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Austin Millbarge is a basement-dwelling codebreaker at the Pentagon who aspires to escape his under-respected job to become a secret agent. Emmett Fitz-Hume, a wisecracking, pencil-pushing son of an envoy, takes the foreign service exam under peer pressure. Millbarge and Fitz-Hume meet during the test, on which Fitz-Hume openly attempts to cheat after an attempt to bribe his immediate supervisor in exchange for the answers backfires. Millbarge, however, was forced to take the test, having had only one day to prepare after his supervisor gives him a two-week-old notice leaving him vulnerable to fail and having to stay in the Pentagon trenches. Needing expendable agents to act as decoys to draw attention away from a more capable team, the DIA decides to enlist the two, promote them to be Foreign Service operatives, put them through minimal training, and then send them on an undefined mission into Soviet Central Asia. Meanwhile, professional agents are well on their way to reaching the real objective: the seizure of a mobile SS-50 ICBM launcher. The main team takes a loss, while Millbarge and Fitz-Hume escape enemy attacks and eventually encounter Karen Boyer, the only surviving operative from the main team. In the Pamir Mountains of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, the trio overpowers a mobile missile guard unit using hastily constructed extraterrestrial outfits and tranquilizer guns. Following orders in real-time from the intelligence agency (operating from a military bunker located deep under an abandoned drive-in theater), they begin to operate the launcher. At the end of their instructions, the vehicle launches the ICBM into space, targeting an unspecified area in the United States. Thinking they have started a nuclear war, the American agents and their Soviet counterparts pair up to have sex before the world ends. Meanwhile, the military commander at the operations bunker initiates the conversion of the drive-in theater to expose what is hidden beneath the screens and projection booth: a huge black-op SDI- esque laser and collector/emitter screen. The purpose of sending the agents to launch a Soviet ICBM is exposed as a means to test this anti-ballistic missile system. The laser fails to intercept the nuclear missile, which will almost certainly trigger a global thermonuclear war. One of the military commanders at the site then reveals an elaborate plan to "preserve the American way of life". The covert operations conducted throughout the film are now assumed to be a plot by high-ranking military officials to orchestrate a war. Back in the Soviet Union, horrified at the thought of having launched a nuclear missile at their own country, the American spies and the Soviet soldiers use Millbarge's technical knowledge to transmit instructions to the traveling missile, sending it off into space where it detonates harmlessly. Immediately after, the underground bunker is stormed by U.S. Army Rangers, and the intelligence and military officials involved in the covert operation are arrested. Millbarge, Fitz-Hume, and Boyer go on to become nuclear disarmament negotiators, playing a nuclear version of Risk-meets-Trivial Pursuit against the Soviets. 

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To prepare for Sunnydale High's cultural exchange program, Buffy visits an Incan exhibit with her schoolmates. She is paired with an exchange student with whom her mom signed her up. Xander becomes jealous when he learns that she will room with a guy. The students learn that the mummy in the museum is one of a beautiful Incan princess, sacrificed by her people to save them from destruction. Willow and Buffy express remorse for the princess; dying before she could really live her life. After everyone leaves the museum, a class clown breaks the seal on the mummy while trying to steal it. The princess wakes up, for the curse is broken, and pulls the student into her coffin. She mummifies him by a kiss on the lips. When the Scoobies rush to the museum, they encounter a sword- wielding guard and the remains of the missing student. Buffy's exchange student arrives at the bus station, but the mummy girl sucks out his life too. The 500-year-old becomes a beautiful teenager, and poses as "Ampata," the boy who was supposed to stay with Buffy (everyone simply assumes that the information was wrong on her sex). Xander is smitten with her, and the two begin a relationship. Giles asks Ampata to decipher the seal from her tomb, and she explains (reluctantly) that it describes a girl chosen to die to save her people, and a bodyguard who will keep her from straying from that path. She also tells Giles to destroy the seal completely. The bodyguard appears again and again, trying to stop Ampata, until she finally manages to use her kiss on him in the bathroom, sucking out his life to keep herself from dying. Buffy and Ampata bond over the tale of the Inca Princess, Ampata stating that the princess was forced into her destiny by her people, as they claimed she was the only girl of her generation who could save them; Buffy miserably notes that this parallels her own life. Xander asks Ampata to the dance to enliven her; she gladly accepts. Willow is downcast to see her crush with another girl. Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles open Ampata's trunk and discover the real Ampata's body. Giles tries to piece together the seal while Buffy tries to save Xander from Ampata's deadly kiss. But Ampata feels too much for Xander and leaves for the museum. She tries to stop Giles from putting the seal back together. Buffy saves Giles, then Ampata starts to deteriorate as she tries to feed off Willow. Xander shows up and insists that if she must feed on anyone, it should be him; despite Ampata's feelings for him, she is quickly deteriorating back into a mummy, and is willing to kill him to remain alive. Buffy shows up to fight her, saving Xander, and in the battle, Ampata weakens to the point of returning to her dead form. 

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Caroline (Patricia Roc) invites her beautiful, green-eyed friend Barbara (Margaret Lockwood) to her forthcoming wedding to wealthy landowner and local magistrate Sir Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones). The scheming Barbara soon has Sir Ralph entranced. Caroline, wishing only his happiness, stands aside, and even allows Barbara to persuade her to be her maid of honour so as to lessen the scandal of the abrupt change of brides. At the wedding reception, Barbara meets a handsome stranger, Kit Locksby (Michael Rennie). It is love at first sight for both, but too late. Married life in the country does not provide the new Lady Skelton with the excitement she expected and craves. A visit by her detested sister-in-law Henrietta, Lady Kingsclere (Enid Stamp-Taylor), and her husband (Francis Lister) does not lessen her boredom. In a game of Ombre, Henrietta wins Barbara's jewels, including her most-prized possession, her late mother's ruby brooch. A chance remark about the notorious highwayman Captain Jerry Jackson gives Barbara an idea. Masquerading as Jackson, Barbara holds up Henrietta's coach and retrieves her brooch (as well as the rest of Henrietta's jewellery). Intoxicated by the experience, she continues to waylay coaches until one night, she and the real Captain Jackson (James Mason) target the same one. After they relieve the passengers of their valuables and escape, Jackson is amused to find his competitor is a beautiful woman. They become lovers and partners in crime. She warns him never to be unfaithful to her with another woman. Barbara learns of a planned gold shipment from a former tenant farmer of Skelton's, Ned Cotterill (Emrys Jones), who has been employed as one of the guards. Jackson is against the idea of hijacking the gold, as the coach will have double the usual protection, but Barbara talks him into it. However, the robbery does not go smoothly. When Cotterill pursues them, Barbara shoots at his horse to stop him, but kills Cotterill by accident. However, her conscience is not disturbed for long. Hogarth (Felix Aylmer), an aged family servant, discovers Barbara's double life. However, his religious fervour to save her and her convincing lies about repenting keep him from revealing what he knows. Barbara tries to silence him for good with doses of poison and, when he starts to suspect her, by smothering him. She then visits Jackson after her prolonged inactivity caused by the danger posed by Hogarth, but finds him in bed with a woman. Infuriated, she anonymously betrays him to her husband. Jackson is captured and sentenced to be hanged. In London, Barbara goes to view the execution with Caroline, terrified that he will name her as his accomplice in his address from the scaffold. However, he only mentions her indirectly. When a riot breaks out afterward, the two ladies are rescued by none other than Kit, who turns out to be engaged to Caroline. The riot allows Jackson's accomplices to cut him down, and he survives. He breaks into Barbara's bedroom at the Skelton estate and rapes her. Fearful of what he may do next, she begs Kit to take her out of England to start a new life. He is tempted, but is finally determined to honour his obligation to Caroline. Barbara decides to free herself of Ralph. She awaits her husband's coach with a loaded pistol. Jackson shows up to claim partnership in the caper, but when he learns what Barbara intends, it is too much even for him. He intends to warn Skelton, but Barbara shoots and kills him to prevent him. When the coach with Caroline, Ralph and Kit arrives, she hijacks it and attempts to shoot her husband. Kit shoots her first and, injured, she escapes on horseback. Mortally wounded, she flees to her home, where Caroline finds her and ascertains the truth. Caroline sends Kit in alone to see the dying woman. At first, Barbara lies about how she was shot; however, she cannot continue the deceit with her one true love. She confesses all and pleads with Kit to stay with her until the end, but he is repulsed by the magnitude of her crimes and leaves her to die alone. After her death, Caroline and Ralph reunite, determined to put the past behind them and live happily together. 

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The plot revolves around Georges de Sarre, a fourteen-year-old boy who is sent to a Catholic boarding school in 1920s France. Getting to know the other boys, he is immediately interested in Lucien Rouvière, of whom he is warned by the unsympathetic Marc de Blajan, who cryptically informs him that some of the students "may seem good, but are in fact not". Georges is dismayed when he learns that Lucien already has a boyfriend, André Ferron. He befriends Lucien, but filled with envy, tries to destroy their relationship, eventually succeeding in getting André expelled in a Machiavellian scheme. When his advances towards Lucien remain fruitless, Georges starts a "special friendship", i.e. a friendship with homosexual overtones, with a twelve-year-old student, the beautiful Alexandre (Alexander) Motier. The priests who lead the school disapprove of these relationships, even though it does not go beyond a few kisses and love poems, with no sexual connotation. Despite their air of condemnation of these special friendships, some of the priests harbour sexual feelings for the boys. One of them, Father de Trennes, likes to invite boys to join him in his room at night for a few drinks and cigarettes. Georges continues his scheming ways and gets Father de Trennes expelled by an anonymous letter. However, Father Lauzon, who is a friend of Alexandre's family and wants to protect him, learns about their relationship and demands that it be ended immediately. Lauzon talks Georges into giving back the love letters from Alexandre, which at the time the novel is set meant that a relationship was over. In the film version this is straightforward: Georges is forced to return the letters, but Alexandre cannot see this, thinks that Georges had abandoned him, and commits suicide. The account in the novel is more complicated: Georges is aware that he could deceive the priest by handing over only a few of the letters and that Alexandre would then know that he was not ending their affair, but nevertheless he decides to return them all, in order to subject the boy to a 'test' and a 'passing crisis', and thereby lead him to abandon his wild plans of running away from home in order for the two of them to decamp together (p. 397 of the 1946 edition). What is clear is that Georges is not single-minded in his attachment to their affair in the way that Alexandre is. The shock of the boy's death, however, works a change of heart, and the novel ends with his attaining the same devotion to love that Alexandre had shown. The work has been praised for its elegant style, and the discretion with which the subject is treated. One example is the question which Alexander poses to Georges: "Georges, do you know the things one should not know?" 

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A framing story in the first two chapters describes the world of the novel as Mercury, though it is clearly a fantasy version of Earth, a "secondary world"; no effort was made to conform to the scientific knowledge of Mercury as it existed at the time of writing. At a number of points the characters refer to their land as Middle earth, used here in its original sense of "the known world", and the gods worshiped have the names of deities from Greek mythology. Oddly, the introductory framing story has a beginning, but is not referred to once the actual fantasy adventure begins. (Framing, as a technique, usually opens and closes a separate story contained inside the frame-narrative.) The framing story having introduced the chief lords of Demonland—the brothers Juss, Spitfire, and Goldry Bluszco, and their cousin Brandoch Daha—the story begins in earnest with a dwarf ambassador from Witchland arriving in Demonland to demand that the Demons recognize King Gorice XI of Witchland as their overlord. Juss and his brothers reply that they and all of Demonland will submit if the king (a famous wrestler) can defeat Goldry Bluszco in a wrestling match. The match is held in the neutral territory of the Foliot Isles, and Gorice is killed. His successor (or reincarnation) Gorice XII is a sorcerer who banishes Goldry to an enchanted mountain prison, by means of a perilous sorcery requiring the help of the devious Goblin traitor Lord Gro. While Lord Spitfire is sent back to raise an army out of Demonland, Lord Juss and his cousin Brandoch Daha, aided by King Gaslark of Goblinland, attempt an assault on Carcë, the capital of the Witches, where they think Goldry is held. The rescue fails, the Goblins flee, and Juss and Brandoch Daha are both captured. They escape with the aid of La Fireez, the prince of Pixyland and vassal of King Gorice, who helps them at great personal cost because he owes them a debt of honor. Juss and Brandoch Daha return home to Demonland and then start an expedition to rescue Goldry Bluszco from his terrible prison, somewhere past the mountains of Impland. Lord Spitfire again stays behind to lead Demonland's armies against an expected invasion from Witchland. The expedition's fleet is smashed and its army destroyed. Juss and Brandoch Daha meet with three strange enchanted heroes of an earlier time, and Lord Juss is later nearly killed by a manticore. After a year of wandering they climb the mighty peak of Koshtra Pivrarcha and then attempt the even more difficult peak of Koshtra Belorn. Before reaching the summit of Koshtra Belorn they encounter Queen Sophonisba, a royal from that area to whom the gods had granted eternal youth when her realm was laid waste by the Witches. From Sophonisba they learn that Goldry is held in prison on the top of Zora Rach Nam, a mountain which cannot be climbed and whose peak is surrounded by unceasing flames. There is only one way to free him: they must find a hippogriff's egg, and one of them must ride the newly hatched hippogriff. Queen Sophonisba gives Lord Juss one hippogriff egg. Alas, their lone companion, the Impland native Mivarsh Faz (knowing that he will have to walk back home alone, if the Demons get the hippogriff) steals the egg and tries to use it himself, causing his death. Lord Juss and Brandoch Daha set out for home, their quest defeated for the time being. But matters are not completely hopeless, as one of Queen Sophonisba's martlet scouts have told them of another hippogriff egg, lying at the bottom of a lake in Demonland. Meanwhile, the armies of Witchland have attacked Demonland. Duke Corsus is the first commander of the Witchland army, and conquers part of Demonland, but is defeated by Spitfire. A new Witchland army, under the command of Lord Corinius, defeats Spitfire and captures most of Demonland. This includes Brandoch Daha's castle of Krothering, which had been watched over by his sister Lady Mevrian. At this point, Lord Gro changes sides and helps Lady Mevrian escape from the grasp of Corinius, who wishes to marry her against her will. A few months later, Lord Juss and Brandoch Daha return and expel the Witches from Demonland. Equipped with a new hippogriff egg, Lord Juss makes a second attempt to rescue his brother, and this time is successful. However, his forces are trapped in an inland sea by the Witchland navy; forced to engage in battle directly, they completely destroy that navy. La Fireez dies in this battle. The Demons then sail to Carcë and face the remaining forces of Witchland in a climactic struggle. In the battle, Lord Gro is lambasted by Corund for switching sides; Gro responds by killing a Demon and is himself killed by Spitfire. Corund dies from wounds he suffers fighting with the heroes of Demonland. His armies having failed, King Gorice attempts another terrible summoning; lacking the aid of Gro, he is unable to complete the spell and is destroyed. Duke Corsus poisons the remaining nobles of Witchland, and is killed himself by the dying Corinius. Though triumphant, the Demon lords find that victory is bitter because there are no more enemies worthy of their heroism, no more great deeds to perform. Sophonisba, seeking to reward their heroism, prays to the gods who return the world to how it had been four years before. And so, with a blare of trumpets, an ambassador from Witchland arrives, "craving present audience" and the story starts anew. 

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The book starts with Jeff Wells, a cadet at a military academy on Mars in need of a teaching robot, for although he is not flunking, his substandard grades have caused concern for Commander Widlow, who has also pointed out that the Wells family has lost their fortune and his tuition is overdue, ergo termination is recommended. The more sympathetic commandant, Admiral Yobo, permits Jeff to remain in the academy being well aware of the hardships of the Wellses, and gives Jeff a cashier's check to buy a robot. As the academy has ended for summer, Jeff returns to Earth, where he buys a small, fat robot only to discover that it has the only mini-anti-gravity device in existence. The robot reveals he is named Norby, and was owned many years ago by a man named MacGillicuddy who found him in a wrecked spaceship, then used his parts to repair a damaged robot of his own, hence his comical shape. Norby and Jeff go to the park where the evil villain Ing's henchmen are after Fargo Wells, Jeff's brother. Norby and Jeff stop the henchmen who are captured by the police. The policewoman in charge of the squad identifies herself as Albany Jones, whom Fargo knew from his days at Neil Armstrong High School. Ing manages to take over Manhattan Island, renaming it the "Kingdom of Ing", but Norby and Jeff start a revolt against him with the aid of a dowdy woman whom they save from being arrested. However, as Ing's soldiers are about to capture Jeff, Norby absconds using a hyperdrive, never before done and creating a subplot for the second book in the series Norby's Other Secret, as they end up in a jungle planet named Jamya. Norby uses the hyperdrive to return to Earth, where they enlist Admiral Yobo in their quest to stop Ing. The trio takes Admiral Yobo's ship, but Norby warns that his hyperspace ability does not guarantee a successful infiltration of the Kingdom of Ing, to which Jeff sternly orders Norby to push forward. The hyperdrive literally causes Yobo's ship to hover above Ing's head, forcing him to a humiliating surrender. After unmasking Ing, he is revealed to be Commander Widlow, who held a longtime grudge against Jeff and Fargo's family. The book ends with Fargo restoring the family fortune, and Albany Jones earning a promotion, as well as starting a relationship with Fargo. Jeff ends the story saying Norby is his Mixed-Up Robot. 

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Aging private detective Harry Ross (Newman), an ex-cop, is working on a case to return 17-year-old runaway Mel Ames (Witherspoon) to her parents' home. He tracks down Mel and her sleazy boyfriend, Jeff Willis (Schreiber), at a Mexican resort. During a struggle, Mel accidentally shoots Harry with his pistol, striking him in the upper thigh. The plot picks up two years later, when Ross is living in Southern California in the guest quarters of Mel's wealthy parents, Jack (Hackman) and Catherine Ames (Sarandon). They are former movie stars, now in the twilight of their careers. Jack is dying of cancer, which is out of remission, and he and Ross pass time playing cards. One day, Jack asks a favor of Harry: to deliver a package to an address in Los Angeles. It turns out to be the first development in a series of twists and turns in a 20-year-old case involving the disappearance of Catherine's ex-husband. When Harry arrives at the address, he encounters a man named Ivar, who has just been fatally shot and shoots at Harry. Harry is detained by police, including former colleague Lt. Verna Hollander (Channing). At the police station, he runs into another (now retired) old pal and colleague, Raymond Hope (Garner). Verna and Raymond are both sympathetic, as they had heard rumors that Harry suffered damage to his genitals when shot in Mexico. Harry explains that he was only shot in the thigh. Harry likes Catherine, who flirts with him from time to time. He acts as an agent for Jack and Catherine, who are being blackmailed by Jeff, now out of prison, and his parole officer Gloria Lamar (Martindale). Harry and Catherine have sex for the first (and only) time. Jack angrily realizes this when he has a heart attack that same night, and Catherine responds to his call for help wearing Harry's shirt. Harry, meanwhile, is forced to acknowledge that his friends have deceived and manipulated him. Raymond tries to persuade Harry to get away from it all, but Harry has figured out that Raymond was a conspirator in the murder of Catherine's first husband 20 years before. Raymond shoots at Harry, but Harry kills him first. Following this shooting, Harry reconciles with Catherine and Jack. He leaves town with Verna. 

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Three thousand years before the story starts, Lysos founds a human colony on the isolated planet of Stratos in an effort to radically re- engineer human life into a happier, more pastoral form. She developed a strain of human beings that conceives clones in winter (always female), while those conceived in summer (variants or "vars") obtain their genes through sexual reproduction just in case biological adaptation becomes necessary. Further, males and females have opposed seasons of sexual receptivity: men in summer and women in winter. This scheme is said to be stable over evolutionary time because women gain an advantage from self-cloning, while men only reproduce in summer. Finally, men have been made far less aggressive during the times that they are less sexually receptive and are much less numerous. The social result is that the vast majority of the population of Stratos consists of groups of female clones, each in its own social or economic niche. Over the centuries, these groups have come to dominate society. Men are confined to relatively few professions (such as sailing) and have a lower social status than clones, but higher than vars. In each generation, a few women vars become successful enough to found their own clan or "hive" of clones. As is customary, clones are trained to carry on their clan's business, while vars leave as young adults to seek their fortune. It is time for identical twins Maia and Leie to enter the outside world. They plan to work as sailors to gain experience and explore Stratos, find their niche, and found a clan. Almost immediately, they hit a snag. The only two ship's captains willing to take them on at that time insist they split up, because they cannot have it appear to their clone passengers that clones are doing lowly ship's work. The ships are traveling together. Aboard, Maia meets Naroin, a highly competent female bosun's mate. Later, Leie's ship is lost in a storm. Maia is heartbroken and seriously injured, but eventually recuperates and finds a job on a railroad. On the railroad, Maia discovers her var temporary assistant is actually a clone courier and courtesan running illegal drugs. The drugs are designed to shift a man's period of sexual interest. They are part of a plot by reactionary "Perkinites" (named after Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of Herland) to minimize the role of men in an isolated valley, and perhaps later all of Stratos. Maia notifies the "Planetary Equilibrium Authority", but is kidnapped and imprisoned by the Perkinites. She discovers that Renna, a prisoner in another cell, is transmitting messages electrically. She talks with Renna by code and develops a friendship with her unseen fellow inmate. When she discovers that Renna is being transferred somewhere else, Maia engineers her escape, only to find that idealistic radicals ("rads") and their allies have already freed Renna, who is actually the "Visitor," a male envoy from the rest of humanity whose arrival has triggered great debate among the leaders of Stratos as to how to respond to the renewed - and unwanted - contact. She tags along with Renna and the rads. A platonic friendship develops between Renna and Maia. Their group, which includes Naroin, is later overtaken at sea by pirates (pirating being a tolerated, legal activity). During the ensuing boarding fight, Maia is shocked when she encounters her sister, one of the pirates. The pirates win, with the help of traitors planted in the rads' group. They strand many of their female prisoners, including Maia and Naroin, and one young male sailor named Brod on a deserted island and take Renna, their prize, to a secret base. After the castaways manage to ambush pirates sent to eliminate all witnesses, they sail off to alert the authorities, but Maia, accompanied only by Brod, sets out to try to rescue Renna. They inadvertently stumble upon the pirate base. While secretly reconnoitering it, Maia helps free more prisoners, including the rads and the crew of her ship. She also learns that Renna has somehow escaped. More fighting breaks out when their enemies learn the rest of their prisoners are loose. In the turmoil, Maia and her allies are cornered, but she finds a secret exit which leads to the long-lost "Jellicoe Former", an advanced manufacturing facility that can produce anything. Renna is killed when the spaceship he found and completed at Jellicoe Former explodes soon after its launch. Maia is severely injured in the battle. The police and other interested parties arrive to save the survivors of Maia's side. While recuperating, Maia is dragged into politics and kept a prisoner discreetly by one clan because she has become a symbol. She tells her story to a group of male heads of sailing clans. One of them turns out to be the father she had never known. For her actions, they offer her "clan" an alliance. At the end, with Renna dead, Maia becomes an embarrassment to her captors, so she is allowed to walk away free. She decides that she will not found a clan of clones, but rather have offspring the old way. 

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TimeSplitters 2 starts off in the year 2401 in the midst of a war between humanity and the TimeSplitters, an alien race bent on the destruction of mankind. However, rather than use brute force to destroy humanity, they are using the special objects called time crystals to travel through time changing the course of history, bringing Earth to ruin. Two space marines from Earth, Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart, are sent out to a space station overrun by TimeSplitters to retrieve the time crystals. However, when they reach the bridge, they are too late as they see the last few TimeSplitters take the time crystals into various time periods using the time portal. While Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart are preparing the time portal to follow the Timesplitters, they are attacked by another squad of Timesplitters. Corporal Hart decides to stay at the bridge to keep the Timesplitters at bay while Cortez goes into different periods of time to retrieve the time crystals. Upon arrival at each time period, Cortez takes the form of a person from that particular period of time, similar to Quantum Leap. For example, when Cortez arrives in the Wild West, he takes the form of a bounty hunter. When he arrives in a 24th-century robot factory, he takes the form of a robot. After Cortez retrieves all of the time crystals, he returns to the space station to rendezvous with Hart. The TimeSplitters outside finally manage to break into the bridge. Corporal Hart is killed in the ensuing battle. Cortez has little time to mourn, as the Timesplitters become relentless to retrieve the Time Crystals from him. Cortez manages to set the station to self-destruct and escape before its destruction. This leads into the events of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. 

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When the entire British royal family is electrocuted and killed in a freak accident outside Buckingham Palace while having a royal portrait taken, Sir Cedric Willingham leads a search for any surviving heirs to whom to pass the crown. After days of researching, his team finally locates a living heir in the form of an American named Ralph Jones. Shortly after being fired from his job as a lounge singer in Las Vegas, Ralph is informed by Cedric's assistant private secretary Duncan Phipps that his grandmother Constance had an affair with the first Duke of Warren while working as a hotel waitress when the Duke visited the United States, resulting in Ralph having royal blood. Phipps provides further proof by showing Ralph a duplicate of the ring his grandmother used to wear that the Duke had given her. Ralph is flown to London, where Cedric gives him a crash course on royal etiquette. In only his second day as King, he goes to a strip club and meets Miranda Greene, an out-of-luck exotic dancer and aspiring fashion designer, and dares her to go out on a date with him if the British press proves his claim to the monarchy. Meanwhile, Lord Percival Graves is opposed to having an American on the throne and proposes to declare the reigning House of Wyndham at an end and replace it with the House of Stuart, of which he is patriarch. Prime Minister Geoffrey Hale states that Ralph's succession is legitimate unless he commits a grievous error. With this in mind, Graves bribes a cash-strapped Miranda to stir up controversy by having a public relationship with Ralph. Despite warnings by Cedric not to commit a mistake similar to that of King Edward VIII, Ralph sneaks out of the Palace to have a romantic date with Miranda at Hyde Park. The next day, Miranda returns the money to Graves, but he already has photographs of her with Ralph. In order to preserve Ralph's reputation, Miranda breaks up with him. Despite Ralph's reluctance to accept British culture and his ineptness in formal affairs, he makes a positive impression on King Mulambon of Zambezi during the latter's state visit. The two monarchs share their concerns about the role of leadership they have assumed and the economic interests of their nations. Ralph accumulates a small but loyal following. Ralph's staff arrange for him to marry Princess Anna of Finland to continue the royal bloodline and guarantee jobs for the UK in Finland's newly discovered oil reserves in the Baltic Sea. On the night of the Finnish Royal Family's visit, Ralph is turned off by Princess Anna's unusually deep voice, her bizarre sexual preferences, and her nonchalant acceptance of arranged royal marriage. Miranda attends the royal ball as a set-up by Graves, and photos of her affair with Ralph are given to Anna's father King Gustav which, along with Ralph's wild musical number of "Good Golly, Miss Molly", results in Finland turning down the UK in favor of Japan for the offshore equipment contract. Having failed to realize that the role of King comes with certain expectations, and that he cannot rely on his charm or blue-collar background, Ralph accepts a stern rebuke from Cedric and endeavors to set things right. Miranda confesses to Ralph her role in the scandal and he walks out on her. Ralph develops suspicions about his circumstances and learns through Phipps that Cedric is another heir to the throne. His mother who was a parlor maid had a one night stand with the king and Cedric turned down the role. Ralph addresses Parliament, apologizing for his recent actions and informing the country that he has worked out a deal with King Mulambon for Zambezi to purchase £200 million worth of British mining equipment and open three car engine plants in Britain, ensuring jobs for Miranda's family and thousands of Britons. He then reveals that Graves has been sabotaging his succession to the throne and has him arrested for violating the Treason Act of 1702 that was enacted by William III. Finally, he announces that he will abdicate and reveals Cedric as his successor. After Cedric accepts his duty as King, Ralph is appointed as the Third Duke of Warren, with a lucrative annual salary and his own recording studio in his own country estate. He marries Miranda and raises his son Ralph II with her while fronting his own singing group Ralph and the Dukettes. They perform a cover of "Duke of Earl" as the credits roll. 

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Nine people from around the world are kidnapped by the evil Black Ghost organization, led by its tyrannical leader Skull, to undergo experiments that would allow him to use them as human weapons to promote the production of cyborg warfare. While he succeeds in converting the group of nine into cyborgs with superhuman powers, his most reputable scientist, Dr. Isaac Gilmore, helps the cyborgs escape to rebel against Skull and his organization. The nine cyborgs (from which the name of the series is derived) band together in order to stop Black Ghost from achieving its goal of starting the next world war by supplying rich buyers with countless weapons of mass destruction. After the destruction of Black Ghost, the nine cyborgs go on to fight a variety of threats such as mad scientists, supernatural beings, and ancient civilizations. 

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In suburban Chicago, teenagers Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod fall in love after they are introduced by Jade's brother Keith. The Butterfields' bohemian lifestyle, for which they're well-known in their community, allows Jade and David to develop an all-consuming and passionate relationship, including allowing the two to have sex in Jade's bedroom. In contrast to the openness of her family, David's home life is dull; his parents are wealthy liberal political activists who have little interest in their son's life. One night, Jade's mother, Ann sneaks downstairs, and catches Jade and David making love by the fireplace. Ann starts living vicariously through them but her husband, Hugh, watches the couple with increasing unease. Jade's nightly trysts begin to negatively impact her grades and her ability to sleep. One night, Jade tries to steal one of her father's prescription sleeping pills but he catches her in the act. As a last straw, Hugh demands that David should stop seeing Jade, until the end of the school term. Although it initially causes a scene, Ann gently coaxes David to agree, telling him not to let Hugh "do something he'll regret". Back at school, one of David's friends, Billy, tells him that when he was 8 years- old, he tried to burn a pile of newspapers, got scared and put the fire out, and his parents thought he was a hero for saving the house from burning. Inspired by this story, David starts a fire on the Butterfields' front porch and walks away. But by the time he returns, the flame has spread too far. David rushes to warn the family, but he is too late and the entire house is lost. Following a trial, David is convicted of second-degree arson, sentenced to five years' probation, sent to a mental hospital for evaluation and forbidden to go anywhere near Jade or her family again. David continues to write to her daily, but the letters aren't sent because of the no-contact order. His parents pull strings to have him released early, much to Hugh's chagrin. Meanwhile, David receives his many letters upon his exit; realizing why Jade never wrote back, he decides to pursue her although he knows it violates his parole. Following the loss of their home, the Butterfields have moved from Chicago to Manhattan where Ann and Hugh file for a divorce. In Manhattan, Ann tries to seduce David but he refuses, leaving her confused. When she isn't looking, David thumbs through her address book to find out where Jade is and discovers that she now lives in Burlington and attends the University of Vermont. Intent on catching a bus to Vermont, David sees Hugh on the street. Hugh starts chasing him but is hit by a car and killed. Hugh's new wife Ingrid catches up to the scene just in time to see David escape. David boards the bus to Vermont, but he is overcome with grief and returns to his apartment. Later, Jade goes to David's apartment to say goodbye but he pulls Jade back as she tries to leave, throwing her on the bed and forcefully holding her down until Jade admits she loves him. Keith comes home to find the pair together again and falsely informs Jade that David is at fault for their father's death. Jade refuses to believe it at first but when David confirms that he was actually at the scene, she becomes horrified and hides behind Keith. David tries to explain it was an accident before he shoves Keith out of the way in a desperate bid to grab her. Keith fights him off until the police arrive and arrest David for brawling and disturbing the peace. David is sentenced to prison and despairs that he'll never see Jade again. At Hugh's lakeside funeral, Jade tells Ann that nobody will ever love her like David does, although Ann speaks to her for understanding and approval. While in prison, David watches Jade walk toward him through his barred cell window. 

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Max is a meticulous Los Angeles cab driver trying to earn enough to start his own limousine business. One of the evening's fares is federal prosecutor Annie Farrell, who works for the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. On the drive to her office, they strike up a conversation and Annie gives Max her business card. Max's next fare is Vincent. Apparently impressed by Max's skill at navigating through traffic, Vincent tells Max that he is in Los Angeles for one night to complete a real estate deal, and offers Max $600 to drive him to several locations. Initially reluctant to violate regulations, Max is eventually persuaded. As Max waits at the first stop, a corpse falls onto his car; Vincent reveals himself as a hitman and the body is one of his five targets. He forces Max to hide the body in the trunk and continue driving. At the second stop, Vincent restrains Max's hands to the steering wheel. Max asks a group of young men for help, but two of them rob him and seize Vincent's briefcase. Vincent returns and kills them. He then offers to buy Max a drink at a jazz club. At the club, Vincent engages the owner Daniel in conversation. Vincent then reveals Daniel to have been his third target. Max pleads with Vincent to let Daniel go, causing Vincent to offer a compromise, betting Daniel cannot answer a question about where Miles Davis "learned music". Daniel states that Davis went to the Juilliard School, seemingly giving a correct answer. Vincent, suddenly, unexpectedly shoots Daniel, revealing that Miles Davis dropped out of Julliard to be mentored by Charlie Parker. Max's boss Lenny, who has been hectoring him over the radio, tells Max his mother Ida called. Learning of Max's nightly visits to the hospital to see his mother, Vincent insists that Max proceed with the visit. At the hospital, Ida proudly tells Vincent that Max has his own limousine company, revealing Max has been lying to her. Overwhelmed, Max leaves, stealing Vincent's briefcase, and hurls it onto a freeway where it is destroyed by a passing truck. With the information on his last two targets destroyed, Vincent coerces Max to meet drug lord Felix Reyes-Torrena to re-obtain the information. Max, posing as Vincent, acquires the information but Felix orders his men to kill "Vincent" if he does not complete the job. Max heads with Vincent to a nightclub, seeking the next target, Peter Lim. Narcotics detective Ray Fanning uncovers a connection between the three victims and reports his finding to FBI agent Frank Pedrosa. Pedrosa identifies the victims as witnesses in a federal grand jury indicting Reyes-Torrena the following day. At the nightclub, Vincent kills Felix's hitmen, Lim, and his bodyguards. Fanning rescues Max and smuggles him outside but is killed by Vincent, who beckons Max back into the cab. Following their getaway, the two trade insulting summaries of each other's personalities and choices in life. After a heated exchange, Max deliberately crashes the cab, but both survive, and Vincent escapes. A police officer arrives. Seeing the corpse in the trunk, he tries to arrest Max. However, Max notices Vincent's open laptop, revealing that his final target is Annie. He overpowers the police officer, takes his gun, and rushes toward Annie's office building. Stealing a bystander's phone, Max uses Annie's business card to call and warn her. She is incredulous until Max reveals details about Vincent's previous victims, urging her to call 911. Vincent steals the security guard's gun and uses a fire axe to cut the power and telephone lines on Annie's floor. Vincent finds Annie but is shot and wounded by Max, who escapes with Annie on foot. Vincent pursues the pair onto a metro rail train. Cornered on the train, Max engages Vincent in a sudden shootout. Vincent, fatally wounded, slumps into a seat, repeating a story about a man dying unnoticed on a Metro train. Max and Annie get off at the next station in the dawn of a new day. 

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Paul Kersey has managed to recover from his shattered life and moved on, and is now dating Los Angeles radio reporter Geri Nichols. They go to pick up Paul's daughter, Carol, from the mental hospital. They spend the afternoon at a fairground, where Paul's wallet is stolen by a gang, consisting of Nirvana, Punkcut, Stomper, Cutter, and Jiver. The gang splits up when Paul chases them; he goes to pursue Jiver, whom he corners in an alley but lets the hood go after Jiver tells Paul that he does not have the wallet. The gang finds Paul's home address in his wallet and later breaks into his house. They gag and restrain Rosario, Paul's housekeeper. Then, they begin taking turns raping her. When Paul arrives home with his daughter, he is beaten unconscious. Rosario tries to call the police, but Nirvana kills her with his crowbar. They kidnap Carol and take her to their hideout, where one of the gang members rapes her. Carol attempts to flee by running through a plate-glass window and falls onto an iron fence and is impaled. When the police arrive, Lieutenant Mankewicz asks for help identifying the muggers, but Paul refuses. After Carol's funeral, he takes his Beretta Model 84 handgun to a low-rent inner-city hotel as a base of operations. The next evening, he observes and follows Stomper into an abandoned building as a drug deal is about to be made. Paul shoots twice one of the dealers and orders the others out before he shoots Stomper twice. The following night, he hears screams from a couple being assaulted by four muggers, which includes Jiver, in a parking garage. Paul kills two rapists and wounds Jiver. Then Paul follows Jiver's blood trail into an abandoned warehouse and kills him. The LAPD suspect that the murders are the work of a vigilante and ask the NYPD for guidance as they dealt with a vigilante spree years earlier. NYPD Detective Frank Ochoa suspects it may be Paul again and is sent to assist with the case. Ochoa fears that Paul, when caught, will reveal that he was released without being charged for killing the nine muggers in New York City. Ochoa meets with Mankewicz, who suspects that Ochoa is not telling him everything. Ochoa intrudes into Geri's apartment and tells her about Paul's previous vigilante killing spree in New York City. After Paul returns to his house, Geri confronts him about Ochoa's revelation, but he denies it. Ochoa follows Paul to a local square, where Paul is tailing the three remaining gang members. He follows them to an abandoned park, where a major arms and drug deal is underway. A sniper scouts Paul and attempts to kill him, but Ochoa warns Paul and fatally shoots the sniper. Ochoa is mortally wounded by Nirvana, and Paul shots Cutter in the head and another dealer and wounds Punkcut. The arms dealer tries to get away, but Paul shoots him and causes his car to drive off a cliff and explodes and Nirvana escapes. Ochoa tells Paul to avenge him before he dies. Paul escapes, and Punkcut dies from his injuries after giving information about Nirvana to the police. Paul learns from one of Geri's colleagues that the police are preparing a tactical unit to capture Nirvana. He obtains a police scanner and, by monitoring police radio traffic, finds out when and where the arrest is going to take place. He drives to the location to kill him, but Nirvana, under the influence of PCP, slashes his arm and stabs a few officers while he tries to escape. Tried and found criminally insane, he is sent to a mental institution. Geri is writing a story about the case and capital punishment and takes Paul to the hospital to meet the doctor treating Nirvana. While there, Paul steals another doctor's identification card. Later, Paul uses it to enter the asylum and confronts Nirvana. Despite being stabbed repeatedly with a shiv, Paul manages to kill Nirvana by electrocution. A sympathetic attendant gives Paul three minutes to escape before he rings the alarm. Geri goes to Paul's house, where she finds out that he made a fake doctor's ID. Upon hearing a news report of Nirvana's death on the radio, she realizes that Paul really is the vigilante that Ochoa claimed him to be. She takes off her engagement ring and leaves him, with Paul arriving moments later. A few months later, Paul speaks about a new architectural design. He is invited by his employer to a party. When Paul is asked if he is able to attend, he answers, "What else would I be doing?" Paul then walks off into the night. 

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Elliot and Beverly Mantle are twins and gynecologists who jointly operate a highly successful clinical practice in Toronto that specializes in the treatment of female fertility problems. Elliot, the more confident and cynical of the two, seduces women who come to the Mantle Clinic. When he tires of them, the women are passed on to the shy and passive Beverly, while the women remain unaware of the substitution. An actress, Claire Niveau, comes to the clinic for her infertility. It turns out that Claire has a "trifurcated cervix", which means she probably will not be able to have children. Elliot seduces Claire and then urges Beverly to sleep with her. However, Beverly becomes emotionally attached to Claire, and this upsets the equilibrium between the twins. Beverly also begins sharing Claire's abuse of prescription drugs, which he abets through his doctor's authority. When Claire learns that Elliot has been taking sexual advantage of her by impersonating Beverly, she is angry and confronts them both in a bar, but later decides to continue a relationship with Beverly exclusively. Eventually, Claire leaves town to work on another film. This sends Beverly into clinical depression, more prescription drug abuse, and paranoid delusions about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Beverly seeks out metallurgical artist Anders Wolleck and commissions a set of bizarre "gynecological instruments" for operating on these mutant women. Beverly prepares to operate on a patient during surgery with one of Wolleck's tools, while his shocked surgical team exchanges horrified glances. But before he can proceed, the drug-addled doctor drops one of the tools on the ground and then collapses atop the patient, and begins to inhale from her gas mask. Both brothers are immediately suspended from practice and put on administrative leave by the hospital board. With their medical careers now ruined, Elliot locks Beverly inside the clinic and tries to clean him up, taking pills himself in order to "synchronize" with Beverly. When Claire returns, Beverly leaves the clinic to be with her. After recovering his sobriety, he is concerned about his brother, and goes back to the clinic. There he finds the clinic in shambles and Elliot despondent and intoxicated. Their positions have become reversed as Beverly cares for Elliot. Drugged and despairing, they celebrate their mock birthday and Elliot volunteers to be killed, so as to “separate the Siamese twins" and allow Beverly to live his own life. Beverly disembowels Elliot on an examination table with the same claw-like instrument of Wolleck's that he planned to use on his patient in the operating room. The next morning, Beverly awakens, and sees that he killed Elliot during their drug-induced delirium. Devastated, he pulls himself together, leaves the clinic, and calls Claire on a pay phone. When she asks, "Who is this?", Beverly silently leaves the phone, walks back into the clinic, and dies (implicitly from drug withdrawal) in Elliot's dead arms. 

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:"Our planet is under threat - not from slimy aliens or evil wizards but from direct consequences of our own greed and stupidity. Every moment sees further demolition of the rainforest, more leaking nuclear waste, land floods caused by melting ice caps and much needed food rotting in locked warehouses. Your task is to combat those forces which are worlds tilts into oblivion you must redress the balance through positive action. To aid you in this task you are invested with a great power - that power is Love. Use this power to repel the agents of destruction. By spreading Love your enemies will vanish, or even begin to help you. You will be able to stem the tide of flood, neutralise the acid rain and release the hoarded fruits of the World's produce for all to share. If you succeed then you will have proved your skill and courage in the material world. Consequently, you will be offered the opportunity to seek ultimate wisdom in the Mind-Scape and achieve the status of Top Banana." ::- Top Banana ManualAmiga. Hex. Hex. A clip from Top Banana's introductory music video, as shown in the Amiga version. Warning: Clip contains bright flashing images. 

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Wishing Moon follows the tale of Aminah Barnes, a beggar orphan who is thrown Aladdin's magical lamp by an unwitting princess, Badr Al-Budur, after Aladdin has married her. As Aminah works out problems with the lamp and its demon, she eventually begins her own journey of emotions while trying to avoid the notice of the spoiled and ambitious princess who seeks to regain the lost lamp. After settling into a moderately prosperous life, Aminah decides to help other people in need, but selectively, only helping those who help others. Soon, however, her good deeds draw the unwanted eye of Badr Al-Budur. 

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The book is set in Portland, Oregon, in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor, or protein deprivation. The culture is much the same as the 1970s in the United States, though impoverished. There is also a massive war in the Middle East, with Egypt and Israel allied against Iran. Global warming has wrought havoc upon the quality of life everywhere. George Orr, a draftsman, has long been abusing drugs to prevent himself from having "effective" dreams, which change reality. After having one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality. Under threat of being placed in an asylum, Orr is forced to undergo "voluntary" psychiatric care for his drug abuse. George begins attending therapy sessions with an ambitious psychiatrist and sleep researcher named William Haber. Orr claims that he has the power to dream "effectively" and Haber, gradually coming to believe it, seeks to use George's power to change the world. His experiments with a biofeedback/EEG machine, nicknamed the Augmentor, enhance Orr's abilities and produce a series of increasingly intolerable alternative worlds, based on an assortment of utopian (and dystopian) premises: * When Haber directs George to dream a world without racism, the skin of everyone on the planet becomes a uniform light gray. * An attempt to solve the problem of overpopulation proves disastrous when George dreams a devastating plague which wipes out much of humanity and gives the current world a population of one billion rather than seven billion. * George attempts to dream into existence "peace on Earth" – resulting in an alien invasion of the Moon which unites all the nations of Earth against the threat. Each effective dream gives Haber more wealth and status, until he is effectively ruler of the world. Orr's economic status also improves, but he is unhappy with Haber's meddling and just wants to let things be. Increasingly frightened by Haber's lust for power and delusions of Godhood, Orr seeks out a lawyer named Heather Lelache to represent him against Haber. Heather is present at one therapeutic session, and comes to understand George's situation. He falls in love with Heather, and even marries her in one reality; however, he is unsuccessful in getting out of therapy. George tells Heather that the "real world" had been destroyed in a nuclear war in April 1998. George dreamed it back into existence as he lay dying in the ruins. He doubts the reality of what now exists, hence his fear of Haber's efforts to improve it. Portland and Mount Hood play a central role in the setting of the novel Heather has seen one change of reality and has a multiple memory – remembering that her pilot husband either died early in the Middle East War or else died just before the truce that ended the war in the face of the alien threat. She tries to help George but also tries to improve the world, saying that the aliens should no longer be on the Moon. George dreams this, but the result is that they have invaded the Earth instead. In the resultant fighting, Mount Hood is bombed and the dormant volcano starts to erupt again. They go back to Haber, who has George dream another dream in which the aliens are actually peaceful. For a time there is stability, but Haber goes on changing things. His suggestion that George dream away racism results in everyone becoming gray; Heather, whose parents were of different races, never existed in this new reality. George manages to dream up a gray version of her, who is married to him and has a milder personality. Mount Hood continues to erupt and he fears the world is losing coherence. Orr has a conversation with one of the aliens, suddenly comes to understand his situation, and thereby gains the courage to stand up to Haber. In their final session, Haber "cures" George of his ability to dream effectively - simply by having George dream that his dreams no longer affect reality. Haber, frustrated with Orr's resistance, uses what he has learned from studying George's brain during his sessions of hypnosis and controlled dreaming, and decides to take on effective dreaming himself. Haber's first effective dream represents a significant break with the realities created by Orr, and threatens to destroy reality altogether. Orr is able to shut off the Augmentor – even as coherent existence is dissolving into undifferentiated chaos – reaching the "off" switch through pure force of will. The world is saved, but random bits of the various recent realities are now jumbled together. George now works as a designer at a kitchen store run by one of the aliens. Haber survives, but with his mind shattered by his knowledge of the unreality of the world, which had been destroyed in a nuclear war years before - and which only exists because George's dreams had restored it. Heather, presumably her original self, exists, though with only a slight memory of George. George resigns himself to the loss of the Heather he had loved, but is hopeful he can win this new Heather's affections. The story ends as the two leave to have coffee together, as his inscrutably alien employer looks on. 

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Joshua Rose (Dennis Quaid), a U.S. Department of State official on embassy duty in Paris, sees his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and son killed in a bombing by suspected Islamic terrorists. Immediately after the transfer ceremony he storms into a nearby mosque and shoots several worshipers. His friend Peter (Stellan Skarsgård) is forced to shoot one of the survivors when the man tries to kill Rose, and in order to avoid arrest they join the French Foreign Legion, with Joshua taking the name Guy. Years later, Joshua, now going by the name of "Guy", and Peter are fighting for the Bosnian Serbs in the Bosnian War. They are stationed on a bridge separating them and the Bosniaks in a town. Guy mans a sniper post overlooking the bridge, and witnesses Peter's death when Peter drops his guard at a checkpoint and a young girl throws a grenade at him. Guy in turn shoots a boy crossing the bridge in pursuit of his runaway goat. Guy is then seen searching the Muslim side of the town following a ceasefire along with a Bosnian Serb soldier Goran (Sergej Trifunović). In one house they find an elderly Muslim woman who is confined to bed and shell-shocked and a dead woman. Guy also finds a sleeping baby who has been hidden in a wardrobe but does not inform Goran who hacks a finger off an old Bosniak woman in order to steal her ring. After they leave the house helicopters attack the town. As Goran takes cover Guy stays out in the open and returns to the house, but finds that both the child and the old lady have been killed by falling rubble. Later, Guy and Goran prepare for a prisoner exchange with the Bosniak forces. When they arrive at the exchange point one of the young Serb female prisoners being exchanged, Vera (Nataša Ninković), is visibly pregnant because she was raped by the Muslim forces. Guy and Goran take her in Goran's car and they head towards her village. In the car Goran berates Vera for being impregnated by a Bosniak even though Guy points out that she was almost certainly raped. Goran eventually stops the car in a tunnel. He throws Vera out of the car and begins to kick her as she lies on the ground. The blows force Vera into premature labor. As Goran prepares to murder the soon-to-be-born child, Guy shoots and kills Goran and then helps deliver the baby. When he shows Vera the child, a girl, she rejects it and attempts to shoot herself before Guy manages to stop her. They arrive at her house where she is rejected by her family due to the shame felt by her father. They leave her house with Guy intending to head for a refugee camp where Vera and the baby would be looked after. Vera continues to reject the child and does not talk to Guy. After being told by Goran's family that his corpse has been found and that he was last seen in the company of Guy and Vera, Vera's father and brother head off in pursuit of them. They eventually catch up with them when they stop to get milk for the child. Guy is shot and injured, but Vera places herself between him and her father as he goes to kill him, and her father backs off and allows them to leave when Guy tells him that Goran intended to kill both Vera and the baby. They briefly return to Vera's village to find it has been attacked, and have to watch from a distance as her family and other villagers are rounded up and led away by Bosniak militiamen. Guy decides to head for the safety of the UN zone in Split on the Dalmatian Coast. On their way they stop and take refuge with an elderly Croat man and his Bosnian Serb wife. The old man tells Guy "before the war, no difference [between Serbs and Croats], and now, stupid", pointing to his head to show madness. After moving on they reach what they think is a relatively safe area. Vera leaves Guy and the child to rest in an abandoned and half-sunk boat on the edge of a lake while she goes to find a bus that will take them to Split. Vera is captured along with other civilians by members of the Croatian Defense Council. The Croats take their prisoners to the waterfront where Guy is hiding in the boat. One Croat then proceeds to beat several to death with a sledgehammer, including Vera, as they stand in the water. The fighters shoot those that are left as Guy witnesses the slaughter from inside the boat but can do nothing without giving himself and the child away. He smothers the baby in order to keep her quiet as the soldiers prepare to leave. She stops breathing but is soon resuscitated by Guy. Guy eventually makes his way onto a bus that takes him and the baby to Split where he leaves Vera's baby in an unattended Red Cross vehicle and writes the name "Vera" on a paper before walking to a pier, throwing his rifle and scope in the water and collapsing on a bench. A woman who was on the bus with him approaches him, carrying the girl and offering help. When she asks if the baby is his, Guy replies that she is and the woman promises to take them both to a hospital. 

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The film opens on Alice sitting by a brook. A close-up of her mouth informs the audience that they will now see a film, instructing them to close their eyes "otherwise you won't see anything!" The film goes to Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová) in her sitting room. A mysterious creaking noise draws her attention to a taxidermic White Rabbit in a glass case. Alice hides beneath a writing desk while the Rabbit first dresses himself, then opens a hidden drawer to reveal a pair of scissors with which he smashes the case, freeing himself. Alice chases the Rabbit out of the house into a field, where she sees a writing desk identical to the one from her sitting room. The Rabbit crawls inside the desk's drawer and disappears. Alice crawls after him and finds herself in a cave, where she stumbles into a wastebasket that turns into in an elevator that deposits her atop a large pile of leaves. Alice searches for the rabbit in the leaves, when the leaves suddenly begin to stir on their own power, eventually revealing another, identical writing desk in which Alice finds a tiny key. Alice uses the key to open a miniature door just in time to see the Rabbit vanish disappear into a painted garden; she herself is much too large to fit. Alice finds a plate of tarts and eats one, which transforms her into a small china doll identical to herself. Now she is the correct size to fit through the door but finds she has left the key in the writing desk. She then finds a bottle of ink labeled "Drink Me" that causes her to grow enormous. Frustrated, Alice cries until the room floods with tears. The tray of tarts floats past and Alice is able to return herself to doll-size, retrieve the key from the floating desk, and follow the Rabbit. Once through the door, she finds herself at the banks of a brook in the countryside and encounters the White Rabbit, who mistakes her for his housemaid and commands her to fetch his scissors from his rabbit-cage-like house. While searching for the scissors, she drinks from another ink bottle and returns to her true size, but finds herself trapped inside the now too-small house. The Rabbit and his animal companions try to force her out by launching a skull-head lizard through the window. Alice kicks him away, causing him to burst and spill his sawdust innards. The angry animals finally imprison the girl by submerging her in a pot of milk, trapping her inside a giant Alice-shaped doll, which they lock inside a storage room filled with specimen jars. Alice breaks free of the doll. Inside a sardine can, she discovers a key and escapes the storage room, stepping into a long hall with many doors. Behind one of them, she meets a stocking-Caterpillar in a room swarming with smaller sock-worms that bore holes in the floor. Alice's own socks crawl off her feet and join the others. In the hallway once more, she follows the sound of a crying baby, which turns out to be a live piglet inside a dollhouse stormed with breaking plates and pots. In another room, a tea party mechanically proceeds without end, hosted by a wind-up March Hare and a wooden marionette Hatter. The Hatter produces the White Rabbit from inside its hat. The Rabbit flees upstairs and Alice follows. Behind a curtain of old clothes in the attic, Alice discovers a garden of paper flowers clipped from old magazines. The King and Queen of Hearts, followed by a troop of playing cards march into the garden. Two of the Jacks are engaged in a swordfight. The Queen commands the White Rabbit, her executioner, to behead the Jacks; he does so with his scissors. A card-playing Hatter and Hare are also beheaded, only to exchange their heads and keep playing. The Queen invites Alice to play croquet, only for the game to end in chaos when the mallets and balls turn into live-action chickens and hedgehogs. The White Rabbit delivers a script to a puzzled Alice. She presents herself into a courtroom where she finds herself on trial for eating the Queen's tarts. Alice points out that the tarts are sitting untouched in the courtroom, but the King insists she stick to the script. Annoyed, Alice eats the tarts, which causes her head to shapeshift into that of other characters. The Queen demands all her heads be cut off, and the Rabbit advances toward her with his scissors. Abruptly, Alice wakes in her sitting room. Around the room are the various household objects that populated her dream: playing cards scattered on her lap, china dolls, socks in a sewing basket. The case that formerly contained the taxadermic rabbit is now shattered and empty. Discovering a hidden drawer in the interior of the broken case, she opens it to reveal the White Rabbit's scissors. Examining the scissors, Alice says to herself, "He's late, as usual. I think I'll cut his head off." 

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Naoki Kazumi is a boy whose parents died in an accident five years ago, and his memory went along with it. Since he had nowhere else to go, he lives with his cousin Matsuri Shibugaki and her parents. Every morning before school, he is awakened by his childhood friend, Honami Fujieda, who keeps telling him that he is not a child anymore, but still comes to wake him up. These usual, ordinary days seem to stretch on forever, until one day up on the school's rooftop, while Naoki is taking a peaceful nap, out of nowhere, a girl falls out of the sky. This girl, called Mikoto Amagasaki, comes from 100 years in the future, and she went back in time with the intention of finding her brother. When Mikoto sees Naoki, she mistakes him for her brother. 

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The storyline is advanced primarily through literary cutscenes. Each chapter begins and ends with a cutscene, consisting of text, dialogue, and animations. The player meets various NPCs during their travels. Dialogue is text-based and some NPCs have their own pictures as well. Conversation is tree-based: in some cases, the player can choose between various dialogue keywords. This is used to get information, training, and items, sometimes for a price. 

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Ten years after A Darkness at Sethanon, Seigneur Locklear is serving at a northern Kingdom garrison when he saves Gorath of the Ardanien from an assassin. Gorath has brought a warning of an invasion planned by Delekhan, leader of the moredhel, so Locklear agrees to take him to see Prince Arutha in Krondor. Injured from numerous attacks, they ask for help from Owyn Beleforte, a young magician from Tiburn. The game begins in their camp north of LaMut. 

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Nightclub manager Darnell Wright (Martin Lawrence) is a perpetual playboy and hopeless male chauvinist. He works for a nightclub called Chocolate City and aspires to be its owner. He trades VIP privileges at the club for favors from women. Though he is an expert at conning women, he sometimes worries about what his childhood sweetheart Mia (Regina King) thinks of his adventures. When the classy and elegant Brandi Webb (Lynn Whitfield) steps out of a limousine to enter the club, Darnell feels that he's met his ultimate prize. She rejects his come- ons, which only fuels his appetite. He pursues her, showing up with flowers at her real estate . He finally wins over Brandi, only to find out that he's really in love with Mia. One morning, Darnell wakes up to find Brandi in the kitchen making bacon and pancakes. She wants him to hold her but he pushes her off aggressively. But Brandi doesn't take kindly to rejection. She becomes an obsessed femme fatale stalking him, even taking all four wheels off his SUV to ground him from his rounds, shattering his windshield and setting his nightclub on fire. In one scene, she hits herself with a fruit hidden in a sock to cause bruises without fingerprints. When Darnell goes to see her at the hospital, he is arrested for a false domestic violence charge. She also threatens Mia's life. Ending his relationship with Mia is not enough to satisfy Brandi who finally administers Darnell's punishment for his misogyny. Darnell quickly learns the hard way that when you "play", you have to "pay." The film ends much like the last verse of the song "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate", with an injured Darnell in the hospital with all his friends and family as well as Mia standing over him. He ponders over what happened to him and deciding to change, and a mugshot of Brandi and Darnell's voice saying "Damn I'm truly sorry about what happened to Brandi. I hope baby lands on her feet, but they better make damn sure they fix that dent in her heart before they let her out". 

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During a surprise 42nd birthday party for wealthy, well-known composer George Webber (Dudley Moore), thrown by his actress girlfriend Samantha Taylor (Julie Andrews), he finds he is coping badly with incipient middle age. From his car, George glimpses a bride-to-be (Bo Derek) and is instantly obsessed with her beauty, which he rates as "11" on a scale that goes up to 10. Following her to the church, he crashes into a police cruiser, is stung by a bee, and nearly disrupts the wedding ceremony. George visits the priest, and learns the woman is Jenny Miles, daughter of a prominent Beverly Hills dentist. Later that night, Sam and George have an argument about George's failure to give her the attention she needs, his use of the term "broad", and the fact that he uses a telescope to watch a neighbor (a porn producer) perform carnal acts. The final straw for Sam occurs when George makes a remark subtly impugning her femininity, at which point Sam leaves in a huff. The following day, George spies on his neighbor again, hits himself with the telescope, and falls down an embankment, causing him to miss Sam's phone call. Still obsessed with the young bride, George schedules a dental appointment with Jenny's father and learns that Jenny and her husband have gone to Mexico for their honeymoon. The examination reveals a mouthful of cavities, requiring fillings. The after-effects of the novocaine, aggravated by his heavy drinking, leave George completely incoherent. Sam finally reaches him on the phone, but mistakes him for an intruder and calls the police, who hold George at gunpoint while trying to understand his gibberish. Unnerved by the day's events, George visits his neighbor's house to take part in an orgy. Sam arrives at George's and spots him through his telescope, widening the rift between them. While his songwriting partner Hugh (Robert Webber) consoles Sam and says she will need to decide how long to wait for George to grow up, George impulsively boards a plane and follows the newlyweds to their exclusive resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. In the bar, George becomes acquainted with a friendly bartender, plays the piano, and encounters an old acquaintance, Mary Lewis (Dee Wallace), who suffers from a lack of self- confidence because she blames herself for a series of failed relationships. When they attempt a fling, Mary interprets George's inadequacy in bed as confirmation of her own insecurities. At the beach, George sees Jenny ― wearing a swimsuit with her hair braided in cornrows ― and is awestruck again by her beauty. He notices that David (Sam J. Jones), her husband, has fallen asleep on his surfboard. George learns that beyond a certain point are powerful currents that can sweep a swimmer or surfer dangerously far from land. He rents a catamaran, clumsily but successfully rescues David, and becomes a hero. Sam sees him on a TV newscast and tries to contact him, but George (unaware that it is Sam) refuses the call. David, badly sunburned, is hospitalized, allowing Jenny and George to spend time alone together. After dinner, in her room, Jenny smokes marijuana and then seduces George to the sounds of Maurice Ravel's Boléro. Although George is initially elated to find all of his fantasies being fulfilled, he is horrified when Jenny takes a call from her husband while in bed with him and casually informs him of George's presence. He is even more confused when David responds with a complete lack of concern (he had called to thank George for saving his life). When Jenny explains their open relationship and mutual honesty, and that they only got married due to pressure from her conservative father, George is appalled; realizing that in contrast to the complete infatuation he has had with her, Jenny sees him as nothing more than a "casual lay," so George gets dressed and leaves. After flying back home, George reconciles with Sam by apologizing and demonstrating a new maturity. His neighbor, watching this through his telescope, complains that he has had enough of providing erotic entertainment to George and getting nothing in return. He walks away from the telescope in disgust. George takes an idea from Jenny: he starts Boléro on his phonograph, and he and Sam make love — ironically, in full view of the neighbor's telescope. 

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Frank White, a drug lord, is riding into New York City in a limousine after being released from Rikers Island. Emilio El Zapa, a Colombian drug dealer, is shot dead and the killers leave a newspaper headline announcing Frank's release. Zapa's partner, King Tito, is in a hotel room with Jimmy Jump, who is Frank’s trigger happy right hand man and Test Tube, who are negotiating the purchase of cocaine. Jimmy and Test Tube shoot Tito and his bodyguards and steal the cocaine. Later, in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Frank is greeted by Jimmy, Test Tube and other members of his gang, who welcome him home. Frank leaves to meet two of his lawyers, Joey Dalesio and Jennifer, for dinner. Frank expresses his desire to be Mayor of New York City and asks Dalesio to set up a meeting with Mafia boss Arty Clay. He and Jennifer leave to take a ride on the subway where they embrace passionately and grope each other. Confronted by muggers, Frank first brandishes his gun then gives them a wad of money, telling them to ask for him at the Plaza if they want work. Dalesio goes to Little Italy, to set up a meeting with Clay but the Mafia don urinates on Dalesio's shoes and tells him it is a message for his boss. Frank, Jump and other members of the gang go to Clay's social club, where Frank tells Clay that he wants a percentage of all of Clay's profits. When Clay insults him, Frank shoots the Mafioso. As he leaves, Frank tells Clay's men that they can all find employment at the Plaza. The next night, Frank is confronted by Detectives Bishop, Gilley and Flanigan of the New York Police Department (NYPD) narcotics squad. They drive him to an empty lot where they show him the body of El Zapa in the trunk. When Frank refuses to confess, Gilley and Flanigan beat him and leave him in the lot. Frank sends Dalesio to Chinatown to make contact with Triad leader Larry Wong, who has $3 million worth of cocaine. Frank tells him it will bring $15 million when he sells it on the street. Larry demands $3 million up front and another $500,000 after the drugs are sold. Frank counters that the two should team up, then split the profits evenly. Larry turns him down and demands that Frank decide immediately whether he wants to buy the drugs. Frank declines. Jimmy Jump and several of Frank's lieutenants are arrested by Gilley and Flanigan, who reveal that one of Tito's bodyguards is alive and willing to testify. When Frank learns of his men's arrest, he orders his lawyers to arrange their release. They head to Chinatown, where they kill Larry and his gang and take the cocaine. Gilley, Flanigan and other officers pose as drug dealers and bribe Dalesio into leading them to the nightclub where Frank and his men are partying. They burst in shooting, killing several members of Frank's gang. Fleeing over the Queensboro Bridge, Frank and Jump trade shots with the police, killing all but Gilley and Flanigan. After evading their pursuers, the two men split up. Sneaking up on Flanigan, Jump shoots him in the chest, puncturing his vest. Seeing this, Gilley shoots Jump several times in the chest and stomach. Gilley tries CPR on his partner to no avail and he finishes Jump off with a gunshot to the head. A few days later at Flanigan's funeral, Frank kills Gilley. After his men kill Dalesio, Frank goes to Bishop's apartment, telling him that he has placed a $250,000 bounty on every detective involved in the case. Holding Bishop at gunpoint, Frank explains that he killed Tito, Larry, Arty Clay and Zapa because he disapproved of their involvement in human trafficking and child prostitution. Frank forces Bishop to handcuff himself to a chair. As Frank heads to the subway, Bishop uses a hidden gun to free himself. Bishop corners Frank in a subway car. Frank shoots Bishop, killing him but the policeman is able to fire a last shot. Frank walks slowly out of the subway station in Times Square. He gets in a taxi and tells the driver to just drive but the taxi is caught in a traffic jam caused by the police search for Frank. Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, Frank puts his hand over his wound and watches the police surround his car. As police officers close in on the taxi, Frank closes his eyes and goes limp. 

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Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges undergoing a mid-life crisis. Although married to Winifred, Bartley resumes his acquaintance with a former lover, Hilda Burgoyne, in London. The affair gnaws at Bartley's sense of propriety and honor. 

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The story mode of Dead or Alive Ultimate plays out as it did in the original. However, a new CG sequence is added further explaining the relationship and history of Ayane, Kasumi and Hayate leading into the first two Dead or Alive games. 

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The once peaceful city has been taken over by a criminal syndicate, including factions of the police. Mass violence is now common and no one is safe. Adam Hunter (an accomplished boxer), Axel Stone (skilled martial artist) and Blaze Fielding (judo expert) are vicenarian ex- police officers who have quit the force to fight back against the syndicate. Depending on whether the game is played as one-player or a two-player co-op, and whether the player accepts or rejects Mr. X's offer to join his henchmen, there is a possibility for an alternate ending where the player becomes the new head of the crime syndicate. {| class="wikitable" |- valign="top" !Stage !Description !Theme !Boss |- |1||City Street||Fighting in the Street||Antonio |- |2||Inner City||Dilapidated Town||Souther |- |3||Beach Front||Moon Beach||Abadede |- |4||Bridge||Keep the Groovin||Bongo |- |5||Aboard Ship||Beatnik on the Ship||Yasha and Onihime |- |6||Factory||Stealthy Steps||Souther |- |7||Freight Elevator||Violent Breathing||n/a |- |8||Syndicate Headquarters||The Last Soul||Mr. X |} 

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The daughter of mild-mannered Manhattan dentist Sheldon "Shelly" Kornpett and the son of businessman Vince Ricardo are engaged to be married. At an introductory dinner in which Shelly (Alan Arkin) meets his new in-law Vince, he finds Vince (Peter Falk) suspicious; during the dinner, Vince tells a crazy story of a nine-month "consulting" trip to 1954 Guatemala. Vince's son and wife seem oblivious. At one point in the dinner Vince excuses himself to make a phone call, and hides something in the basement. Later that night, Shelly pleads with his daughter not to marry into the Ricardo clan, since he mistrusts Vince, but he is talked into giving the marriage a chance. The following day, Vince appears at Sheldon's office, claiming that he wanted to say hello. He asks Shelly for help with a five-minute errand: breaking into Vince's office safe. Shelly reluctantly agrees. After retrieving a mysterious black bag from Vince's cramped office in an old Herald Square office building, two armed hit men surprise Sheldon. After a chase and shootout, Vince explains to the frightened Shelly he has worked for the CIA since the Eisenhower administration and robbed the United States Mint of engraving plates to crack a worldwide inflation plot hatched in Central America. He mentions he robbed the U.S. Mint on his own; the CIA had turned him down, deeming the caper too risky. Vince claims that Sheldon is not involved; however, if Vince is caught, he will be jailed for 20 years and fired from the CIA. Vince further upsets Sheldon by mentioning he left an engraving plate in the basement of Sheldon's house the previous night. During the wedding preparations, Mrs. Kornpett discovers the engraving and brings it to her local bank, where she is informed by the U.S. Treasury Department that it was stolen. Sheldon arrives home to find Treasury officials there and speeds out of the driveway, leading to a car chase through suburban New Jersey. Sheldon calls Vince and explains what happened; Vince tells Sheldon he wants him to accompany him to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the whole ordeal will be cleared up by the time they return. At a small airport near Lodi, New Jersey, Vince and Sheldon board a jet. To Shelly's consternation, during the flight he notices they are flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Vince assures Sheldon they are still going to Scranton, but they need to make a brief stop along the way in Tijata, a small island south of Honduras. When they arrive, Vince is supposed to meet a corrupt member of the small country's legislature, General Jesus Braunschweiger. When they land, Jesus is shot and killed before he can greet and debrief the two. Vince and Sheldon fall under sniper fire and, using the General's car, escape and drive into town. At their hotel, Vince contacts the mastermind of the inflation plot, General Garcia. Sheldon, tired of the ordeal, refuses to be shot at any more; unknown to Vince, he calls the United States Embassy and is told by the CIA agent-in-charge that Vince is a madman who was mentally discharged from the agency. Sheldon tells this to Vince, who prevents him from escaping, assuring Sheldon that the embassy told him that to get Shelly off the trail. Sheldon is still reluctant. Leaving the hotel, Vince hails a taxi driven by one of the airport snipers. Sheldon chases, leaping onto the roof of the car. Vince takes control of the car, crashing into a fruit market. Grateful to Sheldon for saving him (and after another shootout and car chase), Vince and Shelly reach the General's estate. The insane general gives them $20 million for the plates, awards them medals, and marches them in front of a firing squad. Vince stalls for time until hundreds of CIA agents, led by Barry Lutz, overwhelm the army and take Garcia into custody. Lutz reveals that Vince was telling the truth the entire time; however, Vince retires, as he has had enough. He gives Lutz the $10 million he had agreed to deliver from the general. Vince and Sheldon take off with five million dollars each, giving their children a wedding gift of a million dollars to each.The In-Laws (The Criterion Collection, spine #823) 

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The novel is based in Saint Petersburg in the run up to the Revolution of 1905 and follows a young revolutionary, Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov, who has been ordered to assassinate his own father, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov, a high Tsarist official, by planting a time bomb in his study. Bely drew his characters from historical models: Apollon Apollonovich shares many characteristics with Procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev, and Dudkin resembles the revolutionary terrorist Boris Savinkov. There are many similarities with Joyce's Ulysses: the linguistic rhythms and wordplay, the Symbolism and subtle political concerns which structure the themes of the novel, the setting of the action in a capital city that is itself a character, the use of humor. The differences are also notable: the English translation of Bely remains more accessible, his work is based on complex rhythm of patterns, and, according to scholarly opinion, does not use such a wide variety of innovations. But these innovations, which subvert commonplace literary rhetoric, are necessary to conveying Petersburg at such a tumultuous time. 

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In 1999, Seth Davis (Ribisi), a 19-year-old Queens College dropout, runs an unlicensed casino in his home near the campus, catering to college students. Although he earns a successful living, he is a disappointment to his father, Marty (Rifkin), a New York City federal judge. One night, his cousin Adam (Kennedy) stops by the casino to play blackjack, bringing a rich associate named Greg Weinstein (Katt) along with him. Greg recruits Seth to join J.T. Marlin, a brokerage firm based somewhere off the Long Island Expressway, promising him that he has the opportunity to get rich. Arriving at J.T. Marlin, Seth attends a group interview and learns from Jim Young (Affleck), one of the co-founders of the firm, what is expected of his work and also how he can become a millionaire. The firm's techniques of selling are through cold calling investors to sell stock, and Seth joins as a stockbroker trainee, having to close 40 accounts and pass a Series 7 Exam to begin working independently. The brokers love to quote insider trader Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, seeing him as a role model. He is soon making a good living, as well as winning his father's approval and embarking on a romance with Abbie Halpert (Long), a secretary and Greg's ex-girlfriend. Gradually, he learns that J.T. Marlin is a chop stock brokerage firm that runs a "pump and dump", using its brokers to create artificial demand in the stock of expired or fake companies, and speculative penny stocks. When the firm is done pumping the stock, the firm founders sell and trade for legitimate stocks for record profits. However, the investors then have no one to sell their shares to in the market when the price of the stock plummets, causing them to lose their investment. The FBI agents investigating the firm decide to pursue Seth, hoping to make him their informant. Seth passes his Series 7 Exam and becomes a broker. He then contacts Harry Reynard (Taylor Nichols), the purchasing manager of a gourmet foods company. Although Harry is reluctant, he gives in after Seth lies that the stock is guaranteed to go up in value; Seth sells him 100 shares at $8 each. When the stock's value drops, Harry calls back to ask why the stock has done so poorly, only to have Seth persuade him to buy more worthless shares. The stock eventually tanks, costing Harry his savings and his family. Feeling guilty for scamming Harry, Seth resolves to shut the firm down. Marty then disowns him, accusing him of destroying peoples' lives. Seth investigates further, discovering that the firm's founders are already preparing to abandon J.T. Marlin, destroy the records, and cut ties with their employees to re-brand and start their scheme under a new name, leaving their victims to face a lengthy legal battle without much hope of recovering their money. Seth shows up at his father's office and tearfully explains that he shut down his casino and went along with a highly criminal line of work that he thought was legal to gain his family's approval. He then requests that his father help him on an IPO scheme to rob the firm of their money and bring them down, hoping that his actions, while illegal, will recover enough money to help J.T. Marlin's victims. Although Marty initially refuses due to the risk of losing his judgeship, he calls Seth the next day, reconciling with him and offering to help with the scheme. Seth is eventually arrested by the FBI for the violation of 26 SEC and NASD regulations, and is brought into their custody along with his father, as the bureau had discovered their IPO scheme from a tape-recorded phone conversation. The FBI offer him federal immunity if he agrees to testify against J.T. Marlin once all the suspects are brought into court, and threaten to involve Marty in order to assure Seth's cooperation. Seth asserts that he will testify against the firm and provide strong evidence of their illegal practices only if his father is released. He and the agents come to an agreement on this, with Seth being kept overnight. After that, it is implied that he will be free to go as the FBI will proceed to raid the building and prosecute everybody else. Seth returns to work the next day and goes along with the FBI's instructions to make copies of investment files onto a floppy disk to use as evidence. Before leaving, Seth attempts to get Harry's money back. He lies to Michael Brantley (Scott), the company's founder, by explaining that the firm can lose a lot of money by refusing to continue to do business with Harry Reynard, who Seth makes out to be an important prospect at a make-or-break point. Brantley agrees to proceed, offering him shares of the next IPO, with a caveat that he cannot sell the shares until the firm has sold off theirs. In order to sell the shares behind Michael's back, Seth needs a sell ticket signed by a senior broker, something that his direct supervisor, Greg, has explicitly said that he would never do. He seeks a signing from Chris Varick (Diesel), explaining that he may as well "do one thing right" in helping a severely hit investor make his money back, now that the firm will be raided and, soon enough, there will be no future in continuing business at J.T. Marlin. Chris reluctantly agrees, and proceeds to escape the building in an attempt to flee federal enforcement. Seth walks out to his car, deciding what to do with his life now that his ties with J.T. Marlin are finished. As he departs in his car, several FBI cars, buses, and tow trucks enter the parking lot, with agents storming out ready to raid the building. 

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Ruth is an abnormally tall and ugly housewife whose husband, Bobbo, considers their relationship an open marriage based on convenience alone and he only married her because he got her pregnant when they were both teenagers. Bobbo only truly loves his mistress, a famous, wealthy romance novelist named Mary Fisher. When Ruth passionately indicates her disapproval for Bobbo's extramarital affair, he calls her a "she-devil", causing her to reassess her life. She resolves to behave in accordance with the label he has given her. Bobbo leaves Ruth and their two children: he goes to live with Mary Fisher, to whom he soon proposes. Ruth plots her revenge on them, beginning by burning down her own house, therefore forcing the children to live with their father at Mary Fisher's mansion. Ruth engages in a string of meaningless sexual relationships in order to emotionally detach herself from sex. In the meantime, she works at the retirement home which houses Mary's mother, Pearl. Her actions there cause Pearl to be expelled from the home, thus inconveniencing Mary and Bobbo who must now care for her. At the same time, Bobbo believes that Ruth has disappeared and may be dead, as she has completely abandoned him and their children. Ruth finds work at a psychiatric hospital while taking classes in accounting and bookkeeping. She uses this knowledge to discreetly steal money from Bobbo's corporate clientele in a way that will incriminate Bobbo later on. Ruth starts her own employment agency for female secretaries, under the alias of "Vista Rose". Through her agency, she sends a secretary to Bobbo's office who begins another affair with him. When the police arrive to arrest Bobbo, Ruth has made it appear as though he and the secretary were going to take the stolen money and leave the country, though Ruth is in possession of the money herself, becoming rich as a result. She nonetheless feels slight sympathy for the secretary and arranges for her to take a new job in Australia which she gladly takes so she can evade the police. Under a new alias, Ruth works as a nanny for the children of the judge who presides over Bobbo's trial, sleeping with him and successfully persuading him to extend Bobbo's prison sentence if he is convicted. Bobbo is found guilty and imprisoned. While a desperate Mary Fisher turns toward religion for guidance, Ruth manipulates the entire situation and continues to recreate herself with a variety of aliases and love affairs. Ruth uses her money to change her lifestyle and appearance, undergoing a series of surgeries to completely restructure her body to be identical to Mary Fisher. Mary continues to love Bobbo and wastes away, developing cancer and ultimately dying, and her mansion is subsequently purchased by Ruth. Ruth now lives a life of wealth, extravagance, and control, claiming that she will sexually dominate Bobbo once she secures his release from prison, causing him the misery that he once caused her. 

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Clay Carter is a poorly paid Washington, D.C. public defender who dreams of joining a large law firm. One day he reluctantly takes on the case of Tequila Watson, a man accused of a random street killing. Watson insists that he somehow wasn't in control of his body when he pulled the trigger, a story which Clay tries to dismiss but can't get out of his mind. Clay tries his best to help his client, plunging into capital's most dangerous slums in search of evidence. Clay finally gets a subpoena forcing drug rehabilitation centers to hand over Watson's medical records, as well as those of another man accused of a similar murder. Meanwhile, Clay has been dating Rebecca Van Horn, a junior congressional aide. Clay and Rebecca are deeply in love, but he deeply loathes her father, Bennett Van Horn, an aggressive real estate mogul whose developments are destroying the countryside of Northern Virginia. When Clay refuses an offer to work for a senator who is closely involved with these deals, Bennett pressures Rebecca into cutting off relations with Clay and hastily marrying a rich corporate lawyer. Clay is unexpectedly contacted by a mysterious man named Max Pace, who tells him that Watson's medical records are evidence of a potentially major scandal. It is revealed that Watson and other recovering drug addicts were illegally given an experimental drug called Tarvan, which caused some of the test subjects to commit random and senseless killings. The drug company responsible asks Clay to resign from his job as a public defender and arrange secret payoffs to the victims. While doing so would mean hiding exculpatory evidence from his client, Clay goes along with the scheme, partly to win back Rebecca's affections with his newfound wealth. Clay opens a law firm specializing in torts, hiring several of his friends and colleagues: lawyer Paulette, paralegal Rodney and computer expert Jonah. He continues to work with Max, who provides insider information concerning Dyloft, a carcinogenic drug produced by Ackerman Laboratories. Advised by Pace, Clay orchestrates an intensive TV campaign which results in a $100 million settlement, being dubbed the "King of Torts" by the media. While Clay and his employees enjoy the millions of dollars in returns from the settlement, his clients are bitter at getting only a bit more than $50,000 each. Max offers Clay information on yet another defective drug called Maxatil. Expecting to repeat his success, Clay recklessly makes enormous expenses: launching a coast-to-coast TV campaign; signing up dozens of additional legal and medical staff; renting additional office space; and signing up thousands of "Maxatil clients." However, Clay finds that conclusively linking Maxatil to negative side effects is far from easy. Moreover, it produced by Goffman, a company known for unwillingness to compromise on tort suits. The future of Maxatil tort suit depends on the outcome of a single, long drawn out test case run by an aging maverick lawyer in Flagstaff, Arizona. Meanwhile, the FBI questions Clay on suspicion of insider trading. A criminal lawyer tells Clay that, having sold Ackerman shares short while knowing he would sue the company and push down the value of its shares, he is indeed culpable and could face up to five years behind bars. Max turns out to be a con artist who is wanted by the FBI and has disappeared without a trace. Next, after Dyloft's effects are found to be deadlier than first thought, terminal patients who were kept from suing Ackerman for millions instead sue Clay for malpractice. Clay faces the prospect of being forced to consume all of his assets to pay his former clients. Desperate for money, Clay turns to a mass tort against Hanna, a building supplies company which had produced batches of defective cement. The company's directors are willing to offer a fair compensation to disgruntled homeowners, but only if Clay agrees to cut his share of the compensations. Clay refuses to give up anything, resulting in Hanna's bankruptcy, the loss of thousands of jobs, and an economic disaster for the town where the company is based. When it becomes known that the collapse was caused by "a greedy lawyer," Clay is ambushed and beaten by some men from the town. While Clay is slowly recovering in the hospital, Rebecca shows up to tend to him, having divorced from her husband and estranged herself from her father. Regaining her love helps Clay take calmly the final blow to his career: the jury in Arizona has rejected the Maxatil tort suit, and all the millions which Clay invested in Maxatil goes down the drain. Clay is forced to declare bankruptcy, close down his firm, give up his assets, and surrender his license to practice law. The FBI stops pursuing their case against Clay due to the loyalty of an old friend who refuses to provide incriminating evidence. Having nothing more to lose, Clay discloses his involvement in the Tarvan affair to an investigative journalist; a criminal lawyer will attempt to re-open the cases of the Tarvan test subjects, including Watson. Clay and Rebecca fly to London, where they would have a happy life without the opulence Clay no longer misses. It is, however, implied that Clay will still end up with a few million dollars in the end, because Paulette and Rodney--with whom Clay was extremely generous and loyal in distributing his initial lucrative settlements, both promise of their own accord to return some of the money to him, never forgetting that they owe their financial success to him. 

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The novel, written as a follow-up to Marcus's literary debut, The Age of Wire and String, deals with an abstruse Ohio family, which shares the author's surname. The Marcus family, owning four members, lives on a farm outside of an unnamed town; the reader encounters narration from three of those members, and is led through a seemingly implausible and temporally confusing description of the life events of the protagonist: a young Ben Marcus. 

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;Chapter 1 The Ismailov family is introduced: Boris, the father of Zinovy, the husband of Katerina for the past five years. Boris and Zinovy are merchants, ruling an estate with many serfs. Katerina is bored in their empty home, and tired of Boris' constant orders and scolding of her for not producing any children. She would actually welcome a child, and Zinovy's previous wife of twenty years fared no better. ;Chapter 2 A dam bursts at a mill owned by Boris, and Zinovy leaves town to oversee its repair. Aksinya, the female cook, and Sergei, a newly arrived farmhand, are introduced. Katerina flirts somewhat innocently with Sergei. Aksinya tells Katerina, who has become bored enough to venture out amongst the peasants, of Sergei's reputation as a womanizer. ;Chapter 3 Sergei comes into Katerina's room, and after some dialogue about romance, moves to kiss her roughly. She protests at first, but then gives in; after an implied sexual encounter, she tells Sergei to leave because Boris will be coming by to lock her door. He stays, saying he can use the window instead. ;Chapter 4 After a week of the continued affair, Boris catches Sergei and accuses him of adultery. Sergei will neither admit nor deny it, so Boris whips him until his own arm hurts from the exertion, and locks Sergei in a cellar. Katerina seems to come alive from her boredom, but Boris threatens to beat her as well when she asks for Sergei's release. ;Chapter 5 Katerina poisons Boris, and he is buried in the absence of his son and without suspicion. She then takes charge of the estate and begins to order people around, openly being around Sergei every day. ;Chapter 6 Katerina has a strange dream about a cat. Some dialogue occurs with Sergei, which by its end reveals his worry over Zinovy's return and desire to marry her. ;Chapter 7 Katerina again dreams of the cat, which this time has Boris's head rather than a cat's. Zinovy returns and takes some time to get around to confronting Katerina with what he has heard about her affair. Finally she calls Sergei in, kisses him in front of her husband, some violence occurs, and the two of them strangle Zinovy. ;Chapter 8 Zinovy dies, and Sergei buries him deep in the walls of the cellar where he himself had been kept. ;Chapter 9 Some convenient circumstances regarding Zinovy's return shroud his disappearance in mystery, and while there is an inquiry, nothing is found and no trouble comes to Sergei or Katerina. The latter becomes pregnant. Everything seems to be working out for them, until Boris's young nephew Fyodor shows up with his mother, preventing Katerina from inheriting the estate. She has no problem with this and actually makes an effort to be a good aunt, but Sergei complains repeatedly for a time about their misfortune. ;Chapter 10 Fyodor falls ill, and Katerina, while tending to him, has a change of heart because of Sergei's earlier complaints. ;Chapter 11 Katerina and Sergei suffocate the boy, but a crowd returning from church storms the house, one of its members having spied the act through the shutters of Fyodor's room. Sergei, hearing the windows clattering from the crowd's fists, thinks the ghosts of his murder victims have come back to haunt him, and breaks down. ;Chapter 12 Sergei admits to the crime publicly and, in repentance, also tells of where Zinovy is buried and admits to that crime as well. Katerina indifferently admits that she helped with the murders, saying it was all for Sergei. The two are sent to exile in Siberia. During their journey there, Katerina gives birth in a prison hospital, and wants nothing to do with their child. ;Chapter 13 The child is sent to be raised by Fyodor's mother and becomes heir to the Ismailov estate. Katerina continues to be obsessed with Sergei, who increasingly wants nothing to do with her. Fiona and "little Sonya," two members of the prison convoy with Katerina and Sergei, are introduced, the former being known for being sexually prolific, the latter the opposite. ;Chapter 14 Sergei is caught by Katerina being intimate with Fiona. Katerina is mortified, but seeing Fiona's indifference to the whole situation, reaches something approaching cordiality with Fiona by writing her off. Sergei then pursues little Sonya, who will not sleep with him unless he gives her a pair of stockings. He then complains to Katerina about his ankle-cuffs. She, being happy that he is talking to her again, readily gives him her last pair of new stockings to ease his pain, which he then gives to Sonya in return for sexual favours. ;Chapter 15 Katerina sees Sonya wearing her stockings; she spits in Sergei's eyes, and shoves him. He promises revenge, and later breaks into her cell with another man, giving her fifty lashes with a rope, while her cell-mate Sonya giggles in the background. Katerina, broken, lets Fiona console her, and realizes that she is no better than Fiona, which is her breaking-point: after that she is emotionless. On the road in the prison convoy, Sergei and Sonya together mock Katerina. Sonya offers her stockings to her for sale. Sergei reminisces about both their courtship and their murders in the same airy manner. Fiona and an old man in the convoy, Gordyushka, defend Katerina, but to no avail. The convoy arrives at a river and boards a ferry, and Katerina, repeating some phrases similar to Sergei's feigned nostalgia for their life at the estate, sets upon Sonya; they both end up in the river after Katerina has seen the faces of Boris, Zinovy, and Fyodor in the water. The two women briefly resurface, still alive, but Katerina grabs Sonya, and they both drown. 

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Cover of issue 4 of the original Epic Comic series The title character, Marshal Law, is the government-sanctioned "super hero hunter" (aka law enforcement officer, or "cape killer") with superpowers in the city of San Futuro, the near-future metropolis built from the ruins of San Francisco following a massive earthquake. Law's job is to take down other superheroes who have gone rogue, which he does with maximum force and great pleasure. Aided by the wheelchair-using "Danny" and his physically imposing (but extremely polite) partner "Kiloton", the Marshal operates from a secret police precinct hidden below the city, dispensing just enough brutal justice to keep the city's many super-powered gangs in a balanced détente while safeguarding the ordinary citizenry. Marshal Law's secret identity is Joe Gilmore, a former supersoldier consumed with self-hatred about being a superhero. In this world, superheroes are commonplace thanks to genetic engineering, much of the United States' armed forces having undergone the process. However, while their bodies may become super-powered, their minds remain exactly as they were, and in many cases the inability to feel pain causes the subjects to compensate by inflicting pain on others. Psychosis of varying degrees is also a common side-effect, and some subjects develop wildly uncontrollable superpowers. The plot of the original six-issue series revolved around the Marshal's attempts to unmask the Sleepman, a serial killer and rapist who preys on women dressed as Celeste, the current girlfriend of the beloved superhero, Public Spirit. Marshal Law's loathing of the Public Spirit as standing for everything that is fraudulent and hypocritical about superheroes leads him to suspect the Spirit himself of being responsible for the Sleepman's crimes; without any proof, though, the guilty party goes unpunished until a surprising revelation from a former superheroine reveals that the Marshal's suspicions may not be too far from the truth. While in the first series, the Marshal's primary nemeses are the Public Spirit and the Sleepman; he later faces off against Private Eye and The Persecutor. A recurring secondary adversary (initially treated seriously, though later becoming comic relief) is Suicida, a psychopathic ex-soldier who leads the murderous Gangreen street gang. The plot of "Secret Tribunal" revolved around an orbiting incubation center that created and mentally programmed superheroes. It was under attack by a monster called The Incubus, which was defeated by Growing Boy. 

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The Good Soldier is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the story of those dissolutions, plus the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion. As an unreliable narrator the reader can consider whether they believe Dowell and his description of how the events unfolded including his own role in the "saddest story ever told". 

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Set in London in 1886, the novel follows the life of Adolf Verloc, a secret agent. Verloc is also a businessman who owns a shop which sells pornographic material, contraceptives and bric-a-brac. He lives with his wife Winnie, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, Stevie. Stevie has a mental disability, possibly autism, which causes him to be excitable; his sister, Verloc's wife, attends to him, treating him more as a son than as a brother. Verloc's friends are a group of anarchists of which Comrade Ossipon, Michaelis, and "The Professor" are the most prominent. Although largely ineffectual as terrorists, their actions are known to the police. The group produces anarchist literature in the form of pamphlets entitled F.P., an acronym for The Future of the Proletariat. The novel begins in Verloc's home, as he and his wife discuss the trivialities of everyday life, which introduces the reader to Verloc's family. Soon after, Verloc leaves to meet Mr Vladimir, the new First Secretary in the embassy of a foreign country. Although a member of an anarchist cell, Verloc is also secretly employed by the Embassy as an agent provocateur. Vladimir informs Verloc that from reviewing his service history he is far from an exemplary model of a secret agent and, to redeem himself, must carry out an operation – the destruction of Greenwich Observatory by a bomb. Vladimir explains that Britain's lax attitude to anarchism endangers his own country, and he reasons that an attack on 'science', the current vogue amongst the public, will provide the necessary outrage for suppression. Verloc later meets his friends, who discuss politics and law, and the notion of a communist revolution. Unbeknownst to the group, Stevie, Verloc's brother-in-law, overhears the conversation, which greatly disturbs him. The novel flashes forward to after the bombing has taken place. Comrade Ossipon meets The Professor, who discusses having given explosives to Verloc. The Professor describes the nature of the bomb he carries in his coat at all times: it allows him to press a button which will kill him and those nearest to him in twenty seconds. After The Professor leaves the meeting, he stumbles into Chief Inspector Heat, a policeman investigating a recent explosion at Greenwich, where one man was killed. Heat informs The Professor that he is not a suspect in the case, but that he is being monitored due to his terrorist inclinations and anarchist background. Heat suspects Michaelis. Knowing that Michaelis has recently moved to the countryside to write a book, the Chief Inspector informs the Assistant Commissioner that he has a contact, Verloc, who may be able to assist in the case. The Assistant Commissioner shares some of the same high society acquaintances with Michaelis and is chiefly motivated by finding the extent of Michaelis's involvement in order to assess any possible embarrassment to his connections. He later speaks to his superior, Sir Ethelred, about his intentions to solve the case alone, rather than rely on the effort of Chief Inspector Heat. The novel flashes back to before the explosion, taking the perspective of Winnie Verloc and her mother. At home, Mrs Verloc's mother informs the family that she intends to move out of the house. Mrs Verloc's mother and Stevie use a hansom driven by a man with a hook for a hand. The driver's tales of hardship, whipping of his horse, and menacing hook scare Stevie to the point where Mrs Verloc must calm him. On Verloc's return from a business trip to the continent, his wife tells him of the high regard that Stevie has for him and she implores her husband to spend more time with Stevie. Verloc eventually agrees to go for a walk with Stevie. After this walk, Mrs Verloc notes that her husband's relationship with her brother has improved. Verloc tells his wife that he has taken Stevie to go and visit Michaelis, and that Stevie would stay with him in the countryside for a few days. As Verloc is talking to his wife about the possibility of emigrating to the continent, he is paid a visit by the Assistant Commissioner. Shortly thereafter, Chief Inspector Heat arrives to speak with Verloc, without knowing that the Assistant Commissioner had left with Verloc earlier that evening. The Chief Inspector tells Mrs Verloc that he had recovered an overcoat at the scene of the bombing which had the shop's address written on a label. Mrs Verloc confirms that it was Stevie's overcoat, and that she had written the address. On Verloc's return, he realises that his wife knows that his bomb killed her brother, and confesses what truly happened. A stunned Mrs Verloc, in her anguish, fatally stabs her husband. After the murder, Mrs Verloc flees her home, where she chances upon Comrade Ossipon, and begs him to help her. Ossipon assists her while confessing romantic feelings but secretly with a view to possess Mr Verloc's bank account savings. They plan to run away and he aids her in taking a boat to the continent. However, her instability and the revelation of Verloc's murder increasingly worry him, and he abandons her, taking Mr Verloc's savings with him. He later discovers in a newspaper that a woman matching Mrs Verloc's description disappeared from the ferry, leaving behind her wedding ring before drowning herself in the English Channel. 

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In 1832, a family traveling through New Salem, Illinois in its wagon need groceries from Lincoln's (Henry Fonda) store, and the only thing of value that they have to trade is a barrel of old books including a law book, Blackstone's Commentaries. After thoroughly reading the book, Lincoln opts for the law after receiving encouragement from his early, ill-fated love, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore), who soon dies. Too poor to own even a horse, he arrives in Springfield, Illinois, on a mule and soon establishes a law practice in 1837 with his friend John Stuart (Edwin Maxwell). After a raucous, day-long Independence Day celebration, a man, Skrub White, is killed after he pulled a gun in a fight. The accused are two brothers, Matt and Adam Clay (Richard Cromwell and Eddie Quillan). Lincoln prevents the lynching of the accused at the jail by shaming the angry, drunken mob. He also convinces it that he really needs the clients for his first real case. Admiring his courage, Mary Todd (Marjorie Weaver) invites Lincoln to her sister's soiree. Despite being aggressively courted by the very polished Stephen Douglas (Milburn Stone), Mary is interested in Lincoln. She faithfully attends the trial of the Clay boys, sits in the front row, and listens closely. The boys' mother, Abigail Clay (Alice Brady), who witnessed the end of the fight, and Lincoln are pressured by the prosecutor (Donald Meek) to save one of the brothers at the expense of the other's conviction. However, the key witness to the crime, J. Palmer Cass (Ward Bond), is a friend of the victim who claims to have seen the murder at a distance of about 100 yards under the light of the moon: "It was moon bright." However, Lincoln persists and is able, by using an almanac, to demonstrate that on the night in question, the moon had set before the time of death. He then drives Cass to confess that he had actually stabbed his friend. 

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Melvin Smiley has a good life thanks to his talents as a contract-killer, but has a very working class mentality going about his life, in combination with his constant struggles to maintain two romantic relationships. One is with the demanding and demeaning Chantel, who does not accept his work, and the other with Pam, who knows nothing of his job. Melvin is somewhat of a pushover, trying to appease all of Chantel's demands, even her most expensive wishes, as well as rolling over whenever one of his co-workers takes credit for his achievements. Perhaps as a result of his helplessness in asserting himself, throughout the early scenes, Melvin is often seen drinking Maalox to relieve a developing stress-induced ulcer. Feeling underpaid for their work for mob boss Paris, the assassin team of Smiley, Cisco, Crunch, Vince and Gump take an independent job, kidnapping Keiko Nishi, the teenage daughter of local electronics magnate Jiro Nishi, for a hefty ransom. Unfortunately, the team does not realize that Nishi has recently gone bankrupt over his failed foray into films and furthermore, their boss Paris is the girl's godfather. Enlisted by the group to hold Keiko, Melvin has to hide the bound and gagged schoolgirl on his property, attempting to keep her presence hidden from Pam and her parents, who are coming for dinner. Melvin feels sorry for Keiko and relieves her from her bondage. In the ensuing hours they build up a rapport preparing dinner together, an act which leads into a love scene reminiscent of the pottery scene from Ghost, but which is cut short when Keiko attempts to escape. Ordered by Paris to discover the kidnappers of his goddaughter, a panicked Cisco kills Gump, but not before coaxing him into also implicating Melvin for the kidnapping. A team of assassins crash Melvin's dinner with Pam's family, leading to a shootout during which Melvin realizes Pam was going to break up with him under pressure from her stereotypically Jewish mother. Melvin and Keiko's growing feelings for each other lead them to forming an awkward romance, and she and Melvin attempt to escape from the fiasco, pursued by Cisco. In the chaos, Melvin happens to run into Chantel and finally takes the opportunity to stand up to her and end their relationship. A fight ensues between Cisco and Melvin, culminating at a video store where the ever-honest Melvin stops to return an overdue tape of King Kong Lives. Melvin kills Cisco by stabbing him in the chest, but not before Cisco arms an explosive device. Melvin leaves the building and is confronted by Keiko, her father and Paris. He re-enters the building, which explodes. Paris and Nishi, believing Melvin to be dead, call off the manhunt. Soon Melvin is revealed to have survived, sheltered from the blast by an enormous solid gold film stand-up made for the flop that destroyed Nishi's career. Melvin and Keiko are reunited and ride off together, while Nishi recoups his losses by making a film out of the story of his daughter's kidnapping. 

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Una Merkel, Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers in 42nd Street It is 1932, the depth of the Depression, and noted Broadway producers Jones (Robert McWade) and Barry (Ned Sparks) are putting on Pretty Lady, a musical starring Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). She is involved with wealthy Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee), the show's "angel" (financial backer), but while she is busy keeping him both hooked and at arm's length, she is secretly seeing her old vaudeville partner, out-of- work Pat Denning (George Brent). Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) is hired to direct, although his doctor warns that he risks his life if he continues in his high-pressure profession. Despite a long string of successes, he is broke, a result of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, so he must make his last show a hit, in order to have enough money to retire. Cast selection and rehearsals begin amidst fierce competition, with not a few "casting couch" innuendos flying around. Naïve newcomer Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), who arrives in New York from her home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is duped and ignored until two experienced chorines, Lorraine Fleming (Una Merkel) and Ann "Anytime Annie" Lowell (Ginger Rogers), take her under their wing. Lorraine is assured a job because of her relationship with dance director Andy Lee (George E. Stone); she also sees to it that Ann and Peggy are chosen. The show's juvenile lead, Billy Lawler (Dick Powell), takes an immediate liking to Peggy, as does Pat. Naive newcomer Peggy makes her first faux pas, antagonizing tough director Julian Marsh When Marsh learns about Dorothy's relationship with Pat, he sends some thugs led by his gangster friend Slim Murphy (Tom Kennedy) to rough him up. That, plus her realization that their situation is unhealthy, makes Dorothy and Pat agree not to see each other for a while. He gets a stock job in Philadelphia. Rehearsals continue for five weeks, to Marsh's complete dissatisfaction, until the night before the show's opening in Philadelphia, when Dorothy breaks her ankle. By the next morning Abner has quarreled with her and wants Julian to replace her with his new girlfriend, Annie. She, however, tells him that she can't carry the show, but the inexperienced Peggy can. With 200 jobs and his future riding on the outcome, a desperate Julian rehearses Peggy mercilessly (vowing "I'll either have a live leading lady or a dead chorus girl") until an hour before the premiere. Billy finally gets up the nerve to tell Peggy he loves her; she enthusiastically kisses him. Then Dorothy shows up and wishes her luck, telling her that she and Pat are getting married. The show goes on, and the last twenty minutes of the film are devoted to three Busby Berkeley production numbers: "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", "(I'm) Young and Healthy", and "42nd Street". The show is a hit. As the theater audience comes out, Julian stands in the shadows, hearing the comments that Peggy is a star and he (Marsh) does not deserve the credit for it.Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation page 20 Plot note In the original Bradford Ropes novel, Julian and Billy are lovers. Since same- sex relationships were unacceptable in films by the moral standards of the era, the film substituted a romance between Billy and Peggy. 

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The novel covers the early life of FitzChivalry, a royal illegitimacy living in Buckkeep Castle as he begins his training as an assassin and successfully safeguards the throne from his over-ambitious uncle Regal, almost at the cost of his life. The story opens with six year old Fitz being marched by his maternal grandfather to the Farseer's army base in Moonseye, the Six Duchies' outpost on the borders of the Mountain kingdom, currently under the command of Prince Verity, the second Son of King Shrewd. At the door, he is given to a soldier, who is told that he is King-in-Waiting Chivalry's bastard son. The soldier brings him to Prince Verity who orders that he be given into the care of Burrich, Chivalry's own stableman and man at arms. With Burrich, Fitz travels to Buckkeep, the seat of the Farseers. In order to protect Fitz by not allowing them to be associated through contact as well as through blood, his father Chivalry abdicates from the post of King-in- Waiting and with his wife the Lady Patience retires to the royal holdings of Withywoods before Fitz arrives. Fitz never recalls that he met Chivalry but develops a bond with his father's brother, Verity. Chivalry's and Verity's younger half-brother, Regal, despises Fitz and treats him badly when he arrives. Burrich, his father's right-hand man is left with the care and raising of the newly named FitzChivalry, which he does as well as he is able, taking Fitz on as a stable boy. Fitz quickly learns his duties and for a year or so lives with Burrich caring for the animals in the stables. Fitz, however, is lonely, and becomes a close friend of a young dog named Nosy. Fitz possesses what is known as "The Wit," an ancient and distrusted magic which allows him to bond telepathically with animals. He 'bonds' with Nosy and the two become fast friends. Burrich, however, discovers Fitz's bond and with apparent disgust takes Nosy away, thus breaking the bond. Fitz believes him to have killed the dog, and afterwards is much more fearful of Burrich, believing his life just as easy for Burrich to take. The only other companionship Fitz finds is with children living in Buckkeep town — in particular, a girl called Molly who is two years his senior. Eventually Fitz agrees to become a "King's Man" to King Shrewd and is bound by oath to serve the king. He is taken into King Shrewd's service and moves into the castle proper. Here he is schooled and is taught basic combat skills by Hod, the keep weaponmaster. One night he is also introduced to a recluse named Chade, who is a skilled assassin. Fitz agrees to learn Chade's skills as he is desperately lonely and seemingly has no other prospects. So during his childhood he is taught the ways of an assassin. He shows great talent in his duties and is able to complete the minor tasks given to him by the king. Meanwhile, news comes from Withywoods of Chivalry's death - it is said that he was thrown from a horse, but it is strongly suspected that Queen Desire, King Shrewd's second wife and Regal's mother, has had him assassinated. As Fitz is growing up at Buckkeep, the coastal regions of the Six Duchies are being attacked by Outislanders known as the Red-Ship Raiders. The Raiders rampage through villages and towns, killing and taking hostages while stealing little, making their attacks seem to lack a motive. The hostages are returned, reduced to an animal like state with little memory of their former lives. Fitz, when he encounters these returned hostages, finds he cannot sense them with his Wit at all. This stripping away of people's humanity is named after Forge, the first village to be raided in such a way. Later on these Forged Ones become robbers and thieves that start to plunder the countryside, putting another burden on the Six Duchies. Fitz is eventually made part of a class of students to be taught the Skill, a magic which allows its users to share thoughts and strength. The teacher, Galen, despises Fitz while curiously revering his father (it is revealed later in the book that Chivalry imprinted a false loyalty on him, using the Skill, in a fit of rage). During the classes, Galen treats Fitz without respect, referring to him as "Bastard." Eventually he tries to kill Fitz, then, with more success, tries to sabotage his Skill training. During the last test of Galen's Skill classes, Galen sends Fitz to Forge, ostensibly to see if he can use the Skill to get back. The area is infested with Forged Ones, and Fitz is attacked, although he manages to return safely. While he is away, a stable hand in league with Galen attempts to assassinate Burrich. During this event, Smithy, the dog Lady Patience gave Fitz, and with whom Fitz is Wit-bonded, is killed. Towards the end of the book Fitz is asked to go to the neighboring Mountain Kingdom with the objective of assassinating its prince, Rurisk. However, this is compromised when Regal reveals Fitz's secret mission to Rurisk's sister, Kettricken while drunk, rendering Fitz useless. Fitz finds himself in the middle of a plan to steal the throne for Prince Regal with the help of Galen, who tries to assassinate Verity, using the Skill. Prince Rurisk is poisoned and killed, leaving Kettricken, who is betrothed to Verity, the sole heir of the Mountain Kingdom. Fitz is poisoned and later submerged under water in a deep pool, a lazy attempt by Regal to finish Fitz off. When Fitz feels he only has moments to live, he manages to contact Verity using the Skill to help him destroy Galen. He is rescued by his dog Nosy, who was not killed by Burrich, but sent to the Mountain Kingdom as a gift to Prince Rurisk. The rescue from the pool by Nosy left deep teeth marks in his hand that he comes to cherish as a sign of Nosy's love and loyalty. Nosy dies, being an old dog at this point — his true master, Rurisk is dead, and in the words of Fitz, Nosy "gave his life freely, remembering that we were good to one another when we were puppies." Fitz is healed by Jonqui, King Eyod's sister, afterward, and the last pages of the book tell how much Fitz laments the death of Nosy during that event and the pain of an older narrator at writing this. 

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FitzChivalry Farseer is raised from the dead with Wit magic, becoming more wolf than human. Only Burrich and Chade know he survived his tortures in Regal's dungeons. They help Fitz regain his humanity and heal his body, but he must face the deep trauma inflicted by Regal and Will on his own. Fitz decides only a personal quest to kill Regal will bring him peace. Before departing, he is attacked by and kills Forged Ones. Burrich later finds the remains of a Forged One who had stolen Fitz's clothing. Believing him dead, Burrich cares for Fitz's pregnant lover, Molly, while Chade and Lady Patience lead what resistance remains against the Red Ship Raiders. Fitz travels to Regal's opulent inland place in Tradeford but fails to assassinate him thanks to the Skill power of the remaining coterie, Will, Carrod, and Burl. Verity aids his escape and, in the process, imprints the command "Come To Me" into Fitz's mind. Unable to disobey, Fitz embarks for the Mountain Kingdom, following the path of Verity's quest to find the Elderlings, mythical allies of the Six Duchies. During this journey, his bond with his Wit companion, Nighteyes, deepens and changes as they become more similar. The wolf begins to think abstractly and plan events while Fitz starts to gain noble wolf qualities, like living in the present and a fierce loyalty to friends 'in his pack'. Fitz and Nighteyes meet a minstrel named Starling, who recognizes Fitz and insists on traveling with them. They meet an old woman named Kettle, who is travelling to the Mountain Kingdom seeking the White Prophet, and they foil an attack by warriors under the command of King Regal. Fitz reaches the Mountain Kingdom barely alive and is tended back to health by the White Prophet, also known as The Fool. Kettricken is shocked to learn both Fitz and Verity, who had been presumed dead after the remains of his travelling party were found, are alive. Fitz learns Verity and Kettricken's child was stillborn, and so his own daughter is the only remaining Farseer heir. Kettricken is determined to find Verity, but her father King Eyod cannot spare resources since Regal has turned his ambitions to conquering the Mountain Kingdom. Fitz, Kettricken, the Fool and Starling set off to find Verity, followed by Kettle, who is not as frail as her age supposes. Using a copy of the map Verity followed, the group encounter a road leading to a ruined city, both constructed of a black stone imbued with Skill. The road is perilous for those sensitive to the Skill but without sufficient training, but Fitz survives thanks to the guidance of Kettle and his Wit bond with Nighteyes. They eventually arrive at a garden full of intricate stone dragons Fitz senses as alive with his Wit. Beyond the garden is a quarry of the Skill stone where they find Verity, frail and obsessed with carving a dragon of his own. Kettle reveals she is the last remaining member of a former royal coterie. She has great knowledge of the Skill, though her own Skill ability had been taken from her. She instructs that the stone dragons had been carved by Skilled kings and coteries, by Skilling their own memories and emotions into the stone. Fitz acts as a catalyst, using his Skill and Wit to help Verity and Kettle restore each other's Skill strength and complete the dragon. However, Verity does not have enough power left to bring the dragon to life, and refuses to allow Fitz to sacrifice any more than he already has. Instead, he and Fitz's minds switch bodies, allowing Verity to share one last night with Kettricken and providing the final surge of emotion and memory needed to wake the dragon. The Fool inadvertently wakes another incomplete dragon, while Fitz wakes the other dragons sleeping in the garden by calling to them with the Wit after they had been doused in the blood of soldiers Regal had sent to stop them. The risen dragons devour the remaining soldiers and mortally wound Will, and are then led by Verity-as-Dragon to drive the Red Ship Raiders away from the coastal Duchies. With his coterie broken, Regal has no defense against Fitz's Skill. Instead of taking his revenge by killing Regal, Fitz instead imprints him with fanatical loyalty to Kettricken and the people of the Six Duchies. Regal restores Buckkeep and ensures the legitimacy of Kettricken and Verity's heir she is left pregnant with, Prince Dutiful. Fitz retires as royal assassin into anonymity and travels for several years. To protect his daughter, he leaves Molly and Burrich to raise her while only Chade, Kettricken, Starling, and The Fool know he lives. 

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16-year-old Sebastian (Hampus Björck) has nice parents and a great circle of friends, is doing well in school, has good looks, and leads a happy life—or at least that is what everyone thinks. Secretly, he has been brooding for some time over the fact that he is in love with his best friend, the rather hunky Ulf (Nicolai Cleve Broch). One evening, after some playful frolicking around with Ulf, Sebastian plants a kiss on Ulf's lips, not exactly to the latter's delight. Being sexually rejected in this way throws Sebastian into an even deeper depression about his sexuality. He refuses to discuss these issues with his parents and only after a long talk with a female friend of his, who is also in love with Ulf and guesses correctly what Sebastian's problem could be, he opens up to his family and friends, only to find that it is not all that problematic to them. Even the coming out to Ulf, which he anticipated to be very painful, turns out to be not so bad and actually takes a comical turn when Ulf admits to having had a homosexual experience himself some time ago. In the end, basically nothing has changed, except that Sebastian no longer has to waste energy guarding his secret and can instead concentrate on being happy, having fun with his friends, and perhaps finding a real boyfriend someday. 

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The game is set in an alternate timeline, centered around events starting in Petrograd, Russia in 1917. World War I and the 1917 October Revolution never happened. Germany has yet to become involved with any of the other world powers. The story starts when Tsar Peter of the Russian Empire is betrayed by one of his closest friends, General Popov. One night, Popov sends assassins to kill the Tsar and the rest of the Royal Family to ensure that there are absolutely no living heirs to the throne of Russia. Popov would later cover up the murder by addressing the Russian people that a "terrible accident had befallen the Royal Family". The villainous general then later presents Lieutenant Oleg to the people of Russia as the "sole surviving son of Tsar Nicholas: Prince Alexander" and has Oleg crowned as the new Tsar. Unknown to Popov, Colonel Sergei of the Russian High Command somehow managed to overhear the General's evil plans, and he immediately rescues two children from the doomed family: the real Prince Alexander and Princess Anastasia, who earlier was "shot and left for dead, somehow managing to survive". It is unknown how Anastasia managed to still be in Russia, but Sergei arranges Dr. Meier of the famous Russian Scientific Institute to hypnotize Prince Alexander to temporarily erase his memory of his real heritage and replace it with that of a "farm boy who grew up in the countryside of England". This is a precaution to save Alexander from giving himself away as the true son of Tsar Peter. Meanwhile, with Oleg as a fake Tsar, General Popov, who is hell-bent on world domination, manages to take over almost all of Europe, throwing the continent into a bloody war. Soon, all free nations of the world form an alliance known as "Shadow Command" to rebel against the evil might of the Russian Empire. Ten years later, in 1927, Prince Alexander (with his temporary memory) has grown up to become "Agent Red" of Shadow Command, and he is assigned the most difficult missions that the alliance has to offer. He is also the only playable character in the game. Red's main friends who fight on his side are Captain Potter, his instructor for his missions, the female "Agent Goggles", and the male "Agent Mortar". The main goal of Shadow Command is to defeat the Russian Empire, using whatever means possible to defeat the Russian war machine from within. Along the way, Red meets up with Colonel Sergei, who he at first mistakes for an enemy officer, but later listens to the Colonel as he is told of his true heritage. Red has a hard time believing this story, but he soon starts having frequent flashbacks of his real family being murdered by General Popov's henchmen as a result of this. Red rescues Dr. Meier, who soon reveals the whole story of his true heritage and restores his memory back to normal. With his memory restored, Red soon meets up with his sister Anastasia. At first, Red/Alexander was to be the new Tsar of Russia, but now, his mind's made up, asking his sister to address the Russian people and reveal the truth about General Popov and his evil actions against their family and take the throne, becoming Tsarina of Russia. At first, Anastasia disagrees with him, but her brother says to her that his destiny now "lies with Shadow Command. I'm sworn to them, and must honor my promise". Following this chat, Red soon seeks out the last remains of an Allied spy airship mission that was forced down in the Alps to retrieve secret document from it. When he gets there, Red finds Agent Mortar alive and well, now a traitor who's turned against Shadow Command. Mortar stole the documents earlier, even set Red up at an earlier point when Red saved Dr. Meier, who warned him of his friends. After a brief confrontation of his old friend, Mortar tries unsuccessfully to deliver the Allied documents to General Popov, but Red manages to stop him from getting away. Following this, Red finally reaches the Tsar's palace but not before disarming a doomsday device on a train on the way there. When he gets there, he finds the fake Tsar Oleg and manages (with some difficulty) to eliminate him. While dying, Oleg reveals to Red that General Popov is headed for London with another Doomsday Device in a double-structured Zeppelin. Following this, in the last level of the game, Red then reaches the destination of Popov's Zeppelin on board the British aircraft carrier HMS York. First, Red has to man the AA guns on the carrier to defend the carrier against the fighter-bomber escorts of the Zeppelin. After this threat is dealt with, Popov's Zeppelin (escorted by two more zeppelins) enters the area. Red then takes off in his plane to shoot down the Zeppelin to avenge his murdered family. After a real difficult battle, the General's Zeppelin is shot down. Popov tries to escape in another Russian bomber, which Red shoots down, killing the evil man who had killed his family ten years earlier. The world is saved, and Russia is now under rule of Tsarina Anastasia. Most online sources cover up the true story and say that the main villain is Pietre instead of Popov, whose father died earlier. 

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The first 36 chapters of the novel in numerical order are grouped under the heading "From the Other Side." They provide an account of the life of Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine intellectual. He experiences life in Paris in the 1950s. The other characters consist of La Maga and a band of bohemian intellectuals who call themselves the Serpent Club. The story opens with Horacio searching the bridges of Paris for La Maga, who has disappeared. The story progresses in a non-linear order. Scenes with the Serpent Club, which convenes in the evening to drink, listen to jazz music, and engage in arguments about art and life alternate with descriptions of Horacio's walks alone through the city. La Maga disappears. Horacio and his friend Etienne visit an old man whom Horacio had witnessed being struck by a car on one of his solitary walks. He turns out to be Morelli, an iconoclastic writer and literary critic much beloved of the Serpent Club. That night, the Club goes to Morelli's flat to assemble his new work, a novel that can be read in any order. There, a member of the Club, Babs, attacks Horacio for what he did to La Maga. The Club disbands. Horacio retreats to a bridge, where he meets a homeless woman, Emmanuele. The police arrest Emmanuele and Horacio for lewd behavior. 

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Jake Hopper (Steven Seagal) is a retired CIA agent and successful businessman in the private security business. Ten years before, as a CIA agent stationed in Thailand, things were going well until a fight with thugs resulted in his partner, Sunti (Byron Mann) escaping with his life after accidentally killing a woman. Jake called it quits and returned to the United States when his wife died, and Sunti became a Buddhist monk to atone for his sins. Jake has since been a devoted father to his now adult daughter Jessica (Sara Malakul Lane). While hiking in Thailand, Jessica and her friend Sara Winthorpe (Eilidh MacQueen), the daughter of U.S. Senator John Winthorpe, are kidnapped. A group of Islamic fundamentalists known as the Abu Karaf claims responsibility. The Abu Karaf demand the release of 20 prisoners from American custody. Tom Collins (Martin McDougall), an ex-colleague of Jake's, recognizes Jessica on the ransom tape, and he tips Jake off. Knowing that Jake must rescue the girls himself, a former CIA colleague puts him in contact with Leon Washington (Patrick Robinson), an active CIA agent who is working in Thailand. Jake goes to Bangkok, and he escapes an assassination attempt by gangsters and unknown forces. Meanwhile, Leon arranges a meeting for himself with Soku, the internal security chief for General Jantapan (Tom Wu), a rebel military general who is making a play to be one of the most powerful men in Thailand. Secretly, Jantapan is messing with some very dangerous spiritual forces. Soku provides Jake with a cover story, but the CIA wants Jake out of the way because they're planning to take out the Abu Karaf with the aid of the Thai army, and they don't want a civilian in the middle. Jake is a spiritual man, so he contacts his spiritual master, Buddhist monk Paijan Paitoon. As Jake is in trouble, Paitoon offers to arrange a divination from the oracle of the order. He enlists the help of Sunti. Jake gets Lulu (Monica Lo), the girlfriend of arms dealer Fitch McQuoid (Vincent Riotta), to steal information leading to the Abu Karaf. Jake and Sunti follow the leads to a warehouse where they discover evidence of highly sophisticated weaponry. With their enemies now after Lulu, Jake takes Lulu under his wing. He then shares some of his info with Leon still testing the waters. Another attempt is made on Jake's life, and this time, Jake's sure that Leon was involved. Finally, the Abu Karaf contact Jake to arrange a meeting to see the pieces are coming together. Jake figures out that it was not the Abu Karaf who kidnapped Jessica and Sarah. Jake gets his reading from the old oracle, and the cryptic message confirms that his fears, demonic spiritual forces, are working against him. Jantapan later goes to an evil temple and tries to send the spirit of an ancient warrior demon to kill Jake, but the ceremony goes wrong and the spirit enters Jantapan himself, giving him evil physical and spiritual powers, disguised as feats. Jake and Sunti go to meet Mongkol (Pongpat Wachirabunjong), the leader of the Abu Karaf. Mongkol confirms what Jake suspects; ever since the terrorist attacks of 2001, Jantapan has worked to corner the narcotics and arms markets. He also adds that Jantapan kidnapped the girls and blamed the Abu Karaf so the army would wipe out Jantapan's competition. Mongkol, knowing where the girls are, gives Jake plans and intelligence, as they both need the girls alive. Jake must engage in a rescue effort that will put him to the ultimate test as he takes on Jantapan in a battle in which death may be the only ending. Later that night, Jake and Sunti plan to rescue the girls, who are locked in a cell in Jantapan's mansion. After killing two gang members guarding the cell and freeing the girls, a group of corrupt Thai policemen intervene and make a deadly shootout but end up dead through the firearms of the two. Meanwhile, Sunti kills the rest of the cops while Jake battles with Jantapan in the upstairs living room. Jake kills Jantapan by disarming him and breaking his neck. He ends the fight by throwing Jantapan in a display cabinet which crushes his spine, killing him. Jake returns downstairs which is now full of dead bodies of Thai police and embraces the girls and then Sunti only to discover he is fatally injured. Sunti wishes Jake farewell before dying in his arms. Military forces led by Leon and their General enter, but Leon orders them to hold fire after seeing Jake with the dead Sunti and the kidnapped girls. After the battle, a Buddhist funeral with Jake in the lead is seen. Jake steps into the river and throws Sunti's ashes in the water. A vision of Sunti smiling fades in and later fades out. Jake was looking at the river and saying "Goodbye, brother." 

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Neil Agar, a special agent with the State Department's Office of Security (the predecessor of the Diplomatic Security Service), is dispatched to Peckham, California to investigate the death of John Grubowsky, a bacteriologist working at the government-sponsored Brandt Research. Quickly making the acquaintance of the laboratory's head librarian, Julie Zorn, he begins interviewing the firm's leading scientists, many of whom have reputations as sexual players. His investigation is soon complicated by a growing number of deaths, all men who died of congestive heart failure caused by sexual exhaustion. Faced with a rapidly escalating body count, the local sheriff, Captain Peters, holds a town meeting at which the laboratory's leading sex researcher, Henry Murger, urges the town populace to practice sexual abstinence – an idea greeted with derision by the locals. Neil and Julie arrange a meeting with Murger afterwards to discuss his theories as to the cause of his deaths, only to see him chased down and run over by a car with an unseen driver. While investigating Murger's home in search of clues, Neil discovers a secret room concealing sexual paraphernalia and Murger's gay lover, Joe, who informs Neil that he saw Murger driving off with an unknown woman prior to his death. Despite a curfew and the establishment of a military quarantine, the scientists continue playing their sex games. One of them, Herb Kline, is approached by Susan Harris, a beautiful entomologist working on bees. Though described by the men as an "iceberg", she flirts with Kline and invites him over for dinner. That night, as they engage in sex, Kline suffers a fatal thrombosis and Harris reveals black compound eyes, suggesting that she is more than she seems to be. Meanwhile, convinced there is a similar pattern at work, Neil begins studying the sexual patterns of insects. Seeking information about the mating habits of honey bees, he interrogates Dr. Harris at her lab; when he departs, she resumes her project – the transformation of Kline's wife Nora into a Bee Girl through a process of controlled mutation. With the aid of other previously mutated women, she cocoons Nora and places her in a chamber where she is swarmed by mutated honey bees; when she emerges, she is bombarded with radiation and awakens with the same black compound eyes and drive to mate that the other transformed women possess. The next morning, Herb Kline's body is discovered; when Captain Peters goes to inform Nora, she attempts unsuccessfully to seduce him. Having worked out much of what has taken place, Neil summons the remaining department chairs and presents his theory. Though the geneticist, Stan Williams, scorns the idea, the head of the diagnostics department, Aldo Ferrara, is more receptive. At Grubowsky's funeral, Neil and Julie bring a radiation detector, which picks up the gamma radiation coming from the women in attendance who have been subjected to the treatment. Aware that they have been detected, the transformed women move to eliminate the remaining scientists; Williams is nearly killed by his now-mutated wife and Ferrara dies during a visit by Dr. Harris, who then lures Julie to her lab to be transformed. When Neil discovers Ferrara's body, he realizes what the women are up to. Racing to the lab, he interrupts the women as they begin the process of turning Julie into one of them. With Harris threatening to kill Julie unless he leaves, he moves to depart, but pulls out a revolver instead and shoots the machinery. Neil then rescues Julie and bars the door, leaving the mutated women to die amidst a cascade of exploding machinery. 

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The second installment of the series continues the story of Rami Nana-Hikari's adventures as the keeper of the Secret Treasure. A year has passed since the apocalyptic disaster which left a great crater in the center of Edo City. The destruction wrought major economic consequences and while much investment was poured into the public works for the new Edo Castle, the citizens were all feeling the pinch of the recession. Dr. Pon Eho was no exception. Although a freak of nature with an astronomical IQ of 1400, hard reality forced the genius raccoon to become a laborer in the construction of the New Castle. One day, while he was shoveling away some gravel near the center of the crater, he unearthed the Secret Treasure Scroll and one of the Six Magical Orbs! With the knowledge that the six Orbs together would bring him enormous wealth, he quickly left his job in search of the remaining five Orbs listed on the Scroll's map. Meanwhile, Himiko Yamatai, "the Pompous Queen of the Ancients", makes a dramatic appearance at the Nana-Hikari family's dinner table and grabs the family's Magical Orb. But before she can get away, Dr. Pon ambushes her and steals it. Of course, Rami makes chase and joins the race for the great treasure, starting her on her new adventure. This game features animated cutscenes provided by Studio Pierrot, who also provided the animation for the cutscenes in the first game. 

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A Void plot follows a group of individuals looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation, highlighting its unusual syntax. A Void protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story's constraint risk dying. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in his column Lost Words, said "This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown." 

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While on the way to Starbase Armus IX for computer maintenance, the Enterprise arrives at the planet Omicron Theta, the site of a vanished colony where the starship Tripoli originally found the android Data (Brent Spiner). An away team travels to the surface and finds that what had been farmland is now barren with no trace of life in the soil. The team also finds a lab which they discover is where Dr. Noonien Soong, a formerly prominent but now discredited robotics designer, built Data. The team also find a disassembled android nearly identical to Data and return with it to the ship. As the course to the Starbase is resumed, the crew reassemble and reactivate Data's "brother" (also played by Brent Spiner) in sickbay. He refers to himself as Lore, and explains that Data was built first and he himself is the more perfect model. He feigns naiveté to the crew, but shows signs of being more intelligent than he is letting on. Later, in private, he tells Data that they were actually created in the opposite order, as the colonists became envious of his own perfection. He also explains that a crystalline space entity capable of stripping away all life force from a world was responsible for the colony's demise. Lore then incapacitates Data, revealing that he plans to offer the ship's crew to the entity. When a signal transmission is detected from Data's quarters, Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) arrives to investigate. He finds Lore, now impersonating Data, who explains that he had to incapacitate his brother after being attacked. Wesley is doubtful, but pretends to accept the explanation. Soon after, the same crystalline entity that had attacked the colony approaches the ship. Lore, still pretending to be Data, enters the bridge as the object hovers before the Enterprise and explains that he incapacitated his brother by turning him off, causing Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) to be suspicious, since Data had previously treated the existence of such a feature as a closely guarded secret. Lore then explains that he can communicate with the crystalline entity and suggests to Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) that he should show a demonstration of force by beaming an object toward the entity and then destroying it with the ship's phasers. Lore's attempts to imitate Data are imperfect, though, arousing Picard's suspicion, especially when Lore does not recognize Picard's usual command to "make it so". Although Picard sends a security detachment to tail him, Lore overpowers Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and evades pursuit. Meanwhile, the suspicious Dr. Crusher and her son, Wesley, reactivate the unconscious Data, and the three of them race to the cargo hold to find Lore plotting with the entity to defeat the Enterprise. When Lore discovers them, he threatens Wesley with a phaser and orders Dr. Crusher to leave. Data quickly rushes Lore and a brawl ensues. Data manages to knock Lore onto the transporter platform, and Wesley activates it, beaming Lore into space. With its conspirator no longer aboard, the crystalline entity departs, and the Enterprise resumes its journey to the starbase. 

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The castle of Amboise at the time of the events. A group of provincial aristocrats decided to take matters into their own hands, by kidnapping the King and arresting the brothers Guise. Chief among the conspirators was Godefroy de Barry, seigneur de La Renaudie, of Périgord. La Renaudie gathered round him like-minded Huguenot gentlemen representing various regions of France: Charles de Castelnau de Chalosse, Bouchard d'Aubeterre, Edme de Ferrière-Maligny (brother of Jean de Ferrieres), Captains Mazères, Cañizares, Sainte-Marie and Lignières, Jean d'Aubigné (father of Agrippa d'Aubigné) and Ardoin de Porcelet. Paulon de Mauvans, whose brother had been executed, rallied the Huguenots of Provence at Mérindol, 12 February 1560, promised 2,000 men and sent 100 to Nantes.Pierre Miquel. Les Guerres de religion. (Club France Loisirs) 1980:211-212. Gaspard de Coligny, later also a leading Huguenot, discouraged the nobles of Normandy from involving themselves in the plot. Leading Protestant bourgeois of Orléans, Tours and Lyon were apprised of developments. Under the circumstances, increasingly specific rumors of the plot reached the Cardinal of Lorraine well ahead of time. On 12 February a detailed report was received through Pierre des Avenelles, a lawyer of Paris. On the 22nd, the Guises decided to transfer King and court from Blois to the château of Amboise, a more defensible site, and strengthened the castle's defenses. The conspirators delayed their plan of action from 1 March to the 16th, but the first of the plotters' contingents arrived in the village early, and were quietly arrested from 10 March. 

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The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City, where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman. With the help of his mentor, Kornblum, Joe escapes Nazi-occupied Prague by hiding in a coffin. Joe leaves behind the rest of his family, including his younger brother Thomas. As the novel develops, both Joe and Sammy find their creative niches, one entrepreneurial, the other's artistic. Beyond having a shared interest in drawing, the duo share several connections to Jewish stage magician Harry Houdini: Josef (like comics legend Jim Steranko) studied magic and escapology in Prague, which aided him in his departure from Europe; Sammy is the son of the Mighty Molecule, a strongman on the vaudeville circuit. When Sammy discovers Joe's artistic talent, he gets Joe a job as an illustrator for a novelty products company, Empire Novelty. Sheldon Anapol, owner of Empire, motivated to share in the recent cultural and financial success of Superman, attempts to break into the comic-book business on the creative backs of Joe and Sammy. Under the name "Sam Clay", Sammy starts writing adventure stories with Joe illustrating them, and the two recruit several other Brooklyn teenagers to produce Amazing Midget Radio Comics (named to promote one of the company's novelty items). The pair is at once passionate about their creation, earnestly optimistic about making money, and always nervous about the opinion of their employers. The magazine features Sammy and Joe's character, the Escapist, an anti-fascist superhero who combines traits of (among others) Houdini, Captain America, Batman, the Phantom, and the Scarlet Pimpernel. The Escapist becomes tremendously popular, but like talent behind Superman, the writers and artists of the comic get a minimal share of their publisher's revenue. Joe and Sammy are slow to realize that they are being exploited, as they have private concerns: Joe is trying to help his family escape from Prague and has fallen in love with the bohemian Rosa Saks, who has her own artistic aspirations; while Sammy works to find his sexual identity and seeks progress in his professional and literary career. For many months after coming to New York, Joe's drive to help his family shows through in his work, which remains violently anti-Nazi despite his employer's concerns. In the meantime, he spends more and more time with Rosa, appearing as a magician in the bar mitzvahs of the children of Rosa's father's acquaintances, even though he sometimes feels guilty for distracting himself from fighting for his family. Joe's efforts to bring his family to the States culminate in securing passage for his younger brother Thomas on the ship the Ark of Miriam. On the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbour however, it transpires that Thomas's ship has been sunk by a German U-boat. Distraught and unaware that Rosa is pregnant with his child, Joe abruptly enlists in the navy, hoping to fight the Germans. Instead, he is sent to a secluded naval base in Antarctica. After a faulty chimney fills the base with carbon monoxide, Joe emerges from this interlude the lone survivor from his station. When he makes it back to New York, he is ashamed to show his face again to Rosa and Sammy and eschews their expected reunion. Unbeknownst to his previous contacts in the city, he squats in a hideout in the Empire State Building, with only a small circle of magician-friends aware of his whereabouts. Parallel to Joe's experiences leading up to the United States' entrance into the war, Sammy develops a romantic relationship with the radio voice of The Escapist, Tracy Bacon. Tracy's movie-star good looks initially intimidate Sammy, but later they fall in love. When Tracy is cast as The Escapist for the film adaptation, he invites Sammy to move to Hollywood with him, an offer that Clay accepts. But later, when Tracy and Sammy go to a friend's beach house with several other gay couples, the private dinner is raided by the local police as well as two off-duty FBI agents. All of the men at the party are arrested, except for two who hide under the dinner table, one of whom is Sammy. The FBI agents use their authority to sexually abuse Sammy and the other man. After this episode, Sammy decides that he can't live with the constant threat of being persecuted and breaks off his relationship with Tracy. When Joe leaves to fight in the war, Sammy marries Rosa and moves with her to the suburbs, where they raise her son Tommy in what outwardly appears to be a traditional nuclear family. Sammy and Rosa cannot hide all their secrets from Tommy, however, who encounters Joe and begins to take private magic lessons in the Empire State Building with him for the better part of a year without anyone else's knowledge. Tommy is instrumental in finally reuniting the Kavalier and Clay duo, who swiftly find renewed enthusiasm in their comic endeavours. Joe moves into Sammy and Rosa's house and begins to rekindle his love with Rosa. Shortly afterwards, Sammy's homosexuality is revealed on public television when he speaks at the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency that is investigating claims of comic books' pernicious effect on children. This further complicates the attempts of Rosa, Sammy, and Joe to reconstitute a family. In the end, Sammy plans to move to LA in spite of Joe and Rosa's attempts to dissuade him, including Joe revealing he has bought Empire Comics. The following morning, they find Sammy gone. Many events in the novel are based on the lives of actual comic-book creators including Jack Kirby (to whom the book is dedicated in the afterword), Bob Kane, Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon, Will Eisner and Jim Steranko. Other historical figures play minor roles, including Salvador Dalí, Al Smith, Orson Welles and Fredric Wertham. The novel's time span roughly mirrors that of the Golden Age of Comics itself, starting from shortly after the debut of Superman and concluding with the Kefauver Senate hearings, two events often used to demarcate the era. 

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Spy extraordinaire Derek Flint is an ex-agent of Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage) who is brought out of retirement to deal with the threat of Galaxy, a worldwide organization led by a trio of mad scientists: Doctor Krupov, Doctor Wu, and Doctor Schneider. Impatient that the world's governments will never improve, the scientists demand that all nations capitulate to Galaxy. To enforce their demands, they initiate earthquakes, volcanoes, storms and other natural disasters with their climate-control apparatus, for the only purpose to bring the nations to give up weapons and nuclear energy. Initially reluctant, Flint decides to take them on after a preemptive assassination attempt by Galaxy's section head, Gila, who replaces a restaurant's harpist while Flint is dining with his four live- in "playmates": Leslie, Anna, Gina, and Sakito. Gila uses a harp string as a bow to fire a poisoned dart, which misses Flint, but hits his former boss Cramden. Flint squeezes the poison out of the wound, saving Cramden's life. A chemical trace on the dart directs Flint to Marseilles for bouillabaisse. In one of Marseilles' lowest clubs he stages a brawl to gain some useful information from "famous" Agent 0008, who is investigating the narcotics trade keeping Galaxy in business. Galaxy agent Hans Gruber is in the club enjoying his favorite soup while waiting to rendezvous with Gila. Gila sends Gruber to ambush Flint in the lavatory. Flint ends up killing Gruber in a toilet stall, while Gila escapes, leaving behind a cold cream jar she has booby-trapped with explosives. Flint detects the trap and chases the bystanders from the club before detonating the bomb. The remains of the jar lead Flint to Rome. After investigating several cosmetic companies, Flint arrives at Exotica, where he actually meets Gila for the first time. Gila lets him come to her apartment for an exchange of information. Following their encounter, he steals the keys to Exotica and breaks into the company's safe, learning of Galaxy's location before being trapped inside by Gila's assistant, Malcolm Rodney. Malcolm and Gila assume that Flint will soon run out of air in the safe as they transport it to a waiting submarine. During the journey, Flint learns that his playmates have been kidnapped and taken to the headquarters on Galaxy Island in the Mediterranean Sea. He then uses his power of self-induced suspended animation to fool his captors into thinking they have successfully killed him. Gila and Rodney take an evidence photograph of the "body", which they send to Cramden, then carry Flint back to headquarters on the submarine. Flint revives and sneaks into the Galaxy complex, but his infiltration is thwarted and he is taken before Galaxy's trio of leaders. Offered a chance to join their new order, he refuses, and is sentenced to death by disintegration. Gila's failure to eliminate Flint results in her being stripped of her leadership role and reassigned to become a Pleasure Unit – a fate which has already befallen Flint's playmates. She then changes sides, slipping Flint his gadget-filled cigarette lighter before she is hauled away. With the help of the lighter, Flint again escapes, sabotages the machinery, rescues his playmates and Gila, and departs the island as it disintegrates. Flint and the women are picked up by a waiting American warship, as they watch a volcano erupt on the island. Gila presumably joins the other four women living with Flint. In the sequel, when Flint is again called out of retirement for a mission, he is living with three women, saying that "five was just too many." 

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Early April, Kazuki Sendō is invited by his friend, Taishi Kuhonbutsu, to come with him to Tokyo Big Sight. He is surprised to see thousands of people waiting in line to get in. Apparently they are at Comic Party, a giant dōjinshi convention. Once inside, Kazuki meets some of the dōjinshi artists and is surprised to find himself enjoying their work. Taishi convinces Kazuki to draw dōjinshi after their visit because he recognizes Kazuki's skill as an artist, but Kazuki's childhood friend Mizuki tries to talk him out of it because she believes otakus are smelly, dirty, and disgusting. Her reasoning does not help because Kazuki already made up his mind and begins to draw his first dōjinshi. 

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The title character is an intelligent robot, the first to be invented. The opening chapters describe the creation of Roderick and show his mind (at first consisting of a bodiless computer program) developing through several stages of awareness. Finally, Roderick is given a rudimentary body and, through a series of misadventures, finds himself alone in the world. Due to his sketchy understanding of human customs, and intrigues surrounding the project that created him, he unwittingly becomes the center of various criminal schemes and other unfortunate events. 

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Roderick at Random is a novel in which Roderick the robot tries to learn about being human. 

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Wealthy Texan Big Enos Burdette (McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Williams), seek a trucker willing to bootleg Coors beer to the Southern Classic in Atlanta for their refreshment; Big Enos has sponsored a racer in Atlanta's Southern Classic and wants to celebrate in style when he wins. They find local legend Bo "Bandit" Darville at a roadeo at Lakewood Fairgrounds and offer him $80,000 to pick up 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana (the closest place it could be legally sold at that time) and bring it back to Atlanta in 28 hours. Despite the fact that the Burdettes have previously offered the same challenge to other truckers who have all failed, as they were all caught, Bandit takes the bet and recruits his partner Cledus "Snowman" Snow to drive the truck, while Bandit drives a black Pontiac Trans Am bought on an advance from the Burdettes as a "blocker" to divert attention away from the truck and its illegal cargo. They arrive in Texarkana an hour ahead of schedule, load the truck and head back toward Atlanta. Immediately upon starting the second leg of the run, Bandit is stopped by Carrie ("Frog") (Field), a runaway bride who hitches a ride, inadvertently making Bandit a target of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, a career Texas lawman whose witless son, Junior (Henry), was to have been Carrie's bridegroom. Buford, with Junior in tow, pursues Bandit all the way to Georgia to get Carrie back, ignoring his own jurisdiction. Various mishaps cause his cruiser to disintegrate on the way. Bandit's antics attract more attention from police throughout Dixie, while Snowman barrels on toward Atlanta with the contraband beer, but they are helped along the way by many colorful characters via CB radio who thwart the police's actions. Neither Buford nor any other lawmen know of Snowman's illegal manifest, while Bandit is likewise unaware that Buford is chasing him because of Carrie. Moments after crossing back into Georgia, Snowman is narrowly rescued by Bandit after being stopped by a Georgia State Patrol motorcycle trooper and state and local police escalate their pursuit with more cruisers, roadblocks and even a police helicopter to track Bandit's movements. Discouraged by the unexpected mounting attention and with just four miles to go until the finish line, Bandit is ready to give up, but Snowman, who was initially skeptical that they could get the job done, refuses to listen and takes the lead, smashing through the police roadblock at the fairgrounds' main entrance. They make it back during the race with only 10 minutes left, but instead of taking the payoff, Carrie and Bandit accept a 'double-or-nothing' offer from Little Enos: a challenge to run up to Boston and bring back clam chowder in 18 hours. They quickly escape in one of Big Enos' 13 Cadillacs as police flood the racetrack. When they pass Buford's badly damaged cruiser by the side of the road, Bandit gets on the CB and first directs him to Big and Little Enos, but then, out of respect, he reveals his true location: over Buford's left shoulder; Buford continues his chase, leaving Junior behind with his cruiser still falling apart as the end credits roll. 

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The book features a mad scientist, De Selby, who tries to destroy the world by removing all the oxygen from the air. He has also many strange inventions. He exploits the theory of relativity and invents a kind of time travelling machine, which he uses to age his whiskey, creating brews that have been aged for many decades in just a few hours. Saint Augustine and James Joyce both have speaking parts in the novel. James Joyce, after forging his own obituary to escape being drafted to fight in the Second World War, was serving pints in a small pub. Saint Augustine, on the other hand, appeared in a magical underwater cave and held a conversation with De Selby. The mad scientist De Selby leads the two main characters, Hackett and Mick, to the cave, to witness this conversation. Many prominent elements of the book, particularly De Selby himself, the eccentric policemen, and the atomic theory of the bicycle, were taken from O'Brien's much earlier novel The Third Policeman, because he had not been able to find a publisher for it. The latter novel was published posthumously. 

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* Net Terminal Genes (originally ) - These are the special genes which allow those possessing them full access to the Netsphere. However, the Net Terminal Genes are incredibly rare by the time period where BLAME! begins. The Net Sphere protection agency, also called the Safeguard, is under standing orders to kill any human found who does not possess these genes; also, any illegal access to the Netsphere is responded to by downloading a Safeguard to the location of the illegal access point and having it kill the person who attempted access. As very few humans in BLAME! possess the Net Terminal Gene, the Safeguards are essentially under orders to kill all humans (a goal that is shared by the enigmatic Silicon Life). 

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This is a sex comedy film about Mimi (Catherine Spaak), a young widow who discovers that her recently deceased husband kept a secret apartment for his kinky desires. Frustrated that he did not explore his sexual fantasies with his wife, she embarks on a quest to understand perversion and sexuality. She uses her late husband's apartment to seduce various men, each time learning more about the depths of human depravation, as well as the extent of the sexual double standard for women (late in the film, she states, "I notice men only call me a whore when I say no. Or stop saying yes.") Finally, she meets the man who shares himself fully with her, appreciates her sexual daring and accepts her for whoever she is. 

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Petra von Kant (Carstensen) is a prominent fashion designer based in Bremen. The film is almost totally restricted to her apartment's bedroom, decorated by a huge reproduction of Poussin's Midas and Bacchus (c.1630), which depicts naked and partially clothed men and women. The room also contains numerous life-size mannequins for her work, though only her assistant Marlene (Hermann) is shown using them. Petra's marriages have ended in death or divorce. Her first husband Pierre was a great love, who died in a car accident while Petra was pregnant; the second began the same way, but ended in disgust. Petra lives with Marlene, another designer, whom she treats as a slave, and this relationship reveals Petra's sadistic, codependent tendencies. 

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Ai, a timid 22-year-old college studio in Tokyo, works as a prostitute for an exclusive escort agency that caters to wealthy, perverted men. To please her clients, Ai has to play out elaborate fantasy scenarios involving sexual humiliation and light sadomasochism/bondage. The first two- thirds of the film consists in large part of four erotic sequences involving sodomy, sadomasochism, submission and bondage. Including dildos and mirrors—one with a perverted male dominant, one with a promiscuous female dominant. The other two involve erotic asphyxiation with, again, one episode in which a necrophiliac attempts to partially asphyxiate the female protagonist and the other in which a drug addicted man is the recipient to the female protagonist. Other acts of fetishes and paraphilias are involved in some of the scenarios. The last third of the film consists of Ai's attempt to find her ex-lover, a famous Gallery artist. The actual story however, revolves around Ai's attempt to place herself in the world and understand her life in an attempt to make her own way forward. This is played out through the juxtaposition of the false closeness of the paid relationships with her decadent clients against her unrequited love for the gallery artist who has ended his relationship with her. The viewer can see that Ai is desperately grasping at this relationship as real in contrast to the simulated fetish relationships of her clients and we learn that she wishes to tell him of her continued love even though he has moved on and been married. Ai shows an emotional connection to one of her clients, another sex worker who is a female dominant and who Ai clearly admires. Throughout the movie this person is the only person with whom Ai has a free open conversation. This woman delivers a monologue which defines her view of the sex trade as empowering and which is a sentinel defining concept to place the movie itself in a social context. This speech comes at a time when Ai appears to be having difficulties accepting her role as an escort and Ai is shown listening with rapt attention. Ai confides to this client that she has unrequited love for the gallery artist and Ai's client tells her that she must live life to the fullest otherwise she will be filled with regrets. She tells Ai that she must confront this part of her life then she can move forward as her future will be hers. At the beginning of the movie we are introduced to Ai's quest to find herself and her direction, She visits a fortune-teller, played by artist Yayoi Kusama, who advises her to find a "pink stone", and then fashion it into a ring. The fortune teller also advises Ai to put a telephone directory under her television and to avoid a gallery in the east. Ai's view of the ring is important enough that when she later loses the ring she risks her life to recover it. Throughout the movie Ai looks at a photo of what appears to be her as a child with her mother and which in context represents innocence before life became complicated. Ai appears to refer to it to ground herself perhaps pondering how the happy child has transformed in to what she has become. Taking the advice of her female client, and an unidentified drug which her client gave her to provide her with the courage of lions, she becomes dangerously inebriated and fails in an attempt to meet her ex lover, She is rescued from the police by one of the artist's neighbors who is said to have once been a great singer but is now crazy. This woman met Ai only a few minutes earlier and told her that she used to be friends with the Gallery artist but it is over and that she considers Ai to be her "best friend". Ai who is now sitting dirty and battered, looks at the photo of herself and her mother and destroys it signifying her move away from innocence and her past. In the next scene now clean, she studies the pink stone on her hand and has the faintest trace of a smile twitch across the corner of her mouth. She pulls her hair back as she looks at herself in the mirror and goes off to her usual routine which is also now her her new life, externally the same as her old life but internally different as she has taken control, found herself with the future now belonging to her. Throughout the film, Ai's movements have been timid and stiff and her posture demure. After the credits there is a sequence of her dancing on stage boldly and fluidly thus finalizing her growth in to her new future. There are at least two versions of Tokyo Decadence, with the shorter one edited more for pacing than for censorship. 

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Shiro is the Bondage Master who has a special technique with ropes and women. When a model is found murdered and tied with Shiro's signature style, he has to find the real murderer to clear his name while eluding the vengeance of the model's yakuza boyfriend. 

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A boy (Takuya) meets a girl (Satsuki), both 17 years of age, and they fall in love. When she discovers his fetishes Satsuki brands Takuya hentai (pervert) and leaves him, only to be drawn back by the power his fetishes give her over him. She has him watch as she had sex with another man, then asks him to lick her body. 

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The master, Moxon, who creates a chess-playing automaton, boasts to the narrator that even though machines have no brains, they can achieve remarkable things and therefore should be treated just like men of flesh and blood. After a thorough discussion about what it is to be "thinking" and "intelligent", the narrator leaves. The narrator returns to Moxon's house later to learn more. He enters and finds Moxon playing chess with an automaton. Moxon wins the game, and the automaton kills him in an apparent fit of rage. The narrator later questions whether what he saw was real. 

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At the beginning of the first book, Katherine Talgarth ("Kate") and her beautiful younger sister Georgina have been taken by their Aunt Charlotte Rushton from Rushton (in Essex) to London to experience part of the Season. Kate's parents, George Talgarth and Celia Rushton, have both died at least five years before. Kate's favorite cousin, Cecelia Rushton ("Cecy"), has been left at home with her brother Oliver and their father, the antiquarian Arthur Rushton, at Rushton Manor. Oliver and Cecy's mother died when Cecy was quite young. Their father's other unmarried sister, Aunt Elizabeth Rushton, lives with them at Rushton Manor. 

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The story takes place in the year 2031, after a series of worldwide crises called the Year of the Domino (1996) has forced the U.S. government and the heads of major corporations to relocate to Hammarskjold Center, on Mars ("temporarily, of course"). In the wake of the American government leaving the planet and the Soviet Union collapsing from Islamic insurrections, there was a power shift throughout the world, with Brazilian Union of the Americas and the Pan-African League becoming the new superpowers on Earth. However, the exiled American government, its corporate backers, and a group of technicians in the defected Soviet lunar colony of Gagaringrad form the Plex: a giant, interplanetary union of corporate and government concerns that conduct commerce and govern the United States from its capital on Mars. Many population centers are grouped around massive, fortified arcologies called Plexmalls and the law is enforced by the Plexus Rangers, the absentee Plex's Earthside militia. The Plex has formed the Tricentennial Recovery Committee, to get America "back on track for '76", but the TRC is in reality a plan to sell the United States off to the new superpowers and to leech off the remaining inhabitants before gaining true self-sufficiency. As a result, the Plex has outlawed non-combat related education, organized sports such as basketball and personal aircraft, restricted media to only one outlet, the Plex itself (although it has multiple channels), and advocates and glorifies the use of political violence amongst independent policlubs by providing money and firearms for its hit TV show Firefight All Night LIVE!, and covertly sterilizes the population by using a combination contraceptive and antibiotic called Mañanacillin to reduce the population. This all changes when former television star Reuben Flagg is drafted and transferred to Chicago's Plexmall to replace the local Ranger Hilton "Hammerhead" Krieger's fallen partner. He witnesses widespread graft and corruption throughout the Plexmall, but also a series of subliminal messages implanted in a television show that are causing outbreaks of gang violence. After he uses his emergency powers to interrupt the broadcast, he not only ends the violence, but also brings forth a series of events that causes the Plex to send in covert agents, the death of Hilton, and the unveiling of Q-USA, a secret TV station owned and operated by Krieger that opens Flagg's eyes to the nature of the Plex. As the series progressed, Chaykin took less and less of a direct role in scripting and plotting the stories out, and by the third year of its run, he really had nothing to do with the book other than cover art. Stories began to violate the rules that Chaykin had explicitly stated in the writer's bible for the series (for instance, California was said to have slid into the Pacific Ocean, but in the final year of the book, California was merely shown to have been abandoned for reasons that were vague at best), and characterizations began to drift considerably as well. (Among other things, Flagg abandoned his interest in 1930s jazz, and was frequently shown listening to late-1960s rock, as well as becoming more of a traditional stern-jawed good-guy hero). After trying and failing several times to shore up declining interests, First Comics decided to lure Chaykin back into the writer's seat. "American Flagg!" wrapped up its principal storyline with issue #50. By this time, Reuben Flagg had traveled to Mars, overthrown the Plex, and become President of the United States. He then decided to separate Illinois from the United States and run it as his own personal fiefdom. All issues of this series took place in the year 2031. The next year, the comic was re-launched under the name Howard Chaykin's Amerikan Flagg! (The "K" and a reversed "r" were to reflect the fact that most of this series took place in Russia) and picked up from where the earlier book had left off (in 2032). There is some difference of opinion as to whether this new book was intended to be a limited run, or open-ended as is the norm with comics. In either case, it ended after twelve issues. The final issue ends with a photo album of the Flagg's future domestic life, with many kids, a screaming shrew of a wife, and a balding, overweight Flagg. 

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Rocky Graziano (Paul Newman) has a difficult childhood and is beaten by his father. He joins a street gang, and undergoes a long history of criminal activities. He is sent to prison, where he is rebellious to all authority figures. After his release, he is drafted by the U.S. Army, but runs away. Needing money, he becomes a boxer, and finds that he has natural talent and wins six fights in a row before the Army finds him and dishonorably discharges him. He serves a year in a United States Disciplinary Barracks, and resumes his career as a boxer as a result. While working his way to the title, he is introduced to his sister's friend Norma, whom he falls in love with and later marries. Starting a new, clean life, he rises to the top, but loses a title fight with Tony Zale (Court Shepard). A person he knew in prison finds him and blackmails him into throwing a fight over his dishonorable discharge. Rocky fakes an injury and avoids the fight altogether. When he is interrogated by the district attorney, he refuses to name the blackmailer and has his license suspended. His manager gets him a fight in Chicago to fight Zale the middleweight champion, once more. Rocky wins the fight. 

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In light of "And Then There Were Fewer", the Griffins are watching the news — where Tom Tucker reveals that Diane Simmons committed the murders at James Woods' mansion and is now dead. He then introduces Diane's successor, Joyce Kinney. As Lois reads the newspaper, she discovers that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is holding a book signing in Quahog. This enrages Brian, who despises Limbaugh over his political beliefs and decides to confront him at the signing. There, Limbaugh is criticized by Brian, but he counters by asking him whether he has read any of his books, leaving Brian dumbfounded and angry. As he curses Limbaugh to himself on his way home, Brian is mugged by a gang; Limbaugh abruptly shows up and beats them all to rescue Brian. Thankful, Brian agrees to read four pages of Limbaugh's book. This he does, but Brian grows interested enough to continue reading the book overnight. By then, he becomes a conservative Republican. Lois questions Brian's conviction, citing his past liberalism, while Brian defends his ability to change his mind based on new information. Lois also mentions that Brian goes out of his way to not agree with the general consensus on many things (for example, he hated Slumdog Millionaire and Titanic but defends the movie Cocktail), and accuses him of being a "contrarian" rather than a genuine believer. Brian meets with Limbaugh to thank him for helping his political conversion, and the two travel to the Republican National Headquarters, where they are greeted by former President of the United States George W. Bush and United States Senator John McCain. Returning home, Lois is unimpressed when Brian tells her that Limbaugh will be coming over for dinner. That night, Lois begins arguing and challenging Limbaugh politically — with Peter joining in as well. She then accuses Limbaugh of brainwashing Brian, and demands for their dog to go back to the way he used to be. Limbaugh insists Brian became a conservative on his own terms, and the two sing a number based on "The Company Way", "Republican Town". Brian, outraged by Lois' unsupportive behaviour, decides to move out and become roommates with Limbaugh — who reluctantly allows him to move into his house. Brian soon begins to irritate Limbaugh with his blind devotion. He replaces lots of Limbaugh's possessions with American-Made versions, which all go wrong. Brian then proceeds to follow Limbaugh to his radio show, where he attempts to voice his own political opinions on the air about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. This frustrates Limbaugh, who ends up having Brian thrown out. Despite this, Brian continues to try and prove his devotion to the conservative cause by waterboarding Pelosi — only to end up getting apprehended and sent to jail. Later on, Limbaugh bails out Brian, but he grows annoyed when Brian again tries to assert his conservatism. This prompts Limbaugh to tell Brian he is only fighting against the Establishment due to his desire of being the underdog. He proves his point by telling Brian that a child was executed in Texas, causing Brian to be visibly horrified; Limbaugh then says that he made up the story, but Brian's honest reaction to it shows he is a liberal at heart. Reassuring Brian of his liberal convictions, Limbaugh leaves the jail, making a Grapes of Wrath-like pledge to "be around" wherever conservative causes need help. Outside, they heckle each other with reassurance before waving goodbye to the other. The episode ends with Brian watching Limbaugh transform into a bald eagle and subsequently flying away into the skyline. 

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Pittsburgh professor and author Grady Tripp is working on an unwieldy 2,611-page manuscript that is meant to be the follow-up to his successful, award-winning novel The Land Downstairs, which was published seven years earlier. On the eve of a college-sponsored writers' and publishers' weekend called WordFest, Tripp's wife walks out on him, and he learns that his mistress, the chancellor of the college, Sara Gaskell, is pregnant with his child. To top it all off, Tripp finds himself involved in a bizarre crime committed by one of his students, an alienated young writer named James Leer. During a party, Leer shoots and kills the chancellor’s dog and steals her husband’s prized Marilyn Monroe collectible: the jacket worn by the actress on the day of her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. The New York Times reviewed the novel as "...the ultimate writing-program novel. If that sounds insulting, I don't mean it to be. But anyone who has ever served time in a writing program and gone to the "writing festivals" at various universities will instantly recognize the milieu and the characters." 

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In 1879, a communiqué from Lord Chelmsford to the Secretary of State for War in London (voice-over narration by Richard Burton) details the crushing defeat of a British force at the hands of the Zulus at the Battle of Isandlwana. In the aftermath of the battle, the victorious Zulus walk amongst the scattered bodies of dead British soldiers and gather their rifles. At a mass Zulu marriage ceremony witnessed by missionary Otto Witt (Jack Hawkins) and his daughter (Ulla Jacobsson), Zulu King Cetewayo (Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi) is also informed of the great victory. A company of the British Army's 24th Regiment of Foot is using the missionary station of Rorke's Drift in Natal as a supply depot and hospital for their invasion force across the border in Zululand. Receiving news of Isandhlwana from the Natal Native Contingent Commander Adendorff, who warns that an army of 4,000 Zulu warriors is advancing to the British position, Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker) of the Royal Engineers assumes command of the small British detachment. Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine), an infantry officer, is rather put out to find himself subordinate to an engineer due to the latter's slightly earlier commission. Realising that they cannot outrun the Zulu army with wounded soldiers, Chard decides to make a stand at the station, using wagons, sacks of mealie (maize), and crates of ship's biscuit to form a defensive perimeter. Witt becomes drunk and demoralises the men with his overtly dire predictions; the soldiers of the Natal Native Contingent desert. Chard orders Witt to be locked up in a supply room. As the Zulu impis approach, a contingent of Boer horsemen arrives. They advise Chard that defending the station is hopeless. They retreat in haste, despite Chard's desperate pleas for them to stay. The Zulu army approach and then charge. The British open fire, but Adendorff informs them that the Zulus are only testing the British firepower. Witt again proclaims that the soldiers will die, prompting Chard to dismiss him and his daughter from Rorke's Drift. Chard is concerned that the northern perimeter wall is undermanned and realises that the attack will come from all sides. The defenders are surprised when the Zulu warriors open fire on the station with rifles taken from the British dead at Isandlwana. Throughout the day and night, wave after wave of Zulu attackers are repelled. The Zulus succeed in setting fire to the hospital, leading to intense fighting between British patients and Zulu warriors as the former try to escape the flames. Private Henry Hook (James Booth) takes charge and leads the patients to safety. The next morning, the Zulus approach to within several hundred yards and begin a war chant; the British respond by singing the Welsh song "Men of Harlech". In the final assault, just as it seems the Zulus will finally overwhelm the tired defenders, the British soldiers fall back to a small redoubt constructed out of mealie bags. With a reserve of soldiers hidden within the redoubt, they form into three ranks and fire volley after volley, inflicting heavy casualties; the Zulus retreat. After a pause of three hours, the Zulus re-form on the Oscarberg. Resigned to another assault, the British are astonished when the Zulus instead sing a song to honour the bravery of the defenders before departing. The film ends with another narration by Richard Burton, listing the eleven defenders who received the Victoria Cross for the defence of Rorke's Drift, the most awarded to a regiment in a single action up to that time. 

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Henry Harding MP, a British government minister on a moral crusade, hires an inexperienced young computer whizzkid, Peter Emery who works for a Christian computer company called Holy Hardware, to infiltrate the United Kingdom BDSM scene. Harding is set on putting a club called "House of Thwax" run by Mistress Tanya Cheex out of business, and is sure that Peter's secretly videotaped evidence of the club's activities will do the trick. However, the virginal Peter takes a liking to Tanya Cheex and finds himself falling for the Mistress. Amongst the locations used Layer Marney Tower in Essex plays a pivotal role for a party scene. 

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LAPD Officer Frank Dooley is framed for the theft of a television set by two corrupt detectives. He is dismissed from the force, but escapes criminal punishment. The court's next case features hapless defense attorney Norman Kane attempting to defend a white supremacist leader, who threatens him with death should Kane fail to keep him out of prison. Kane reveals his ineptitude and the death threat to the judge, who agrees to render a long sentence if Kane promises to leave law behind. Dooley and Kane meet when they both apply for work at Guard Dog Security, run by Captain Clarence O'Connell and part of a union represented by Klepper and Lazarus. Becoming licensed security guards after a single afternoon of training, Dooley and Kane are made partners by supervisor Maggie Cavanaugh and assigned to night duty at a pharmaceutical warehouse. Ordered to take a lunch break by senior guard Bruno, Kane happens upon an armed robbery of the warehouse and calls Frank for help, but they prove no match for the thieves. The next day, the pair are berated by O'Connell for their failure. While venting their anger toward O'Connell, Maggie reveals that she is his daughter. Dooley and Kane then attend a meeting of the union, where Kane's attempt to file a grievance against Guard Dog is quashed by union president Michael Carlino. Kane pointedly questions Carlino about how the union dues, adding to about $4 million per year, are spent. After Kane rejects an evasive answer from treasurer Lou Brackman, Carlino threatens Kane should he ever attend another union meeting. Over the next few days, Dooley and Kane find themselves assigned to work at a landfill and a toxic waste dump. Convinced something illegal is afoot after hearing a story from two fellow security guards about a similar robbery, the pair track down Bruno at his gym and interrogate him. Bruno admits that it was O'Connell who had him order them to lunch the night of the robbery. They visit an informant friend of Dooley's for information on Carlino and bring their suspicions to Maggie, but she rejects them for having no evidence. Dooley and Kane next attend a party thrown by Carlino in hopes of gathering some evidence. Eavesdropping on a meeting between Carlino and Brackman, they learn of Carlino's use of the pension fund to finance dealings with a drug cartel and his plans to have the money robbed from an armored car, with insurance covering the loss. Fearing an investigation by the insurance company, Brackman urges Carlino not to go through with the robbery. Carlino instructs Klepper and Lazarus to kill Brackman. Dooley and Kane attempt to save Brackman, but are too late to prevent his murder. After a night spent evading police, the two make plans with Maggie to prevent the armored car robbery. Kane and Maggie take over driving the truck, while Dooley plans to meet them ahead of the would-be robbers. Dooley has problems with his motorcycle while weaving through a traffic jam on L.A.'s Sixth Street Viaduct and is forced to hitch a ride with a trucker who bulls through the traffic, destroying several cars in the process. Meanwhile, Kane and Maggie avoid assaults from multiple cars attempting to hold them up. Dooley is able to arrive in time to save the armored car from a final attack from Klepper and Lazarus. O'Connell arrives, having captured Carlino and his associates, the two detectives who originally framed Dooley. The criminals are arrested and Dooley is invited back to the police force, along with a reluctant Kane. 

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The film opens at a tea ceremony. Professor Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu), a widower, has only one child, a twenty-seven-year-old unmarried daughter, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who takes care of the household and the everyday needs—cooking, cleaning, mending, etc.—of her father. On a shopping trip to Tokyo, Noriko encounters one of her father's friends, Professor Jo Onodera (Masao Mishima), who lives in Kyoto. Noriko knows that Onodera, who had been a widower like her father, has recently remarried, and she tells him that she finds the very idea of his remarriage distasteful, even "filthy." Onodera, and later her father, tease her for having such thoughts. alt=Two seated Japanese persons in traditional dress: to the left, a young woman with dark hair facing right; to the right, an elderly looking gentleman with gray hair, looking at the woman. They are sitting on futons and a shoji screen is in the background. Shukichi's sister, Aunt Masa (Haruko Sugimura), convinces him that it is high time his daughter got married. Noriko is friendly with her father’s assistant, Hattori (Jun Usami), and Aunt Masa suggests that her brother ask Noriko if she might be interested in Hattori. When he does bring up the subject, however, Noriko laughs: Hattori has been engaged to another young woman for quite some time. Undaunted, Masa pressures Noriko to meet with a marriageable young man, a Tokyo University graduate named Satake who, Masa believes, bears a strong resemblance to Gary Cooper. Noriko declines, explaining that she does not wish to marry anyone, because to do so would leave her father alone and helpless. Masa surprises Noriko by claiming that she is also trying to arrange a match between Shukichi and Mrs. Miwa (Kuniko Miyake), an attractive young widow known to Noriko. If Masa succeeds, Noriko would have no excuse. At a Noh performance attended by Noriko and her father, the latter smilingly greets Mrs. Miwa, which triggers Noriko's jealousy. When her father later tries to talk her into going to meet Satake, he tells her that he intends to marry Mrs. Miwa. Devastated, Noriko reluctantly decides to meet the young man and, to her surprise, has a very favorable impression of him. Under pressure from all sides, Noriko consents to the arranged marriage. The Somiyas go on one last trip together before the wedding, visiting Kyoto. There they meet Professor Onodera and his family. Noriko changes her opinion of Onodera's remarriage when she discovers that his new wife is a nice person. While packing their luggage for the trip home, Noriko asks her father why they cannot simply stay as they are now, even if he does remarry – she cannot imagine herself any happier than living with and taking care of him. Shukichi admonishes her, saying that she must embrace the new life she will build with Satake, one in which he, Shukichi, will have no part, because "that’s the order of human life and history." Noriko asks her father’s forgiveness for her "selfishness" and agrees to go ahead with the marriage. Noriko’s wedding day arrives. At home just before the ceremony, both Shukichi and Masa admire Noriko, who is dressed in a traditional wedding costume. Noriko thanks her father for the care he has taken of her throughout her life and leaves in a hired car for the wedding. Afterwards, Aya (Yumeji Tsukioka), a divorced friend of Noriko’s, goes with Shukichi to a bar, where he confesses that his claim that he was going to marry Mrs. Miwa was a ruse to persuade Noriko to get married herself. Aya, touched by his sacrifice, promises to visit him often. Shukichi returns home alone. 

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A retired couple, Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama (played by Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama), live in the town Onomichi in western Japan with their daughter Kyōko (played by Kyōko Kagawa), who is a primary-school teacher. They have five adult children, four of whom are living. The couple travel to Tokyo to visit their son, daughter and widowed daughter-in-law. Their eldest son, Kōichi (So Yamamura), is a physician who runs a small clinic in the suburbs of Tokyo, and their eldest daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimura), runs a hairdressing salon. Kōichi and Shige are both busy and do not have much time for their parents. Only their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), the wife of their middle son Shōji, who was missing in action and presumed dead during the Pacific War, goes out of her way to entertain them. She takes time from her busy office job to take Shūkichi and Tomi on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo. Kōichi and Shige pay for their parents to stay at a hot spring spa at Atami. Shūkichi and Tomi return early because the nightlife at the hotel disturbs their sleep. Tomi also has an unexplained dizzy spell. When they return, Shige explains that she sent them to Atami because she wanted to use their bedroom for a meeting. The elderly couple have to leave for the evening. Tomi goes to stay with Noriko, with whom she deepens their emotional bond. Tomi advises Noriko to remarry. Shūkichi, meanwhile, gets drunk with some old friends from Onomichi, then returns to Shige's salon. Shige is outraged that her father is lapsing into the alcoholic ways that overshadowed her childhood. The couple remark on how their children have changed, and they leave for home earlier than planned, intending to see their younger son Keizō when the train stops in Osaka. However, Tomi suddenly becomes ill during the journey and they decide to disembark the train, staying until she feels better the next day. They return to Onomichi, and Tomi falls critically ill. Kōichi, Shige, and Noriko rush to Onomichi to see Tomi, who dies shortly afterwards. Keizō arrives too late, as he has been away on business. After the funeral, Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō leave immediately; only Noriko remains. After they leave, Kyōko expresses to Noriko her anger about her siblings by deriding them over their selfishness toward their parents. She believes that Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō do not care how hard it will be for their father now that he has lost their mother. Noriko responds that while she understands Kyoko's disappointment, she explains that everyone has their own life to lead and that the growing chasm between parents and children is inevitable. She convinces Kyoko not to be too hard on her siblings because one day she will come to understand how hard it is to take time away from one's own life. After Kyōko leaves for school, Noriko informs her father-in-law that she must return to Tokyo that afternoon. Shūkichi tells her that she has treated them better than their own children despite not being related by blood. Noriko protests that she is selfish, and Shūkichi credits her self-assessment to humility. He gives her a watch from the late Tomi as a memento. Noriko breaks down in tears and confesses her loneliness. Shūkichi encourages her to remarry as soon as possible, stating that he wants her to be happy. At the end, Noriko travels from Onomichi back to Tokyo, contemplating the watch, a symbol of the passing of time and uncertainty of her future, while Shūkichi remains behind, resigned to the solitude he must endure in his home in the harbor town of Onomichi. 

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Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) is a wealthy Tokyo businessman. When an old schoolmate Mikami (Chishū Ryū) approaches him for help concerning his daughter Fumiko (Yoshiko Kuga), who has run off owing to a conflict with her father, he agrees. Finding her in a bar where she now works, he listens to her side of the story. Fumiko complains that her father is stubborn, insisting on arranging her marriage, whereas she has now fallen in love with a musician and is adamant to lead life her own way. One day during work, a young man named Masahiko Taniguchi (Keiji Sada) approaches Hirayama to ask for the hand of his elder daughter, Setsuko (Ineko Arima). Hirayama is extremely unhappy that his daughter has made wedding plans on her own. He confronts her at home and says that she must not go to work until she sees the folly of her ways. Hirayama tries to find out more about Taniguchi from his subordinate. Owing to the standoff, his daughter's friend Yukiko (Fujiko Yamamoto) tries a ruse in which she asks Hirayama's opinion concerning a similar situation – her mother forcing her to marry someone she didn't like. When Hirayama advises her to ignore her mother, Yukiko reveals it is all a setup and states that Hirayama has just given his consent to Setsuko's marriage. Despite the ruse, Hirayama remains unchanged and Hirayama's wife Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka) accuses her husband of being "inconsistent". Even his younger daughter Hisako (Miyuki Kuwano) is on the side of her sister, finding her father too old-fashioned. Finally, after the couple's insistence on getting married, Hirayama decides to give in by attending his daughter's wedding. After the wedding, Mikami reveals that he, like Hirayama, has agreed to let his daughter select her own marriage partner. After going for a short business trip outside Tokyo, Hirayama decides to visit the newly-weds at Hiroshima by train, where Taniguchi is stationed by his company. 

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British couple Nigel and Fiona Dobson are on a Mediterranean cruise ship to Istanbul en route to India. They encounter a beautiful French woman, Mimi, and that night Nigel meets her while dancing alone in the ship's bar. Later Nigel meets her much older and disabled American husband Oscar, who is acerbic and cynical, having been jaded and a failure as a writer. Oscar invites Nigel to his cabin where he tells Nigel in great detail how he and Mimi first met on a bus in Paris and fell passionately in love. Nigel relates all to Fiona. Both are appalled by Oscar's exhibitionism, but Nigel is also fascinated by Mimi, who provokes him. Later, Oscar narrates how they explored bondage, sadomasochism, and voyeurism. As a contrast to their sexual adventurousness, we see Nigel and Fiona meeting a distinguished Indian gentleman, Mr. Singh, who is traveling with his little daughter Amrita. Invited by Mimi, Nigel, escaping from a bridge game, goes to meet her in her cabin, but it turns out she and Oscar have played a joke on him. Nigel wants to leave, but another session unfolds, with Oscar describing how their hate/love relationship developed. Bored, he tried to break up, but Mimi begged him to let her live with him under any conditions. He complied, but started to explore sadistic fantasies at her expense, humiliating her in public. When Mimi became pregnant, he made her have an abortion, saying that he would be a terrible father. When he visited her in hospital, he was shocked by her condition and almost relented in his attempts to drive her away. He promised her a holiday in the Caribbean, but he got off the plane just before take off. Mimi departed alone, crying. Leaving Oscar's cabin, Nigel meets Mimi and they kiss. Afterwards, he finds Fiona in the bar flirting with a young man. She warns Nigel not to stray too far, and that anything he can do, she can do better. Nigel goes to Oscar, who continues his narration. After two years of parties and one-night stands, he drunkenly stepped in front of a vehicle. To his surprise, Mimi came to visit him in the hospital where he was recovering from minor injuries and a fractured femur. Mimi shook hands with him, then pulled him out of his bed and left him hanging in his traction device. Having become paraplegic this way, Oscar had no choice but to let Mimi move in with him again and take care of him. She reveled in dominating and humiliating him, seducing men in front of him. When Oscar was desperate and wanted to die, she gave him a gun as a birthday present. Having experienced highs and lows together, they realized they needed each other and actually got married. Nigel clumsily tries to woo Mimi, encouraged and coached by Oscar. Things come to a head at the New Year's Eve party, when Fiona sees them dance together. Fiona tells him that Oscar had made her come to the party. She goes on to dance erotically with Mimi, cheered on by the other partygoers. A stormy sea interrupts the party and the two women leave together. Nigel goes outside clutching a bottle of liquor and screams his frustration into the wind and waves. Nigel finds Fiona in Oscar's cabin, sleeping naked side by side with Mimi. Oscar claims the women have had sex together. Nigel grabs his throat, but Oscar points a gun at him and he backs off. Oscar shoots the sleeping Mimi several times, then kills himself. While the bodies of Oscar and Mimi are being stretchered off the ship, Fiona and Nigel, shaken, embrace each other. Mr. Singh encourages his little girl to comfort them. 

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At the center of the series is U.S. Senator William Powers, a parody of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Margaret, the senator's status- hungry wife, treats Charlotte, their maid, with comedic disdain. Caitlyn, the senator's daughter, has an eating disorder and is married to Representative Theodore Van Horne, who is suicidal; their son, Pierce, is mature beyond his years from having to care for his unbalanced parents. Sophie Lipkin, the senator's illegitimate daughter, is a loud, crass New Jerseyan who surprises the family when she moves to Washington and begins to bond with her father. The senator's staff includes an intelligent and beautiful aide, Jordan Miller -- who is also Powers' mistress -- and the feckless aide Bradley Grist. 

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The film is set in 1957. During World War II, Maximilian Theo Aldorfer, a former Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who had posed as a doctor to take sensational photographs in concentration camps, and Lucia Atherton, a Holocaust survivor, had an ambiguous sadomasochistic relationship. Flashbacks show Max tormenting Lucia, but also acting as her protector. Lucia, now married to an American orchestra conductor, meets Max again by chance. He is now a night porter at a hotel in Vienna, and a reluctant member of a group of former SS comrades who have been carefully covering up their pasts by destroying documents and eliminating witnesses to their wartime activities. Max has an upcoming mock trial at the hands of the group for his war crimes. The group's leader, Hans Fogler, accuses Max of wanting to live 'hidden away like a church mouse'. Max wishes to remain hidden, but he voices support for the group's activities. Memories of the past punctuate Max and Lucia's present with urgent frequency, suggesting that Lucia survived through her relationship with Max – in one such scene, Lucia sings a Marlene Dietrich song, "Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte" ("If I could make a wish"), to the camp guards while wearing pieces of an SS uniform, and Max 'rewards' her with the severed head of a male inmate who had been bullying her, a reference to Salome. Because she could testify against him, Lucia's existence is a threat to Max. He goes to see a former Nazi collaborator, Mario, who knows Lucia is still alive; Max murders him to protect his secret. After Lucia's husband leaves town on business, Max and Lucia renew their past lovemaking in Max's apartment. Max confesses to Countess Stein, another guest at his hotel, that he has found his "little girl" again. The Countess tells him that he is insane; Max replies that they are both 'in the same boat'. Meanwhile, Fogler has Max spied on by a youth who works at the hotel. Max is interviewed by the police about Mario's murder. He spends days with Lucia in his apartment, chaining her to the wall so that "they can't take her away" and sleeps little. Fogler, who wants Lucia to testify against Max in the mock trial—though he harbors more ambiguous long-term intentions toward her—visits and informs her that Max is ill. He suggests that Lucia must also be ill to allow herself to be in this position, but she sends him away, claiming to be with Max of her own free will. The SS officers are infuriated at Max for hiding a key witness. Max refuses to go through with the trial, calling it 'a farce', and admits that he works as a night porter due to his sense of shame in daytime. He returns to Lucia, telling her that the police questioned him and others at the hotel about her disappearance, and that no suspicion fell on him. Eventually, Max quits his job, devoting all of his time to Lucia. The SS officers cut off the couple's supply of food from a nearby grocery store. Max barricades the door to the apartment, and he and Lucia begin rationing. Max seeks help by phoning one of his old hotel friends, who refuses, and imploring his neighbor, but she is prevented from providing aid by Adolph, the youth who had spied on Max earlier. Max retreats again to the apartment, where Lucia is almost unconscious from malnutrition. After one of the SS cuts off the electricity in Max's apartment, Max and Lucia, respectively dressed in his Nazi uniform and a negligee resembling the one she had worn in the concentration camp, leave the building and drive away; they are soon followed by a car driven by Max's former colleagues. Max parks his car on a bridge, where he and Lucia walk along the sidewalk as dawn breaks. Two gunshots ring out, and the doomed lovers fall dead. 

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Mollie is an accountant living in New York City who has an affair with Albert, a womanizing executive who is married with two children, and becomes pregnant. During her pregnancy, Mollie and Albert keep their indiscretion secret, under the idea she was artificially inseminated, and that Albert plans to leave his wife Beth and their two children to be with her. The baby, while growing inside Mollie, begins to make voice over commentary and demands - like tugging on his umbilical cord and requesting apple juice, which she gulps down. In her ninth month, while out shopping, Mollie and her friend Rona catch Albert fooling around with his interior decorator Melissa, and he admits he is planning on living with her after his divorce is finalized. Mollie leaves upset, and immediately goes into labor. She gets into a cab where the driver, James Ubriacco, recklessly speeds through downtown traffic in order to get her to the hospital on time, and he is inadvertently a witness to her son Mikey's birth. Mikey then begins to make commentary on his life and interacts with things through an inner voice which can also communicate with other babies. Hoping to get her life back on track, Mollie becomes a dedicated single mother; refusing to be superficial about hopeful fathers, but rejecting several men over small quirks that may reflect badly upon Mikey in the future. She meets James again at her apartment building and discovers he used her mailing address to set up residency in order to get his grandfather Vincent into a nice care home. She agrees to continue the ruse when he agrees to babysit Mikey (who really likes James since they first met), which almost comes to a halt when he takes the baby out to the airport, where he is a part time commercial pilot while she is taking a nap (leading her to believe he had kidnapped Mikey). A year passes, and James realizes his feelings for Mollie, which causes him to start sabotaging one of her dates. She soon realizes the bond he and Mikey share and decides to give him a chance. After a visit to James' grandfather at his new home, James takes her for flying lessons and she realizes she's falling for him, but when they become intimate, she imagines their life together and resists. James tells Mollie that he loves her, but she says she only wants what is best for Mikey and kicks him out. Back at work, Mollie is forced by her boss to continue to work with Albert, who insists upon seeing Mikey and she agrees. But when Albert visits, he meets James and the two get into an argument, the secret upsetting James. He asks Mollie if she loves Albert and she claims she does not know. When he suggests the idea of being the closest thing to a father Mikey has, Mollie tells him that he is like a big kid and is not responsible enough to be a father. James calls her out for using Mikey to push men away including himself and he storms out. At the playground, Mikey is told by his friends what "daddies" are, and he realizes he wants James to be his father. James comes to the apartment and tells Mikey that he will not be around any more, and Mollie listens over the baby monitor as he pours his heart out to Mikey, who admits he will miss James, too. Mollie takes Mikey to Albert's office to meet him, but when Albert claims he does not want the responsibility of being a father, Mollie realizes he has not changed and she and Mikey ruin several pieces of his furniture before storming out and putting Albert out of their lives for good. Back at home, she receives a call from Vincent's home telling her that he is a disruptive influence and abusive to the staff, and she rushes over to clear up the error, managing to convince them to keep Vincent as he was given a chocolate stash that James had earlier instructed an orderly (who did not speak English) not to let him have more than one a day or it would cause these outbursts. James arrives and he and Mollie make up. Meanwhile, Mikey wanders off on his own, searching for James when he sees a taxi cab outside. After making his way out to the alley, he gets into a car which then gets towed away with Mikey inside it, while Mollie and James search frantically for him. After spotting him, James and Mollie give chase in his cab and eventually cut off the tow truck, but discover Mikey had gotten out of the car and is now standing in the middle of heavy traffic. James and Mollie run to reach him and take him to safety, where Mikey unofficially asks James to be his father by saying his first word "Da-da". James and Mollie realize that Mikey already sees James as his father, and they decide to give it a chance, kissing passionately while Mikey considers telling them he needs a new diaper, before deciding to wait. Nine months later, Mollie gives birth to her and James' daughter Julie. When Mikey greets his half sister she "tells" him, in the voice of Joan Rivers, she's had a day he would not believe. "Can we talk?" 

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Erika Kohut is a middle-aged piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory who resides in an apartment with her domineering elderly mother. Her late father had been a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum. Despite Erika's aloof and assured façade, she is a woman whose sexual repression and loneliness is manifested in her paraphilia, including voyeurism, sadomasochistic fetishes and self-mutilation. At a recital hosted by the Blonskij couple, Erika meets Walter Klemmer, a young aspiring engineer who also plays piano, and who expresses admiration of her talent for classical music. The two share an appreciation for composers Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert, and he attempts to apply to conservatory to be her pupil. His audition impresses the other professors, but Erika, though visibly moved by his playing, votes against him; she cites his divergent interpretation of Schubert's Andantino, and questions his motivations. Despite this, Walter is admitted as Erika's pupil. Meanwhile, another pupil, Anna Schober, struggles with anxiety while pushed by her own ambitious mother. However, when Erika witnesses Anna and Walter socializing, she slips to an empty coat room and breaks glass, hiding the shards inside one of Anna's coat pockets. This cuts Anna's right hand, preventing her playing at the forthcoming jubilee concert. Walter pursues Erika into a lavatory immediately after she secretly injured Anna. Walter passionately kisses Erika, and she responds by repeatedly humiliating and frustrating him. She proceeds to give him a handjob before performing fellatio on him, but abruptly stops when he does not abide by her orders. She tells him she will write him a letter regarding their next meeting. Later at the conservatory, Erika feigns sympathy for Anna's mother, with Erika saying only she can substitute for Anna in the upcoming school concert at such a late stage. Walter is increasingly insistent in his desire to initiate a sexual relationship with Erika, but Erika is only willing if he will satisfy her masochistic fantasies. She gives him the letter indicating acts she will consent to, but the list repulses him. She subsequently confronts him at an ice rink after his hockey practice to apologise, after which the two begin to engage in sex in a janitorial closet; however, Erika is unable to, and vomits after Walter ejaculates in her mouth. Later that night, Walter arrives at Erika's apartment and attacks her in the fashion described in her letter. He locks her mother away in her bedroom before proceeding to beat and rape Erika. The next day, Erika brings a kitchen knife to the concert where she is scheduled to substitute for Anna. When Walter arrives, he enters cheerfully, laughing with his family, and flippantly greets her. Moments before the concert is due to start, a distraught Erika stabs herself in the shoulder with the kitchen knife and exits the concert hall into the street. 

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It appears that once revealed the plot dissolved and Henry Dudley remained at large in France, his great scheme undermined by careless talk and too unwieldy an organisation. He was consequently to become an exile in the French service between 1556 and 1563, but was again to return home and serve as "Capt. Dudley" in 1563, receiving an annuity later the same year from Queen Elizabeth for his service. In 1567 he obtained from Elizabeth some protection from his creditors that was extended to 1568. Sir Henry died between 1568 and 1570, but no will is known to exist. 

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When Tess Hunter and her mother arrive in Century Falls, they gradually find it to be a strange village, haunted by a disaster that befell it during the performance of an occult ceremony forty years earlier. Tess befriends the only other children in the village, brother and sister Ben and Carey Naismith, and finds that Ben has strange powers which he draws from the waterfall that gives the village its name. The Naismiths' uncle Richard is working with his aged father, Dr Josiah Naismith, to complete the unfinished ceremony using Ben's powers, hoping to raise the spirit of a mysterious God- like being, Century. They are eventually stopped by Tess's actions, aided by the local Harkness sisters, who knew the original tragedy of the 1950s events. 

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FBI undercover agent John Tanner and his partner Tobias Jones are sent to Miami to liaison with the city's police, on orders to investigate the "South Beach" cartel - a smuggling gang headed by Calita Martinez, an efficient and cold criminal, and her associates Lomaz and Bad Hand. The agents focus on the investigation surrounds the cartel's recent acquisition of stolen cars, leading to suspicions they are working for someone else to fulfill a major order. To determine where the deal for the cars will take place, Tanner poses as a wheelman and infiltrates the cartel by recovering a car they lost to a rival gang. After impressing Calita and earning her trust with a series of tasks, Tanner finds himself assigned to retaliate against crime lord "The Gator", after he betrays Calita on a deal and makes subsequent attempts in revenge, eventually being ordered to assassinate him. South Beach relocate to Nice, France, after Gator's presumed demise, to secure the remaining cars for their order. Tanner makes contact with Interpol agents Henri Vauban and Didier Dubois, who insist on arresting the cartel while in possession of the stolen cars. Tanner refuses to agree to this, leading to Vauban ordering Dubois to conduct surveillance on the cartel. Meanwhile, Tanner focuses on acquiring the cars Calita needs while fending off attacks by a rival syndicate, resulting in a confrontation that leads Tanner to protecting Calita and eliminating the gang's leader. Upon discovering that Dubois was captured by the cartel during his own investigation, Tanner angrily berates Vauban for going behind his back, and finds himself forced to rescue him before he is executed. Needing to learn where the deal for the stolen cars is being held, Tanner and Dubois break into a boathouse being used by the cartel, and find that the sale is to happen in Istanbul, Turkey. Moments upon learning of this, the men are captured by the cartel, and are introduced to their employer, Charles Jericho - former bodyguard of Solomon Caine, before murdering his boss and taking over his organization. Revealing Tanner's identity, Jericho proceeds to use his gun to murder Dubois, intending to frame him for the crime. Tanner manages to escape, and makes contact with Vauban about where the cars are being shipped to, but releases little detail on Dubois' death. The men travel to Istanbul, whereupon Tanner proceeds to tail Jericho to a meeting with the Bagman, a middleman arranging the sale of the cars to Russian criminals. Overhearing that Gator survived his assassination, Tanner sends word to Miami for Jones to collect him before he is killed by Jericho's people, leading to Gator to offer information on the deal in exchange for his safety. Shortly after being reunited with Jones, Tanner finds himself wrongly accused of murdering Dubois by Vauban, after he receives word on the findings into his death. Despite the threat of an Internal Affairs investigation, Tanner and Jones go rogue to continue uncovering more about the deal, and focus on tracking down Lomaz for a lead. In exchange for protection, Lomaz reveals that Calita and Bagman are set to meet soon for an exchange of money for the stolen cars. Tanner and Jones monitor the meeting, until Calita gets spooked and calls it off. While Jones attempts to pursue after Bagman, only to be forced to call it off when he gets ambushed, Tanner chases after Calita and captures her. After bringing her to Vauban to regain his trust, Tanner convinces Calita that Jericho is too dangerous to trust. Despite revealing the cars have already been shipped to Russia, Calita reveals Jericho will not leave the city until he is paid. With assistance from Istanbul's police, Tanner, Jones and Vauban stake out the arranged location of the money exchange between Jericho and Bagman. When the meeting takes place, Jericho murders Bagman for providing him only half of the agreed money and fools police by using Bad Hand as a decoy, leaving him to be killed during his pursuit. Learning that Jericho will likely leave by train, Tanner pursues after him, forcing him to disembark and flee along city streets with both the police and Tanner's group on his tail. Cornered in an alleyway, Tanner critically wounds him, but chooses to leave him to be arrested, only for Jericho to gun him down when he turns his back on him. Both men are taken to the hospital in critical condition, leaving their fate uncertain. 

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NYPD officer and former racing driver John Tanner is sent undercover by his boss Lieutenant McKenzie to discover the intentions of a crime syndicate led by Castaldi. McKenzie instructs Tanner to go to Miami and meet a pimp named Rufus. After arriving in Miami, Tanner uses his driving skills to prove himself to some gangsters in a parking garage, allowing him to become their getaway driver. Tanner carries out jobs for various gangsters before meeting Rufus, who tasks Tanner with rescuing Jean-Paul, one of Rufus's associates. Rufus is later shot by his girlfriend Jesse. Needing more information for his investigation, Tanner apprehends Jesse and takes her to the police station, where she reveals that Jean-Paul is now in San Francisco. Tanner goes to San Francisco, where he meets Castaldi, Jean-Paul's boss, and begins working directly for him. He also meets Rusty Slater, his former racing rival, who also works for Castaldi. Tanner later learns that Castaldi is working with a man named Don Hancock, who is running for president. He later suspects that Slater has been spying on him and wrecks Slater's car during a road chase, resulting in Slater being arrested. The Castaldi family move to Los Angeles, where Castaldi plans to assassinate FBI agent Bill Maddox as part of Castaldi's plan to carry out a more high-profile assassination in New York. Tanner tells Leck, a police associate, to ensure Maddox turns up, otherwise Tanner's cover may be affected. The assassination on Maddox is unsuccessful and the police ambush the gangsters, forcing Tanner to take them to safety. Tanner convinces the suspicious gangsters that Slater likely told the police about the planned assassination while under interrogation. Leck later tells Tanner that McKenzie recently met Marcus Vaughn, a corrupt FBI agent who is working with Castaldi and Hancock. The Castaldi family then move to New York, the location of the planned high-profile assassination. Tanner is told by his police associates that McKenzie wants him to pull out of the undercover operation, as he is worried that Tanner's cover will not hold up much longer, and Leck tells Tanner that Hancock has bribed several members of the FBI. Tanner remains undercover and continues working for Castaldi, intent on discovering what he is planning. Tanner eventually learns that Castaldi plans to assassinate the President of the United States, and Tanner is tasked with driving the President's car. However, he ignores all instructions and takes the President to safety. McKenzie then arrives and tells Tanner that Castaldi and all of his associates, including Hancock and Vaughn, have been arrested. He then tells Tanner to take his badge back, but Tanner refuses, suspecting that the police and FBI are involved in the job, corrupted by bribes due to Vaughn's involvement. Tanner leaves, ignoring McKenzie completely. 

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Set in a Retro-Future setting, the series revolves around Mayuko, a High School graduate who goes to Cram School in preparation for College. However, due to having no place to settle in, she decided to live in a Bathhouse in the countryside, which is in a Financial Crisis due to having no customers. Even worse, she has to live with an Alien girl named NieA, who has no antenna and is considered an "Under 7", a class despised by other Aliens due to being the lowest of their kind. The series touches lightly upon issues of discrimination, stereotypes, alienation, city life vs small town life, and assimilation. Mayuko, who attends a cram school, is a young girl living away from her family and expresses a lot of melancholy. NieA, who is apparently placed in an inferior class by her fellow aliens due to being a physical minority among them, immediately accuses anyone who calls her a "stupid no-antenna" or the like, of discrimination. Other aliens adopt various stereotypical cultural styles, one chooses Indian dress and opens a convenience store, another chooses to associate herself with the Chinese Revolution. This theme of the outsider alien is carried through in the brief comic live-action sequence which ends each episode, "Dalgit's Tidbit of Indian Information." 

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Harper Sloane is a misfit in her snobbish, upperclass family of lawyers. She has just been accepted to Harvard law school. At her sister's wedding, after being sent out from her hiding place in the storage room with a bottle of champagne, she meets Connie Fitzpatrick, a bohemian photographer who takes an instant liking to her and nicknames her "Guinevere". Her visit to his loft in order to pick up the wedding photographs soon blossoms into a full-blown affair, and Harper eventually moves in with Connie as he instructs her in the ways of art, in particular photography. After a brutal confrontation with Harper's mother, Deborah, and Harper's discovery that Connie has a history of relationships with young women, the film comes to a climax in a downtrodden L.A. hotel where Connie ends the relationship by kicking out Harper. She returns only once, five years later, as he is dying from cirrhosis of the liver, and meets the other Guineveres he has had. On the rooftop, she describes her personal view of his kind of heaven, which she affectionately titles "The Connie Special". 

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The book opens immediately after the events of Under the Eagle, with the troops relaxing and watching prisoners of war fight to the death in a makeshift arena. Optio Cato is bequeathed an ivory-hilted sword by the chief centurion, Bestia, who was mortally wounded in the British ambush and respected Cato for his tenacity. Meanwhile, the legate of the Second Legion, Vespasian, worries about his wife Flavia back in Rome, whom he has learned has connections to "The Liberators", a group of conspirators who want the feeble-minded Emperor Claudius out of power. Soon afterwards the Legion moves off again, heading to the River Meadway (present-day Medway river, in Kent). As the Britons under Caratacus have heavily fortified the opposite bank, Macro and Cato are ordered to scout ahead for a ford upstream. Cato finds one, and the next day the attack goes in. The Ninth Legion, supported by artillery fire from triremes on the river, crosses and assault the enemy ramparts. After sustaining heavy losses, the attack falters, and only the Second Legion's intervention saves the day. Using the ford upstream, the legionaries are able to surprise the Britons and attack them from behind, overrunning their encampment; Cato is badly burned when he accidentally spills a cauldron of boiling water over himself. While recuperating, he strikes up a friendship with the North African surgeon, a Carthaginian called Nisus. They discover that the lead shot the British were using in their slings came from the Legion's stores, indicating there is a traitor placed high in the army command, supplying the British with arms in an attempt to undermine the campaign. Over the next few days, the British are pushed back to the North Kent marshes, on the banks of the Tamesis river. The Second Legion is ordered to clear the southern bank in preparation for a crossing, but as twilight approaches, the Legion is scattered and lost in the marshes. Macro's unit, with Cato in tow, is ambushed by a war band; Macro holds the Britons at bay while Cato and a handful of men escape by boat. When the roll-call is held, Macro is declared missing, presumed dead. Cato, in a fit of anguish, volunteers to be in the first wave of the troops crossing the river. It is a suicide mission, and he does not expect to live, but he is able to survive long enough for the second wave of Romans to reach him. Macro reappears, having survived his ordeal in the marshes, and chastises Cato for being a fool. Cato renews his friendship with Nisus the surgeon, who lets slip some of his bitterness at being a Carthaginian (one of many cultures conquered by the Romans) in the Roman army. Meanwhile, the army has received orders to halt on the far side of the Tamesis so that Emperor Claudius can arrive and take command in person for the final assault in the British capital at Camulodunum; this is intended to boost his popularity with the populares in Rome. While waiting for the Emperor to arrive, tribune Vitellius, Macro and Cato's nemesis, is plotting to assassinate him. He enlists Nisus, playing on his Carthaginian patriotism, and uses him as a liaison with the British tribes who resist Rome. Unfortunately, while crossing the lines one night, Nisus is accidentally killed by a sentry, and Cato, who is present, takes a bandage from his body; it is covered in strange markings and Cato thinks these are worth investigating. All thought of it is put out of his mind, however, when Claudius arrives, escorted by the Praetorian Guard and elephants to overawe the Britons. He insists on taking charge in the coming battle. Despite the Emperor's buffoonery, the final battle is won and the legions march into Camulodunum. To celebrate 'his' victory, Claudius orders a lavish banquet to be held in his honour. Vespasian finally gets to spend some time with his wife, and Cato renews his relationship with the slave girl Lavinia. Unfortunately, she is allied with Vitellius, having consorted with him previously whilst in the ownership of Tribune Plinius. She agrees to smuggle an ornate dagger into the banquet hall, believing it to be a gift for the Emperor. Before she does this, she decides to break up with Cato, who is aware that she is cheating on him with Vitellius. While she does this, Cato is fiddling with the late Nisus's bandage, which he has in his pocket. When it is rolled up in a certain way, the markings become a coded message; Cato is only able to discover that it concerns a plot to kill the emperor before he is knocked out by Lavinia, who read on ahead and saw Vitellius' name. When he is woken by Macro, Lavinia has disappeared. The only hope of saving the Emperor is to warn Vespasian, who is at the feast, and hope he believes them. They get there in time to see Vitellius and Lavinia being presented to the emperor; while Claudius is distracted by Lavinia's charms, a supposedly loyal Briton leaps at the emperor with a dagger. Thanks to Cato's intervention, the Emperor's bodyguards are able to catch the assassin and mortally wound him. Vitellius finishes him off before he can talk, and discreetly murders Lavinia as he leaves. A distraught Cato is taken away by Macro before he is recognised as the Emperor's saviour, and Vitellius, as in the last book, gets all the credit. He is given a position on the Emperor's staff, and leaves with Claudius for Rome, leaving the legions to pacify the last remnants of resistance. Vespasian is tasked with an independent command for the coming months; clearing the south bank of the Thames of resistance. As for Cato, he is distracted by Macro, who promises to introduce him to his latest conquest - a young Briton called Boudicca... 

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The novel takes place during the week of the Halifax Explosion - 2 December 1917 to 10 December 1917. Penelope Wain believes that her cousin, Neil Macrae, has been killed while serving overseas under her father, Colonel Geoffrey Wain. The family is under the impression that Neil had died in the disgrace of desertion. Neil, however, had not died, but has returned to Halifax to clear his name of its tarnish. Neil seeks Alec MacKenzie, the only other survivor of their unit who can confirm that Colonel Wain had given an contradictory order, which was impossible to fulfill. When the order ended in disaster, Colonel Wain attempted to blame Neil in hopes of retaining his position in the military. Yet, prior to the court martial, Neil was believed to have died in artillery strike. Colonel Wain was forced to return to Canada as a transportation officer. In Halifax, the war has given Penny the opportunity to become a successful naval architect at the Halifax Shipyard. She develops a friendship with Angus Murray, a doctor wounded from the war. Angus eventually proposes marriage to Penny; she defers the proposal. While her father, Colonel Wain, disapproves of Angus, he warms up to him after learning that Neil is alive and in Halifax. Neil and Penny had also been lovers and Angus realizes that Colonel Wain is desperate to ensure that Neil is not court martialed and given an opportunity to clarify the occurrences over seas. The colonel had been offered a new position in the war, and the trial will ruin his promotion. Penny and Neil are briefly reunited, but Penny finds herself unable to reveal that she has given birth to their daughter, Jean, after their affair in Montreal. Jean had been adopted and cared for by her aunt and uncle. Angus intrudes upon the reunion to warn Neil of the colonel's intentions. Neil leaves to find Alec, who is willing to testifying in Neil's defence, despite the colonel providing Alec with a job at the shipyard. The men are later joined by Angus, who also agrees to testify in favour of Neil. On the following morning, the Halifax Explosion occurs. The blast kills several characters, including Penny's aunt and uncle. Neil and Murray manage to rescue Alec and his wife from their house, although Alec had sustained grievous injury. Once the two men locate Penny, who had been wounded in the eye, Angus sets up a makeshift hospital at the Wains' house. Meanwhile, Neil enters the city to procure supplies and assist with rescue efforts, no longer concerned who will recognize him. Neil, however, is shocked when he finds Colonel Wain's dead body in the wreckage of the explosion. Although Alec dies from his injuries, he and Murray acquire an affidavit with a testimony to clear Neil's name. When Penny had recovered sufficiently from her injury and her surgery, she goes with Neil to retrieve Jean. 

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Charles "Fred" Hale comes to Brighton on assignment to distribute cards anonymously for a newspaper competition (a variant of "Lobby Lud"; in this case, the name of the person to be spotted is "Kolley Kibber"). The antihero of the novel, Pinkie Brown, is a teenage sociopath and up-and-coming gangster. Hale had betrayed the former leader of the gang Pinkie now controls, by writing an article in the Daily Messenger about a slot machine racket for which the gang was responsible. Ida Arnold, a plump, kind-hearted and decent woman, is drawn into the action by a chance meeting with the terrified Hale after he has been threatened by Pinkie's gang. After being chased through the streets and lanes of Brighton, Hale accidentally meets Ida again on the Palace Pier, but eventually Pinkie murders Hale. Pinkie's subsequent attempts to cover his tracks and remove evidence of Hale's Brighton visit lead to a chain of fresh crimes and to Pinkie's ill-fated marriage to a waitress called Rose, who unknowingly has the power to destroy his alibi. Ida decides to pursue Pinkie relentlessly, because she believes it is the right thing to do, as well as to protect Rose from the deeply disturbed boy she has married. Although ostensibly an underworld thriller, the book also deals with Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the nature of sin and the basis of morality. Pinkie and Rose are Catholics, as was Greene, and their beliefs are contrasted with Ida's strong but non-religious moral sensibility. Greene alludes significantly to the French Catholic writer Charles Péguy in Brighton Rock, in relation to ideas about damnation and mercy, and in The Lawless Roads he refers to "Péguy challenging God in the cause of the damned".Quoted by Grahame C. Jones, in "Graham Greene and the Legend of Péguy", fn.2, p. 139. 

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The novel begins with U.S. President Timothy Kegan already having been assassinated in Philadelphia at Hunt Plaza. The ensuing presidential commission condemns a lone gunman as the killer. The narrative starts years later, when Kegan's half-brother, Nick, witnesses the death-bed confession of a man claiming to have been part of the killing's 'hit squad'. As the protagonist attempts to uncover those behind it, he encounters numerous groups and persons that could have led or been part of the conspiracy. One is Lola Camonte, a hostess, lobbyist and fixer. She recounts the story of President Kegan asking her about appointing a member of organized crime to the Court of St. James's. The character "Joe Diamond" is the fictional representation of the killer of Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Mob-connected Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Condon's book describes numerous intertwined threads, variously implicating (or proffering as diversions to put the protagonist off the trail) the Jewish/Italian-American Mob, figures related to Cuba, even possible domestic police connections. Only in the final act, in which Nick meets with his vicious and perverse Joseph P. Kennedy-like 'father-figure', is the truth revealed with a twist ending implicating the "system" of interrelated interests embracing Organized crime, the U.S. covert world, Big Business, and political fixers. 

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