Skylanders: The Machine of Doom [Kindle Edition]

Anyone who played Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is immediately immersed in a world full of colour, hilarious dialogue and amazing gameplay. And surprisingly the novel is just as good! The Machine of Doom installation of the franchise contains Spyro the Purple Dragon, Eruptor the Flame Belcher, Boomer the Dynamite Troll and Gill Grunt the Gillman. Not to mention Flynn the Balloonist makes a return and so does Master Eon in an adventure where the Skylanders must stop Kaos from using an ancient and mysterious weapon (expect to see those words together a lot) by the Arkeyans!

However there are flaws to this:

1) The novel is extremely short. You might be able to knock out one chapter a night when reading it to your children, as each chapter ends with a great cliffhanger! If you're an adult you can probably finish this in under an hour. I'm a slow 19-year old reader, so it took me just over an hour.

2) Some of the vocabulary is based more towards adults. Not many children will know words like malevolant, immersive, stupendous and so fourth. Expect to hear your child ask "what's this word say?"

3) It's only really for those familiar with the Skylanders world, as references made to the game expect you to know what they are. Unless you've played the game to the end, you won't know what or who the Arkeyans were, and I don't want to spoil it for you.

I recommend it for the Recommended Retail Price of £4.99, and to get it cheaper would be fine and dandy! Get it while it's still selling, 'cause it's a great read for children and adults alike!

This is one of a number of books published to tie in with the popular video game. Fans of the game will already be well acquainted with the characters and will no doubt love this adventure where the Skylanders have to save the universe from Kaos and his evil hordes. However I think this can also be read and enjoyed by readers who have not played the game (are there any?!) as the story is exciting and, in places, very funny. There are lots of illustrations to help the story along, so this is a quick, fun read for younger readers who may find longer books a bit daunting.

First off I know some people say that the book is quite short. It isn't big, yet I think anymore and it would have dragged the story out. The story gave my kids the same humour and laughs that they get from the game with the same characters too. The only issue they had was that there wasn't much of some of their favourite Characters including Trigger Happy. You get a little insight into the lives of the Skylanders and their characteristics made the kids chuckle. The plot from the kids point of view was great and there were nights where they begged me to read more.

The pictures in the kindle version were lovely, big page size pictures with some funny 'scene' moments with their favourite characters.

The ending of the book has made me think there are definitely more stories in the pipeline. I will definitely be reading them in the future.