The Adjudicator

by Susan Daitch

Award-winning author Susan Daitch's new novel, The Adjudicator, is a visionary cyberpunk mystery that explores the boundaries of consciousness and individual autonomy within an authoritarian state that controls the genetics of its citizens. 

In a near future where the surveillance state legislates the genetic code of its citizens, babies are created in a laboratory according to a template set by parents and the corporation. It is a utopian world of perfect control, where disease has been eliminated and the human genome has reached apotheosis. Mistakes, though unlikely, still occur, and it is adjudicator Zedi Loew’s job to fix them. One day, a cold case file based on an absurd premise crosses her that gene-coding can go beyond structuring the body, it can alter consciousness. Fearing exposure, Zedi’s boss makes the case top priority, and she has only a few days to solve it. The case will prove to be an entry into a dangerous labyrinth, and Zedi follows a taut thread of information, one which, she will learn, connects to the corporation’s hidden mechanism of power as well as her own origin story.

367 pages, Paperback

Published February 25, 2025

About the author

Susan Daitch is the author of four novels, L.C. (Lannan Foundation Selection and NEA Heritage Award), THE COLORIST, PAPER CONSPIRACIES, THE LOST CIVILIZATION OF SUOLUCIDIR and a collection of short stories, STORYTOWN. A novella, FALL OUT, published by Madras Press donates all proceeds to Women for Afghan Women. Her work has appeared in Tinhouse, Lit Hub, Slice, Black Clock, Conjunctions, Guernica, Bomb, Ploughshares, The Barcelona Review, Redivider, Zeek, failbetter.com, McSweeney's, Salt Hill Journal, Pacific Review, Dewclaw, Dear Navigator,
The Library of Potential Literature, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction. Her work was featured in The Review of Contemporary Fiction along with William Vollman and David Foster Wallace. She has been the recipient of two Vogelstein awards and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has taught at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently teaches at Hunter College.

Reviews

[Holly Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first this book seemed almost too ‘scientific’ but it quickly changed pace into an addictive cyberpunk noir mystery with slippery untrustworthy characters in a world designed to create a perfect population with gene manipulation. Yet the city itself is seedy and unpredictable, people created with perfect traits but are they? The story also debates human conscious with the futuristic world it takes place in thought provoking ways. I haven’t read anything else like it and found myself basking in this world. I will definitely be checking out other books written by this author.

[Stacy DeBroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this compellingly smart and thought-provoking novel set in future Earth, state-run private companies regulate all aspects of procreation. Parents get selected, pay exorbitant fees, design their babies by choosing between thousands of genetic options, and have their babies carried to term in carefully regulated sacks. But despite all this elitism and scientific achievements, all is far from well with humanity.

While diseases have been weaned out of the genome, selected characteristics can conflict and create havoc on the babies born. Also, many people have become addicted to tranquilizers called Dormazin that Zen you out and then suddenly wake you back up.

Enter Zedi Loew who works for Pangenica, the leading procreative company, in the role as an Adjudicator. Zedi’s sent out to investigate those rare cases where parents sue the company accusing them of causing mental or physical deformities in their children. Zedi herself stands apart from others, as she’s a born empath whose feelings identically mirror those she’s around. She’s had to keep this deeply hidden, as society punishes and ultimately exiles any genetic abnormalities.

Most parents don’t sue, as they don’t want the public embarrassment of admitting to a less than perfect child – but Zedi just been assigned to investigate a case in which a single Mom claims that her daughter was born with the consciousness of another child. The children in question were born on the same day to Moms who became friends along with their kids: with the daughter PomPom emerging as a true psychopath and the other Mom’s son Clayton having a shy persona and ultimately dying while falling through the thin ice of the pond. Each child looks like their parents but acts like a child of the other couple.

Zedi goes undercover to investigate and quickly realizes that not all is as it seems in that there’s a conspiracy afoot to thwart this case from reaching the light of day. Moreover, a huge philosophical question being tackled by Zedi and the novel itself centers on what consciousness actually is and whether it can ultimately be manipulated through experimentation with genes. And if this is the case, would this be the means for the state to control an entire population?

Zedi finds herself in constant unexpected danger, along with her Domazin-addled Mom who has retreated from society to a solitary existence on a far sea island’s run-down lighthouse. From a desperate rescue voyage to sea to leaping between rooftops to escape the corporate goons to the bombing of an island concert, the science questions and the philosophical musings ratchet up right alongside the thriller tension Zedi emerges an unlikely, brave and resilient heroine facing down an authoritarian state.

A fantastic must read for dystopian fiction and sci-fans! I am now going to dive into Susan Daitch’s other novels!


Thanks to Green City Books for an advanced reader’s copy.

[Frederick Gault · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea for this book is very cool. However, I found the style of writing off putting. What, I guess, was supposed to be hypnotic or psychedelic writing, or something arty, left me confused. The characters came off as very flat and they should have been interesting. Vignettes seems to be welded onto the narrative without much connection to the story arc. There were moments of violence, shadowy characters, people on the run, storms and evil corporations - and yet it all seemed to turn to mush as I tried to keep up.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always loved Daitch’s fascination for nearly-antiquated lines of work and the detective noir flair given to the soon-to-be-extinct specialists of the world, either real or (in this case) speculative. It’s nice to see her applying this attention to detail whilst pointing out Cornell Woolrich constellations under a Phillip K Dick night sky.