In the future, a scientist has found how to alter our DNA to enhance our capabilities - physical, mental and emotional. The belief is that humans will behave better if they are better.
This dystopian novel was fascinating to me because it realistically wove DNA facts into a story, an addition I've seen coming out in more and more current fiction writing. The story explores the consequences of genetic engineering. That's the practice of altering DNA to eliminate undesirable outcomes. Like all human efforts to control their fate there are unintended consequences. The hero, Logan Ramsey, having been "upgraded", races to prevent the release of the changes throughout the population. It's a fast-paced read with a modern twist.
Quotes:
"It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally unable to realize. No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream."
"Never before had I seen Homo sapiens so clearly--a species, at its most fundamental level, of storytellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold random, sometimes brutal existence, with fabricated meaning."
" We were a bunch of primates who had gotten together and, against all odds, built a wondrous civilization. But paradoxically--tragically--our creation's complexity had now far outstripped our brains' ability to manage it."
"We don't have an intelligence problem. We have a compassion problem. That, more than any other single factor, is what's driving us toward extinction."
Published: 2022 Read: March 2025 Genre: Fiction
