UPGRADE by Blake Crouch ⭐⭐⭐

*Spoilers Ahead

This was fine. I guess one negative to writing a masterpiece is that the follow-ups just don’t stack up. What scares me is this has me wanting to go back and reread what I thought was my favorite book, Dark Matter, and make sure my fanaticism was well deserved. I’m sure if I revisited it I’d be just as enamored as the first time. But this book has me doubting my own taste.

First, the bad: I spent the first 100 pages waiting to see how Crouch would put his thrilling spin on a very predictable start. I knew nothing about this when I started, only finding out it was even a thing when my wife mentioned it to me out of love (and fishing for a potential birthday present). For some reason I had it in my head this was a take on a superhero story? Maybe I read that in a review somewhere, and maybe it’s technically true. I guess it’s as realistic a version of superheroes as you can get, but I don’t know if this version is as interesting.

A character that has the abilities of Logan is the ultimate plot device. Anything can be explained away because “I’m smart now”. Crouch excels at testing the extremes of science and fiction to mold a story about humanity, but there’s plenty ‘smartest man alive’ IP out there already. As with any superhero origin (I’m accepting the claim apparently), there’s only so many ways to get those fantastic powers, and that left the first half chronicling his exposure and acclimation feeling formulaic.

The good: he does his fucking homework. Nobody can do the combination of batshit ideas and serious research like Blake Crouch. At times, his ideas feel very 'Black Mirror'-y, like seeing our inevitable future with a creative spin. The background world of Upgrade is a very dark, dreadful place due to a lot of mistakes not far from our reality. I loved the theme that if we don’t do anything to change things, we’re fucked. I’ve been thinking the same thing for the last three years.

Because of the above, I feel confident in naming Crouch this generation’s Michael Crichton. Consistently testing the boundaries of various fields of study and our interaction with them, mixed with hubris and regret and catastrophe. Regardless of the outcome, there’s no author I get more excited for. It’s always worth it to see how far he can push it.

I’m a little worried he’s entering his Dan Brown phase, where the globetrotting adventure and suspense is there, but the magic is gone. Where if you read more than two books, you see through the patterns and you lose the fun. I’ll keep sticking around to find out if that’s true or not, because one thing’s for sure. He’s way fucking smarter than me.