Robb has set her stories some sixty years in the future, in a world that is eerily plausible and uniformly frightening. It is a world where science has achieved great things. Human beings live well into their 100s. People travel much more rapidly above the city streets and from city to city. Droids are available to do much of the unpleasant work of society.
Computers provide information instantly and communications by voice and picture are commonplace.
Virtual reality allows one to enjoy the beach or the mountains or whatever without leaving one's living room. But it is also a world where the differences between the rich and the poor are even more pronounced than they are today. Where every imaginable kind of sexual act is accepted and performed by Licensed Companions. Where the concept of privacy has almost disappeared. Where the depletion of natural resources means that only the rich can afford real coffee or real meat or real vegetables.