If you are here, it is likely because you have read my novel Nekonikon Punk: Ctrl Break and are interested in learning more about the world and the philosophy behind it.
With this first post, I’m going to explain how I came upon the setting. The name and location came very early in the process of writing the book. Originally, I tried drawing my own map and it turned out to be incredibly difficult to make it look like a legit land mass. So I started scrolling through the topography of the Pacific Northwest on Google maps, looking for an area that fit.
I knew I wanted something near the coast that had a main road splitting in two directions allowing me to create the three sections, Cogstown, Harborside, and the Battery, and reserving a spot in the middle for Skid Row to be surrounded by these three regions. Symbolically, I also wanted Skid Row to be the lowest point so that the garbage from the Megacorp townships would trickle down into it, lending irony when one of the Guards in the story muses that the garbage runs from Skid Row to their town.
As I was scanning the areas, I found exactly what I wanted. An area near Seaside and Ecola State Park in western Oregon. Adding to the serendipity was the fact that I wanted to reinforce the themes of power and control through a legacy of colonization. I knew I was going to write Penny Fame as a displaced Native American woman fighting the same systems of oppression that fueled the colonial expansion of Europeans in the Americas. As I did research into the area, I learned the Rouge River Wars further to the south were the perfect historical backdrop for what I wanted to say.
I was also looking for a “cool cyberpunk sounding name” for my fictitious city state. As I searched the area, I came across a place nearby called Necanicum, which is a great name, but not exactly as “cyberpunky” sounding as I wanted. In researching, however, I found that in the 19th century some European settlers misunderstood the original meaning of the name and bastardized the sound of it, calling it Nekonikon. Not only did that name have a nice ring to it, but it also fit in the theme of colonialism that I was going for. I could see the arrogant and ignorant Megacorp CEOs choosing such a name for their stronghold.
So within a day, I had gone from not having a clear map, to finding exactly what I wanted, with an excellent backstory, and name to boot. I came up with the title “Nekonikon Punk,” that same day. Over the following months, I tried a variety of different titles, but nothing landed the way I wanted it to. By the time I finished the first draft, I had settled on my original title, with the colon “Ctrl Break” following. By then, I knew I was going to write this as a series and wanted to keep “Nekonikon Punk” as the umbrella title.
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