A lot of sci-fi/fantasy books stop when the the heroes win over the baddies and often gain some kind of power. But Nancy Farmer's "The Lord of Opium," the sequel to "House of the Scorpion," studies what happens AFTER that -- a tightly-written sci-fi thriller who studies what happens when a teen clone must cling to his humanity as he struggles with power. 
 With the death of El Patron, his teenage clone Matt Alacran is considered the new "him" (since they share DNA). So Matt is the new Lord of Opium, meaning he is running his own country full of opium poppies and a eejit populace. The microchips in their brains makes the eejits like programmable zombies, and Matt wants to free them and return them to their humanity... but isn't sure how. 
 And there are other problems -- challenges to his station, trying to get his love Maria back into Opium, and the power vacuum left by the deaths of the other drug lords. What's more, the UN wants to use Opium -- the only unharmed part of the world -- to heal everywhere else. Now Matt must find a way to balance his goals with the pressures outside Opium... while staying alive, and maintaining who he truly is. 
 Legally speaking, Matt is the same person as his hated "father," so a lot of "The Lord of Opium" is about his struggle to be a far better person than El Patron. It's tough to address that kind of inner conflict, especially when there is actual doubt from the person about how different he can be from the original. It's not a good sign when you regularly "hear" the voice of your monstrous predecessor. 
 What sets Matt apart? It's that gaining power has made him aware of the horrors El Patron has perpetrated, and given him a dogged determination to somehow fix them. He honestly wants the eejits to have their humanity returned, and to care for everyone within his domain -- but along the way, he may have to do some pretty morally dubious things. 
 The book's biggest problem is that it doesn't have the urgent pacing of "The House of the Scorpion," at least until the final chapters, when things erupt in blood and terror. It also injects a more sci-fi atmosphere to the story -- the Scorpion Star, the nature of the microchips in the eejit brains, and the way that Maria escapes. Doors are left open for a third book, and it honestly leaves me hoping that Farmer picks up these plot threads. 
 "The Lord of Opium" is slower and more tangled in ethical debates than the first book, but it's still a riveting sci-fi story that takes a cold hard look at what it takes to be both a good leader and a good person.