The House of the Scorpion
The story takes place in the country of Opium, a strip of land between Mexico (now called Aztlán), and the United States. Opium, which is essentially an opium-producing estate, is ruled by Matteo Alacrán, also known as El Patrón. El Patrón's work-force consists of illegal immigrants whom the Farm Patrol (ex-criminals who are tempted with the offer of protection from the police) enslave when they catch them crossing the border in either direction. These illegal immigrants become "eejits", humans with computer chips implanted in their brains, making them more or less zombies who can perform only simple tasks. The main character, Matt, is a clone of El Patrón, an incredibly powerful, 140-some-years-old drug lord who intends to take Matt's organs when his own organs fail. Matt was grown from a set of cells that were taken from El Patrón decades ago, then frozen. He was cultured in a test tube, then transferred into a surrogate mother (a cow) when it became clear that he was going to survive. For the first six years of his life, he lived with Celia, a cook who worked in El Patrón's mansion. Though he was told from very young that Celia was not his biological mother, she is his mother figure. One day, he is discovered by two children (Emilia and Steven). The next day they return, and bring Emilia's sister, María, who immediately captivates Matt. They observe him through the window for a while, but soon get bored and turn to leave.
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5mentions
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2017–2026years
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What Hacker News says
- I enjoyed reading a Young Adult Sci-Fi novel with this premise called The House of the Scorpion[0]. The main character is a clone who's owner is a powerful enough drug lord to get away with not having his organ clones' brains crippled at birth like all the others are.
- I enjoyed The House of the Scorpion https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Scorpion-Nancy-Farmer-ebook/d...
You can find award winning books of different genre in the database of award winning children's books: http://www.dawcl.com/
You can browse through winners of the Carnegie Medal here: https://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/archive.php
Weirdly they don't keep the short lists. :-/
EDIT: here are the shortlists for a few years. You can find them easily with google:
https://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/press.php?release=pres_...
https://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/press.php?release=pres_...
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/mar/17...
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/childrens-books/news/2012-cilip-c...
- ...maybe it's just that storytelling is like a magic trick which requires the wholehearted participation of writer and reader to be successful. If you're not interested, you should quit and find something else to do.
I'm the same with television - cannot watch The Wire too many times, cannot watch most other things even once.
Wholeheartedly agree. I can't stand movies and most TV shows but there is a relatively small set of shows that I will binge rewatch at an interval of every 2-4 years. A few are the great ones like The Wire or the Star Treks that make me rethink my place in the universe as I get older, but when I say the rest out loud they all sound so... banal. And yet, I love rewatching them every time, especially when it's with friends or family - when they don't know what's going to happen and you get to experience that again vicariously.
Arrested Development, Archer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Moral Orel, Xavier Renegade Angel... stupid stuff like that. It's especially great today with so many shows surviving for 5-10 seasons. I'll watch one or two seasons that are available and come back years later to something that combines elements of nostalgia with brand new never before seen seasons.
Edit: Also, to add, I have always been a voracious reader, especially of nonfiction. While I absorbed a lot of knowledge, I can't really remember any actual stories that I have read in my lifetime save for one. Some young adult book, House of the Scorpion, published in 2002 that was required reading for one of my kids so I read it to help them with their book report. For some reason, that book just resonated with me and it's still my favorite.
- The book The House of the Scorpion has, as part of its premise, some ultra-rich drug lords who raise clones for organ replacements. (Seems like the right combination of rich and unscrupulous.) Most of those clones are injected with something to disable their brains at birth, with at least one exception.
- I was reminded of The House of the Scorpion, which seems to have similar themes to Orphan Black.
