue that the gods are characterized through their human equivalents who are the books real focus. (Only a fan of the game would be in an argument about this though so who cares.) These humans are The Avatars of the books title. Each is interesting enough in their own right and amusing but there's not much in the way of depth to any of them. This is only a minor strike against the novel as it feels for the most part like a conscious decision to only create as much depth as was needed for the story.



The antagonist is, well, he's the antagonist. I like him but even after reading the book countless times I'd have to pull the book out to look up why he existed or why he was doing the things he did. I'm content with the fact that he's a skinless dragon that eats people and poops them out as zombies. That's not exactly how it works but it's how I interpreted it as a kid and how I choose to interpret it now.



Despite it's many but mostly minor flaws, this book is entertaining. The book is out of print but if you're a fan of the game or looking for the kind of fun you might get from an old 90s action flick than I strongly suggest finding a copy and giving it a read.



No, you can't even borrow mine.