What are your favorite "red button" (it doesn't have to actually be a button) stories?
If ever there was a deserving decedent of Chekhov's gun it has to be the shiny red button. If there is a big red button in a story (whatever medium) it is going to get pressed, or else the story will revolve around the struggle not to press it. It is Pandora's box and Tantalus all in one. Given that in real life big red buttons are usually used for exciting emergencies; setting off alarms in elevators (not that this author ever did that as a child mind you dear reader...don't do that), bringing a production factory to a screeching halt, or just to signal a big deal in an add campaign (this author is looking at you "Easy Button") it is no wonder that humans wonder that it does and what would happen. When the trope is turned on its head the button does nothing, or something harmless like releasing soap bubbles into the snow. A third twist makes the characters think nothing has happened but actually the button triggered something out of the range of the characters' awareness.
What are your favorite "red button" (it doesn't have to actually be a button) stories?
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![]() AuthorBetty Adams is an up and coming author with a bent for science and Sci-fi. Archives
June 2023
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