What does it mean to be human?

If you're a sci fi fan, check out the award-winning The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer.  Matt Alacran is a clone of El Patron, the ruler of Opium, a country between the United States and Aztlan (formerly Mexico), where workers called "eejits" - humans whose brains have been clamped - work endlessly in the poppy fields.  After being raised by the mother-like Celia in relative poverty, Matt ends on up El Patron's luxurious estate. Even thought El Patron lavishes all sorts of attention on Matt, he's despised by almost everyone else because he's a clone and not even considered to be human.  Usually clones' brains are more or less destroyed at birth, and eventually Matt learns why he's been allowed to grow and flourish - he's going to be harvested for body parts to keep El Patron (already over 140 years old) alive.  How can he escape?  Although the ending is a bit rushed, the rest of the book is a thought-provoking idea of the future.

A long one, but definitely worth it

I was on a long road trip recently, and I'm really glad I took along the audiobook Incarceron, written by Catherine Fisher and narrated by Kim Mai Guest.  Two parallel stories take place in very different worlds: Finn can't remember how he became trapped in Incarceron, an unimaginably immense, technologically advanced, "living" prison.  Claudia is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and although she lives a life of luxury, she's trapped in a different way - living in a carefully crafted seventeenth-century Era and preparing for an arranged marriage with the nasty Prince of the Realm.  The stories slowly come together when Finn and Claudia find identical crystal keys and learn how to use them to communicate; Finn is desperate to escape to the Outside, and Claudia, convinced he's the true Prince but troubled by her father's secrets, wants to help.  The description of the physical settings and character development are phenomenal, the pace is excellent, and when you find out where Incarceron really is, you'll be blown away!  Now I need to go get the sequel, Sapphique.

Is this what our future will be like?

Lots to think about both during and after the reading of Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.  Kira is a young girl with a deformed leg.  As the book opens, she has become an orphan and fears she will be cast out of her village.  However, the Council of Guardians sees that she has a very special talent for embroidery, and they decide that Kira's new job will be to care for the robe of the Singer, who wears it once a year during the village's Gathering.  While living at the Council's Edifice, Kira becomes friends with Thomas, an orphan with an amazing woodcarving talent who works on the Singer's staff.  Kira's new life at first seems ideal - a wonderful place to stay, plentiful food, and meaningful work.  But bit by bit (and I loved this about the book), I got an uneasy feeling that all was not well.  Whose voice does Thomas hear crying at night?  Do the "beasts" that supposedly killed Kira's father really exist?  What is in store for Kira's future?  I usually like stories that have everything wrapped up neat and tidy by the end, but I make an exception for this book, which would be fantastic for a book club to discuss.