Fantasy Hunger League

A thriller set in the not-too-distant future, this book tells a story of greed and exploitation on a global scale. Essentially, corporations are playing fantasy third-world politics. They pick a line-up of countries to make up their "bloc" for the season. Some leagues have short seasons of six months or a year, others can be as long as a decade.

Leagues are obviously privately run, and thus there are many different forms. However, they can be split up into two major types: speculatory and participatory. Speculatory leagues are mostly for small time businesses. They ban interference in a country's affairs to influence the outcome of the season. The other leagues have much larger buy-ins for a no holds barred season of pumping money into your bloc and making other sleazy back room deals to maximize your profit.

Speculators see themselves as purists. They do a lot of research and run all sorts of projections and analyses when deciding who to draft into their blocs. Their game of knowledge has been thrown into chaos by the participators. Speculators have had to develop new ways to analyze the other leagues' influences and methods to make the game less random. Participators see it as a game of influence. They want to wield just enough power to tip the game in their favor without having to spend so much as to negate their projected winnings.

The third world countries have all known this was going on for a while now. They've been massing huge amounts of wealth and learning their financiers' strategies so they can rise up when the time comes. They finally seize the moment when speculators become fed up with the participators' meddling and try to get them to stop, which of course they won't.

Chaos ensues and nobody wins, setting us up great for a sequel.