History ChekhovsGun / Literature

* Creator/MichaelCrichton's ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995'', the sequel to ''Literature/JurassicPark'', subverts this. Early on, a trailer is mentioned as having a bear deterrent in the form of a button that causes thousands of volts of electricity to run[[note]]well, volts don't "run" but you know what we mean[[/note]] across the outside surface of the trailer. Later on, while two [=T-Rexes=] are trying to push the trailer off of a cliff, a character accidentally activates it. It deters the Rexes for about five seconds.

** All the girls know how to open a bullet and swallow the gunpowder if the Tox (an infectious disease and the gets unbearable. [[spoiler:Late in the book Headmistress tries to poison the bottled water with gunpowder, and [[LaserGuidedKarma Hetty forces her to drink one in retribution.]]]]

* ''Literature/WilderGirls'':
** In the Raxtell School for Girls, which has been placed under quarantine due to a disease called the Tox, all the girls know how to open a bullet and swallow the gunpowder if their symptoms gets unbearable. [[spoiler:Late in the book Headmistress tries to poison the bottled water with gunpowder, and [[LaserGuidedKarma Hetty forces her to drink one in retribution.]]]]
** When Hetty's sealed-up eye is described, she often mentions she can feel something growing behind it. [[spoiler: The final moments of the book have her realize the Tox is a parasite that's been living inside all of them, meaning she was likely feeling it moving inside her.]]

** ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' has an interesting example. Early in the first book, Grand Admiral Thrawn has found a storehouse of the Emperor's goodies. Inside, he hopes to find a functioning, practical cloaking shield, and one other "small, almost trivial, bit of technology." The cloaking shield gets a lot of play in the first and second books, but only at the end of the second book of the trilogy are we told that the "small, almost trivial bit of technology" was [[spoiler:a cavern full of Spaarti cloning cylinders, which Thrawn has been using to augment the Empire's manpower.]] The second book is chalk-full of hints, though.

* The first three titles of a six-book children's series called ''The Great Railway Adventures'', revolves around the Holden family wanting to enter the 1939 New York World's Fair for a dome car design, but the kids Tuck and Billie have to stay home as they cannot afford tickets for all of them (three more books, dubbed "Series 2" focuses on different adventure). The rest of the series involves them accidentally getting on a train, and following their parents to the fair. Anyway, books one and three both had one. In the first book, ''The Daylight Limited'' their father mentions that two short whistle blasts means go forward, and four short blasts means break. Seems useless until [[spoiler: the train car which Tuck and a famous movie star (Loretta [=LaRue=]) are in gets disconnected from the train due to a rockslide, and Billie blows the whistle four times as a way to tell Tuck that there is a handbrake in the car.]] And in ''The Torpedo Run'', Mr. Winterbottom, president of the railroad mentions the steam lever makes things so smoggy you can't see a thing. This comes useful when [[spoiler: two newspaper photographers named Scoop Jackson and Tiny stop the train to takes pictures for the paper (one is incredibly strong) and it looks like the won't get in time for the fair, Tuck remembers Winterbottom's advice, and turns on the steam so the photographers can't see and fall off a bridge into the river.]]

** ''Literature/StormFront'':

*** Rudolph's gun and his [[RecklessGunUsage reckless usage]] of it gets paid a fair amount of attention. Later when Rudolph comes to he grabs the forgotten gun and shoots and kills [[spoiler:Murphy for "murdering" the giant that had just been slaughtering it's way through the city and [[UngratefulBastard had been trying to kill them]].]]

*** A Red Court vampire explains fully turning and completely giving into theur vampire demon would protect Harry from the bloodline curse. Turns out, it also works in reverse, and that complete conversion results in the bloodline curse being turned away from the turned one's family to the vampires of The Court.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

* The first three titles of a six-book children's series called ''The Great Railway Adventures'', revolves around the Holden family wanting to enter the 1939 New York World's Fair for a dome car design, but the kids Tuck and Billie have to stay home as they cannot afford tickets for all of them (three more books, dubbed "Series 2" focuses on different adventure). The rest of the series involves them accidentally getting on a train, and following their parents to the fair. Anyway, books one and three both had one. In the first book, ''The Daylight Limited'' their father mentions that two short whistle blasts means go forward, and four short blasts means break. Seems useless until [[spoiler: the train car which Tuck and a famous movie star (Loretta LaRue) are in gets disconnected from the train due to a rockslide, and Billie blows the whistle four times as a way to tell Tuck that there is a handbrake in the car.]] And in ''The Torpedo Run'', Mr. Winterbottom, president of the railroad mentions the steam lever makes things so smoggy you can't see a thing. This comes useful when [[spoiler: two newspaper photographers named Scoop Jackson and Tiny stop the train to takes pictures for the paper (one is incredibly strong) and it looks like the won't get in time for the fair, Tuck remembers Winterbottom's advice, and turns on the steam so the photographers can't see and fall off a bridge into the river.]]

%%* Discussed, lampshaded and subverted at length before being [[spoiler: utterly averted]] in Creator/HarukiMurakami's ''Literature/OneQEightyFour''.

* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':

* ''Literature/TheBooksOfEmber'': That guy in ''Literature/TheProphetOfYonwood'' running those weird experiments [[spoiler:to contact aliens? HE SUCCEEDED. They're the mysterious new star in ''The Diamond of Darkhold'']].

** ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'':
*** Used straight in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'' where Rincewind rescues a small green frog from the ocean that ends up saving his life.

*** Harry's literal fairy godmother, Lea, receives a ritual athame from the book's big bad. Later in the same novel, it's used for an attack on Harry, and it's been referenced in multiple books since, constantly emphasizing its importance. 11 books later, [[spoiler: it turns out to have infected her with the adversary, which she then spread to Maeve, causing the entire plot of ''Cold Days''.]] This also ties together a number of Lea's unexplained scenes in several books, such as the one where she's frozen in ice during Book 8.

* ''Literature/DontCallMeIshmael'': Razz's cringeworthy LoveLetterLunacy poem to Sally (which he doesn't send after his friends spend several pages telling him that it's crap) from the second book ends up being used for punk rock song lyrics in the third book.

*** Where he throws a paragraph in describing the awesome nature of [[spoiler:[[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs Sue]], the near-complete ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' skeleton at the Field Museum.]] Seems fairly innocuous, since... well, it ''is'' cool. [[spoiler:He later [[RaisingTheSteaks raises her from the dead]] in the single most awesomely overblown moment in the entire series]]. I doubt anyone saw ''that'' coming on their first reading of the book.