The Lord of Opium

Matt returns to the land of Opium as the new "El Patron." He starts out as an idealistic 14 year old kid. He wants to feed the microchip enslaved workers. However, he discovers that it may be impossible. He also learns he must act like a ruler to be one. He starts to adopt some of the cruelty. (After all, he is genetically identical to the original leader.) He tries to free "waitress". He sees some small emotion come out, but she still remains a "zombie". He wants to spend time with his friends. However, he also is required to be involved in many big issues of running a drug empire.
He gradually learns more details about how people are "enslaved". He is never able to free waitress, but he does manage to stumble upon the way to free others, but with a sacrifice to a space station. The novel spends just a few paragraphs covering what would be the very difficult task of repatriating this zombies into society.
The characters in the book are all quite complex. It is not a case of clear-cut good guys vs. bad guys. Instead, there are different characters with different values. There are often trade offs with many problems not having a clear-cut best solution. There are also plenty of coincidences that are needed to make the book move along. The ending is almost too "happy". The drug empire was essentially a garden of eden for the rebirth of the ecosystem after the ravages of humanity elsewhere. Oh, we could dream.

The House of the Scorpion

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on in The House of the Scorpion. The protagonist, Matt, gradually finds out more about his existence. He lives in the world of opium fields between the United States and Mexico. The inhabitants here are a motley bunch, including "eejits" who are laborers that have their intelligence removed (and are treated like as less than human) and a security patrol consisting mostly of men wanted for crimes in other countries. This land of Opium is ruled as an independent country by the ancient "El Patron", who is many decades past his 100th birthday. He likes to consider himself a near diety, similar to ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. We discover that Matt is actually a clone of "El Patron". We later learn that the purpose of these clones is to harvest organs for El Patron. (This is how he has lived to be so old.)

Matt hits puberty as El Patron has heart issues. As he is about to become an unwilling donor, one of his caretakers mentions that she has been feeding him just enough arsenic to make his heart useless for El Patron. This is too much for El Patron, and he dies. In the commotion, some of Matt's friends help him to escape. Matt sneaks across the border and then joins up with a group of other orphans forced to live in a pseudo-Marxist work camp of "the Keapers". He helps expose some hypocrisy of the organization and gets out. He is able to reach the convent where his "girlfriend" is staying. They are able to bust the keepers and then he is sent back to help find out what is wrong with his homeland. He discovers that El Patron had plotted to have the leadership die when he died. The land is in chaos, leaving things set up for a sequel.

There is an elaborate world created in the novel. Alas, the pieces we see don't give us a clear picture. What is the purpose of the "keepers"? Why do people let them exist, while despising them? And why are they busted for drug use, while at the same time El Patron's drug empire is allowed to thrive? What do regular people do? If people can have their intelligence removed to become "dumb laborers", why would regular jobs remain? Could a clone really be made to have the same fingerprints and other identifying markings? (If a clone is such an accurate identical copy, shouldn't we be concerned that Matt will be a megalomaniac dictator like El Patron?)