An anonymous reader writes "My friend will be teaching an e-commerce class at a four-year college starting in the spring. He wants to present not just existing business models (Amazon, eBay, iTunes), but also help students to think about the future — what might be hot in ten, twenty, thirty years. To that end, he's looking to draw from science fiction literature — today's fiction could be the inspiration for tomorrow's billion-dollar idea. Any suggestions for books that he should assign? What sci-fi works have the most intriguing (put plausible) technology and consumer products? The more variety, the better; some kind of anthology would be ideal."