Upgrade

Upgrade
by Blake Crouch

(Edited) Blurb:

The unwilling recipient of a DNA "upgrade", Logan Ramsay is about to get the brain he always dreamed of, along with a host of other gene-level enhancements.  A holy grail of genetic engineering—one that could change our very definitions of humanity—has just been unearthed.  And now it's up to him to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.  But will he be transformed into something more than human… or something less?  

My Reaction:

Eh...

Well, to start with, unlike many of the readers whose reviews I've skimmed, I was unfamiliar with this author's work until I started reading Upgrade, so I came in with no expectations or preconceptions of what this novel might be.  (Though after starting it, I did see that Wayward Pines was based on his work, and I watched the first season of that...)  While reading reviews for The It Girl, I saw someone suggest that people would be better off reading this, if they wanted a real page-turner of a thriller.  (I'm not sure I agree.  Maybe this is the better of the two books in some ways, but I probably enjoyed reading the other one more, despite that.  And honestly, they're just such completely different books!  Comparing them feels pointless, really.)

So, I went in not knowing what to expect.  Aspects of the initial world-building phase of the book gave me the feeling I probably wouldn't like everything about it, but I hoped the story might move in a different direction.  In some ways, it did, but I probably should have trusted my gut reaction, because it was correct:  I didn't like this book.  

My chief complaints?  

• These are flat characters who elicit mostly flat emotions (with one or two notable exceptions toward the end).  
• The combination of dry science textbook infodump and descriptions of action sequences is boring.  Some reviewers have speculated that this was written "for the screen" (or at least with that as a fond wish), and it certainly feels like a possibility.  This author has had other works adapted for TV/movie, which bumps it up to a likelihood!
• Characters who are supposed to be geniuses display distinctly sub-genius intelligence.
• We're supposed to believe that humanity is a century away from extinction, and yet... most things seem pretty okay in the parts of the world we visit during this book.  Certainly not on the brink of extinction, barring something like a "planet killer" asteroid.  Yes, certain areas have flooded.  Yes, non-synthetic meat seems to be an expensive treat rather than part of a daily diet.  Yes, we're told that people are starving (somewhere).  But the major population centers are still there, around the globe.  There have been major advancements in transportation, as well as other engineering feats, and things don't seem to be too bad in middle-class America.  Again, not on the verge of collapse.
• A colossally irritating ending.  I guess it's not worth going into spoiler territory to expand on it, but I really don't buy Logan's theory for how to save the world.  I found it obnoxious, to be brutally honest, and it completely negated the previous however-many pages I'd read.  UGH.

I skimmed large chunks of the info-dump pseudoscience babbling after briefly considering just skipping straight to the end.  

A couple of quotes, since I bothered to take notes...

—"...Drive to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, which had been hit by two cat 7 hurricanes in the last decade and left with no economy to speak of, and wonder how people found the will to go on."

First of all, allow me to guffaw my ever-lovin' head off at the ridiculous little "let me slip this in here all casual-like" factoid that they've added two more levels to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.  I live on the Gulf Coast and have lived through multiple hurricanes.  This little cutesy "cat 7" stuff...?  No.  Also, if things were that bad in coastal Mississippi, I think most people would find a way to leave, even if it meant leaving everything behind but what they could carry on their backs.  Why does this author think the people of MS are so powerless (or stupid?) that they would stay in a hellscape "with no economy to speak of" and no hope for improvement when there's a normal life still to be had in much of the rest of the country?  How insulting!

—"What if you create a bunch of people who are just drastically better at what they already were.  Soldiers.  Criminals.  Politicians.  Capitalists."  

Oh, here we go.  Ok, I'll grant you the politicians, because I'm fed up with them all, at this point and have trouble trusting a word any of them say, but saying that "capitalists" and "soldiers" (just any soldier, I guess, not narrowing it down to some type of scary, evil mercenaries, but including people who simply want to serve and protect their country) are on the same level as criminals?  Good grief.  Well, at least we know where he stands!

Was it worth the read?  For me, probably not.  I didn't love it.