Why Set the Book in Brisbane?

I grew up in the North Queensland town of Mackay. It's a fun, weird little place.

Like a lot of regional Queensland towns, it has a reputation that, for most people, you are born there, you live there, and you die there.

Or you move to Brisbane.

When I was twenty-six, I did the latter. I packed up and moved to Brisbane with a couple of bandmates, and I've been here ever since.

The funny thing is, Brisbane had always felt a little bit magical to me. As a kid, I loved visiting family down here. Whether it was Expo 88, summer holidays, or coming down for music festivals like Livid, Brisbane always felt exciting. It was big enough to feel like a real city but small enough to still feel approachable.

It had energy. It had character. It had a sense of possibility. Twenty years later, I still feel that way.

I like to think I know Brisbane pretty well now, so when it came time to write a novel, setting it here felt like the obvious choice. It also gave me an opportunity to show off a city that doesn't appear nearly as often in books, movies, and popular culture as places like Sydney, Melbourne, London, or New York.

Brisbane deserves more stories.

What made the decision even easier was the fact that Brisbane is currently going through a fascinating period in its history. Major infrastructure projects are reshaping the city. Entire precincts are changing. The Olympics are on the horizon. New transport systems, new developments, new technology, new expectations.

The city feels like it is evolving in real time.

That made it incredibly fun to imagine what Brisbane might look like twenty years from now. What would the skyline look like? How would people move around the city? What would happen if technology became deeply woven into everyday life?

And what would Brisbane look like if a city-scale AI system was quietly helping run it all?

The other advantage of setting the book here was practical. I could actually visit the locations. I could stand where scenes took place. Walk the streets. Ride the trains. Get a feel for distances, angles, timing, and atmosphere. It was a bit like scouting locations for a film.

In fact, if you really wanted to, you could probably do your own unofficial Concordance tour of Brisbane.

Most of the places are real.

Hopefully, if you're from Brisbane, you'll recognise some of the landmarks, locations, and events mentioned throughout the book. Maybe you'll walk through some of those places and imagine what the city might feel like twenty years from now.

And if you're not from Brisbane, come and visit. It's a beautiful city. I promise it isn't governed by an AI overlord that occasionally confuses control with care.

Yet!