352 pages
English language
Published 2022
“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 …
“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.
Not his best work yet. Recursion, which got me hooked on the author and made me read Dark Matter, has a sort of elegance that both Dark Matter and Upgrade lacks. It's a fun, intense and easy read on an interesting topic for sure - just not as refined as Recursion.
Having really enjoyed [b:Dark Matter|27833670|Dark Matter|Blake Crouch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472119680l/27833670.SY75.jpg|43161998] and [b:Recursion|42046112|Recursion|Blake Crouch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543687940l/42046112.SY75.jpg|64277987] I had high expectations of this one. Unfortunately, I can't say that they were met. So many things about this book annoyed me, including what I would call the "flying car" syndrome of putting too much detail in explaining how things would work in the future, as if the character is deliberately telling a story to someone from the present. Listing dozens of random gene names that literally mean nothing to anyone except perhaps people with degrees in molecular biology doesn't really do anything for the story, except make you think that the author copied and pasted from a textbook. Too much science, too little fiction. Annoying.
I'm going to stop here. I'm glad to see that others enjoyed the book. I look forward to enjoying the next [a:Blake Crouch|442240|Blake Crouch|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1479398727p2/442240.jpg] book...
I quite got into this, and as it turned into an arms race of mental and physical excellence, I found myself even more absorbed. The ending did seem to appear a little rapidly, and as with some of these ubermensch stories, the thought processes of the enhanced all seem to asymptotically converge to a degree. In that regard it was refreshing to have a difference of view between two characters. Up there with Suarez’s Change Agent for pushing the boundaries of genetic resequencing and the GPA having the feel of Marcus Sakey’s Federal Brilliance agency, Crouch has shown that once again he can tell a superbly compelling story with bold extrapolation.
