The Lord of Opium Summary
Nancy Farmer

The Lord of Opium Overview

In Nancy Farmer’s sequel to House of the Scorpion, The Lord of Opium continues the story of Matteo Alarcan, the Patron of a futuristic drug empire called Opium. Matt becomes the leader of the country after the previous patron’s death and subsequent murder of most of its citizens. Matt is left with only a handful of humans and thousands of mindless slaves. With threats and demands from outside his borders, Matt must decide what type of leader he’s going to be, and how he can use his newfound power to make a better world. In The Lord of Opium, Matt deals with problems a new ruler would face, except that he was not meant to rule Opium. Because El Patron murdered most of his citizens at his funeral (at the end of House of the Scorpion), Matt faces these new challenges alone. He struggles with how to use his newfound power and deals with threats and oppositions both from his empire’s closed borders, and from within his very walls.