Setting...the scene

Nancy Farmer chose an interesting non-existent country in the future, a small country named Opium located between the United States and the New Mexico which is named Aztlán. Opium is completely dedicated to the production and marketing of drugs, it also manages border control for the United States and Aztlán. the precise location of the country is because of border control, and the US government made an agreement to Opium to manage border control and in return they are permitted to grow and sell drugs to anyone except to the citizens of Aztlán or the United States. I think one of the reasons that Farmer decided to choose this area and this time period, because she wanted to demonstrate discrimination and hatred to a person through futuristic type events, which you usually do not see. Usually you find stories of discrimination in past settings, when there was no real laws or legislation for protection of people's differences. So making a novel about discrimination to human clones, which is futuristic is interesting and unique and I think that is what Farmer was going for. Why she chose the location I not so sure, but one reason that I could think of was maybe she also wanted to talk a little about future US and Mexico. In the book, El Patron says that there are just as many people from the US trying to jump the border into Aztlán as there are going to the US. So that is hinting that the paradise that once was there, is not there anymore and Matt did figure that out, and that is almost a direct quote from the book. I think that the setting itself with a futuristic country, was very interesting in it self, and that could help aid with hooking the reader. It says online that Nancy Farmer's birth place is Phoenix, Arizona and that borders Mexico, that could also be another reason that she must have picked that location. Either way, I know that I couldn't pry my fingers from the book when I was reading it.