Location, Location, Location!

It’s fascinating to me that so many stories set in our current time (2073AD, for those who are not connected to a certified time source or are Luddites who have no augmentation) take place in only a few large North American cities. Ever since the collapse of the United States and its rebirth as a combined government with Canada in 2055AD, cyber-based novels tend to focus on where the center of the corporate economy thrives best.

Considering how much cyberization technology comes from the Asian hemisphere, particularly Japan, Thailand, and China, it’s a wonder that few novels are based in those countries. Of the three mentioned, Old Tokyo gets the most love. Since I personally have lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year, I had to make sure some of its unique qualities get covered in the books concerning my exploits and those of my characters.

Thailand has a long history of sex tourism going back over a hundred years. It certainly makes sense that they would become the leading marketplace for sex robotics and full cyberized prosthetic bodies.

One infamous spot in the early part of the 21st century was Nana Plaza. Their go-go bars were a big draw for visiting farang, or foreigners. Back when I was working for one of the large corporations that put in the SkyTrain system, my boss held meetings at a bar called Jungle Jim’s Playhouse, a combination brewery and brothel. Back in those days, I was still all flesh and blood and, most importantly, quite married. All of the meetings ended up with everyone wandering off with their date for the evening while I hung out with the bartender and the owner.

Those times are certainly helping me while I work on Hybrid Singularity. While the story begins in my old stomping grounds of Brooklyn, New York, the scenery changes to several locations around the globe, plus the usual off-world hot spots. Bangkok will certainly be featured for a good portion of the first novel, including the unsavory portions and places where the tourists are rarely invited. One thing I did learn while living here was that if one treats the locals with respect and if one tries to actually learn some of the local language, you can go a lot further than the fake plastic bubble of tourism. When I taught electronics as part of my SkyTrain duties, the students would take me to lunch and dinner in places I never knew existed or would never have been invited to if I didn’t treat others with the respect they deserved. I also discovered that it was cheaper to pay for the entire class’ meal than it would have cost me for my own food as a typical obnoxious tourist.

As I moved around Asia, visiting Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Tokyo, and Singapore before it was abandoned from fallout and rising ocean levels, I found that respect went a long way. I wanted to make sure my protagonists had that in mind, and that the corporate drones treated the locals with disdain and general rude touristy behavior. By expanding the locations of the novels beyond traditional North American ones, I could bring in a general population who were just as tired of the corporate-controlled government in their countries and have them act in realistic manners.