The main difference I see between House of the Scorpion and the rest of the novels we’ve read is the lack of technology. The very beginning takes place in a lab, but instead of growing the children in giant test tubes, they have yet to re-create the womb and have to use cows in spite of it. From this, it jumps to a scene lacking any technological advances past those that we have now. Matt mentions many familiar things: television, the way food is prepared, books, stuffed toys, etc. Even when he’s captive in the Big House, they lock him up in a shoddy little room, not some whitewashed asylum-esque room like that in Lilith’s Brood. There are no aliens, like in the last two novels we read, just everyday things the reader can relate to, with a hint of science because Matt is a clone. The lack of technology makes it stand out against Lilith’s Brood, because even though Lilith is from a world similar to ours, she is thrust into an alien world full of different beings and technology. Blindsight is similar in the same way. Neuromancer is by far the most engaged in technology; it’s what makes the book. The most comparable novel we’ve read thus far is Frankenstein, because it uses the technology available at the time it was written to create a new life, without leaving the bounds of the time period in which it was written.