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Searching... Woodburn Public Library | Farmer | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Farmer, N. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Farmer, N. 2013 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In the riveting sequel to the acclaimed bestseller The House of the Scorpion , Matt reels from the change in status quo and struggles to do the right thing; find out his story's end in this new edition with a reimagined cover!
Matt Alacrán is a fourteen-year-old drug lord.
Until recently, Matt was just a clone grown from a strip of El Patrón's skin. Now he is lord of the land of Opium, on the one-time US-Mexico border, and rules over an army of microchipped, zombielike workers who are programmed to produce the drugs that are Opium's main export. El Patrón kept the air and water in Opium clean, but the rest of the world is a polluted wasteland.
Matt is sure that, in his new position, he can find a way to break the cycle of violence and destruction--but it will only be possible if he chooses the right people to trust.
Author Notes
Nancy Farmer has written three Newbery Honor books: The Ear, the Eye and the Arm ; A Girl Named Disaster ; and The House of the Scorpion , which also won the National Book Award and the Printz Honor. Other books include The Lord of Opium , The Sea of Trolls , The Land of the Silver Apples , The Islands of the Blessed , Do You Know Me , The Warm Place , and three picture books for young children. She grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border and now lives with her family in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-This long-awaited sequel (2013) to The House of the Scorpion (2002, both S & S) begins with Matt becoming El Patron and no longer a clone. With El Patron's death and the death of all his relatives, Matt is the new Lord of Opium and his plan is to cure the eejits, the microchipped workers of Opium, and prevent a takeover of the country. He must learn to be a tough drug lord and deal with his new status as a person, not a dispensable clone. Dangers surround the boy, and he must learn who to trust in order to save the eejits and the lives of his friends. Matt must also struggle for his own soul as he assumes power. Addressing many ethical issues such as cloning, the drug trade, human rights, and ecological concerns, Farmer shines a light on issues facing our society today and provides a fascinating look at how people deal with these concerns in Opium. Raul Esparza shows Matt's internal struggles and brings to life the emotions and personalities of all the characters. They are well created and complex, from the jefe Cienfuegos, who destroyed people's lives while wanting to save the environment, to Listen, who struggles with emotions, religion, and friendship when she only knows science, abandonment, and terror. Farmer's novel is a reminder to stay vigilant to the problems of the world and not become indifferent. This is a well-written work with an important message for teens.-Sarah Flood, Breckinridge County Public Library, Hardinsburg, KY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This highly anticipated sequel to Farmer's National Book Award-winning The House of the Scorpion (2002) begins soon after the funeral of the drug lord El Patron and the murder of nearly everyone who attended the event. Fourteen-year-old Matt, the dead drug lord's clone, was originally created to provide spare parts for El Patron, but is now the Lord of Opium. Surrounded by people who have been surgically conditioned to satisfy his every whim, many of them mindless and virtually helpless eejits, Matt must come to terms with the deep immorality upon which his wealth is based, while fending off another drug lord, the rapacious Glass Eye Dabengwa, and a fanatical U.N. representative, Esperanza Mendoza. Complicating matters further are Matt's involvement with the beautiful eejit Waitress; his lifelong relationship with Mendoza's strong-willed daughter Maria; and the machinations of the mad physician, Dr. Rivas, who created Matt. Once again, Farmer's near-future world offers an electric blend of horrors and beauty. Lyrically written and filled with well-rounded, sometimes thorny characters, this superb novel is well worth the wait. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
With the death of El Patrn at the end of The House of the Scorpion (rev. 11/02), Matt, the drug lord's fourteen-year-old clone, has not only been reclassified as a human but has now been declared the Lord of Opium, the drug state carved out of the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. Opium is under lockdown, and Matt must consolidate his power quickly to deal with challenges to his authority from the United Nations, rival drug lords, and his own disgruntled subjects. Meanwhile, he is also determined to not only end the practice of using clones for slave labor but also -- if possible -- reverse the mind-control technology that bends them to his will. Moreover, he plans to use Opium's biosphere, preserved because of its isolation from the rest of the world, to regenerate Earth's damaged ecology. Farmer introduces some vivid new characters to her already colorful cast, enlarges the scope of her world-building, and eschews the quest plot that characterizes most of her work for a more nuanced one of mystery and intrigue. Yet ethical dilemmas remain at the heart of this novel, and, if anything, become elevated because of Matt's newfound power and responsibility. "Where did it all end? How much wickedness could you do in the service of good before it turned into pure evil?" The landscape of dystopian literature has changed significantly since the first book, but this sequel is still a cut above the rest. jonathan hunt (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In the much-anticipated sequel to The House of the Scorpion (2002), 14-year-old Matteo Alacrn returns home as the new Lord of Opium. Matt was a clone of El Patrn, drug lord of Opium, but with El Patrn dead, Matt is now considered by international law to be fully human and El Patrn's rightful heir. But it's a corrupt land, now part of a larger Dope Confederacy carved out of the southeastern United States and northern Mexico, ruled over by drug lords and worked by armies of Illegals turned into "eejits," or zombies. Matt wants to bring reform: cure the eejits, disband the evil Farm Patrol, uproot the opium, shut down the drug distribution network, plant new crops and, if that's not enough, heal the planet, since the outside world is in the midst of an ecological disaster. But how can an innocent 14-year-old do all of this and keep warring drug lords at bay? If this volume lacks the mystery and deft plotting of its predecessor (and sometimes feels like an extended epilogue to it), it has an imagined world that will keep readers marveling at the sheer weirdness of it all--the zombies and clones, drug lord Glass Eye Dabengwa, a ghost army, the Mushroom Master, biospheres and a space station. A vividly imagined tale of a future world full of fascinating characters and moral themes--a tremendous backdrop for one young man's search for identity. (cast of characters, map, chronology, appendix) (Science fiction. 12 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Matteo Alacran was created to be an organ donor for El Patron, but he is spared this fate thanks to El Patron's death and his assisted escape from Opium, a country between the U.S. and what was once Mexico. Matt has now returned to his nation and taken the reins of power as the new Lord of Opium. With its borders closed, the country's drug supply is piling up and imported resources are running low. Global nations are growing aggressive waiting for their drugs, while others want the natural resources only Opium can supply them flora, fungi, animals, and other denizens of the preserved ecosystem that thrive there but are destroyed elsewhere. Matt is also trying to achieve his personal goals of stopping the drug trade, growing crops for food, and returning the eejits, Opium's preserved labor force, from their current state as microchipped mindless robots to fully functioning humans, all while making Opium self-sustaining. Most young readers who loved The House of the Scorpion (2002) when it was first released are now adults, and today's teen audience will need to read the first title in order to fully understand Farmer's brilliantly realized world. The satisfying ending is left open enough to allow for further stories, and Farmer includes an appendix that links real people and places to the book. A stellar sequel worth the wait. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: International best-seller The House of the Scorpion took home all the big prizes: the National Book Award, the Newbery Honor, and the Printz Honor. Expect a big national marketing campaign for the sequel (not that it needs one).--Roush, Suanne Copyright 2010 Booklist