What’s up with the setting?

Subversive starts in 2020 in an America controlled by wizards. But if it seems like 1910 with some later technological innovations thrown in (plus magic, of course), there’s a method to the madness.

In the America of the Clandestine Magic series, wizards were underground until the World War (World War I to us). They’ve been consolidating power and influence ever since.

That’s a big change in the timeline, so to speak. I imagined that some innovations would keep developing—like automobiles. I imagined that others might still be in their infancy, like television. And I figured that plenty of things we take for granted in our version of the 21st century might never have been developed.

This fork in the road could have gone so many different ways. How would you imagine it?