This is another fictional treatment of a scientific discovery that will either make or break the human race--or both? Super powers have always been a two-edged sword and this story exploits the conundrum. Genetic engineering at its worst!

This thriller asks the question, "What if the next step in technology is to genetically engineer our own brains?" It's a stunning, but, really, not too far-fetched idea, and Crouch handles it beautifully.

Blake Crouch has made the previously unenjoyable task of reading scientific writing (or mumbo jumbo, as I like to call it) accessible, easy to understand, and yes, enjoyable. This latest is perhaps my favorite of his, owing to the emotional story that resonated with me, and because I was actually able to comprehend the science behind the story. Highly recommended.

Another mind blowing thriller from Blake Crouch. Following this writer's career and writing arc has been amazing. This book only serves to elevate his style and talent to the next level. Beyond reading the publisher's summary I think you should go into this blind to better be amazed by Crouch's twists and turns.

This was my second Blake Crouch book. I read The Pines several years ago and thought it was a very well-written book. While I enjoy Mr. Crouch’s writing, I hadn’t read any of his other books until Upgrade caught my eye. I have never been a big Sci-Fi reader. I’ve dabbled in it (The Martian, The Pines, and Project Hail Mary) but it is not a genre I seek out. If Mr. Crouch continues writing Sci-Fi that draws me in, I may have to rethink that.

Upgrade tackles the science of genetic engineering. Set in the future, shortly after a miscalculated experiment caused millions to starve, the Gene Protection Agency (GPA) is a CIA-like entity that keeps track of and regulates scientists involved in the study of genes. Logan Ramsay, son of the scientist that caused the “great starvation” is a GPA agent hunting down rogue scientists.

When Logan investigates the location of a suspected gene editing operation that a suspect provided him, his life is changed forever. An explosion of a device causes shrapnel to puncture his hazmat suit and he becomes infected with a virus dispersed by the explosive device.
Once he recovers from his injuries and the virus which caused a high fever and crazy nightmares, Logan believes he is fine, until his body begins to change. He has better concentration, night vision, memory, increased muscle mass, and higher pain tolerance. He basically becomes superhuman. Now, Logan must find out who did this to him and why.

An action-packed pursuit begins, as Logan finds out who he can and can’t trust. His superhuman abilities as well as some of the characters he encounters make for a fast-paced, action-filled, sci-fi mystery.
Make sure you read the epilogue!

The book is scheduled to be released on July 12, 2022.

Thanks for reading!

I was provided with an advance reader copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

https://this-life.blog/2022/06/01/review-upgrade-by-blake-crouch/

This is book 3 I've read by Blake Crouch and while I have loved everything I have read, I have to say that this is my favorite among Dark Matter, Recursion, and now Upgrade. There is a perfect balance in the science and fiction so that it feels like it could be a situation we encounter at some point. This book was particularly fascinating to me as I work in genetics and loved letting my brain go with the possibilities. It was easy to get invested in all of the characters and their journeys and the ethical quandaries of interfering with the natural course of our genes. This was a homerun for me! Five Stars!

One bit of constructive feedback. Gene names should always be italicized. CDKN2A and CFTR for example should be in italics unless fully writing out the names. This may be updated in the final version but it was not correctly formatted in my digital copy so wanted to call it out.

Thank you for the ARC! I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read this in advance.

Blake Crouch's novel Upgrade is available on July 12th. By creating a relatable link between the present and future in Upgrade, Blake Crouch offers readers a mind-bending journey. Fans of sci-fi should not miss this fast paced exciting book. Pre-order your copy today!

Synopsis:
Logan Ramsay is a government agent that is unintentionally genetically altered to become superhuman. The fact that he has powers beyond human comprehension sounds intriguing, but what are the repercussions in the hands of the enemy? His mission is to try to prevent the DNA upgrade from spreading throughout the world.

Upgrade evokes a sense of curiosity and wonder. Logan Ramsay, the main character is well developed and interesting. Blake Crouch's imagination and use of scientific concepts keep the reader engaged to the very last line. (4.25 ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫)

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, for allowing me to review this spellbinding book. Your kindness is appreciated.

My goodness what a book! I devoured this novel in two sittings. It was bit like reading Jack Reacher on steroids made from future technology. This dystopian science fiction thriller will be in my top ten of the year I’m sure! Even better than Dark Matter. I got lost a little in the science but I’m good at skimming those parts that make my eyes glaze over, and this was heavy on the science. I loved this book though and would love to see it adapted for screen at some point. The minute this comes out in July go grab it!

[4.5 stars]

Blake Crouch is the only reliable Sci-Fi author for me and I loved his first two novels (Dark Matter and Recursion). His third novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future following a Great Starvation. Logan Ramsay, son of legendary geneticist Miriam Ramsay, feels himself changing…his mind and body becoming a bit sharper. He realizes his genes have been chemically altered and that it’s part of a much bigger and more insidious plan. Of course, he has to stop the plan to save humankind. Crouch is a master at making nerdy science and apocalyptic projections incredibly propulsive. The stakes are incredibly high...of the "save the world and humanity" variety and I haven't turned the pages this fast in awhile. This is also a family dynamics book and might be the first Sci-Fi action thriller I've ever called heart-warming.

My new favorite book by this author. I read this in one sitting. Could not put it down even though I was struggling to keep my eyes open. This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far. Definitely my favorite sci-fi read of the year. Pre-ordered it for my daughter who will be studying genetics.

A federal agent discovers he’s the only person who can save the world from a frightening development. In order to do so, however, he must face his past and decide whether family matters more than country. Author Blake Crouch uses his screenwriting skills to full effect with somewhat shallow results in his latest novel Upgrade.

In the near future, Logan Ramsay works with the governmental Gene Protection Agency, which finds and neutralizes geneticists who work in secret. Logan feels like he’s paying his mother’s debts. Miriam Ramsay was a brilliant scientist herself, but she killed 200 million people worldwide with her work. She didn’t mean for it to happen, but the science spun out of control and so did most of the safeguards for the world’s populations.

Now Logan lives in a world where organizations like the GPA maintain control and places like Lower Manhattan are under water. He spends his days looking for the scientists who are still frantically trying to solve the world’s biggest problems. During one such raid, he’s attacked with an unknown substance. Without warning, he’s whisked away to a black site and put into isolation.

Whatever substance invaded his system during the raid has changed him. It has increased his awareness and his ability to go long stretches of time without food or sleep. He’s able to speed read his way through several books in a day, and he’s learned to anticipate people’s reactions to his questions before they can process how they’re going to answer.

While some might say it’s a huge boon to his work to be turned into a modern-day Bionic Man, Logan knows one thing for sure: somehow his mother is connected to this major upgrade to his system. Then a stranger breaks him out of the site, which confirms his worst fear: the world may be on the brink of losing a wide swath of humanity once again.

Certain factions have decided that killing millions is worth it so the world’s problems can be solved with logic, reason, and high intelligence. Those who don’t survive are just collateral damage. Logan alone is left with his own skills, his instinct, and his heightened abilities to figure out how to save everyone while also battling the reality that in order to do so he might have to undo everything his mother created.

Author Blake Crouch leans into his screenwriting skills to set up the main premise of the book. Logan is likeable as a protagonist and someone who is easy to root for. In a welcome departure from the genre, Crouch allows Logan time to reflect on the consequences of his mother’s mistakes. Readers get to watch Logan grieve her, which makes him that much more relatable.

Once Logan escapes from the black site, the book becomes more about the science and the tech and less about a tangible goal. Crouch clearly did his research into genetics and shares a wealth of information about how a simple change to a person’s genome can create wildly different results. After a point, some readers might find their eyes glazing over. The narration spends too much time pinpointing specific genes and their functions.

Readers might also find it difficult to suspend their disbelief later in the book when Logan goes on the run. As a highly-valued employee of a visible government agency, his escape from the black site should have created a massive manhunt where authorities search for him. Instead, readers may get the feeling that the world has mostly forgotten about Logan and his abilities. It’s a puzzling approach that zooms too close to how Logan plans to save the world and solve the problem of a scientist gone rogue.

Those who enjoy books that play with tech concepts of the future might enjoy this one. Others looking for a book that covers all of its bases without a well-supported plot might want to skip it.

Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Reviewed by Parker!

**We received an advanced copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. We’d like to thank Blake and Ballantine Books for the opportunity. This book comes out on July 12th!**

I was so thrilled to read upgrade based on the experience I had with recursion. I saw crouch talk at book con 2019 and on his panel he committed: no more small books. And with upgrade, like recursion, crouch swings for the fences. Upgrade imagines economic, political, and environmental futures, focusing clearly on how we in the first continue to fuck it up. literally, Crouch wrote a book about human nature. it’s a full and rich world, if dark. Fans of crouch’s stakes and pacing won’t be disappointed. Upgrade is detailed, and so well researched.

Goodreads Overview:

“Mysterious, fascinating, and deeply moving—exploring the very nature of what it means to be human.”—ALEX MICHAELIDES, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient and The Maidens

“You don’t so much sympathize with the main character as live inside his skin.”—DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Timesbestselling author of the Outlander series

“Walks the fine line between page-turning thriller and smart sci-fi. Another killer read from Blake.”—ANDY WEIR, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary

The mind-blowing new thriller from the New York Timesbestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion

“You are the next step in human evolution.”

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

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.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.

My Plot.

After exposure to a boutique dna delivery drone while on assignment, genetic crime cop Logan has to chase demons, the ghost of his mother– a global pariah and sociopath of a– and the trail of a mysterious illness in order to stop all of humanity from having it’s dna forcibly altered. As he eschews the old confines of humanity, becoming something greater in pursuit of something far worse, Logan contemplates questions about just what the fuck is wrong with humanity that we’re so willing to wager the end of the world as we know it for a few comforts.

As the book develops, we see through the protagonist’s eyes and genome, and descend into madness. There are moments where crouch tries to capture the enormity of a dataset or the absurdity of a statistical possibility. as Logan’s brain changes, Crouch manages to express a lot of that through the presentation of infomration to the reader. There are times where it’s a true infodump, but it’s always intentional when it happens in upgrade. I personally enjoyed them.

Upgrade wants to ask really important questions about what it means to be human, while it makes commentary about our responsibility to protect the planet. Its ambitious as fuck; it feels like oryx and crake meets Jack Reacher.

I think tho that the book felt a little ableist; there was so muchtalk about how hard it is to get genetics right, to have viable functional humanity, but it never took up the existence of people whose genetics society has never made room for. The pursuit of perfection is a project with an ugly history after all. I think Upgrade could have done well to examine the history of, say, phrenology– even if on the way do debunking it. After all, there are humans that we continue to decide are not quite human enough for our sympathy, humans that already bear the brunt of the environmental disasters that upgrade suggests are looming for humanity.

Rating: 4 shots/5

Paring: del maguey vida mezcal. Pretty good, very complex. but I’ve had so much like this recently, and some of what I had before was much, much better.

Upgrade was another exciting and thought provoking read by Blake Crouch, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite science fiction authors. The beginning had me hooked immediately, the ending was generally satisfying, but felt a little rushed. If I had one criticism it would be that I found the pacing to be a little uneven. The middle of the book dragged a little for me compared to the first and the final third of the book. Overall I still enjoyed it a lot, and Crouch remains an author on my "auto-buy" list!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy! The views expressed are my own.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!!!

This book is a great example of a hypothetical question about our future and some ways it could play out. In this not so distant future that Crouch creates, there is an evolution in what some are able to do by changing our genes to create a sort-of superhuman with a high increase in intelligence. The even more interesting piece to this is seeing through the author's eyes what a possible effect this would have on the main character.

This was a thrilling, fast-paced and brilliant read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I never could figure out the next twist in the book and it led me through a whirlwind of surprises. I highly recommend this!

Out July 12th!

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked the main character, Logan. He begins the book as a government agent and happily married family man, cracking down on rogue genetic scientists. He hates the job, but does it as a penance for his own role in a genetic-engineering disaster that caused hundreds of thousands of people to die of starvation. It is interesting to see how he changes throughout the book due to the genetic upgrades that are done to him.

The science seems very plausible and a cautionary tale against what we could do in the future. The family dynamic with his god-like mother and soldierly sister is tragic and entirely believable.

I don't have any criticisms of the book except for a slightly depressing tone over most of the book...which is kind of inevitable given the subject material. It ends on a hopeful note, though, which is great.

Blake Crouch’s latest book Upgrade missed the mark for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high, considering his two previous novels Dark Matter and Recursion were mind-blowing. The first third of the book is the best. The catastrophe facing the characters is high stakes and interesting. Where things dropped off was the amount of introspection the main character indulges in, while giving the reader long passages of science, and no action. As Logan, the main character, becomes less human, it becomes a challenge to care about anything going on. Perhaps that is exactly the point, but there wasn’t enough emotional connection to Logan in the first third of the story to carry me through the rest of the book. Overall, Blake Crouch’s writing is still strong and fans of sci-fi thrillers will enjoy it.

Blake Crouch introduces a hero whose genome undergoes an upgrade and changes his entire life. This story is thrilling and spooky at the same time!

I would like.to say thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While I wouldn't consider myself a Blake Crouch super fan I have read and enjoyed the Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter, and Recursion with none getting less than 4 stars. Unfortunately I will be breaking that streak with Upgrade.

I'm going to try very hard to talk about this book without spoilers since it isn't out yet, but this seems like a difficult task because the issues I had were pretty specific. I'll try to give a general overview but spare the details. First of all the things I enjoyed are some of the things I've enjoyed in the past Crouch books I've read. The novel starts with a bang and draws you in pretty much immediately. The writing is snappy, and you immediately want to learn more about this future setting and what is going on. The pacing stays quick which makes a 2 or 3 day type of read. It is true that you'll want to know what happens in the next chapter.

Unfortunately, that's where my issues really come in. A lot of times when I found out what was happening in regards to the narrative choices that were made I was pretty disappointed. That definitely includes the main antagonist. We know what their motivations are, but I think it's somewhat poor character work in that it seems like they adopt these motivations with huge implications on more or less a whim. Likewise, Logan has to be my least favorite Crouch protagonist for similar reasons. He's slightly more developed, but he makes quite a few decisions that I didn't think made sense given his capabilities and what he says he values.

I also had quite a few issues with the worldbuilding. We know this is the future, but it's never clear how far it is from our present. Some technology seems to not have changed at all, some technology seems to have advanced greatly to the benefit of humanity, and some elements seem radically dystopian.. Some of it seemed kind of ridiculous which broke my immersion. Entire lakes have disappeared and entire sections of cities under water makes you think it might be a far future, but so much seems very similar to our present. These were all kind of nitpicks that didn't really tank the book for me. The ending did that.

I can put up.with a lot of absurdity when it comes to sci fi. The climatic action sequence certainly fits that bill with its ridiculous melodrama and other elements of what happens to main character that would be a spoiler. However, the final conclusion to the story in the epilogue was utterly and completely ridiculous and could serve as the definition of cringe. My eyes rolled so hard I'm surprised they didn't fall out of my head when I read it. Not only did it feel like moral finger wagging, but there's no way I even remotely buy it as a resolution to the presented problem. Bottom line: I hated it and lowered the book from 3 to 2 stars.

Now to be clear this isn't going to put me off of Crouch going forward as he is 6 for 7 with me. Just if you're interested in reading his stuff make sure to pick up Dark Matter or Recursion instead.

Logan's mother was a brilliant geneticist who accidentally killed hundreds of millions of people when one of her tweaks mutated. Now all forms of genetic engineering are illegal and Logan helps enforce those laws as part of his penance. A raid on a lab turns out to be a setup and Logan finds himself the unwilling recipient of a whole slate of DNA improvements. He's stronger, smarter, and faster than he dreamed possible; so far beyond the rest of humanity he might not even count as human anymore. All of mankind is at a tipping point, and Logan is the fulcrum. Another smart scifi thriller from Crouch.

This was the first book by the author that I have read and it did not disappoint. It is a combination of science and science fiction that is well written and engaging. The premise of the book is the upgrading of humans through gene alteration, but not in the typical manner used in other books of this type. You will not be disappointed with this book.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.