In this haunting sequel to Nancy Farmer’s National Book Award winning The House of the Scorpion, Matteo Alacrán, the clone of a former major drug lord, is faced with a difficult task. He is now the Lord of Opium.
In 2137, the U.S. and Mexican borders have been combined and are now a new little country named Opium. Matteo is Opium’s ruler and is considered a major drug lord. Even at the tender age of 14, he’s also the ruler of thousands of “eejits,” or workers with microchips in their brains. In the book, most of the world is an ecological disaster called God’s Ashtray except the Land of Opium.
Nancy Farmer provided vivid descriptions of the scenery. The places described were easy to imagine and visualize.
Matt will always be my favorite character, and it was great to see the transformation of how Matt as a ruler. When reading, I felt empathy for Matt. I became scared when he felt fear and I became sad when he experienced sadness. In addition, I enjoyed a lot of the witty remarks that were from Matt when he was directed as “El Patron” or “mí Patron.”
Environmental health was a topic that is pretty dominant through out the book. Perhaps, Nancy Farmer was trying to open the eyes of the current people and tell them that the world is basically decaying.
Sadly, I don’t believe this book is as good the previous one. Since The House of The Scorpion has won many awards and honors, I do believe that The Lord of Opium did deliver. In my opinion, it was not as strong as I thought it should, but it was acceptable.
When Farmer was asked about the time that passed since the previous book was written, she said, ” I never intended to make a sequel. Writing the first book was really depressing” (“Q & A with Nancy Farmer”).
Nancy Farmer does a great job with providing the backstory so the reader can fully understand what’s going on. This is a great advantage because one would not have to read The House of the Scorpion in order to understand The Lord of Opium.
Overall, it was a great read and was very interesting. The book does speak of drugs and some graphic images are depicted, however, they do not overpower the storyline.
If you enjoy dystopian, sci-fi books with a strong main character, then I recommend you read The Lord of Opium.
