The Crow Road is set at least a century in the future, but it is not an ahistorical dystopian-future world. The roots of it come from some of the debates that we have going on now, most notably genetic alteration and stem-cell research.

Note that I clarified that it was not ahistorical. It is, indeed, dystopian.

One hundred years in the future, a group of genetic experiments will start a revolution. It will be, as Malcolm X postulated, a revolution "...between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...." Not a revolution founded on racial inequality, but on the inequality conveyed by being someone's copyrightable property. The inequality conveyed when those decisions are held up in the Supreme Court, and you can't even argue your own case because you are not legally human.

The inequality that comes when you're finally taken seriously and the people who have been profiting from you for a century aren't able to do that any more, but you don't have your freedom, because you're now legally the property of the United States Government...and as a mutant, with powers they don't understand on any sort of level beneath the intellectual, you are a weapon. Or a toy. Or anything but a person.

There will, indeed, be a revolution between the oppressors and the oppressed.

The difference is that the oppressed have been preparing for it.

A century from now, America will go down in flames.

But this is not a new war on this continent. This is, in fact, the oldest story written in blood on this land - the oppression of others leads to war. Always. It just is something that needs to be explained over and over and over again to the group in the ascendant.

It remains to be seen whether new people will be made from the fires of old struggles, or if the same struggles will be embedded in these people as has always happened.

This is the world of The Crow Road.