The Man Who Japed is set in the year 2114. After a devastating twentieth century limited nuclear war, a South African ("Afrikaans Empire") military survivor named General Streiter launched a global revolution in 1985 that ushered in a totalitarian government. As one sign of the carnage, Allen Purcell visits Japan's northern island, HokkaidÅ, which is still a desolate wasteland that has not recovered from nuclear bombardment in 1972, the last year of the global war referred to within this book.
This regime - Moral Reclamation ("Morec")- rules a post-apocalyptic world under its strict ideology. Streiter's descendant, Ida Pease Hoyt, is in charge of the regime. Morec has created a conservative and puritanical future society, that is strict, oppressive and judgmental of its fellow citizens. For example, extra-marital sex, public drunkenness and neon signs are all under prohibition, although a thriving black market exists, where one can purchase the Decameron, James Joyce's Ulysses, chablis wine, and pulp fiction detective novels from the twentieth century, albeit at vastly inflated prices.
However, humans have colonised several alien planetary systems. There are human colonies on Belletrix (Gamma Orionis), Sirius 8 and 9, and "Orionus." On these worlds, intensive labour is required to provide agricultural and industrial products for survival.
