{"id":6186,"date":"2026-06-30T04:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/?p=6186"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:16:20","slug":"upgrade-by-blake-crouch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/upgrade-by-blake-crouch\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrade<\/B> by Blake Crouch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Upgrade\"<\/a>Upgrade<\/a> by Blake Crouch<\/a>
\nMy rating: 2 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve read two previous Blake Crouch books, so I should have known better than to read this one. He has intriguing ideas for a sci-fi fan and I get hooked on that, but the execution is poor. Here the main character is the son of an infamously brilliant but misguided genetic expert who tried to save the world from ecological disaster by engineering some genes affecting crop species, but that went haywire and she ended up killing millions of people due to unanticipated side effects. To carry on her work, she injects her two children without their consent or knowledge, giving them both genetic “upgrades” turning them into a modern-day Superman\/woman pair. They become enemies and you have a pretty classic superhero vs. supervillain story. The writing is second-rate with various minor sloppinesses like saying his pulse shot to 114 bmp (bitmap?), but the worst aspect is how it is overladen with technobabble. The author obviously spent many hours on Wikipedia, Google, or his favorite AI chabot to get lists of gene names and acronyms, weapon brands and specifications, obscure species scientific names and capabilities, and other mumbo-jumbo to impress those who lap that stuff up. The plot is preposterous and the battle of the titans at the end is laughable. Still, I read it all the way through and it kept me occupied, if not entertained, so I can’t give it a 1.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upgrade by Blake Crouch My rating: 2 of 5 stars I’ve read two previous Blake Crouch books, so I should have known better than to read this one. He has intriguing ideas for a sci-fi fan and I get hooked on that, but the execution is poor. 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