Button, Button: Uncanny Stories »

A Grand Master of horror and suspense, Richard Matheson has won the Hugo, the Edgar, the Spur, and the Writers Guild Awards, among others. He lives in Calabasas, California.

What if every time you pushed a button you received $50,000...but someone you didn’t know died? Would you still push the button? How many times?

"Button, Button", which inspired a memorable Twilight Zone episode, is just one of a dozen unforgettable tales in this new collection by Richard Matheson, the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come. This volume contains a number of stories that were adapted for television, as well as a new introduction by Matheson himself.

This collection of stories features "Button, Button," soon to be a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.

Publishers Weekly

Both longtime fans and readers who have never encountered horror and suspense author Matheson (I Am Legend), winner of Stoker and World Fantasy lifetime achievement awards among many others, should enjoy this collection of a dozen stories originally published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the standout title story, later adapted as a Twilight Zoneepisode, a discontented husband and wife are presented with a device and told they will get $50,000 every time they press its button. The catch is that every push will cause someone else's death. Many of the other tales pack a similar punch. The collection also includes "The Creeping Terror," a vicious parody of the author's home state of California. The inventive plots and spare but convincing portraits of the ordinary men and women caught up by forces beyond their control demonstrate why Stephen King has called Matheson his most significant influence. (Apr.)

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Introduction     11
Button, Button     15
Girl of My Dreams     27
Dying Room Only     47
A Flourish of Strumpets     73
No Such Thing as a Vampire     85
Pattern for Survival     99
Mute     105
The Creeping Terror     145
Shock Wave     165
Clothes Make the Man     183
The Jazz Machine     189
'Tis the Season to Be Jelly     199