Where It All Goes Down
New Orleans, 1996
Let the Good Times Roll
There's more to New Orleans than streetcars, Bourbon Street, St. Louis Cemetery, and Café du Monde, but you won't find it in Infinity. Even though Nick seems to have lived in the city for all his life, he only seems to frequent the biggest tourist attractions. Kyrian even lives in the city's famed Garden District, in a house that looks more like a Greek temple than a place where normal people live.
The city really doesn't add much to the story. It could be set anywhere and basically be the same.
The year isn't explicitly stated in the text, but on her website, Sherrilyn Kenyon says Nick was born on December 21, 1982 (source). He's fourteen in Infinity, which means this book doesn't take place in 2010, when the book was published. Taking that into consideration, the Street Fighter game Nick receives might have been Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which came out in 1994. And because Walker, Texas Ranger would have been in its prime, the dated Chuck Norris references make a little more sense.
But what about the cell phone? Kyrian gives Nick a cell phone and warns him, "Don't abuse your minutes or texts. I get a ten-thousand-dollar bill in one month and I will choke you for it" (6.196). We don't get a description of the phone, so perhaps it look like this blocky device.
Anyway, the 90s setting explains why Kyrian doesn't have an unlimited family plan: minutes were expensive in the mid-90s. But texting was almost unheard of. According to Mashable, "the average American sent 0.4 texts per month in 1995" (source)—so Nick is way ahead of the tech curve.
We're overanalyzing the alleged date of the story takes for fun, of course. Like the setting, it's basically irrelevant to the story, which could take place any time, anywhere. Or at least any time after the birth of Chuck Norris.