The House of the Scorpion

First of all, if you have not had the chance to read even a small piece of this great book, I highly encourage you to go ahead and read some.  The House of the Scorpion was one of the first sci-fi or fantasy books that I remember reading and enjoying.  It was also one of the first books to explore cloning in a moral sense and was published after Dolly had been cloned and before she died in 2003.  In any case, here is the back flap of the book:

"His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium -- a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster -- except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. 

As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect."



The book touches on a number of different themes.  Central to the premise of the story is the fact that Matt is an exact clone of El Patrón, a drug lord that controls a huge opium-producing country, taking up Mexico/Southwestern US after world conflicts rearranged most of the borders.  I will avoid spoiling the ending of the book, but we can discuss the other major themes and conflicts that arise when Matt finds out more about why he exists.  The question of identity, of human dignity and human nature comes up very frequently in the book, among other themes. 


If you want to read the first chapter or so, you can read a sample from Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/House-Scorpion-Nancy-Farmer-ebook/dp/B003L77USE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Just click  "send a free sample to", and if you have the kindle app, etc.