Upgrade

A Novel

by Blake Crouch

352 pages

English language

Published 2022

ISBN:: 978-0-593-15753-4
Goodreads:: 59838811

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(11 reviews)

“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.”

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.

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.

2 editions

Nicolas Fressengeas reviewed Upgrade by Blake Crouch

A lire comme on regarde un bon Marvel

3 stars

C'est dans le titre ! Upgrade est un très bon Marvel. Tout y est : - Le gentil et la méchante, que tout rapproche, mais que tout oppose, tous deux dotés de super-pouvoirs. - Le monde est sauvé par le gentil face aux intentions de la méchante. - Une technologie nouvelle, source des super-pouvoirs, mais dont l'usage est détourné par la méchante (inconsciente qu'elle est !). - Le happy-end. - Et même la séquence post-générique, pour faire réfléchir.

Même sentiment ambivalent, donc, que devant un bon Marvel. La portée philosophie de l'œuvre n'est clairement pas le but. Ce n'est pas de la science-fiction non plus, tant la science est maltraitée. Ce n'est pas vraiment du fantastique. En résumé : c'est une histoire de supers-héros, comme on les aime ! Car oui, Upgrade fait passer un excellent moment, et se laisse difficilement mettre de côté.

Et si l'on veut trouver une …

Et si l'on veut trouver une morale à cette histoire (sans révélations malencontreuses), il suffit d'écouter Spiderman : un grand pouvoir implique de grandes responsabilités.

Simon reviewed Upgrade by Blake Crouch

An easy read

3 stars

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.

Brett Hodnett reviewed Upgrade by Blake Crouch

OK

3 stars

Upgrade is not his previous two books I recently read, Recursion, or Dark Matter. Upgrade seemed to me uninspired. It felt to me like he needed to write another book, so came up with this story, rather than the other way around, where he had a story he wanted to tell, and so wrote a book. It was OK to read though.

Daniel reviewed Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Upgrade' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

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...