NPR's Rick Kleffel aired a great segment about economics and genre fiction, with Charlie Stross, Jeff VanderMeer, TC Boyle and others. He's hosting a non-DRM MP3 of the piece, too, so you can be spared the sucky NPR Real stream.
During the Cold War, science-fiction tales of alien invasion mirrored society's fear of Communism, and monsters from Frankenstein to Godzilla have tapped into our unease about the boundaries of science.
But a new type of genre fiction has plots centering around business and economics. A book by T. C. Boyle takes the subject of identity theft and treats it like a horror story.
Several other writers are also turning their attention to our preoccupation with finances and business, and finding fertile ground.
