I'm not a huge Science Fiction lover, but there are a few authors who write science-y stuff in such a thrilling, fun, and approachable way that I want to read everything they write. Those authors include Andy Weir, Ernest Cline, and of course, Blake Crouch.

While there's a ton of science that goes over my head in this book, I almost think that makes it more enjoyable for me. I can just completely buy into the plausibility of the story and enjoy the ride. And what a ride it is. This is essentially a superhero story - but instead of getting his superpowers from a radioactive spider or injected by a super soldier serum, our slightly-better-than-average-Joe is infected by a virus that fundamentally alters his DNA. It gives him super strength, speed, intelligence, and resilience. The plot behind this upgrade leads to our hero running from the government - and his own upgraded, super soldier sister - while trying to save the world. And it's just oodles of fun. I really think Crouch's books read like action movies and I am here for it.

Thank you to Net Galley and Ballantine Books for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

An engaging story that makes you think about what it would be like to be more intelligent, more focused, and need less sleep than everyone else. Logan can anticipate what is going to happen, read books in minutes, and memorize material like never before. As you can imagine, this creates several problems and many enemies. This book is hard to explain but I also don’t want to give any details away. There are some surprising twists and turns and it is a great book to get swept away with. This is science fiction for people who don’t normally like the genre. While this isn’t my favorite of the author’s books, I still really liked it and will continue to read future novels by Blake Crouch.

"My mother had tried to edit a few rice paddies and ended up killing two hundred million people. What havoc could she wreak—intentionally or through unintended consequences—by attempting to change something as fundamental as how Homo sapiens think?"

"We were a bunch of primates who had gotten together and, against all odds, built a wondrous civilization. But paradoxically—tragically—our creation’s complexity had now far outstripped our brains’ ability to manage it."

OK, so if you had the chance to upgrade yourself, would you do it? I know I would. There are so many things about me that could be better. But, as we all know from the constant barrage of upgrades offered by the makers of every bloody piece of software, some have downsides. Such as new, bloated code slowing down your app. A feature you liked has been removed. You now have to endure ads. Are the benefits of greater value than the costs? Sometimes, but usually, we won’t actually know until the new version is installed, which can take anywhere from minutes to “really, this fu#%ing thing is still processing?” Sometimes, you have no choice, the app updates whether you want it to or not.

I suppose agent Logan Ramsay could tell us something about that last case. On a raid, he walks into a planned trap, which goes boom, and Ramsay is infused with version 1.0 of something, which gets busy rewriting his internal code to produce version 2.0 of Logan. There are upsides and downsides. This is no steroidal enhancement, trading zits and rage for increased muscle mass. A nifty bit of tech called a gene driver, (can’t help but see a tiny Uber with double-helix treads) is busy re-writing his actual DNA. (For a new you, no really, a totally, completely new you, call…1 800 FIX-THIS. Of course, we have a la carte if there are only some minor changes you would like. Operators are standing by.)

Logan already had a complicated life. Mom was a geneticist trying to improve crop yields in China when there was a slight bit of collateral damage. Her altered-DNA material went where it was not supposed to. Oopsy. It was known as The Great Starvation. As noted in the quote at top, over two hundred million dead. Junior, who had been working with Mom, dead in the ensuing mess, wound up taking undeserved legal heat in her place, spent time in prison, but was sprung three years in. Now he works as an agent for the federal GPA, or Gene Protection Agency, (too late for Wilder) fiddling with genetic code having become a serious, felonious no-no, and Junior wanting to make amends for his family’s role in the global debacle. He is a geneticist like Mom, now dedicated to seeing that it never happens again.

So, what happens in every single film and book in which our hero is altered by some weird outside force? They are dragged into enforced isolation for relentless study. Or base their subsequent actions (FLEE!!!) on the presumption that this is what the powers that be have planned for them.

Of course among the changes that have been implanted into Logan is a significant increase in IQ. His perceptions have been enhanced as well, giving him a wider bandwidth for incoming sensory information and a much improved ability to process that new flow.

This is both a chase and a pursuit story, as Logan must stay out of the clutches of the government, while searching for a dangerous geneticist, trying to stave off another potential global disaster. His personal upgrades make both running and chasing less of a challenge for him than it might be for an unaugmented person.

Crouch offers a steady, if light, sprinkling of tech changes, letting us know we are in the future, if not necessarily the far distant future. Some seem more distant than others. Hyperloop, for example, is a widespread viable transportation mode. There is a mile-high building in Las Vegas.

"The book is set slightly in the future, because I wanted to accelerate where some of the climate change and more in-the-weeds technology was heading, but it’s a mirror of where we might be five minutes from now. – Time interview"

Some of the alignments seemed out of kilter. The story takes place in the 2060s. But delivery drones and driverless taxis hardly seem much of an advance for forty years. Ditto electric cars with greater range. Mention is made of a Google Roadster. Google producing its own car has been a project in the works since 2009. So, maybe only five minutes into the future for a lot of the tech Crouch employs. The five-minutes vs forty-years lookahead was jarringly inconsistent at times, which pulled me out of the story.

He also reminds us, with a steady stream of examples, that the underlying issue is humans having screwed up the Earth to the point where the continued viability of Homo Sap is called into question. Lower Manhattan and most of Miami are under water. Glacier National Park no longer features glaciers. Many wildlife species are only memories. It is raining in the Rockies instead of snowing. There are now seven hurricane categories.

There are some things about this book that I would change. There is an escape scene in which I found the means of egress a bit far-fetched, given the year in which it takes place. Surely there is better tech available? I kept wondering who got Logan sprung from prison. If it was revealed, I missed it. I wondered, during a flight from hostile forces, at how little pursuit of the runner there was by the pursuing forces. Really? That easy to get away? I don’t think so. A couple of lost family members merited a bit more attention. And there is a decided absence of humor.

Expected questions are raised. Things like what is it that makes us human? There are those who believe that enhancing, upgrading humanity’s intelligence-related genes to stave off the potential extinction of our species is the only solution, regardless of what collateral damage that might entail. If we are smarter, goes the theory, we will see that what we are doing is madness, and find more sustainable ways of living. While that notion is appealing, it seems pretty glaring that an intelligence boost alone will not cut it. I mean, so you make people smarter. What could possibly go wrong? Logan addresses this:

"What if you create a bunch of people who are just drastically better at what they already were. Soldiers. Criminals. Politicians. Capitalists?"

The notion has been done a fair bit. Forbidden Planet is the classic of this sort. That most of the genetic manipulators in this tale ignore this suggests that maybe they were not so smart as they thought they were, enhanced or not.

Might it enhance one’s appreciation of Upgrade if one had read his prior sci-fi thrillers? No idea. Have not read them. Cannot say. My unaugmented research capacities tell me, though, that this is a stand-alone, so at least there is no direct story or character connection to his prior work.

Upgrade is a fast-paced thriller that keeps the action charging ahead. I often found myself continuing to read beyond where I had planned to stop. Logan is a decent guy who struggles with moral decisions in a very believable way. There are reasons to relate to him as an everyman, regardless of who his mother may have been. Crouch offers character depth enough for this genre. The tech never gets extreme, a beautiful thing. The concerns raised are very serious. Hopefully, it will boost, if not your muscle mass and speed in the forty, your interest level in the world of genetic manipulation, which, albeit with the best of intentions, could wind up degrading us all.

"TIME: You did a ton of research on gene editing for Upgrade. Was there anything you learned that stood out?
Blake Crouch: The big thing I came away with is how afraid scientists are of this research and this technology. I didn’t realize how unnerved everyone was about both the optimistic potential of this technology—but also the pitfalls that await us."

Review posted – August 5, 2022

Publication date – July 19, 2022

I received an ARE of Upgrade from Penguin Random House in return for a fair review, and not trying to change too much. Thanks, KQ, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

For the full review, with links and images, please go to https://cootsreviews.com/2022/08/05/upgrade-by-blake-crouch/

Exactly what I've come to expect from Blake Crouch. Upgrade is an emotional scifi thriller with lots of heart and philosophical commentary on humanity and society. Upgrade felt similar to Recursion but also fresh and original. This is a perfect summer or vacation read because it is best devoured over a few sittings. The plot moves so quickly it's hard to put down.

While I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as Dark Matter, it was still a fun, fast-paced read. I liked Logan and thought his motivations and decisions made sense for him as a character. I enjoyed the arguments about the state of humanity and how to save us from ourselves. There is a lot of science jargon about DNA and the human genome and biology, but it was explained well and made everything seem that much more realistic.

While this book didn’t have quite as many twists and turns as the author’s previous books, the last third of the book rocketed toward the conclusion. As with Dark Matter and Recursion, this story played in my head like a sci-fi action movie and I could definitely see it being made into one. Overall, I enjoyed this and if you’re a fan of Dark Matter or Recursion or sci-fi thrillers that are heavy on the science, I would definitely check this one out.

Upgrade by Blake Crouch is a well written, easy to read story about the effect hacking genomes has on the world. Logan Ramsey has had a hard life. His mother, a once in a century genius did some hacking and killed over 200 million people. As a result, Logan spends some time in jail but eventually becomes an agent for the Gene Protection Agency and somehow, his genome is hacked and he becomes . . . better.
Good world building but the DNA discussions did approach I don't care land. Fast paced action plot. If you buy this book you bought a "hidden gem."

Imagine yourself being better? You are smarter, faster, needing less sleep, a very powerful machine. Is this the way the human race will eventually be, or are we doomed and the homo sapiens species will go out of existence in time.

This is the dilemma presented to us in Blake Crouch's book, The Upgrade. Our main character, Logan Ramsey, the son of a well- known scientist mother, finds himself a person who has been upgraded. Surely his dead mother, the vile perpetrator of a virus that devastated the earth, can't be behind this new state of humans and yet?

As is everything, untested well by scientists, anxious to permeate their findings. this new state of humans can also be detrimental to many. His sister becomes involved as she too, is a victim of an upgrade and sees nothing but benefits coming from this. However, Logan carries a much divergent view and sees this as it it, dangerous, ominous, and threatening. It arrives at a point where upgraded brother versus upgraded sister in the battle for all humanity to survive.

Filled with action, the edge of your seat kind, Logan strives to bring about the destruction of the upgrade genome change. Bereft of his family,because he fears for their survival, Logan takes on many as he finds those he once trusted might not be the ones he needs now.

Thoroughly enjoyable with lots of salient points especially about our human's capacity to feel empathy, I so enjoyed this story and thought its relevance in today's world spot on.

Thank you to Blake Crouch, and NetGalley for bringing this book to me. It published in July.

Blake Crouch does it again! His book ‘Dark Matter’ was the first sci-fi thriller I had ever read. From there — I was ruined. I couldn’t get my hands on his his work fast enough! As soon as I saw ‘Upgrade’ was available, I knew I had to get my hands on it. This book is thrilling and action-packed, in true Crouch form. It twists your mind and grips you through every moment until the very end.
I want to thank NetGalley for this ARC! Although it took me a bit longer to read - life! - I thoroughly enjoyed this and appreciate the opportunity to read this!

Blake Crouch’s books feel as if they are written to be adapted into movies. They are generally fast paced, thrilling, epic stories that leave an impression. For me, Upgrade didn’t have the same something that made Dark Matter and Recursion so engaging. Granted, genetic modification doesn’t really hold the same stakes as multiple universes and time travel. All pretty high stakes, but definitely different levels.

Upgrade was an interesting, well written story. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really on the edge of my seat to find out what happened next. The only part that gave me a rush was when Logan visited a city that made me wonder if it was one of the locations featured in Dark Matter. I absolutely started googling the city and busted out my copy of Dark Matter to check the name of the town I was picturing. Regardless of whether or not it is, these two places are now cemented in my brain as the same place. The similarities are too much for me not to let this theory live rent free in my head.

I think if you’ve enjoyed Blake Crouch’s previous works you’ll enjoy Upgrade; however, while the story is told on a grand scale, it isn’t quite as intense as some of his others. His books do tend to grow on me so I may just need a little more time to digest this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced electronic copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
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Question with potential spoiler for Upgrade and Dark Matter:

Did anyone else think Glasgow in Upgrade was the city Jason visited in Dark Matter where all the residents where forced to stay inside their homes due to an illness and place scraps of cloth outside their homes indicating if someone was sick or had died? The lockdown, the colors of the cloths hung outside, the police presence, and even the symptoms mentioned in each book are similar. I’m 99% sure it isn’t but then again…

I am a big fan of Blake Crouch's science fiction novels. This one starts a little slow but once it starts moving, it never slows down.

Set in the near future, Logan Ramsay is a government agent working for the Gene Protection Agency, looking for people working on gene editing which is a crime. During a raid, there is an explosion and Logan is injured. Shortly afterwards, he starts to notice changes in his body and brain--improvements in memory recall, needing less sleep, and better able to multitask. Logan's genome has been hacked and this is just the first step in an audacious plan that could impact all of humanity.

I am a fan of science fiction in general but I know that many people find it too hard to get into. Blake Crouch is able to take a concept like gene editing and weave an interesting story around it without getting too technical. Yes, there is a lot of talk about various genetic markers but it isn't really necessary to know all of those to get enjoyment out of the story. The epilogue was excellent as well. Quick read--this would make an excellent action movie that has some heart in it and asks some big questions.

Blake Crouch is as impressive as ever!

Upgrade continues Blake Crouch’s streak of constantly blowing my mind with his stories and has definitely solidified himself as science fiction’s modern-day genius. Upgrade is just as fast-paced as his other works and you will not be able to help yourself by finishing this book in a few sittings. Upgrade follows Logan Ramsey as he battles an internal battle with an infectious agent that has never been seen before. He is starting to notice changes both in his body and mind as he comes to the realization that he is transforming into a super-human. But this transformation is just the beginning for Logan as more questions than answers arise between his family and the future of humanity as a whole.

It is obvious that Crouch really put in a high level of research, specifically into genetics, for this novel. I would even argue that this is his most technical book with a ton of science thrown at the reader. However it is accomplished in a way that masterfully straddles the line of not dumbing down the science while explaining the science in a way that actually makes the reader believe that this could be possible in the near future.

Uprgade is a book I can easily recommend to most people and I believe I would be hard-pressed to find they do not like it. This holds true for all of Crouch’s works, in my opinion. This book is a homerun and has solidified Blake Crouch as one of my current favorite authors! Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book. This review is my own opinion in which I freely gave.

A great book by Crouch, it absolutely lives up to the hype surrounding it. Already it is one of my favorite books of 2022, The story, characterization and writing work perfectly together to create one of Crouch’s best!

Upgrade is a Sci-Fi where it feels more real than fiction. It is set in a future where targeted gene mutations are entirely feasible but outlawed because of its environmental effects. In the middle of the story is Logan,

This is the second Blake Crouch I've read. I enjoyed reading Recursion so much 2 years ago that he became an insta-buy author for me. I was really looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint! Blake Crouch knows how to write thrilling mind-bending science-fiction that's hard to put down.

Overall, I really enjoyed Upgrade, it asked some great ethical questions about the environment, compassion, intelligent, the greater good and where these all meet. I really liked the way the author handled the changes in Logan, especially the emotional ones, as he gets smarter and stronger. His slow disconnection from humanity, the changes in the way he views others and his relationship with his family was both beautiful and heartbreaking. In some way it reminded me of Fowers for Algernon in this regard.
Beyond the emotional, the technical aspects of the changes in Logan were also handled in a very unique and cool way. For example, how being able to split your focus over and over again could feel like time slowing down.

Even though the book takes place in the future, it's not hard to imagine how our world could end up like the one in the book, and it's hard to miss the environmental crisis and climate change in the book as what we are moving towards. I liked that the book took a hard stance on these topics, without seeming defeatist and completely pessimistic. Blake Crouch himself has said in an interview that he doesn't feel like he's writing sci-fi anymore, and that's easy to see with this book.

There were a few small nitpicks I had with this book, that kept it from being a full 5⭐. One of these was some of small parts of the book that felt unnecessarily detailed to me, without actually adding anything to the story.

Also, the problem with any story where the main character gets superhuman smartness is that it gets difficult not to nitpick on small mistakes. TBF these kinds of discrepancies happen a tiny amount in this book, but they do happen.

Overall rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.2

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this eARC.

🧬🧬 BOOK REVIEW 🧬🧬

Thank you @Blakecrouch and @Penguinrandomhouse for the e-arc of Upgrade. I eventually got a copy via Book of the Month.

Summary: The mind-blowing new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matterand Recursion—currently in development as a motion picture at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners. The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

“You are the next step in human evolution.”

Thoughts 💭: This action-packed sci-fi thriller explores an interesting concept: what if we alter our DNA’s and become powerful in every way as super humans in a sense. This quest for immortality is not a new one, and something has been explored by authors and scientists for years. We meet Logan Ramsay, who works as a detective until he is infected with a questionable material during a raid. This leads him to quarantine and become a subject of his mom’s newest research. As the novel unfolds, the drama gets intense as Logan becomes a man on the run trying to save himself as people especially his mom and sister are out to get him. There are two aspects of this novel that stood out. First, it reminded me of District 9 - an allegorical film on South African apartheid when the main character becomes the alien (the other he despises), and secondly, Logan’s mother who do known for innovative and often dangerous research is known to be the cause of a genocide. The upgrade leads to a constant struggle for power between Logan and his sister, Kara, and the novel ends on a hopeful note in a sense. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and although sci-fiction is not my normal genre, I am happy to read allegorical social commentaries embedded in novel such as Crouch’s. I think there was one question I had perhaps, which would have made this novel more complex - the exploration of race in connection with the novels theme: who is eligible for the upgrade? What are the ethical implications? I would also go as far as to say that this book in many ways is a commentary on the covid-19 vaccine debates we had the last few years. It was viewed with skepticism but also in a way seen as an “upgrade” that we get and is an M-RNA vaccine.

QQOTD ⁉️: Do you have a dedicated reading spot in your house? I read on my couch usually across the tv :)

#BlakeCrouch #Upgrade #Netgalley ##bookstagram #instabook #book-photography #bookporn #igbooks #ilovereading #bookhaul #bookhoarder #bookaddiction #bookstoread #whattoread #fortheloveofbooks #bookblogging #bookpics #weekendreads #bookrecs

I am a Blake Crouch fan and will always read his books. This one fell a LITTLE flat for me. I wanted a bit more mystery and less showing of his hand. The story was good and I loved the premise, I just wanted a SMIDGE more. Overall another gripping story from the master of speculative thrillers.

The description got me! It sounded like something I’d enjoy. I think what got me while reading was how Logan kept going on and on about all the “details” of how he was deciding to do this or that after his upgrade. And the end just didn’t jive. It got tedious. I know some people that will love this book but it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

I’m not a big fan of Sci-Fi books, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one.

I think the main reason why I liked it was because it read more like a thriller to me. It was fast paced and I just wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen. There was some science jargon specifically with DNA, but it was wasn’t too much and it didn't overtake the plot. Overall it was an entertaining and quick read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Is Blake Crouch some kind of mad genius? I don't understand how he manages to write books about subjects that I have little interest in and no understanding of - but makes them so engaging and entertaining and full of heart. The subject this time is genetics and many questions are raised. How far should we go in engineering genetics? If we develop the capability to tamper with human genetics, should we? And to what extent - and to what end? And just what defines our humanity?
There's a great cautionary tale here as well, about just how wrong things can go when science tries in all good faith to correct one thing to improve life - and instead ends up making things infinitely worse. The book starts out in a future where the protagonist, Logan Ramsay, is working for a government agency tasked with eliminating genetic tampering. We gradually learn why there's been such a crackdown on such activity, and why Logan is involved. But when he begins to realize that his own genome has been hacked, he has to figure out why, by whom, and what path to take as his physical and mental abilities improve. Through it all he struggles to cling to his humanity. I still don't understand the underlying science, but that's okay. That was outweighed by the elements of the story and Logan's journey.
Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for providing a copy for an unbiased review.

I've read many of Blake Crouch's other novels and enjoy that his stories are always fantastic fun and a true blend of sci-fi and thriller. I love that this one had a superhero vibe while still feeling rooted in its genre rather than an action hero story. What I enjoyed most about Upgrade was the big ethical questions it posed. What would you do if charged with saving the human race? How far would you go to save humanity and what if it meant sacrificing what makes us human? If you could only pick intelligence or emotion, which would you choose?

We're meant to root for the narrator and align with his thinking but the reality is that there's no clear villain or hero... who plays which role depends on your perspective of what's right. I loved this element. Thought provoking AND fun!

However, several elements kept me from loving the book. I highlighted some sentences that felt like extremely unrealistic dialogue such as "Has your memory improved toward perfection?" I can't imagine someone actually speaking like that. Some of the descriptions were also too over the top. I'm usually able to suspend belief for sci-fi but for some reason I struggled with the concept of EVERYTHING becoming heightened to perfection; some examples pushed the boundaries of believability too far like being able to detect the exact velocity of moving items. Another example I highlighted was "Suddenly I was seven feet off the floor, lifted as if I weighed nothing. And thrown - sailing through the air for .85 second." I was annoyed by the constant details like this that made sure you didn't forget this guy was upgraded. I wanted to gloss over all of the science details. They felt so extra. I like sci-fi and am usually pro-details but they detracted here for me. They felt thrown in as random facts to showcase the author's research and crazy science knowledge, or else remind you that yes, this guy is now a super human.

I loved the epilogue which totally shifted my overall perception of the story back to the positive. It gets to the debate at the heart of the story but I still didn't see it coming. Thanks for the surprise and for tying it all up.

I thoroughly enjoyed Upgrade. It's exciting and, at times thought-provoking. Looking forward to his next book.