Author: Blake Crouch

Publisher: Ballantine Books

ISBN: 9780593157534

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 with a well-supported plot might want to skip it. I recommend readers Borrow Upgrade.