Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Published by Ballentine on July 12, 2022

It’s obvious to rational people that any number of existential crises threaten human survival, from climate change to bioweapons to environmental destruction. Upgrade asks whether boosting human intelligence would solve those problems. One side of the debate suggests that a genetic upgrade, unleashing full human potential, would make unintelligent people realize that the planet cannot sustain humanity’s current behaviors. The other side suggests that the problems are not caused by stupidity but by selfishness and greed, attributes that might well survive a genetic upgrade.

The protagonist, Logan Ramsay, works for the Gene Protection Agency. His mother was a brilliant geneticist who attempted to make a blight resistant strain of rice by introducing a genetically engineered virus that would be spread by locusts. The virus mutated and wiped out much of the world’s food production, creating a worldwide famine. Logan worshipped his mother but lacked her brilliance. He was working with her when the famine spread. That connection was enough to earn him a prison sentence. His knowledge of genetics was enough to get him a job at the GPA when his sentence ended.

Genetic experiments have been outlawed, but rogue geneticists continue to meddle with DNA. Logan’s team is raiding a gene lab when he stumbles into a trap. A virus infects his body, leading to an upgrade of genes that control intelligence, perception, muscle development, and other bodily systems. Logan doesn’t quite turn into Superman, but he’s smarter and stronger than everyone else. Why that happened is a mystery I won’t spoil.

Logan’s sister has also been upgraded. She wants to make the virus more easily transmissible, upgrading all humans to save the planet from human stupidity. Unfortunately, about 13% of the population exposed to her version of the virus will die. Well, you can’t save the planet without breaking a few eggs.

The novel becomes a thriller as Logan tries to locate his sister and thwart her plot. As the two antagonists try to kill each other, they are momentarily troubled by memories of good times growing up, but one advantage or disadvantage of the upgrade is the ability to compartmentalize emotion, switching it off as might a sociopath.

An epilog begins with a touching moment before it morphs into a preachy essay. Fortunately, most of the novel doesn’t linger over humanity’s drive to kill itself. Readers turn to thrillers to escape from reality, not to become depressed by it.

Upgrade offers a fair amount of escapism with fast moving action scenes. The novel reads like a treatment for a movie. In addition to chase scenes, shootouts, and several explosions, the story features familiar action movie elements: a misunderstood protagonist who tries to do the right thing while he’s being chased by government agents who view him as a criminal; the protagonist’s forced separation from his wife and daughter to keep them safe; siblings torn apart by differing loyalties.

A screenwriter making a movie version of Upgrade might delete some of the novel’s heavy-handed preaching. Or a studio might have Morgan Freeman come in at the end to give the preaching some gravity. Either way, I would probably enjoy the movie, just as — despite the epilog — I enjoyed the novel.

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