It's a sort of world of guilds and apprentices. I think it must have seemed quite convincingly futuristic at one time, and for some people it evidently still does. But it's something that's been temporally repositioned. No narrative is ever stranger than the real thing. That's largely why his next novel will be his first in a contemporary setting.
Parties is just an earthquake or two away.
A final backflip into the present seems almost inevitable. But he also knows it's the only way, paradoxically, to move forward. I have to some-how break the frame now and come up with something different. What I think that I'm doing is trying to find a way to really go for it and embrace the total weirdness of the 21st century. Before he does that, though, he has a new X-Files script to complete.