The lord of Opium

Nancy Farmer, 1941-

Book - 2013

In 2137, fourteen-year-old Matt is stunned to learn that, as the clone of El Patrón, he is expected to take over as leader of the corrupt drug empire of Opium, where there is also a hidden cure for the ecological devastation faced by the rest of the world.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers c2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Nancy Farmer, 1941- (-)
Edition
1st ed
Item Description
"A Richard Jackson book."
Sequel to: House of the scorpion.
Physical Description
411 p. : maps ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781442482548
Contents unavailable.
Review by 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

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by 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.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by 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.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by 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.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book 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.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The Lord of Opium 1 THE OASIS Matt woke in darkness to the sound of something moving past him. The air stirred slightly with the smell of warm, musky fur. The boy jumped to his feet, but the sleeping bag entangled him and he fell. His hands collided with sharp thorns. He flailed around for a rock, a knife, any sort of weapon. Something huffed. The musky odor became stronger. Matt's hand felt a metal bar, and for an instant he didn't know what it was. Then he realized it was a flashlight and turned it on. The beam illuminated a large, doglike face at the other end of the sleeping bag. The boy's heart almost stopped. He remembered, long ago, a note Tam Lin had written him about the hazards of this place: Ratlesnakes heer. Saw bare under tree. This was definitely a bare. Matt had only seen them on TV, where they did amusing tricks and begged for treats. The bear's eyes glinted as it contemplated the treat holding the flashlight. Matt tried to remember what to do. Look bigger? Play dead? Run? The flashlight! It was a special one used by the Farm Patrol. One button was for ordinary use, the other shone with ten times the brightness of the sun. Flashed into the eyes of an Illegal, it would blind the person for at least half an hour. Matt jammed his thumb on the second button, and the bear's face turned perfectly white. The animal screamed. It hurled itself away, falling over bushes, moaning with terror, breaking branches as it fled. Matt struggled to his feet. Where was he? Why was he alone? After a minute he remembered to switch the beam off to save the battery. Darkness enveloped him, and for a few minutes he was as blind as the bear. He sat down again, shivering. Gradually, the night settled back into a normal pattern, and he realized that he was at the oasis. He cradled the flashlight. Tam Lin had given it to him, to protect him from animals when he was camping. You don't need a gun, lad, the bodyguard had said. You don't want to kill a poor beastie that's only walking through its backyard. You're the one who's trespassing. Matt could hear Tam Lin's warm Scottish voice in his mind. The man loved animals and knew a lot about them, even though he'd been poorly educated. Matt found the campfire he'd banked the night before and blew the coals into life. The flaring light made him feel better. In all the years of camping here, he'd never seen a bear, though there had been many raccoons, chipmunks, and coyotes. A skunk had once burrowed into Matt's sleeping bag in the middle of the night to steal a candy bar. Tam Lin had burned the sleeping bag and scolded the boy for foolishness. Leave food about and you might as well put a sign on yourself saying "Eat me." Matt had been scrubbed head to toe with tomato juice when they got back to the hacienda. Matt heaped the fire with dry wood from the supply Tam Lin had always maintained. He could see the familiar outlines of an old cabin and a collapsed grapevine. Tam Lin wasn't with him. He would never come here again. He was lying in a tomb beneath the mountain with El Patrón and all of El Patrón's family and friends, if you could say the old drug lord had friends. The funeral, three months before, had been attended by fifty bodyguards dressed in black suits, with guns hidden under their arms and strapped to their legs. The floor of the tomb had been covered with drifts of gold coins. The bodyguards had filled their pockets with gold, probably thinking their fortunes were made, but that was before they drank the poisoned wine. Now they would lie at their master's feet for all eternity, to guard him at whatever fiestas were conducted by the dead. Matt drew the sleeping bag around himself, trembling with grief and nerves. He would not sleep again. To distract himself, he looked for the constellations Tam Lin had shown him. It was early spring, and Orion the Hunter was still in the sky. Heed the stars of his belt, said Tam Lin. Where they set is true west. Remember that, lad. You never know when you'll need it. They had been roasting hot dogs over a fire and drinking cider from a bottle Tam Lin had cooled by submerging it in the lake. What a grand existence it must be, mused the bodyguard, turning his battered face to the sky, to roam the heavens like Orion with his faithful dogs at heel. The dogs, Sirius and Procyon, were two of the brightest stars in the summer sky. Pinning Orion's tunic to his shoulder was ruby-red Betelgeuse. As fine a jewel as you'll find anywhere, Tam Lin had declared. Matt hoped Tam Lin was roaming now in whatever afterlife he inhabited. The dead in Aztlán came home once a year to celebrate the Day of the Dead with their relatives. They must be somewhere the rest of the time, Matt reasoned. Why shouldn't they do what made them happiest on earth, and why shouldn't Tam Lin? Matt found Polaris, around which the other stars circled, and the Scorpion Star (but that was so easy even an eejit could do it). The Scorpion Star was always in the south and, like Polaris, never moved. Its real name was Alacrán. Matt was proud of this, for it was his name too. The Alacráns were so important, they could lay claim to an actual star. Matt didn't think he could fall asleep again, and so he was surprised when he woke up in the sleeping bag just before dawn. A breeze was stirring, and a pale rosy border outlined the eastern mountains. Gray-green juniper trees darkened valleys high up in the rocks, and the oasis was dull silver under a gray sky. A crow called, making Matt jump at the sudden noise. After breakfast and a short, sharp swim in the lake, Matt hiked along the trail to the boulder that blocked the entrance to the valley. In this rock, if you looked at just the right angle, was a shadow that turned out to be a smooth, round opening like the hole in a donut. Beyond was a steep path covered with dry pebbles that slid beneath your feet. The air changed from the fresh breeze of the mountain to something slightly sweet, with a hint of corruption. The scent of opium poppies. Excerpted from The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.