Book Review

The book starts off with Matt being a little boy living with his Keeper, Celia. Celia tells Matt that he cannot go outside because of the monsters, Matt being a young boy believes her. Matt soon discovers that the outside world is not full of monsters, but is quite dangerous. One night Matt had company, but the company left and Matt still wanted to play, leading to him smashing a window and inadvertently ends up cutting himself. He was rushed to a nearby infirmary, and was soon discovered to be the clone of El Patron. This caused fear in those who brought him to the infirmary because El Patron, the one man whom runs and rules the entire country.

I think that this book was great, and quite often surprised me with a turn in scene. I enjoyed reading about Maria and Matt, whom both fall in love. Each character in the book is made separately, each with there own image. I feel that this book deserves a 9/10 rating because of how unique it is. This book will keep you at the edge of your seat, exhilarating, and heart pounding, a book to read over & over. I recommend this book to readers whom enjoy a novel full of adventure.

(Quentin) House of the Scorpion Review

The book begins with Matt, the main character, living with his “mom,” Celia. He has to stay inside his house all day because “monsters” come out at night, and he believes her. One day kids come by the house where Matt lives, and because of the loneliness of not leaving the house for so long, Matt disobeys Celia, and breaks a window to go and play with them. Although the glass cuts Matts feet so the other kids brought him to a infirmary in a mansion. There he found out that he was a clone of El Patron, the most powerful man in the world...

This book was a great novel that often caught me off guard. The characters are perfectly made, and everything is connected quite well. I would give this book a 9/10. This book will leave you clinging for more after just the few first pages, I recommend it to anyone looking for a adventure novel.

round table #3

http://vimeo.com/41036234

Matt vs Vincent post #5

Matt and Vincent, 2 people from different worlds who are the same in many ways and different in many ways. One example would be how they were both treated like a lower class of humans, and the reason that they were is completely opposite. Vincent is considered lower class because he isn't genetically modified to be perfect like most other people on earth, while Matt is considered lower class because he is a clone, and so forth considered livestock. Although the way both of them solved these problems is completely opposite to what we are taught today. Both of them ran away from their problems, making new identities for themselves. Matt becoming El Patron, and Vincent pretending to be a genetically modified person. I doubt the writers were thinking about this when the made the book/movie, but then again it could easily be views the other way around by saying something like they both had problems that they tried to fix. Though this could be argued in Matt's case because he relied on other people to get him away from El Patron, Celia gave him poison so his heart wouldn't work with El Patron, Tam Lin snuck him out of Opium, Ton Ton got him away from the keepers, and Maria's Mom saved him threw legal actions.
So ultimately there are many ways that Vincent and Matt are alike, but I think Vincent had to live a much harder life then Matt, because Vincent had to come up with plans to stay away from cops, had to become a entirely different person, and had to leave behind everyone he cared about to complete his dream. While Matt had a great life other then being really bad socially, but at the end of the book even that is fine. Sure he may have had a horrible time when Rosa was taking care of him, but the way he was treated afterwards made up for that.

Chris Post #4

The House Of The Scorpion is set in the future where there are things like hovercrafts, eejits, and much more, but is any of this even possible? The chances of many of these things ever being widely used is very slim. For example there is a low chance of a hovercraft ever being widely used because it would be harder to make. Meaning it would cost more money and probably use more power, and although a hovercraft can go over buildings, and beat traffic, that is all it can do better then a car can do right now. So unless someone finds a super cheap and affordable way to make hovercrafts, then they will never be widely sold.

Another thing to look at is the eejits, but mostly the ethics of someone who would make something like computer chips that you put in peoples brains so they don't do anything accept what they are told. The problem is that we don't know how they were made though so we can't rule out anything. It is a possibility that someone made the chip for animals, but El Patron paid someone to make it work for humans as well. Although if El Patron did make it work on humans chances are news would not get out about it because the only people he might share it to are the other farms in Opium, and other major country's. So unless other country's leaked the computer chip information (which they wouldn't because Opium is one of the most powerful country's in the world and other country's are scared of it), or El Patron didn't care if the information got out, chance are it wouldn't be a huge deal if it did, but it would be annoying for him because there would be protesters saying it's murder.

Now this leaves 1 thing, what time period is The House Of The Scorpion set in? Judging by our current technology and our current rate of growth. i would say if we were to get to the stage of technology the world of House Of The Scorpion is set in we would have to wait another 150+ years, but then again people have tried to predict the technology's in the future and we have both beat the time they set, and didn't even get close to what other people set. So there is no real way of knowing if or when we will ever get to live in the world Nancy has set in the book.

The Reality of the House of the Scorpion, blog post #4

The House Of The Scorpion is set in the future where there are things like hovercrafts, eejits, and much more, but is any of this even possible? The chances of many of these things ever being widely used is very slim. For example there is a low chance of a hovercraft ever being widely used because it would be harder to make. Meaning it would cost more money and probably use more power, and although a hovercraft can go over buildings, and beat traffic, that is all it can do better then a car can do right now. So unless someone finds a super cheap and affordable way to make hovercrafts, then they will never be widely sold.

Another thing to look at is the eejits, but mostly the ethics of someone who would make something like computer chips that you put in peoples brains so they don't do anything accept what they are told. The problem is that we don't know how they were made though so we can't rule out anything. It is a possibility that someone made the chip for animals, but El Patron paid someone to make it work for humans as well. Although if El Patron did make it work on humans chances are news would not get out about it because the only people he might share it to are the other farms in Opium, and other major country's. So unless other country's leaked the computer chip information (which they wouldn't because Opium is one of the most powerful country's in the world and other country's are scared of it), or El Patron didn't care if the information got out, chance are it wouldn't be a huge deal if it did, but it would be annoying for him because there would be protesters saying it's murder.

Now this leaves 1 thing, what time period is The House Of The Scorpion set in? Judging by our current technology and our current rate of growth. i would say if we were to get to the stage of technology the world of House Of The Scorpion is set in we would have to wait another 150+ years, but then again people have tried to predict the technology's in the future and we have both beat the time they set, and didn't even get close to what other people set. So there is no real way of knowing if or when we will ever get to live in the world Nancy has set in the book.

Celia Illegal Immigration- Post #3

I will be writing about why I think that Celia did run across the Border, why she went to a coyote, and what was she thinking during the process.


Article Here


I think and feel that this article represents, and relates to Celia’s story of crossing the border because this article talks about coyotes, and what they do and why. It also talks about jobs, and what it is that makes people want to cross the border for them.

Celia crossing the border, Blog post #3

Article Here

I think this article relates to how Celia got across the border because when Celia tried to get across the border her friends died trying to just get to the border, but even when they got there then the farm patrol caught them and turned most of the people into eejits. Almost all of them died just for the chance to get to the US, and they all knew the risks. In the article it talks about the risk immigrants take just to cross the border, and how most of them die for one reason or another, be it heat stroke, bandits, or even a car crash. These are all risks celia and her friends knew but they still went across the border looking for a better life.

Personally I think these people would be good in america and deserve to be there, these people who sneaked across the border, surviving all the risks and being able to push threw them all just to work a bad job for 12 hours a day. There is still the border patrol to be considered, both in the book and in real life the border patrol is cruel. The patrol in the book know what is happening to the people who get caught, let they still capture them and let them be turned into eejits. the same is in real life, the patrol will kill just to make sure no drugs or people get across the border.

In conclusion i think that the border in real life isn't much different then it is in the book. The only difference is that people who are caught in the book are turned into eejits, while in real life they are deported to keep on living a terrible life.

Setting, Connections to Economic Systems- Post #2

            The economy in Opium is rarely, to never described in the book, I think that this is because Opium is ruled by one person whom accepts gifts as a form of respect or love. I would say that there is no economic system because it is never described or even hinted to. In the end of the book, when Tam Lin was about to let Matt escape he had just remembered he had never told matt about money (currency) and I took this as a hint to the fact the maybe Opium has no form of currency.

This led me to thinking that in what way do the people in Opium record or even determine how much something costs, and how would they pay for such item. I began to think that in Opium there is no form of currency, so that maybe people pay with respect or in return offer their labor. I began to think, what place if such a place exists would have no form of payment just like in Opium, I came up with nothing. In Canada we have the currency of the dollar or $. This form of currency is used in multiple places around the world.

Even in such a different, and extremely rare occasions would you ever stumble upon a place or even civilization in which has no form of currency. Everywhere you look there is some from of the economy, houses, clothes, phones, books, everything was paid for with currency, and that currency goes into buying more supplies and selling more materials to make what is needed. This cycle never ends. Money is always in the economy, even if there is no clear indication of that. If you have read through the whole book, you would really have to look carefully to spot a place in which Farmer describes an economy in Opium.

Characterization- Post #1

I am writing about Matt as a whole character, and briefly about the surrounding characters from chapter  1-9.

Matt or as his proper name Matteo Alaran is a clone to make it simple. He is one of a kind. What makes him one of a kind is the he is El Patron's clone. El Patron is a powerful drug lord who has the ability to over-throw the law. El Patron does over-throw the law so that he can create/harvest Matt. Matt started/starts out as a single cell in a petri dish, these cells divided and were placed in the womb of a cow. The cow is a sacrifice so that Matt can be harvested (born). Matt begins his childhood life in the loving care of Celia. Celia works for El Patron and loves Matt. Matt is a very talented, and smart clone. He begins get taught by Celia. He learns how to speak fluently in English, and Spanish. Matt also was taught how to write, and read at a level that exceeds his age. Matt finds himself is trouble when he is introduced to Maria, Tom, Felecia, and Steven. Matt is, at first, a very shy character, he won't speak to anyone but Celia. Matt begins to form into a dynamic character when he begins to have feelings for Maria. He begins to feel angry and sad for Maria because she is picked on by everyone else. Matt is also smart, as when Celia leaves a pan out on the stove in the reach of Matt. Matt's anger grows as he sits by and watches, and listens as Maria is picked on. Matt finally reaches his amount of anger that he stands up, grabs the pan, and throws it through the window that leads out to the field.

This is the point in the book that Matt really begins to life his life. He has the ability to do much, much more, and is able to go outside... or so he thinks.

Blog Post #2, Connections to Political System

The Political system of Opium isn’t really like we have today. An example would be the eejits, Today if eejits were real, chances are we would consider it murder because with our values that we have today. A person needs to be alive to be an eejit, so if someone was turned into an eejit that would be presumed as either assault (because they never really died) or murder. The only reason they could do this in the future was because Opium is a separate country with different laws.

            The political system in Opium is very strange, and it is a real wonder why the US, or Mexico, won’t do anything about Opium. At the start US allowed Opium because they wanted to stop all the drugs coming to their country, but now that the US has found all the major drug lords in Opium, they could easily over take over Opium, putting the major drug lords in prison, and stopping any more people from being turned into eejits. You could argue that the US doesn’t know about what is happening in Opium, but they would at least notice all the people disappearing on the border.

            Even though Politics in Opium is much different from the rest of the world, US and Mexico are still very much the same. Mexico is over populated and most people there are poor except for a few like the keepers, who have to make up story’s just to keep there good jobs. In the US it seems like it is worse then before because at 1 point in the book El Patron says that, “there are the same amount of people coming across the border from America as there are from Mexico,” this means that the US would be doing worse in there economy, or they might be over populated like Mexico. Either way people in Mexico still think the US is better then Mexico, this might be one of the reasons the US needs to keep Opium alive.

Characterization (Quentin)

The book is full of many people who don't care about anyone else but themselves, like Rosa who trapped Matt and did terrible things to him because other people didn't treat her well. She was always yelling at Matt that it was his fault no one liked her when he had nothing to do with her. People like that are everywhere in this book, people either hate Matt just because he is a clone or just tolerate him. El Patron would be a great example of this because he turned people into eejits, making them repeat the same thing over and over again because the eejits couldn't do anything else. He didn't care about anyone but himself and had people killed, or "harvested" so he could replace his organs with there's and make it so he lives longer. He does all this just so he can keep his opium farm going and keep all his material items; personally I think he just seems like a selfish brat who won't give anything to anyone else just because he likes his stuff.

Although there are many evil people like El Patron and Rosa, there are still good people trying to help matt, like Maria who stays with Matt and is friends with Matt, even though he does terrible things to her, she cares about Matt, but of course people want to take her away from Matt. Like Tom who looks nice on the outside but Matt knows who he really is, a messed up person who likes to torture little animals, and because Matt is considered an animal by many (even himself), Tom likes to torture him, and take away everything Matt likes in his life.

But there are people in Matt’s life who can't be taken away from him no matter what. Like Celia, who is Matts caretaker, making sure Matt have's a good life is Celia's job and after a while she grows close to them and soon enough they are like mother and son, and they care about each other very much. After all that Matt has been threw I think it is his friends that really push him to keep going, even when he was studying the reason he got good grades was because he wanted to impress Celia.

Talking about the book #1