 Alright, so today we are here to talk about The House of the Scorpion. Now this one, I actually remember seeing it around when I was a kid. I never picked it up, but I did hear about it, and a couple people in my comments kept asking me to review it to talk about it in some way, so I figured why not. I checked it out, and I think it's good. I'm not really in the target audience, but I think it's good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. This will probably be a brief review, because I don't have that much to say. Like, I'll have a brief non-spoiler section, and then a brief spoiler section, because I mean, in both cases, there's just not that much to add. Like, this isn't a particularly long book, and it is for kids. So, you know, like, even though I could probably go into more depth on certain criticisms I have, it's for kids. Like, so what would be the point? You know, I think this is a good book. I think it's well put together and everything. It didn't really grab me, but that's because I'm really not part of the target audience. Like, if you were to take a book with the same setup and make it for, you know, an older audience, I might have liked it more, but as it stands now, I think, yeah, this would be good for kids. So, the setup for this book is admittedly kind of weird, but it's also pretty cool. Basically, this is some time far in the future. They never specify exactly when. At first, I thought it was relatively close in the future, but then based on some of the technology and some of the events they reference and stuff, I think it's over a hundred years in the future. And essentially, a big chunk of northern Mexico and the southern United States has been taken and it's formed its own country, which was run by drug lords who just, you know, sell opium and stuff like that. And they, well, actually the country is literally just called opium. It took me a while before I realized that, which is kind of a dumb name, but whatever, whatever, not a big deal. And the story follows this kid named Mateo, or Matt, as he's usually referred to as, who is a clone of the, essentially the king of opium. Like, he's usually just referred to as El Patron. And Matt, it kind of follows Matt throughout his entire childhood. Like, it starts off when he's like six years old and it shows a big chunk of his life there where he, like, meets some friends and stuff and then it just skips forward a few years and then shows a big chunk like that. And so on and so forth until we get to 14 and that's where the, maybe the second half of the book, I think, is. Probably the biggest issue with the book is that that's kind of all there is here. Like, there isn't much of an overarching story up until maybe two thirds through. Because around two thirds through we get to this point where I actually thought this was supposed to be the climax because a whole bunch of crazy stuff happens and then Matt has to go off and do more stuff. I'm not going to get into it in the non-spoiler section. And as I was listening to it, because I did this one on the audio book, as I was listening to it, I was thinking, okay, this is actually going to be a pretty good cliffhanger. And then I looked and I saw there were still several hours left and then the next couple hours are just Matt doing other stuff and then we get to the real climax. And admittedly, that last third does have like an actual story and is doing its own thing and everything. It just feels a little odd because we spent most of the book in this one location learning about these characters and everything and then we tossed most of that aside. So that was a little odd. But other than that, yeah, this book is mostly just kind of showing Matt live his life in this area which he slowly starts to discover is extremely dystopic. Like it's a very nasty place to live, which shouldn't surprise you that much considering that, again, it is a country literally founded by drug dealers and it's run by drug lords who make all their money from opium and stuff. So yeah, it's not that weird that it would be kind of a nasty place to live. But even beyond that, there is a lot of unpleasant stuff like the way Border Patrol deals with people who are fleeing either from the US to Mexico or Mexico to the US. Actually, Mexico is no longer called Mexico in this. It's implied that they've had a bunch of like revolutions and stuff over the years. And now their name is Aslan, which brief aside, that's a weird name to choose because Aslan is actually where the word Aztec comes from because the people who we refer to as Aztecs, they were kind of an alliance of several different city-states which went out and conquered that whole empire, right? But the tribe that ran Tenochtitlan, which was the main city-state which kind of ran everything, they were the Mexica tribe, which is actually where the name Mexico comes from. And before they founded Tenochtitlan, they were a nomadic tribe which wandered around and they claimed to be from this place called Aslan, which was somewhere to the north. Now, we don't know precisely where Aslan is in the world. You know, it's probably somewhere in northern Mexico or the US. But the thing is, if northern Mexico was gone, then Aslan is no longer part of Mexico. At least I think it wouldn't be. So having that name is odd to me. And admittedly that's a very small detail. But it did irk me just a bit. Overall though, I like Matt as a character. You know, I like that we can see him as a kid when his personality hasn't really fully formed yet and then we get to see him grow up and change over the course of the book. Like, I once heard a metaphor about how people change as they grow up. It's like when you're a kid, that's your skeleton of your personality. So like, the basic shape is there and everything. But as the years go on, all the muscles and organs and skin and everything get added on. And that fits really well for Matt because as a kid, his personality is not super well formed. But as he gets older, you can definitely see, oh yeah, he's changing, but this is still the same guy underneath it all. And I thought that was pretty neat. He's not like the most compelling character either. In fact, he's kind of dumb at times. He's a little slow on the uptake. Like, nothing that's really annoying or that I couldn't deal with. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't irk me a little bit. Like, when he finds out the real reason why he was cloned, it seemed obvious to me the whole time. Like it just, it shouldn't have been surprising to him. And it's the book treats it as this massive plot twist, which I thought was kind of dumb, but you know, really not that big a deal. And if I was a kid reading it, then maybe it wouldn't have bothered me at all. As for the other characters, they're all kind of fine. You know, the only one I really liked was Matt's bodyguard Tamlin, who is this, you know, this Scottish dude who is just kind of uneducated, but he's not stupid. And he's just a very nice friend to Matt throughout all this. Like, because again, Matt's in this nasty setting where everyone kind of hates him. And Tamlin actually comes along and is his friend. Although I will say that he's supposed to be Scottish, but the audiobooks narrator makes him sound more Irish, which is a little annoying, but again, not a huge issue. Like I've been saying that a lot, I know, but that's the thing. There's a lot of stuff in here, which is a little irksome and really prevents this book from rising to being a great book, I think. But it's not that big a deal overall. Like I said, I think it's good. And if I were a kid, maybe a lot of these things wouldn't bother me at all. And you know, I don't have a whole lot else to add in the non-spoiler section. What I will say is that House of the Scorpion, it is an interesting look at a future world with a somewhat interesting main character who I think he's going to get much more development in the sequels and stuff because he certainly changes a bunch in the last third of this book. And I think if you're a younger person or you're looking for a gift for a younger person, they probably like this one a lot. If you're an adult, I don't know if it'll blow your mind, but there's some good stuff in here. And if that setup sounds neat to you, then go ahead and check it out. Okay, now for spoilers. So basically, El Patron cloned himself and made Matt so that he could have a spare set of organs around so that when he needs a new liver or something, he can just take mats. And that seemed super obvious to me from the get go. Like it seemed like, yes, that he's just for spare parts. It's not only is it mentioned that he's done this multiple times in the past, but it's kind of implied that that's what he's been doing throughout the whole book. And so when Matt can't figure it out, it seems a little, I don't know, it seems like he needed to have it pressed right in his face before he realized that's what was going on, which made Matt seem kind of stupid, not extremely stupid, but kind of stupid. But then it turns out that Matt's mother or the woman who raised him at least, she had kind of sort of poisoned him so that his organs would be no good for El Patron, like he still can live. Obviously, she didn't want to kill Matt, but his organs can't be used anymore. So El Patron dies and Matt has to flee, and he's supposed to run off and find one of his friends in Aslan, you know, in Mexico somewhere. But he winds up getting caught up basically, and he goes to what is essentially an orphanage. Now, at this point, we learn some more about Aslan and how they're also kind of an unpleasant dystopia. And without going into too much detail, it's basically a sort of collectivist society, it seems, and like no one's allowed to accumulate wealth for themselves and such. Like, I don't mind that they're putting that in there, it's just handled with all the subtlety of Ein Rand. So, you know, that's kind of stupid. But, you know, Matt realizes this place kind of sucks too. And at that point, this book becomes kind of more of a traditional kid's story, because I don't know what you would call this genre. But there are a lot of books that I read as a kid, and I'm sure a lot of you can think of some too, where kids are just stuck in some sort of like evil school, or evil location, or something, and they have to escape. Like, the most recent example I can think of is an anime called The Promised Neverland, which is basically the same idea, which that one is actually, I think, aimed at more of an older audience, though, because they have like dead bodies and stuff that maybe kids shouldn't be seeing. But yeah, I remember reading a lot of books with like similar setups, you know, oh, we're at an evil orphanage, so let's escape the orphanage, or we're at an evil boarding school, let's escape the evil boarding school, you know, that sort of thing. And at that point, like I said, is more of a traditional kid's story. So, I was a lot less interested for the last couple hours of this book. But eventually, you know, Matt and some of his new friends, who were just kind of introduced and none of whom are that interesting, I don't think, they escape with him. And then he meets up with some people and they're like, hey, you're El Patron's clone. So that means you can go into opium, remember the countries call opium, still kind of a dumb name, you can go in there and tell us what's going on, because they've been on lockdown for several months now, ever since El Patron died. And then he goes there and it turns out the people who were supposed to take over after El Patron died have also been killed, because El Patron basically didn't want anyone to outlive him. So he kind of just killed all of them. And he's like, fuck it, let it fall into chaos. I don't care anymore. Which is kind of interesting, actually. I think I kind of wish El Patron had stuck stuck around, because I think he'd be a really interesting villain for this series, because he's evil. He's straight up evil. But you can kind of see where he's coming from, and he has a neat backstory, and he does have a weird sort of charisma about him. So I kind of wish he would have stuck around. But either way, long story short, Matt realizes, okay, I'm basically the only one that can conceivably have a claim to this place, because I don't know how that really works, actually. It's not like it's a monarchy where there's a law set up for him to take over, I don't think. But alright, whatever. Basically, he takes over as the king of opium, and he's like, okay, I'm just gonna dismantle El Patron's drug empire. And then that's kind of where it ends. It's, you know, setting it up for sequels. And while I do think that's an okay ending, I also feel that it makes this whole book feel almost like a prologue. Like, you know, this is just the setup for a bigger story, which is not inherently a bad thing, but looking back at this and realizing that the plot didn't have much focus or direction, it makes me realize, man, a lot of that time was kind of wasted. And I feel like maybe everything with El Patron up to Matt taking over could have been handled in, like, half of the time it was. And then the second half of the book would be Matt in charge of everything and getting it over his head. And I don't know what happens in the sequels, but like, whatever happens there could continue happening. And I don't know. I just, I just feel like the plot could have been structured a bit better there. But, you know, not the end of the world. Overall, like I said before, if that sounds interesting to you, go ahead and give it a shot. I can't speak to the sequels, but I get the feeling that they're probably a bit better than this one if only because they have more direction to them. Alright, this is the part where I have to read off Patron names. So thanks to all of you guys, and thanks especially to Oppo Savilainen, Olivia Rayan, Ava Tumor, Brother Santotis, Christopher Quinten, Deanna Dahim, Ambus, Emily Miller, Joel, Karkat Kisune, Liza Rudikova, Madison Lewis Bennett, Microphone, Saad Martigan, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, Vacuous Silas, Vaivictus, and of course, Yakov Merkin. All of you guys, you are all seriously just the best, just the bestest, best people ever. Without you, I would not be able to do this. And if you want to get your name on here, then donate to my Patreon page. Why not? Anything helps. A dollar a month, that's more than most of you will ever give me. But, you know, it's more than my father ever gave me, certainly. So, you know, if you want to help, then, you know, get your name on here, and, you know, do stuff. Thanks. Bye.