The Changeling Plague [Paperback]

Syne Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

In the mid-21st century, all genetic experimentation has been outlawed. But when a desperate dying man takes an illegal gene therapy drug, he unleashes a worldwide plague that rewrites the DNA of everyone he encounters.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After Mahn's disease ravages the population, viral engineering, which created it, is prohibited by the Beijing Treaty. Money still talks, though, and wealthy cystic fibrosis patient Geoffrey Allen obtains an untested viral treatment that seems to work perfectly. Then his associates fall ill and die of strange cancers and genetic diseases they shouldn't have developed. Allen is quarantined at the Centers for Disease Control, where Lilith Watkins is pointed in the direction of a cure by Idaho, a man whose sister died of Mahn's. The medical establishment succeeds, it thinks, in controlling the new malady but fails to understand its malevolent potential. Idaho, however, comes to an unorthodox understanding of the disease, and the upshot of this is a change in the face of human nature. Cloaked in fast-paced entertainment, Mitchell's futurist medical thriller and cyberpunk meditation is at heart a very human story of the desire to become more than we are. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Roc (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451459105
• ISBN-13: 978-0451459107
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,449,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Was fine up to a point, April 4, 2004

By 

Stephanie Martin (Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Changeling Plague (Paperback)

I picked this book up on a whim, it had a recommendation by one of my favorite authors on it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. It wasn't a bad book, although it does go pretty weird at one point.

In the future, genetic engineering for existing diseases is outlawed, thanks to one Dr. Mahn whose potential cure for a life threatening disease caused even worse problems in those not affected. Despite it being illegal, there are still doctors and scientists that will do genetic engineering, for a price. Geoffery is willing to pay that price to be rid of the cystic fibrosis that he's lived with all his life. He finds a doctor willing to make his cure, and it works. Within days he's much improved, but then strange things start happening.

People who attend a dinner party he throws start coming down with rare genetic diseases, and from there it spreads. It's up to Lilith to find the person responsible for the disease, and find a cure or some kind of containment for it. This is the main plot of the book, and as it stands it would make a pretty good futuristic thriller in the vein of the Andromeda Strain. That's not the only plot in the book though.

Another character, Idaho, was a child who showed immunity to Mahn's disease, back when he was a small child. However, his sister, Blue, was not so lucky, and died as a result. Idaho's never really gotten over her death, and still carries some pretty serious emotional baggage. He's also a computer whiz, and spends most of his time plugged into what the internet has become in the future. When he reads about the plague and discovers his quasi-girlfriend is affected by it, he sets up a small lab to find a cure for her.

Along the way he discovers that by altering certain genes, he can make himself faster, stronger, and pretty much change himself however he wants. He starts experimenting, and eventually turns his girlfriend into a clone of Blue, and gives his friends all kinds of enhancements. As word gets out people are willing to do almost anything to get Idaho to perform his gene therapy.

The two plots tie together when a vaccine is found for the plague. Idaho's friends help synthesize the vaccine in exchange for body modification, and the rest of the world gets a vaccine to help those not affected.

The whole secondary plot about genetic modification was really strange, and started to twist the book. As the book goes on and the plague becomes secondary, it just gets kind of weird, and the last two chapters or so are really, really strange. It's like the author decided that it was okay to deviate from the story by fast forwarding 80 years.

It's not a bad book, but it does go kind of strange, and unfortunately it's strange enough to affect my enjoyment. Hard core science fiction lovers will probably love this.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-Paced Medical Sci-Fi Thriller, April 9, 2003

By 

hamsterdance (TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Changeling Plague (Paperback)

Bio-engineering must be an "in" thing to base fiction on these days among hard sci-fi writers the way cyberpunk was for the mid-to-late 90's. The Changeling Plague reminded me of nothing so much as Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio (also an excellent read). Both use a base hypothesis of what would happen if genetic propogation began to do odd things. How would that change us and how would various societies and their governments respond? But while Bear's story hypothesizes it could happen from spontanous mutation due to environmental stresses such as industrial pollution and over-populated regions Ms. Mitchell's novel envisions a world where illegal gene therapy research escapes the control of the scientists conducting it.

As with most novels there are some odd situations. For example, in Ms. Mitchell's novel (as a previous reviewer noted) the world quite understandably has a mass panic (the infection rate climbs to 96% with almost certain death to follow). It is never clear how extensive the damage is beyond a few scenes sketched out showing general public panic. In a world where it is admitted this virus is highly communicable (the author never quite pins down if it's airborn or only transmitted via touch) and mass-panic ensues apparently pizza-delivery boys think they're immune so you can still order delivery knowing it will be at your doorstep a half hour later. And since the story explains earlier that bio-hazard suits sell for thousands of dollars on the black market I doubt pizza-delivery suddenly becomes a lucrative career option. This is only one example of some odd disjunctures. It had the effect of reminding me I was reading a story. Thankfully though it didn't happen often.

If I had to classify it I would say this book is more plot-driven than character-driven. You see the 3 main characters (the medical researcher Lillith, Patient 0 Geoffrey Allen and hacker extraordinaire Idaho Davis) and what they think and how they react to the events around them but unlike some I didn't get a sense of getting to know or understand each character *except* in relation to their handling of the plague and it's consequences on them, their family and friends. This is what I mean about it being more of a plot-driven novel than a character-driven one. Having said that these 3 do get a lot of air-time with everyone else getting bit roles. Using terms of a standard hollywood tv-drama the main 3 carry the novel and get the majority of lines while a few other regulars get a few lines per chapter.

The pacing is also tight. Unlike some novels there isn't a lot of time spent building a backstory that makes people often say of a novel, "it's slow through the first part.". Ms. Mitchell jumps right in and never lets up. It is a fun, entertaining read and the author succeeds overall more often than not. If you are a sci-fi fan give this book a shot.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Started out ok... turned to crap shrortly thereafter, January 7, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Changeling Plague (Paperback)

I only got about halfway through this novel, whilst the plot was fairly interesting I found the characters themselves rather 2 dimensional.
It was the unconvincing portrayal of the characters that led to me just not careing enough about them to finish the book. the final straw came when the when the computer wizard (who, by the way, is obsessed with making love with a facimile of his dead sister of all things!) begins to program genetic mutations like retractable claws and venomous fangs in people. Such comic book science soundly terminated the suspension of this readers disbelief. Had the author invested more into creating more belivable (and Interesting) characters I would have finished what had started out as a promising read.