The story takes place on Earth in present times, but it's all connected to the events and characters that come up in the first installment where the story takes place hundreds of years later on another planet!
You get glimpses of information and super important clues (like people's names that seems familiar but you don't know from where) that are so casually thrown in you really need to pay attention to detail!!! But I loved piecing together these tidbits and figuring out just what the hell happened on Earth that lead to the future we see in book 1.