Anna asked David Wong:

I noticed that the purchasing power of a dollar in FVaFS is approximately equal to the purchasing power of a dollar today. Since inflation tends to drive up prices over time, and the book is set in the future, one would expect a difference. Was this a deliberate choice? Was it just for the sake of minimizing confusion?

David Wong Yeah for clarity, any time money is mentioned it's to convey context for something in the story (how rich someone is, how poor someone is) and if the reader has to stop to do inflation math every time it blunts the impact. Like if I have Zoey complain that she "only" makes $60K at the coffee bar, there are thousands of readers who'll instinctively scoff and say, "Ha, I wish I made 60K in my service job!" Like even if you come back and explain that hamburgers cost $30, it'll never quite register.

I'm sure other science fiction writers have found a way around that but usually the price of things isn't as relevant as they are in FVaFS, since so much of it is about class differences and the protagonist's attitude toward them.

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