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The Upgrade #2
Vertigo
A brilliant hacker.
A chief of a black-ops unit.
An alliance hell-bent on dominating the world.
It's 2007, and the world is edging towards the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. A secret international corporate alliance, known as the cabal, is using the moment to spread its influene.
HELEN CHEN and ANDREW HUNT have little in common. She's a gray hat and he's a senior CIA officer. But when HUNT is tasked to fight the cabal, and CHEN becomes the alliance's latest target, they'll have to find a way to help each other or end up like everybody else who tried to stand up to the cabal--dead.
The second book in THE UPGRADE series, VERTIGO is a fast-paced, globe-trotting dystopian tale of intrigue, black ops, and a plot to take over the world. Pick up your copy today!
- GenresCyberpunk
264 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2019
62 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Wesley Cross
13 books41 followersBorn on a military base in the Far East, Wesley had a rather unusual childhood. While other kids ran around parks and traded toys, the oldest son of an active Air Force officer and a kindergarten teacher spent his early days walking on wings of parked jet fighters and climbing into pilot chairs of strategic bombers.
He first started writing while in grade school, once hijacking a physics lesson to read out loud his science fiction novella to the entire class. He continued to write in college, mostly short pieces until finally, he felt he had some full-length stories that needed to be read by other people.
His wide variety of interests includes photography, which once led to a publication in the Popular Photography magazine, martial arts, music, and, of course, reading and writing.
Wesley moved to New York City in the tumultuous 90s. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
His website is WesleyCross.com
For news and updates sign here:
http://wesleycross.com/newsletter/
He first started writing while in grade school, once hijacking a physics lesson to read out loud his science fiction novella to the entire class. He continued to write in college, mostly short pieces until finally, he felt he had some full-length stories that needed to be read by other people.
His wide variety of interests includes photography, which once led to a publication in the Popular Photography magazine, martial arts, music, and, of course, reading and writing.
Wesley moved to New York City in the tumultuous 90s. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
His website is WesleyCross.com
For news and updates sign here:
http://wesleycross.com/newsletter/
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 30, 2022
VERTIGO is the sequel to THE BLUEPRINT and the second volume of the Upgrade series by Wesley Cross. The premise of the series is that it is a kind of transitional novel series between technothriller politics and cyberpunk with the world gradually changing from "our" world to a more dangerous corporate-ruled hellhole.
Vertigo is a prequel taking place in 2007, the year before the housing crisis of 2008, which is a key moment in the setting's history for the rise of the megacorps. I was a bit put off by this being the second book instead of listing it as volume 0# but I quickly started to enjoy the story due to how much I liked the character of Helena Chen. I really liked her origin story and think she had the strongest writing in the series by far.
This is elsewise mostly an explanation of how the Cabal came to be and also giving us a hint of how poor Jason Hunt became the heir to the only resistance people are putting up against the megacorporations.
I'm definitely continuing the series.
Vertigo is a prequel taking place in 2007, the year before the housing crisis of 2008, which is a key moment in the setting's history for the rise of the megacorps. I was a bit put off by this being the second book instead of listing it as volume 0# but I quickly started to enjoy the story due to how much I liked the character of Helena Chen. I really liked her origin story and think she had the strongest writing in the series by far.
This is elsewise mostly an explanation of how the Cabal came to be and also giving us a hint of how poor Jason Hunt became the heir to the only resistance people are putting up against the megacorporations.
I'm definitely continuing the series.
October 27, 2019
This is a great read with great characters. Excellently written and riveting - kept me reading to the end The story is good and kept me interested throughout the book. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
June 1, 2019
I read the first book in this series again before I began this one to refresh my memory and reacquaint myself with the characters. I'm not sure when the author wrote that book, but I have to say his observations about the world today are spot-on. What are governments but extensions of corporations? Corporations buy governments to get what they want, so they truly do run the world. The only thing they're missing is a military.
As far as reacquainting myself with the characters, it was totally unnecessary because very few characters in this book are in the first. Instead of going forward with the story, this book goes back in time to before the first book and tells us how allegiances were formed and by whom; connections made between characters and the sometimes strange ways people came to know each other; and hints at the very beginnings of the body part replacement business described in the first book.
There are little hints like that throughout the book and it's good to have them here. My only complaint about the first book was that there were too many characters and organizations and I never was able to piece together how they all came to be in the situations they were in. Maybe I wasn't supposed to because this book does a very good job of filling in the blanks, without overtly doing so. It's kind of like a bunch of "Aha!" moments that are exciting to find.
This book has good character development so that we care about them when we're supposed to and despise them when it's warranted. We also get to understand a few of the characters from the first book much better (such as Mike Connelly). There is a lot of action, but it's not relentless. There are times we get to take a breath and learn what is really going on.
I read this book in about three hours because I was so involved in it. It's told from the viewpoints of several characters, so not only do you get to read about a character's actions and words, but you also get to read the reactions of other characters to those same actions. Their understanding may be wrong, right, or in-between, but it's a very good way to tell a complicated story with multiple central characters.
I definitely recommend this book, as well as the first one, "The Blueprint." It may make sense to read this book first since it occurs earlier in time than "The Blueprint," but that's obviously not how the author wanted the books to be read. There are more books coming, and I hope they come soon because I have a lot of unanswered questions.
As far as reacquainting myself with the characters, it was totally unnecessary because very few characters in this book are in the first. Instead of going forward with the story, this book goes back in time to before the first book and tells us how allegiances were formed and by whom; connections made between characters and the sometimes strange ways people came to know each other; and hints at the very beginnings of the body part replacement business described in the first book.
There are little hints like that throughout the book and it's good to have them here. My only complaint about the first book was that there were too many characters and organizations and I never was able to piece together how they all came to be in the situations they were in. Maybe I wasn't supposed to because this book does a very good job of filling in the blanks, without overtly doing so. It's kind of like a bunch of "Aha!" moments that are exciting to find.
This book has good character development so that we care about them when we're supposed to and despise them when it's warranted. We also get to understand a few of the characters from the first book much better (such as Mike Connelly). There is a lot of action, but it's not relentless. There are times we get to take a breath and learn what is really going on.
I read this book in about three hours because I was so involved in it. It's told from the viewpoints of several characters, so not only do you get to read about a character's actions and words, but you also get to read the reactions of other characters to those same actions. Their understanding may be wrong, right, or in-between, but it's a very good way to tell a complicated story with multiple central characters.
I definitely recommend this book, as well as the first one, "The Blueprint." It may make sense to read this book first since it occurs earlier in time than "The Blueprint," but that's obviously not how the author wanted the books to be read. There are more books coming, and I hope they come soon because I have a lot of unanswered questions.
June 1, 2019
I received an advance copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review. While this entailed a free copy, I also paid for a copy on Amazon, as I think authors (as well as other creators of art) should be rewarded for their efforts.
After this preamble, my honest opinion: this book is set at an earlier time that the first book, includes a nearly separate cast of characters and builds a solid foundation upon which the next books will be built. This is only the second book the author has published and the advances he made in the art of story-building and story-telling are substantial. I liked the first book but thought (and wrote in my previous honest opinion) that the characters were not very well developed and the prose could have benefited from tighter editing. This was mostly cured in the current book. Although subtlety is still missing and the plot is mostly conducted "in plain view", it is still a tight plot, with good character development and I look forward to the author's continued development of his art.
I am not good at summarizing plots but I will say that it's a precursor to dystopia (at least, a worse dystopia than today), built on the presumption that the political apparatus is failing and corporations are taking over the guidance of human affairs.
After this preamble, my honest opinion: this book is set at an earlier time that the first book, includes a nearly separate cast of characters and builds a solid foundation upon which the next books will be built. This is only the second book the author has published and the advances he made in the art of story-building and story-telling are substantial. I liked the first book but thought (and wrote in my previous honest opinion) that the characters were not very well developed and the prose could have benefited from tighter editing. This was mostly cured in the current book. Although subtlety is still missing and the plot is mostly conducted "in plain view", it is still a tight plot, with good character development and I look forward to the author's continued development of his art.
I am not good at summarizing plots but I will say that it's a precursor to dystopia (at least, a worse dystopia than today), built on the presumption that the political apparatus is failing and corporations are taking over the guidance of human affairs.
September 14, 2022
I listened to the audiobook version and the narration by Neill Thorne was excellent. Like the first book, there are a fair number characters to keep track of, but I found this book to be easier to follow, possibly because I recognized many of the character names from the first book. The distinct voices performed by Neill Thorne also helped. (5 stars for the audio performance)
I was a bit skeptical of this book because I wasn't sure how interesting it would be to go back in time for a prequel when I already know the events of the first book. It felt a bit like reading a series out of order, and it took awhile for me to get into the story, but once familiar characters started appearing it became a lot more interesting and the pace picked up considerably. I'm interesting in listening to the next book to find out what happens next. I'm sure that I've liked the series more because I listened to it in audio.
I received a copy of this audiobook at my request, and the opinions here are my own.
I was a bit skeptical of this book because I wasn't sure how interesting it would be to go back in time for a prequel when I already know the events of the first book. It felt a bit like reading a series out of order, and it took awhile for me to get into the story, but once familiar characters started appearing it became a lot more interesting and the pace picked up considerably. I'm interesting in listening to the next book to find out what happens next. I'm sure that I've liked the series more because I listened to it in audio.
I received a copy of this audiobook at my request, and the opinions here are my own.
November 18, 2019
Good book but.....
I am confused as to why this was a sequel to The first book, Blueprint. Everything in this book occurred before the events of the second book. If you are going to read the series, I would recommend you read this one first, then go to Blueprint second. That way will Blueprint will make more sense.
I am confused as to why this was a sequel to The first book, Blueprint. Everything in this book occurred before the events of the second book. If you are going to read the series, I would recommend you read this one first, then go to Blueprint second. That way will Blueprint will make more sense.
June 18, 2019
Great story line. Characters are built on solid ground. Enjoyed every bit of it. No slow points, powerful action. Great read.
September 3, 2025
This was definitely better than book 1. Still not my favorite, but I can see how things are coming together. I'll continue the series.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews