ARC Review: Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Upgrade
Author: Blake Crouch
Publication: Ballantine Books (July 12, 2022)

Description: “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 Thoughts: This near future science fiction story is about genetic engineering gone wrong. It stars Logan Ramsay, whose mother was Mariam Ramsay. Miriam Ramsay was a geneticist who set off an environmental catastrophe when she changed a grasshopper to stop it from preying on Chinese rice patties. Before things stopped, that tinkering had killed over 200 million people, destroyed habitats, and changed Earth's climate. It also caused passage of the Gene Protection Act which forbids changing genes and targets any scientist who might be working in that field.

After spending some time in prison for his minor role in the catastrophe, Logan is now an officer in the Gene Protection Agency who tracks down rogue scientists and off-grid genetics labs. When he is hit with some sort of weapon during one such raid, his own genes begin to change making him a new sort of superman. Taken into custody by his own agency and studied like a lab rat, Logan has to deal with the major changes his is undergoing including much higher intelligence and total recall of everything he has ever seen, heard, or read.

He is broken out of the lab by his sister Kara who has also undergone the same genetic manipulation only to learn that the mother he thought was dead faked her own death and continued her own research. Kara and Logan are the first of his mother's plan to change all humans. But Kara and Logan have completely opposite opinions about the efficacy of their mother's plans for genetic manipulation. 

This story was packed with action and also packed with information on human DNA. Beyond Logan's efforts to stop his sister from carrying out their mother's plan, is an exploration of what is really needed if humanity is to survive. 

I found the story engaging and thought-provoking. 

Favorite Quote:

"I know you're trying to do the right thing, but you can't put this knowledge back into the box."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.