The Upgrade Apocalypse, Book 1

A LitRPG Apocalypse Series

By: Charles Dean, R.A. Mejia

Narrated by: Daniel Wisniewski, Elizabeth Plant

When a group of former classmates gather for their 10-year reunion, old grudges resurface as old flames rekindle—and then things go straight to hell. As a shower of comets brings an invasion of reunion-crashing undead, the surviving alumni must band together in this litRPG apocalypse filled with dark humor, horror, and loot cards!

Join the survivors as they navigate a game of life, death, and more death, leveling skills and stats as a world-governing system urges them to struggle on for the sake of glorious battle.

Welcome to hell on Earth. Welcome to the Upgrade Apocalypse!

©2022 Ramon Mejia, Charles Dean (P)2023 Ramon Mejia, Charles Dean

freaking amazing

Holy crap was this book and story was amazing. kinda new to a card system but really worked. the narrators did an awesome job, and Lucy, by far, my favorite character, was the best comic relef I passed out, from laughing so hard.

not even a great narrator can save this one

so imagine Mark Tufo being strapped down and force to watch One life to live, Save the Bell the reunion and a crap ton of after school specials. Now he is told to write an LitRpg by gun point. that is this book.

ehhh...

I could have gone on without ever listening to this story. the girls are kinda annoying and the dude's voice at the beginning sounds muffled at random times as if talking through one of those cardboard tubes from a paper towel roll.
I found the story kinda boring. I skipped a good chunk of it, maybe I'd get intrigued, but nope.

Great narration, great story

I read the reviews beforehand as I usually don't try books with an average rating this low, but the other series by these authors is one of my favorites (apocalypse regression) so I have it a try. Found it outstanding. I did hate Lucy a little bit like some of the other reviews mentioned - but she's simply a flawed character, insomuch that she is far from perfect. interesting system, and looking forward to the base building that will likely come in book 2.

KU and Audiobook Review

Due to health and other life issues finishing this book took me much longer than it should have so instead of finishing it up and reviewing it within a few days of release at most like I wish I could have here we are 2 weeks later. I ended up splitting it about 50/50 between reading and listening to the audio-book. I personally enjoyed this book, the system reminds me loosely of Genshin Impact and other Gacha games where you combine items (in this case cards) to increase levels and ranks of equipment though the rules in this are a little loose, so while I do recommend this to system apocalypse fans I withhold that recommendation if you don't like the Gacha equipment system (even if there are no character pulls). The characters don't really have a ton of time for growth with things going on back to back so they each come off their own type of extreme or stereo-types of daytime soap operas. Some of the skill choices may confuse or put people off but I'm pretty sure they were picked with book 2 and whatever the eventual end game is in mind by the author(s) and they make more sense in the last few minutes of the book. That being said for the most part the characters have unique skill sets in comparison to the rest of the genre. As far as audio-book narration goes Daniel Wisniewski and Elizabeth Plant did a fantastic job of distinguishing the characters, there are enough characters that might make distinguishing them difficult in text but their performance did that amazingly well, especially Lucy, where does one go to meet a girl like Lucy? Plot aside, if you enjoy or don't enjoy any of the particular mechanics I listed above you should be able to tell if this book is for you. I look forward to the next one.

some errors and bad start but good

the narration was great. There were some editing errors, such as rereading lines, but that's fine with me. the beginning seems a little too calm about extreme parts, such as a shot of nervous or adrenaline over taking them, which could be used as an excuse for the behavior

Nah

Look when I started to like the main characters, they all turned into Sociopaths at the drop of hat.

The women for the most part were annoying. The old people were cool. You would think that they would try to build a strong group by helping other survivors. Also you would think a police station would be filled with armed people who would level quickly and also be accustomed to violence and working as a unit … but I’m sure a random group of nerds can figure out how to power level.

the story falls apart at the end

so I like both of the authors the performance was really good the world building is very interesting I like it a lot the characters are the weak points here like with the most lit RPGs and the ending killed it for me never split the party when the party's the only interesting thing

Good Start

Overall a good start to a series. It is an entertaining listen on Audible. Of course, the ending has a cliff hanger that leaves the listener itching for more.

not to bad

narration was really good. some of the character were kinda childish even though they were supposed to be at a high school reunion, they still act like they are in high school. it's fun to see references to older stuff but making it so every char talks in references is kinda annoying because people don't constantly talk like that. story was good and had a good flow and I really like how they got powers and could switch if needed. looking forward to the 2nd book