Rebellion
Max goes worldwide!
London's Maxwell Towers have long been under the control of Max - an all-seeing AI intent on punishing wrongdoers and wicked tenants by sending them to the Thirteenth Floor, where unspeakable horrors come to life. Now, Max's coding has been embedded in computer systems all over the world, and there is no escape from his nightmarish reign.
Featuring thirteen brand-new stories by A. K. Benedict, Angela Slatter, Mason Cross, Una McCormack, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Thana Niveau, James Lovegrove, Derek Farrell, MK Hardy, John Llewellyn Probert, Martyn Waites, Aubrey Wood, and James Goss.
'The Thirteenth Floor' with its occult AI 'Max' was created by writers John Wagner & Alan Grant and artist José Ortiz for the horror comic Scream!, but I first read it in the pages of the revived Eagle comic where it quickly became one of my favourite strips (along with 'The Tower King' - also drawn by Ortiz). Then, a couple of years ago, long after both titles had faded into history, Max was rebooted by publisher Rebellion for a Scream & Misty special, which has now led us to this prose collection.
Max has gone global. Rescued from the wreckage of Maxwell Towers, he has become the basis for a corporate AI tool installed in buildings all across the world. He remains, in many ways, the same benevolent, paternal, caring Max, and he also remains, in all the other ways, the same retributive enthusiast we knew and loved, gleefully casting miscreants into his hellish thirteenth floor.
Among the contributors here we have various folks that'll be familiar to the world of Doctor Who fandom - Una McCormack, Guy Adams, James Goss - a few award winners and NYT bestseller writers - James Lovegrove, John Llewellyn Probert, Martyn Waites - and a host of others - 15 in all, even though I kind of expected there to be two less.
I'm going to be entirely honest here and admit I picked this up on a nostalgia powered whim, I was in a reading slump and couldn't find anything else that I fancied and I pretty much expected nothing from it beyond a diverting tale or two, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a collection of well constructed and fun pulp horrors riffing on a fairly well-worn trope of crime and occult retribution, and I loved it.
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