Speculating on speculation

One interesting societal component that's not pulled into speculative fiction novels is the capital stock market -- at least to my knowledge. It's not as sexy or scientific as space ships and artificial intelligence. But, if you think about it, it could be a colossal underpinning for some clever speculative fiction.

Over the past few decades, there have been as many eye-openers in the money world as there have been in the cinema. The Wachowski brothers of The Matrix fame may have strung up a bunch of cameras to create a 360 degree slo-mo like no other; meanwhile the Enron cabal was inventing new energy markets that never existed prior to their crafty schemes.

It's fascinating to watch things like inflated company valuations come into existence. They make no sense to anybody until some silver-tongued salesman tells a really intriguing story. It takes a strange breed of creativity to invent fake worth.

As Oscar Schindler said: "It's all about the presentation." Indeed.

To the writers out there in spec-fiction-ville, here's a creative challenge: write a story where a mind-bending change has taken place in the capital stock market. We watched big crashes and scandals play out over the past couple of decades so the malleable concepts are fresh. What will happen next?

Write it up...we'll turn the pages.