‘Upgrade’ is now the third novel I’ve reviewed by author Blake Crouch, the previous two being ‘Recursion’ and ‘Dark Matter’, see my posts of 9February 2022 and 18February 2023 for those reviews. Having written about Time Travel in ‘Recursion’ and the Multiverse in ‘Dark Matter’, in ‘Upgrade’ Couch takes on the science of gene editing and the possibility of using technology like CRISPR-Cas9 and MRNA vaccines to ‘improve’ both individual humans and perhaps even our entire species.
In the not too distant future Logan Ramsey works for the Gene Protection Agency or GPA, a government agency that enforces federal laws prohibiting gene editing, DNA modification, labouratories where such research is conducted as well as any scientist carrying out such activities. It was the disaster called the ‘Great Starvation’ that caused gene editing to become illegal.
In an attempt to give rice plants immunity from disease a brilliant genetic researcher named Miriam Ramsey, Logan’s mother by the way, used genetically modified locusts to try to spread beneficial genes throughout China’s rice crop. As you might guess the genetic modifications not only made rice plants healthier but also created a species of ‘Super Locust’ destroying large parts of the world’s food supply and leading to the death of about 200 million people.
For his part in helping his mother in her work, Logan was imprisoned for several years until his expertise got him released, and a job with the GPA investigating and sometimes arresting the people who worked in the same field as his mother. His mother by the way had committed suicide by driving off a cliff on California’s Highway 1 as the magnitude of the disaster she caused became obvious.
On a raid to an illegal, and unattended genetics lab Logan is attacked by a booby-trap, a trap that injects a synthetic flu like virus into him. Within hours he is racked by a fever and placed in isolation. The possibility that he has been subjected to a gene-editing tool is indicated. Logan recovers from his fever and in the days that follow both his mind and body become quicker, faster, more agile. It turns out that his mother is still alive and she has upgraded him! Not only that, she has plans to upgrade the entire human race.
I won’t go any further to avoid spoilers. What I would like to discuss is the idea in any Science Fiction story of ‘Suspension of Disbelief’. In brief this is the notion that a reader will allow the author to ‘get away’ with a few plot devices that are not based on reality so long as they are important to a good story. In ‘Recursion’ for example author Crouch allows characters to Time Travel, which is induced mainly by drugs. Now I have problems with Time Travel to start with and induced by Drugs??? However that was the only unlikely idea in the novel, everything else in the story followed pretty logically, and it was a really good story. The same was true in ‘Dark Matter’, where going from one Universe to another similar Universe is the basis of the story, again drugs were involved. Accepting that one, rather unlikely idea however again enabled a really good story.
In ‘Upgrade’ author Crouch takes a slightly different approach. Instead of one very unlikely idea that has to be accepted we now have to accept several ideas that could actually be true, but probably aren’t. For example, at the start Logan is a forty something man who has never been a prime physical specimen. After his upgrade however he can take on the entire Seal Team 6 single-handed. The same with his brain, at the start Logan is painfully aware that he is not the mental equal of his mother, smart but no genius. Afterward he can read complex scientific papers as easily as a restaurant menu.
His memory is also greatly improved, he can now clearly remember long forgotten conservations and books he’d forgotten he’d ever read. His senses are also heightened, he can hear another person’s heartbeat from across the room in order to tell if they are lying or not.
Right now the science of gene editing isn’t certain if any of that is possible in an adult animal. Gene editing of a fertilized egg to upgrade it in that fashion probably is achievable, although scary, but such massive changes to a forty year old is almost certainly not possible. However, presently we don’t know just what gene editing is capable of.
The payoff for accepting the ideas in ‘Upgrade’ is a very good story. Couch has brought in a lot of elements of today’s world besides gene editing such as Climate Change, growing Fascism and the very idea of whether an intelligent species is capable of not destroying itself.
This in now the third Blake Crouch novel I’ve happily recommended and look forward to his next story. By the way, Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to ‘Upgrade’ so in a couple of years from now you may very well be reading my review of the movie version!