Mission 1: Game on (Max Flash)

By: Jonny Zucker
Publisher: Darby Creek Publishing
Publication Date: August 2013
ISBN: 978-1467712071
Reviewed by: Deb Fowler
Review Date: December 2013

Max struggled against the chains. He was sure to drown if he couldn’t pop those locks and get out. The water tank would defeat him instead of the other way around. “You could do with being five seconds faster,” his father quipped. Yeah, Houdini he wasn’t, but with his double-jointedness he was a “first-class escape artist, contortionist, and illusionist.” Not bad for a kid, not bad at all. Max’s parents worked the stage with their acts and it was only normal that the son of the Great Montello and Mystical Cariba would have his own version of the Chinese Water Torture Cell.

The Flash family was definitely an unusual one, but there was a big surprise in store for Max. There was a secret room in their basement he’d never even known about. How could he have lived in a place all his life and not known about it? There was an amazing “techno pod” in their very own house and when his parents introduced him to Zavonne, a DFEA agent, Max was some impressed. His parents were actually covert agents for the Department of Extraordinary Ability. “The DFEA needs your help,” Zavonne said to him. Max was suddenly going to be going on a secret mission of his own. How cool can it get?

Ricky Stevens, the game programmer for Nexus Scope, the "hottest game company in the world," misplaced Deezil from the “Slime Beast of Death.” Deezil was a “freaky half-man, half-lizard” who had escaped the Vitual world and entered the real one through a portal Stevens had created. “We need someone,” Zavonne said to Max,” to visit the Virtual world and shut down the portal.” It was a risky venture and Max would have to get into Stevens’s hard drive and into the game. Max would be in the Virtual world with only a handful of weapons to battle the beasts. If he couldn’t find and close that portal, the strange and dangerous creatures from the Vitural world would descend upon ours!

Max Flash is an x-tremely cool, exciting young DFEA agent to watch out for. Readers will suspend their disbelief and believe in the magical powers young Max has as he enters into the Virtual world in an effort to save ours. The tale moves quickly as Max discovers the whole new world outside of simple magic and his water tank and into a freaky new one. The Max Flash series is a new one and no doubt will be a popular one. Max is very likeable and when he enters into the Virtual world to do battle with all kinds of unusual creatures, the tale took off into a fun, exciting read. Reluctant and young scifi fans will definitely love this fast-paced series!

Quill says: If you have a young scifi fan who is also into gaming, this is a series that is sure to please!