I've been writing this story since 1995 (or thereabouts) and have incorporated much of Forgotten Ties (1991) world building into the current future of New Fresno. Most of the premise is based off the idea that "Science Fiction" doesn't become "Science Fact" nearly as quickly as books from the 50's and 60's made it seem like we would.

-Much of the technology in the stories are only slightly more advanced than what currently exists. Cybernetics is in its relative infancy and most people don't own flying cars.
-The gemues in the story have been around for approximately 30-50 years (Without rereading what exactly I wrote in the first novel I can't recall off the top of my head.
-Though I'm not sure I buy into the whole global warming scare - it is a premise off which I based the rise of the sea levels and the drowning of the central cali valley and much of the low lying areas around the world.

If you can't quite imagine what this future holds, go ahead and pose a question. If it's not spoilerish for the rest of the story, I'll gladly fill in some details!

I was in Japan when the dream for Tigershark's creation came to me. It was one of those that stuck with me and I almost immediately started writing the first story (Later to be called "Gemutations"). I knew for a fact that I wanted the story to be set somewhere in California. I knew because of the "flooded" nature of that dream, I wanted to make it in a world where the polar caps lost much of their moisture to the seas.

With these two things in mind I started researching places where I could set the story - a place that would be underwater should the sea levels rise. I settled on the small city of Fresno where after the deluge the place would have at least 30ft or more over the top of it. This would put the traditional location of the city underwater and force the residents to move higher into the mountains - resulting in "New" Fresno.

Little did I know that when I returned from my tour of duty and was assigned to NAS Lemoore, I would be moving into the proximity of my story's setting. Talk about coincidence! Got a lot of first hand perspective on what the area is like and was able to deepen my understanding of what I was detailing in the story as it progressed!