July 2025 BOTM: Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

[Steve]

JULY 2025 BOOK OF THE MONTH

Change Agent by Daniel Suarez (2017)


Publisher’s Summary
New York Times bestselling author Daniel Suarez delivers an exhilarating sci-fi thriller exploring a potential future where CRISPR genetic editing allows the human species to control evolution itself.

On a crowded train platform, Interpol agent Kenneth Durand feels the sting of a needle— and his transformation begins. . . .

In 2045 Kenneth Durand leads Interpol’s most effective team against genetic crime, hunting down black market labs that perform "vanity edits" on human embryos for a price. These illegal procedures augment embryos in ways that are rapidly accelerating human evolution—preying on human-trafficking victims to experiment and advance their technology.

With the worlds of genetic crime and human trafficking converging, Durand and his fellow Interpol agents discover that one figure looms behind it all: Marcus Demang Wyckes, leader of a powerful and sophisticated cartel known as the Huli jing.

But the Huli jing have identified Durand, too. After being forcibly dosed with a radical new change agent, Durand wakes from a coma weeks later to find he’s been genetically transformed into someone else—his most wanted suspect: Wyckes.

Now a fugitive, pursued through the genetic underworld by his former colleagues and the police, Durand is determined to restore his original DNA by locating the source of the mysterious—and highly valuable—change agent. But Durand hasn’t anticipated just how difficult locating his enemy will be. With the technology to genetically edit the living, Wyckes and his Huli jing could be anyone and everyone—and they have plans to undermine identity itself.

[Steve]

About 70%. I am entertained. It’s a dystopian future, and he doesn’t hold back on the possibility in the future. Sometimes stacks a little too much in there, and leans on action or tech rather than character or vibe building. There is room for improvement, but I’m entertained.

The Freaky Friday premise seems far fetched, but it is entertaining nonetheless.

So, Change Agent is Daniel Suarez’s entry on the genetic editing narrative. Upgrade is Blake Crouch’s entry. Next might be Michael Crichton’s entry.

Do you think one of these authors told a better genetic editing story than the others? Which one? Why?

[Steve]

I’m going to say Jurassic Park and Extinction were about cloning extinct species, which is not quite the same as experimenting with live humans. But, if you want to throw them into this question, feel free. I’d say Change Agent is at this moment just edging out Upgrade. I read Next long ago and can’t remember anything about it, which means, it must be worst of the three. I’ll probably reread it this year.

Update: No. I think Upgrade still wins. They all leave something to be desired.

[Chris]

I'm afraid I gave up on this one. I just felt that both the means and nature of Durand's transformation were kind of ridiculous, to the point that it threw me out of the narrative.

I still think Daemon is one of the best techno-thrillers of all time, but unfortunately I've been disappointed with everything else by Suarez that I've read. Maybe that's a consequence when you knock it out of the park with your first novel.

[Steve]

I finished it. I last posted at 70% or so. The main character was off on an adventure … and it seemed like the author, Suarez, was writing with no real goal in mind. I wondered if it was really going anywhere. It wasn’t really. The adventure was entertaining to some degree but felt kind of meaningless. It was a rather underwhelming, limp handshake sort of an ending. There was a perfunctory bow on it, but … very underwhelming.

Ultimately, the premise is too much … a singular genetic injection and you wake up someone else completely. Yes, it says that in the publishers summary … the front jacket material. Not a spoiler. It works for Freaky Friday, which was a comedy movie from 1976, rebooted in 2003. They just do it, you forgive them, and you get on with the laughs. In this case, you have to just swallow it, and get on with the techno adventure. To my chagrin, many techno-thrillers have a shaky premise … like a zombie or vampire movie.

[Jed]

starting now, trying to shield my eyes from spoilers, haha!

[Jed]

Finished it tonight. I'm not a fan of dystopia's these days, so I didn't love that aspect of it. And as techno thrillers go, this one was kind of by the numbers ( maybe I've read too many of them?) But I did enjoy it overall. The Otto character was really interesting, maybe the most interesting part of the book, lol!

[Steve]

Otto was good. Like the angel of death. Not quite artfully told … a little short of full tilt … but he was approaching a literary moment. He was feared but would be better if he inspired … awe, like the way the guy in Neuromancer could project images flying or swimming in the air around himself. He was interesting. Well put.

Suarez has an imagination and gets the broad outlines put together ok but doesn’t execute artfully.

[Harry]

I just finished it too. I was really struggling with the wall of info-dumping at the beginning: not so much the dumped content, which I've researched enough to be conversant in, but just the "blam here it is" aspect of it all. Surely he could have weaved that in more cleverly.

Then the lead got pricked in the underground and things started rocking. He moves you along at a good clip, and maybe I haven't read so much SE-Asia-focused content, but I found it engaging in an "exotic locales" kinda way. The secondary and tertiary characters were more engaging to me than the lead, but all in all I liked the plot and cast.

Towards the end, I found myself struggling with a couple items: First, he uses narration "then this happened" when a bit of dialogue would keep you more in the story, and second, he seemed to be racing around planting flags on every interesting syn-bio concept out there. Geez, man, leave some for the rest of us.

Anyway, pretty good story, with some conspicuous story-telling flaws.