From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest and motivations—noble or selfish—to honor her wish to be buried in her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi. In the novel's first chapters, Addie is alive, though in ill health. Addie and others expect her to die soon, and she sits at a window watching as her firstborn child, Cash, builds her coffin. Anse, Addie's husband, waits on the porch, while their daughter, Dewey Dell, fans her mother in the July heat. The night after Addie dies a heavy rainstorm sets in; rivers rise and wash out bridges that the family will need to cross to get to Jefferson. The family's trek by wagon begins, with Addie's non-embalmed body in the coffin. Along the way, Anse and the five children encounter various difficulties. Stubborn Anse frequently rejects any offers of assistance, including meals or lodging, so at times the family goes hungry and sleeps in barns. At other times he refuses to accept loans from people, claiming he wishes to "be beholden to no man," thus manipulating the would-be-lender into giving him charity as a gift not to be repaid. Jewel, Addie's middle child, tries to leave his dysfunctional family after Anse sells Jewel's most prized possession, his horse, yet cannot turn his back on them through the trials and tribulations of the journey to Jefferson. Cash breaks a leg and winds up riding atop the coffin. He stoically refuses to admit to any discomfort, but the family eventually puts a makeshift cast of concrete on his leg. Twice, the family almost loses Addie's coffin — first, while crossing a river on a washed-out bridge (two mules are lost), and second, when a fire of suspicious origin starts in the barn where the coffin is being stored for a night. After nine days, the family finally arrives in Jefferson, where the stench from the coffin is quickly smelled by the townspeople. In town, family members have different items of business to take care of. Cash's broken leg needs attention. Dewey Dell, for the second time in the novel, goes to a pharmacy, in an effort to obtain an abortion that she does not know how to ask for. First, though, Anse wants to borrow some shovels to bury Addie, because that was the purpose of the trip and the family should be together for that. Before that happens, however, Darl, the second eldest and thoughtful, poetic observer of the family, is seized for the arson of the barn and sent to the Mississippi State Insane Asylum in Jackson.SOURCE: As I Lay Dying, A Norton Critical Edition. Edited by Michael Gorra. Footnote pg. 134 ..."Jackson: Here, not the state capital per se but the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, which was located there." With Addie only just buried, Anse forces Dewey Dell to give up her money given to her by Lafe (the man who got her pregnant) for an abortion, which he spends on getting "new teeth," and quickly marries the woman from whom he borrowed the spades. As are many of Faulkner's works, the story is set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, which Faulkner referred to as "my apocryphal county," a fictional rendition of the writer's home of Lafayette County in the same state. ===== The story is set in Ayemenem, now part of Kottayam district in Kerala, India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth between 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel (girl) and Esthappen (boy) are seven years old, and 1993, when the twins are reunited. Ammu Ipe is desperate to escape her ill- tempered father, known as Pappachi, and her bitter, long-suffering mother, known as Mammachi. She persuades her parents to let her spend a summer with a distant aunt in Calcutta. To avoid returning to Ayemenem, she marries a man there but later discovers that he is an alcoholic, and he physically abuses her and tries to pimp her to his boss. She gives birth to Rahel and Estha, leaves her husband, and returns to Ayemenem to live with her parents and brother, Chacko. Chacko has returned to India from England after his divorce from an English woman, Margaret, and the subsequent death of Pappachi. The multi-generational family home in Ayemenem also includes Pappachi's sister, Navomi Ipe, known as Baby Kochamma. As a young girl, Baby Kochamma fell in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem. To get closer to him, Baby Kochamma converted to Roman Catholicism and joined a convent against her father's wishes. After a few months in the convent, she realized that her vows brought her no closer to the man she loved. Her father eventually rescued her from the convent and sent her to America. Because of her unrequited love for Father Mulligan, Baby Kochamma remained unmarried for the rest of her life, becoming deeply embittered over time. Throughout the book, she delights in the misfortune of others and constantly manipulates events to bring calamity. The death of Margaret's second husband in a car accident prompts Chacko to invite her and Sophie (Margaret's and Chacko's daughter) to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. En route to the airport to pick up Margaret and Sophie, the family visits a theater. On the way to the theater, they encounter a group of Communist protesters who surround the car and force Baby Kochamma to wave a red flag and chant a Communist slogan, thus humiliating her. Rahel thinks she sees Velutha, a servant who works for the family's pickle factory among the protesters. Later at the theater, Estha is sexually molested by the "Orangedrink Lemondrink Man", a vendor working the snack counter. Estha's experience factors into the tragic events at the heart of the narrative. Rahel's assertion that she saw Velutha in the Communist mob causes Baby Kochamma to associate Velutha with her humiliation at the protesters' hands, and she begins to harbor enmity toward him. Velutha is a dalit (lower caste in India). Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him despite his caste status. It is her children's love for Velutha that causes Ammu to realize her own attraction to him, and eventually, she comes to "love by night the man her children loved by day". Ammu and Velutha begin a short-lived affair that culminates in tragedy for the family. When her relationship with Velutha is discovered, Ammu is locked in her room and Velutha is banished. In her rage, Ammu blames the twins for her misfortune and calls them "millstones around her neck". Distraught, Rahel and Estha decide to run away. Their cousin, Sophie also joins them. During the night, as they try to reach an abandoned house across the river, their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns. When Margaret and Chacko return from a trip, they see Sophie's body laid out on the sofa. Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down, savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, and arrest him on the brink of death. The twins, huddling in the abandoned house, witness the horrific scene. Later, when they reveal the truth to the chief of police he is alarmed. He knows that Velutha is a Communist, and is afraid that if word gets out that the arrest and beating were wrongful, it will cause unrest among the local Communists. He threatens to hold Baby Kochamma responsible for falsely accusing Velutha. To save herself, Baby Kochamma tricks Rahel and Estha into believing that the two of them would be implicated as having murdered Sophie out of jealousy and were facing sure imprisonment for them and their Ammu. She thus convinces them to lie to the inspector that Velutha had kidnapped them and had murdered Sophie. Velutha dies of his injuries overnight. After Sophie's funeral, Ammu goes to the police to tell the truth about her relationship with Velutha. Afraid of being exposed, Baby Kochamma convinces Chacko that Ammu and the twins were responsible for his daughter's death. Chacko kicks Ammu out of the house and forces her to send Estha to live with his father. Estha never sees Ammu again. Ammu dies alone a few years later at the age of 31. After a turbulent childhood and adolescence in India, Rahel gets married and goes to America. There, she divorces before returning to Ayemenem after years of working dead-end jobs. Rahel and Estha, now 31, are reunited for the first time since they were children. They had been haunted by their guilt and their grief-ridden pasts. It becomes apparent that neither twin ever found another person who understood them in the way they understand each other. Toward the end of the novel, the twins have sex. The novel comes to a close with a nostalgic recounting of Ammu and Velutha's love affair. ===== The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrive in a deserted London, where they discover that dinosaurs are inexplicably appearing all over the city, causing havoc, but no one can account for their sudden appearances and disappearances. The Doctor suspects that someone is deliberately tampering with time and with the help of his colleagues at UNIT, he starts to formulate a plan. They are introduced to Sir Charles Grover, an MP and General Finch. In a hidden laboratory, Professor Whitaker is operating secret Timescoop technology. The dinosaurs are being used to compel the authorities to evacuate the city. It turns out that Whitaker is being aided by a disillusioned Captain Yates. Sarah conducts her own investigations, but is captured by Grover, who is in league with Whitaker. She awakens and is astounded to find herself on a vast spaceship. The crew explain that they are en route to a distant Earth-like planet, explaining that Mankind can begin again on "New Earth", closer to nature and without the overpopulation and pollution of Earth. When Sarah tries to explain that they're still on Earth, they condemn Sarah to be re-educated into thinking the way they do. Operation Golden Age is revealed to be a broad conspiracy including Mike Yates of UNIT, with Whitaker, Grover and Finch as its coordinators. They have emptied London, so that the chosen people on the "spacecraft" (a dummy ship hidden in a bunker under London) will be the only people within range of the Timescoop when it's activated. Whitaker has discovered how to reverse time, so that only the chosen elite will ever have existed. Meanwhile, Sarah escapes from the bunker, but is apprehended by Finch. Her escape alerts some of the passengers to the deception. Yates reveals their plans to the Doctor, Benton and the Brigadier. Yates is overpowered, and when Finch tries to stop the Doctor and the Brigadier's efforts, Benton incapacitates him in a struggle. Then Finch is arrested and court martialed. The Doctor and the Brigadier confront Grover and Whitaker, just as the duped environmentalists from the fake ship arrive and demand an explanation. The Timescoop is activated, but the Doctor (a Time Lord) is unaffected, allowing him to sabotage the device. Grover tries to use it again, but the Doctor reverses the machine's field, sending only Whitaker and Grover into the past. ===== After the events of Full Circle, the Fourth Doctor, Romana, K9, and their newest companion/stowaway, Adric, arrive on a planet with a feudal society. The villagers live under the thrall of three lords—Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon—who dwell in a shadowy Tower, and experience a yearly ritual called "the Selection", in which young villagers are taken to the tower, never to be seen again. This selection process is enforced by a thuggish band of guards led by Habris. The Doctor and Romana discover evidence of technology considerably more advanced than the medieval level of development of the planet, and wonder what happened to cause the planet to devolve to its current rustic condition—to be in a "state of decay". Romana suggests that there is a powerful force holding the inhabitants back. As the two leave the village they are seized by cloaked figures. Adric comes to the village and is caught by the owners of the feeding house. Adric is discovered and captured by Lord Aukon, who sees him as an alien and worthy of becoming one of the 'chosen ones'. The cloaked figures, members of a resistance movement, convey the Doctor and Romana to a secret base filled with forbidden technology. Kalmar is a scientist—a heretical role in their society—and is very grateful for the Doctor's help in repairing a computer which reveals the names and faces of the original chief officers of the spaceship Hydrax—who look exactly like the Lords of the Tower. The Lords too have learnt of Romana and the Doctor, and Aukon sends a flock of his winged servant bats to menace them. The bats spare them and the Doctor and Romana are seized by Habris and his guards and taken to an audience in the Tower. Zargo and Camilla entertain them, then are called away to deal with a situation called the Arising. The Doctor and Romana discover that the great Tower in which the Lords dwell is itself the spaceship Hydrax, originally from Earth, which also was pulled into E-Space long ago. The Doctor and Romana discover rows of drained corpses, while the craft's fuel stores are full of blood. Talk turns to vampires and the fact that nearly every inhabited planet has at least one legend about them. They find an amphitheatre, its floor pulsing to a loud heartbeat. It is there that the Lord Aukon greets them, inviting them to become the first of the new servants of the Chosen Ones. When they refuse, Aukon tries to ensnare the Doctor. Romana saves him, but before they can escape, Zargo and Camilla find them and they are taken as future meals for the 'Great One'. The Doctor has deduced (by applying principles of consonant shifting) that the current lords' names are a corruption of the original crew's last names (i.e. "Sharkey" became "Zargo", "MacMillan" became "Camilla", and "O'Connor" became "Aukon"). He realises that the three lords are not descendants, but members of the original crew, mutated into vampires while the subjects beneath them are the descendants of the other colonists, made dull and primitive by over twenty generations of breeding and oppression. He is reminded of ancient Time Lord stories of the Great Vampires—ancient enemies of the Time Lords. He deduces that the Great One escaped destruction at the hands of the Time Lords by somehow retreating into E-Space, and it managed eventually to gather enough power to pull the old Earth ship into this universe, corrupt the main crew and use the colonists for its own ends. Meanwhile, a rebel called Tarak infiltrates the Tower, freeing the Doctor and Romana. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, while Romana stays with Tarak to search for Adric. As they try to snap Adric out of his trance, they unknowingly awaken Zargo and Camilla. Tarak is killed by Zargo, but the blood of the dead will not satisfy either of the lords. Adric throws a knife at Zargo, who pulls it out and heads for Romana while Camilla advances on Adric. Aukon intervenes and compels them to stop, for he was the first to have contact with the mind of the Great One and he alone possesses the mental power the other two crave. He wants Adric as a Chosen One and Romana, a Time Lord, for sacrifice at the Arising, the first taste of revenge for their master. In the throne room, the Hydrax's former control deck, Romana and Adric argue about their fate. Adric announces that he wants to be one of the 'chosen ones' (i.e. a vampire). They are taken to the bottom of the Tower (as shown in the picture above). In the TARDIS the Doctor and K9 discover that the Great Vampires could only be defeated by metal bowships designed by Rassilon, fast ships firing steel bolts that speared the monsters through the heart, (the source of the tradition of the wooden stake for lesser vampires). He takes the TARDIS to Kalmar's base and there uses scanning equipment to scan the Tower. Under the stores of blood he finds a restless, demonic presence, like an immensely ugly human with bat wings, whom he determines to be the last Great Vampire. He warns it is about to be revived. After seeing it, Kalmar, Ivo and many other villagers agree to help. The villagers and K9 make an assault on the Tower. The Doctor heads off to the peak of the Tower. Inside, Adric reveals he was faking his joining to the Lords to arrange an escape, but is unable to attack Aukon and free Romana. The Doctor rigs one of the spaceship/tower's old scoutships to launch and fall back toward the ground, driving itself into the heart of the subterranean Great One. The sounds of the ship launching snap Romana from her trance. With the Great One dispatched, the three vampire Lords crumble to dust. The Doctor finds Romana and Adric and they leave the planet, hoping that, now freed from the corruptive effect of the vampires, it will develop once again toward its former advanced state and even, perhaps, surpass it. ===== Something is amiss in the mining village of Killingworth, in 19th-century England. Miners are being gassed in the washhouse and transformed into thugs and vandals, attacking men and machinery, being perceived as Luddites by other locals. The Sixth Doctor and Peri witness the phenomenon when they arrive in Killingworth looking for the cause of some sort of time distortion, and he also notices one of the rampaging miners has a strange red mark on his neck. With his usual audacity, The Doctor foists himself upon the local landowner, Lord Ravensworth, who is concerned by the ferocity of the local Luddite attacks, with the most passive of men suddenly turning violent and unpredictable. The answer lies in the local washhouse. The Master has turned up at this key point in human history and forces his way into the presence of the old woman who runs the washhouse: in reality another Time Lord known as the Rani. She is a gifted chemist and is using the set-up of the washhouse to anaesthetise the miners and distill from them the neurochemicals that enable sleep. This is what accounts for the red mark on the victims. These chemicals are then synthesised for use back on Miasimia Goria, a planet she rules and which the Master visited, where her other experiments have left the inhabitants without the ability to rest. He persuades her that they need to deal with the Doctor together, but also steals some of the precious brain fluid she collected to ensure her collaboration. It is a rocky partnership, full of half-truths and deceptions. The Master heads off to deal with the Doctor, egging on local miners to attack his enemy and persuading some of them to throw the Doctor's TARDIS down a mineshaft. The Doctor has meanwhile dressed as a miner and infiltrated the bathhouse, where he soon deduces the Rani's schemes. She entraps him but he still challenges her ethics, prompting her to reveal she has been coming to Earth for centuries to harvest her precious chemicals. The Doctor, strapped to a trolley, is placed on top of a mine cart by a group of rowdy miners and pushed down a slope. The cart rattles along its rails, fast approaching the gaping entrance to the mineshaft... Luckily, the inventor George Stephenson saves the Doctor just in time. Later, the Doctor and Peri visit Stephenson in his cottage. Stephenson has planned a meeting of scientific and engineering geniuses in the village. The Doctor is worried about the wisdom of such a meeting in the current circumstances, but elsewhere the Master is so desperate to see the event take place he uses mind- control over Stephenson's young aide, Luke Ward, telling him to kill anyone who tries to prevent it. The Master wants to use the finest brains of the Industrial Revolution to help speed up Earth's development and then use the planet as a powerbase. He strikes a deal with the Rani that she may return to Earth at any time to harvest more brain fluid if she helps him achieve this. While the villains are away, the Doctor returns to the washhouse and dodges the booby traps to find a way into the Rani's TARDIS. Her control room contains jars of preserved dinosaur embryos. She summons her ship to the old mine workings using a remote control device, with the Doctor still inside. He hides while his adversaries converse, with the Rani confessing to have also laid landmines in nearby Redfern Dell; and when the coast is clear the Doctor slips away to report back to Ravensworth, Stephenson and Luke, whom he sees is behaving strangely. To make herself useful Peri is using her botanical knowledge to make a sleeping draught for the afflicted miners, but her quest for herbs leads her to Redfern Dell. The Doctor gets there in time to save her, but not before Luke accidentally steps on a mine and is turned into a tree. The Doctor then surprises the Master and the Rani, who are lurking at the edge of the Dell, and takes them prisoner with the Master's own Tissue Compression Eliminator. Peri is given charge of them but the Rani's deviousness outstrips the Master's and she is the one who enables them to escape. The Rani and the Master flee in her TARDIS, but the Doctor has sabotaged the navigational system and velocity regulator, and the ship starts heading out of control. In the destabilised condition, one of the jars containing an embryo Tyrannosaurus Rex falls to the floor and the creature begins to grow, affected by the time spillage. The Master and the Rani are "stuck" against one of the walls of the Rani's TARDIS, due to the speed at which they are travelling; and are helplessly at the mercy of the rapidly aging immature Tyrannosaurus. The Doctor and Peri make an exchange with Ravensworth, who has retrieved the TARDIS and accepts the phial of brain fluid, which he is told to administer to the affected miners. Before the eyes of an astonished scientist and his financier, the TARDIS departs. ===== The Tetraps, on display at a 50th Anniversary event Whilst in flight, the TARDIS is attacked by the Rani, an amoral scientist and renegade Time Lord. The TARDIS crash- lands on the planet Lakertya. On the floor of the console room, the Sixth Doctor regenerates into the Seventh Doctor. In his post-regenerative confusion the Doctor is separated from Mel and tricked into assisting the Rani in her megalomaniac scheme to construct a giant time manipulator. Lost on the barren surface of the planet, Mel has to avoid the Rani's ingenious traps and her monstrous, bat-like servants, the Tetraps. She joins forces with a rebel faction among the Lakertyans, desperate to end the Rani's control of their planet. The Doctor must recover his wits in time to avoid becoming a permanent part of the Rani's plan to collect the genius of the greatest scientific minds in the universe, of which she has captured many including Albert Einstein, in order that she can create a time manipulator, which would allow the Rani to control time anywhere in the universe, at the expense of all life on Lakertya. The Doctor manages to foil her plan and free the Lakertyans of her evil control. The Rani escapes in her TARDIS, but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps, who take her prisoner. The Doctor takes all the captured geniuses on board his TARDIS so that he can return them home. ===== A battle between the Greek armies of King Agamemnon of Mycenae and King Triopas of Thessaly is quickly averted when the great warrior Achilles, fighting for Agamemnon, defeats Boagrius, Triopas' champion, in single combat after Achilles was initially absent from the battle. Thessaly joins Agamemnon's loose alliance of all the Greek kingdoms. Prince Hector of Troy and his younger brother Paris negotiate a peace treaty with Menelaus, King of Sparta. However, Paris is having an affair with Menelaus' wife, Queen Helen, and smuggles her aboard their home- bound vessel, much to Hector's dismay. Upon learning of this, Menelaus meets with Agamemnon, his elder brother, and asks him to help take Troy. Agamemnon agrees, as conquering Troy will give him control of the Aegean Sea. Agamemnon has Odysseus, King of Ithaca, persuade Achilles to join them. Achilles, who strongly dislikes Agamemnon, eventually decides to go after his mother Thetis tells him that though he will die, he will be forever glorified. In Troy, King Priam is dismayed when Hector and Paris introduce Helen, but welcomes her and decides to prepare for war. The Greeks eventually invade and take the Trojan beach, thanks largely to Achilles and his Myrmidons. Achilles has the temple of Apollo sacked, and had a brief fight with Hector and his army. They claim Briseis — a priestess and the cousin of Paris and Hector — as a prisoner afterwards. He is angered when Agamemnon spitefully takes her from him, and decides that he will not aid Agamemnon in the siege. The Trojan and Greek armies meet outside the walls of Troy; during a parley, Paris offers to duel Menelaus personally for Helen's hand in exchange for the city being spared. Agamemnon, intending to take the city regardless of the outcome, accepts. Menelaus wounds Paris, causing him to cower at the foot of Hector. When Menelaus attempts to kill Paris despite his victory, he himself is killed by Hector. In the ensuing battle, Hector kills Ajax after a brief duel and many Greek soldiers fall to the Trojan defenses with Achilles and the myrmidons watch from a distance during the battle. On Odysseus' insistence, Agamemnon gives the order to fall back. In the camp after Ajax and Menelaus were cremated, Agamemnon and Odysseus argued on why they lost the battle. He gives Briseis to the Greek soldiers for their amusement, but Achilles saves her from them. Later that night, Briseis sneaks into Achilles' quarters to kill him; instead, she falls for him and they become lovers. Achilles then resolves to leave Troy, much to the dismay of Patroclus, his cousin and protégé. Despite Hector's objections, Priam orders him to retake the Trojan beach by daybreak and force the Greeks home; the attack unifies the Greeks and the Myrmidons enter the battle. Hector duels a man he believes to be Achilles and kills him, only to discover it was actually his cousin Patroclus. Distraught, both armies agree to stop fighting for the day. Achilles is informed of his cousin's death by Eudorus and vows revenge after striking Eudorus. Wary that Achilles will surely seek Vengeance, Hector shows his wife Andromache a secret tunnel beneath Troy; should he die and the city fall, he instructs her to take their child and any survivors out of the city to Mount Ida. The next day, Achilles arrives outside Troy and challenges Hector. Hector says his goodbyes to his loved ones, including his wife and son. The two duel outside the gates with Hector putting up a good fight at first, but he is slowly worn down and Achilles lands the killing blow. Achilles then drags his corpse back to the Trojan beach. Priam, in disguise, sneaks into the camp and implores Achilles to return Hector's body for a proper funeral. Ashamed of his actions, Achilles agrees and also states that Hector was the best he had ever fought. He allows Briseis to return to Troy with Priam, promising a twelve-day truce so that Hector's funeral rites may be held in peace. He also orders his men to return home without him after apologizing to Eudorus for striking him. Agamemnon declares that he will take Troy regardless of the cost. Concerned, Odysseus concocts a plan to infiltrate the city. After seeing a carving of a horse by a Greek soldier, he has the Greeks build a gigantic wooden horse as a peace offering and abandon the Trojan beach, hiding their ships in a nearby cove. Despite objections from Paris who requests for it to be burned down, Priam orders the horse be brought into the city after Archeptolemus views it as a gift intended for calming the gods. A Trojan scout later finds the Greek ships hiding in the cove, but he was quickly shot down as he was about to alert the city. That night, Greeks hiding inside the horse emerge, attacking the sleeping Trojans by surprise and open the city gates for the Greek army, commencing the Sack of Troy. While Andromache and Helen guide the Trojans to safety through the tunnel, Paris gives the Sword of Troy to a young boy named Aeneas, instructing him to protect the Trojans and find them a new home. Agamemnon kills Priam and captures Briseis, who then kills Agamemnon using a concealed knife in her hand. Achilles fights his way through the city and reunites with Briseis after killing the two Greek soldiers. Paris, seeking to avenge his brother, shoots an arrow through Achilles' heel and then several into his body. Achilles extracts all the arrows but the one in his heel. He then bids farewell to Briseis, and watches her flee with Paris before dying. In the aftermath, Troy is finally taken by the Greeks and a funeral is held for Achilles, where Odysseus personally cremates his body, while the surviving Trojans flee to Mount Ida. ===== Driving through Alabama in their metallic, mint-green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, college students from New York who just got scholarships to UCLA, shop at a Sac-O-Suds convenience store and accidentally shoplift a tin of tuna. After they leave, the store clerk is robbed and killed, and Bill and Stan are arrested for the murder. Due to circumstantial evidence and a confession to the shoplifting that is misconstrued as one to the shooting, Bill is charged with first-degree murder, and Stan as an accessory. Bill's mother reminds him there is an attorney in the family: his cousin Vinny. Vincent LaGuardia "Vinny" Gambini travels there, accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito. Although he is willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, newly admitted to the bar and having no trial experience. Vinny manages to fool the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller, about being experienced enough for the case. His ignorance of basic courtroom procedures, dress code, and his abrasive attitude cause the judge to repeatedly hold him in contempt. Much to his clients' consternation, Vinny does not cross-examine any of the witnesses in the preliminary hearing. Except for lack of a murder weapon, it appears that the district attorney, Jim Trotter III, has a strong case that will lead to convictions. After Vinny's poor showing at the hearing, Stan fires him and uses the public defender, John Gibbons, and nearly convinces Bill to do the same. However, in questioning the first witness, the public defender turns out to be extremely nervous, with a severe stutter, and his line of questioning actually ends up assisting the prosecution's case. Despite his missteps, Vinny shows that he is able to make up for his inexperience with an aggressive and perceptive questioning style. When he cross-examines the first witness, Vinny uses his newfound knowledge of the cooking time of grits to force him to admit that his perception of time may have been inaccurate, meaning he cannot corroborate the prosecution's timeline, and Bill and Stan's faith is restored. Stan fires the public defender and re-hires Vinny, who then proceeds to discredit the next two witnesses, by questioning their ability to make a positive identification due to obstructions in their line of sight, and impaired vision. On the trial's third day, Trotter produces a surprise witness, FBI analyst George Wilbur. Vinny immediately objects to the witness as Mr. Trotter failed to inform him properly ahead of time, but his argument is overruled. Mr. Wilbur testifies that the pattern and chemical analysis of the tire marks left at the crime scene are identical to the tires on Bill's Buick. Judge Haller orders a lunch recess immediately after the direct examination of Mr. Wilbur. Vinny asks for a full day's continuance to properly prepare for cross-examination, but Judge Haller denies the request. With only the lunch recess to prepare and unable to come up with a strong line of questioning, Vinny lashes out at Lisa. However, Vinny realizes that one of Lisa's photos holds the key to the case: the flat and even tire marks going over the curb reveal that Bill's car could not have been used for the getaway. After requesting a records search from the local sheriff, Vinny drags an angry Lisa into court to testify as an expert witness, as she has an encyclopedic knowledge of cars. During Vinny's questioning, Lisa testifies that only a car with an independent rear suspension and positraction could have made the tire marks, which rules out Bill's 1964 Buick Skylark. However, one model of car with these features is the similar-looking metallic, mint-green 1963 Pontiac Tempest. Vinny recalls George Wilbur, who confirms this. Vinny then recalls the local sheriff, who testifies that two men who fit Bill and Stan's descriptions were just arrested in Georgia for driving a stolen green Pontiac Tempest, and were in possession of a gun of the same caliber as that which was used to kill the clerk. Trotter moves to dismiss all charges. The judge congratulates Vinny and, as they drive away, Vinny and Lisa bicker about their wedding plans. ===== Seymour, Mushnick and Audrey look down upon a growing Audrey Jr. Penny-pinching Gravis Mushnick owns a florist shop staffed by himself and two employees, the sweet Audrey Fulquard and the clumsy Seymour Krelboined. Located on skid row, the rundown shop gets little business. When Seymour fouls up a floral arrangement for sadistic dentist Dr. Farb, Mushnick fires him; hoping to change his mind, Seymour tells him about a special plant he has grown from seeds he got from a "Japanese gardener over on Central Avenue."https://archive.org/details/Little_ShopOf_Horrors.avi at 11.33 time stamp. Seymour admits that he named the plant "Audrey Jr.", which delights the real Audrey. Seymour fetches his sickly, odd-looking potted plant, but Mushnick is unimpressed. When it is suggested that Audrey Jr.'s uniqueness might attract people to see it, Mushnick gives Seymour one week to revive it. The usual kinds of plant food do not nourish the plant, but when Seymour accidentally pricks his finger, he discovers that the plant craves blood. Fed on Seymour's blood, Audrey Jr. begins to grow and the shop's revenues increase when curious customers are lured in to see the plant. Mushnick tells Seymour to refer to him as "Dad" from then on, and calls Seymour his son in front of a customer. The plant develops the ability to speak and demands that Seymour feed it. Now anemic, Seymour walks along the railroad track; when he carelessly throws a rock to vent his frustration, he inadvertently knocks out a man who falls on the track and is run over by a train. He tries to get rid of the body by throwing it away and burying it in a yard, but is nearly caught both times. Guilt-ridden but resourceful, Seymour decides to feed the mutilated body parts to Audrey Jr. Meanwhile, Mushnick returns to the shop to get some cash and secretly observes Seymour feeding the plant. Mushnick considers telling the police, but procrastinates when he sees the line of people waiting to spend money at his shop the next day. Seymour arrives the next morning suffering from a toothache; despite not going to the police, Mushnick still confronts Seymour about Audrey Jr.'s eating habits, while not explicitly revealing what he knows about the plant. Seymour grows increasingly distressed as he realizes that his boss is onto him. After finishing his rant, Mushnick sends Seymour to the dentist; soon after, Audrey runs up and declares that the shop needs many more flowers. When Seymour visits Dr. Farb, the doctor tries to get even for his ruined flowers. Seymour, defending himself, grabs a sharp tool and stabs and kills Farb. Although horrified, Seymour feeds Farb's body to Audrey Jr. The unexplained disappearances of the two men attract the attention of Sergeant Joe Fink and his assistant Officer Frank Stoolie, who are take-offs of Dragnet characters Joe Friday and Frank Smith. Audrey Jr. has grown several feet tall and is budding, as is the relationship between Seymour and Audrey. A representative of the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California comes to the shop and announces that Seymour will receive a trophy, and that she will return when the plant's buds open. While Seymour and Audrey go on a date, Mushnick stays at the shop to see that Audrey Jr. harms no one else. Mushnick finds himself at the mercy of a robber who pretended to be a customer earlier that day and believes that the huge crowds he was among at the shop indicates the presence of a large amount of money. Mushnick tricks the robber into thinking that the money is hidden in the plant, which crushes and eats him. When Seymour is forced to damage his relationship with Audrey to keep her from discovering the plant's nature, he confronts the plant and asserts that he will no longer do its bidding. The plant then hypnotizes Seymour and commands him to bring it more food. He wanders the night streets and (accidentally) knocks out a streetwalker, who he takes to feed Audrey Jr. Lacking clues about the mysterious disappearances of the two men, Fink and Stoolie attend a sunset celebration at the shop during which Seymour is to be presented with the trophy and Audrey Jr.'s buds are expected to open. As the attendees watch, four buds open; inside each flower is the face of one of the plant's victims. Fink and Stoolie realize that Seymour is the murderer; he flees from the shop with the officers in pursuit. He manages to lose them and make his way back to the now-empty shop. Grabbing a kitchen knife, Seymour climbs into Audrey Jr.'s maw saying, "I'll feed you like you've never been fed before!" Later that evening, it is discovered that Audrey Jr. has begun to wither and die. One final bud opens to reveal Seymour's face. He pitifully moans, "I didn't mean it" and the flower droops, apparently ending Audrey Jr.'s life. ===== ===== ===== While looking for clues about his missing father Nagi, Negi Springfield becomes the English and homeroom teacher for Mahora Academy Class 2A (later 3A). Negi soon becomes acquainted with most of his new students including his roommates Asuna Kagurazaka and Konoka Konoe. Negi faces his first real challenge in his student Evangeline A.K. McDowell who is an immortal vampiress and one of his father's enemies. To help Negi confront Eva, Asuna agrees to become his temporary partner by performing a "Pactio", a kind of magical contract sealed with a kiss. After dealing with Evangeline, Negi takes the class on a trip to Kyoto while searching for more information on his father's whereabouts but is forced to fight against Eastern mages aiming to kidnap Konoka with the help of other students who also become his partners including Nodoka Miyazaki, Konoka's childhood friend Setsuna Sakurazaki, and lastly with Konoka herself. The arc also introduces Fate Averruncus, another mage who looks to be around Negi's age but proves himself to be far stronger than him. Seeing his own weakness after the events in Kyoto, Negi begins to train with several students in order to become stronger while Kotaro Inugami, one of the foes he confronted there unexpectedly reappears and finds himself a family with Negi's students Natsumi and Chizuru. Kotaro also joins Negi against Wilheim, an old evil from the past who like Fate Averruncus, seems to be a pawn of an even stronger enemy. During Mahora's cultural festival, Negi manages to partake in simultaneous events thanks to his student Chao Lingshen's latest invention, the time machine Casseopeia. One of these events is the "Mahora Martial Arts Tournament" where he confronts a series of increasingly stronger enemies including a former member of "Ala Rubra" (Crimson Wing), a legendary brigade led by his father. After the tournament, Negi takes part in more activities at the festival until Chao she reveals herself as a time-traveler who claims she must change the present to avert a great catastrophe in the future. Despite that, Negi and his allies confront Chao and stop her. After giving, Chao bids farewell before returning to her own time. After the festival, Negi decides to go to the Mundus Magicus (Magic World) to look for his father. His partners decide to accompany him and together they form their own brigade, the Ala Alba (White Wing). They are joined by Negi's childhood friend Anya and accidentally by other students who are oblivious to his secret. As they arrive, the team is ambushed by a group of mysterious enemies led by Fate Averruncus, leaving Negi and his group defeated and scattered across Mundus Magicus. After meeting Jack Rakan, another member of Ala Rubra, Negi decides to train in order to become stronger and specializes in Dark Magic, like Evangeline. Meanwhile, Negi's lost companions start to learn the ropes of their new environment and eventually reunite with him. During another clash with Fate and his companions, Asuna is captured by the enemy and held captive along with Anya, with a body double posing as the real Asuna. Later Negi has an encounter with Kurt Gödel, a former member of Ala Rubra who reveals to him the story of his parents including how his mother was unjustly tried and sentenced to death before being saved by Nagi at the brink of her execution. He also learns that the Magic World is actually a magically created, inhabitable version of Mars, and just like the world itself, the majority of its inhabitants are created by magic. During another clash with Fate, Negi also learns that the main objective of his group "Cosmo Entelecheia" is to make use of Asuna's secret powers to erase the magically created inhabitants of Mundus Magicus and transfer the rest of its population to Earth before it eventually collapses. By joining forces with the various armies of the Magic World, the members of Ala Alba storm Cosmo Entelecheia's stronghold where Asuna and Anya are being held captive, to stop their plans. During the confrontation a magic gate is opened to Earth just above Mahora, having Negi's remaining students who stayed behind along with the Academy's faculty members joining the fight. After rescuing Asuna and convincing Fate to accept a plan to save the people of the Magic World without the need of any sacrifices, Negi discovers that the true leader of Cosmo Entelecheia is none other than his father Nagi, possessed by the Mage of the Beginning, who vanishes after asking his son to look for him and release him once and for all. After being celebrated as heroes for stopping Cosmo Entelecheia, Negi and his friends return to the Academy, but instead of resuming his duties as a teacher, Negi leaves Fate as his substitute and with the help of some of his students he starts working on his plan to terraform Mars for the people of the decaying Magic World to relocate there. The plan involves sealing Asuna's body for one hundred years, and she bids farewell to Negi and the other students after she graduates from middle school. Waking up 30 years after the estimated time, Asuna finds that Negi's plan was a success and that Negi and all her classmates had happy and bountiful lives, but had long since died, all except for the immortal Evangeline, and Chao who exists in this time and has since invented a device to jump between realities. These two appear before Asuna to take her back to the present so she can live out her days with Negi and the others. ===== In the year 2009, Yuji Kaido is an average young adult male diagnosed with a serious disease (the "B-cells") and is put into cryogenic stasis until a cure is found. Twenty-two years later, he is awakened in the midst of a raging battle between armored soldiers and insectoid beings called the "Blue" which have overrun the Earth. The group of soldiers are from an orbiting space colony collectively called Second Earth and were ordered to recover "sleepers" around the Earth. Among them is the soldier Marlene Angel, who at first appears to be heartless toward others. On the journey to Second Earth, Yuji meets many of the humans that were left behind during the evacuation due to limited resources. Standing orders for Marlene and the other troops are to consider any human survivors on the surface to be already dead, which greatly troubles Yuji. On their journey all of the soldiers are killed, except for Marlene, causing Yuji to fall into a deep depression as he recognizes the destruction around him and his own inability to save those he cares about. During their travel to Baikonur space base through the mountains, Yuji and Marlene start to develop a bond that softens her sharp edges. Eventually, in Russia, Yuji and Marlene come across another group of soldiers and devise a battle plan to get back to Second Earth. During the operation to escape, Marlene is the last remaining pilot and completely overrun by the Blue. Just when Marlene is about to self-detonate her Armor Shrike, Yuji arrives. Determined not to leave her behind, he comes to her rescue with a team of supporters (service robots). Marlene is overwhelmed at Yuji's efforts to save her. This is a turning point for Marlene and her feelings for Yuji are quite clear for the rest of the series. During the shuttle flight to Second Earth, Marlene and Yuji expose their emotions for each other. Marlene and Yuji's scene is abruptly interrupted as a mutated Blue (which hid in the shuttle) attacks Yuji, critically injuring him. Upon arrival, Marlene and Yuji are separated, and Marlene is sent back into training at the education station. Not knowing what happened after he was attacked, Marlene rebels and is bent on finding Yuji. When she does, she finds he has healed and is being trained to use a new specialized "sleeper"-specific Armor Shrike (AS) called the "Double Edge", a battlesuit that is much stronger than the originals used in war against the Blue. It is discovered the illness that Yuji is afflicted with is the key to help destroying the Blue and taking back the planet. He, and other "Sleepers", have "B-cells" which are also the genetic makeup of the Blue. After intensive training, Yuji and Marlene return to Earth with two other Sleepers named Tony Frost and Alicia Whistle. Tony is an inexperienced AS pilot, but his B-cells are very adept, giving him great AS skills. Alicia is only a young teenager with no combat experience and not much sense of what is going on around her. They and the other forces of Second Earth battle the Blue. They are successful at destroying a few of the largest nests before they head back to Second Earth. However, the battles begin to have a negative effect on Yuji, who has very little regard for human life and is completely obsessed with being better than Tony at killing the Blue. Yuji's actions deeply concern Marlene and she begins to realize something is wrong. Shortly after returning to Second Earth, the High Council orders the Sleepers on a second offensive against the Blue. Marlene is separated from Yuji once again, but in his current state he does not seem to care. As the Sleepers are carrying out their mission, a battle on Second Earth between two factions is waged. Seno, the head of Second Earth's science division, leads the "Ark" rebellion taking control of the military, lunar resource, and education stations of Second Earth. The High Council escapes to and retains control of the medical station. Marlene learns about the nature of the illness that put Yuji in stasis, the source of his abilities, and the source of the Blue Insectoids. They are a defense mechanism enacted by the Earth to purge the existence of humanity, and the B-cells that exist in the Sleepers could become a potential threat to humanity as well. After the Ark successfully takes over Second Earth from the ignorant High Council, Marlene heads down to Earth in search of Yuji. When she finds him his B-cells are already beginning to activate, and he begins to go berserk as a killing machine. After struggling and fighting with him, Marlene is finally able to get through to Yuji and helps him overcome his madness by showing her human emotions and feelings for him. Meanwhile, Tony and an unknowing Alicia have also abandoned the remaining ground forces. The troops fend off waves of Blue before escaping with the few remaining survivors. Tony and a now brainwashed Alicia also eventually return to Second Earth, but bring with them several Blue when they board the medical station. When Yuji and Marlene return to Second Earth, they find that Tony plans to ram the medical station into the military station, which would therefore destroy the heart of Second Earth. He sees this as the "Grand Will of the Earth", in which he will become a "messiah" and cleanse the planet of humanity forever. However, Yuji, Marlene, and a group of other soldiers infiltrate the station, and manage to free Alicia's mind after injuring her. Later, Yuji and Marlene confront and eliminate Tony, while Rick (a close friend and partner to Yuji and Marlene) is slaughtered by a Blue. Alicia ventures back to Tony to die with him as the military destroys the medical station. After the decision by Seno's junta to abandon Earth, Yuji becomes depressed and contemplates his existence, wondering what he has been fighting for, why he was woken, why he cannot save his friends (Joey near the beginning, Tony from his madness, and Alicia from Tony's brainwashing), and what is truly Earth's will. However, Marlene again is able to get through to Yuji; the two realize they need each other, and finally become lovers. Yuji decides to return to Earth to find out what Earth's will is. After learning from Seno about a new migration pattern of the Blue, Yuji and Marlene take a group of volunteers and head to an area where a massive nest is located. There they find a group of humans surviving in the area. The nest seems impenetrable at first, but they eventually find an entrance with the help of the local people. The entrance leads to a tunnel where the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cavern are composed of fossil-like Blue. The team finally comes upon a crystal formation in a massive cavern. A huge Blue is birthed from the gel substance sitting atop the formation, and kills everyone except for Yuji and Marlene. Yuji kills it and comes to the conclusion that the sphere will hold the answers he seeks. He sends Marlene, who is pregnant with their child, away to the surface to wait for him. He then gets a vision and can see what the Earth itself can see. Yuji comes to understand how mankind can live alongside the B-cells, and returns to Marlene. Meanwhile, Second Earth's military station's citizens revolt against Seno. The station's personnel abandon the station for Earth via shuttles. Eventually a firefight erupts over the last remaining overcrowded shuttle, and the station is destroyed by a massive explosion. All around the world from former Blue Nests, long strings of coalescing energy ascend into Earth's atmosphere and form a ring. Marlene and Yuji watch this, realizing Earth is now a safe place to be, and look forward to the rest of their lives together as the sun sets. A final view of the Earth from space is shown with a slightly garbled narration, presumably by the Earth, stating, "Welcome to your next journey". ===== Yu-Gi-Oh! tells the tale of Yugi Mutou, a timid young boy who loves all sorts of games, but is often bullied around. One day, he solves an ancient puzzle known as the , causing his body to play host to a mysterious spirit with the personality of a gambler. From that moment onwards, whenever Yugi or one of his friends is threatened by those with darkness in their hearts, this other Yugi shows himself and challenges them to dangerous which reveal the true nature of someone's heart, the losers of these contests often being subjected to a dark punishment called a . Whether it be cards, dice, or role-playing board games, he will take on challenges from anyone, anywhere. As the series progresses, Yugi and his friends learn that this person inside of his puzzle is actually the spirit of a nameless Pharaoh from Ancient Egyptian times, who had lost his memories. As Yugi and his companions attempt to help the Pharaoh regain his memories, they find themselves going through many trials as they wager their lives facing off against gamers that wield the mysterious and the dark power of the Shadow Games. ===== After breaking out of jail in a small Mexican town, a ruthless criminal, nicknamed Azul, ventures off with a guitar case full of weapons and vows revenge on the local drug lord, Moco, who had him arrested in the first place. Meanwhile, a young musician arrives in town carrying his own guitar case which contains his signature guitar. He hopes to find work in the town in order to pursue his dream of becoming a mariachi like his father. From the confines of his heavily guarded villa on the outskirts of town, Moco sends a large group of hitmen to kill Azul. They are told to look for a man who is wearing black and carrying a guitar case, but because the Mariachi also matches this description, the hitmen mistake him for Azul and begin to pursue him. Only Moco, however, knows Azul's actual face. The Mariachi is then forced to kill four of the attackers in self-defense after being chased through the streets. As the Mariachi seeks refuge in a bar owned by a beautiful woman named Dominó, he quickly falls in love with her. Unfortunately, Moco is not only financing the bar, but also has his own romantic interest in Dominó. When Azul visits the bar for a beer and information about Moco, he accidentally leaves with the Mariachi's guitar case. Moco's thugs capture Azul on the street but let him go when they learn that the case he is carrying contains only a guitar. A short time later, the Mariachi is captured and taken to Moco, who identifies him as the wrong man and sets him free. Meanwhile, Azul, who has no directions to Moco's home, takes Dominó with him and orders her to take him to Moco's, or Moco will kill the mariachi. Dominó agrees in order to save the Mariachi's life. When they arrive at Moco's gated compound, Azul pretends to take Dominó hostage in order to gain entry. Moco soon realizes that Dominó has fallen for the Mariachi and, in a rage, shoots both her and Azul. Suddenly, the Mariachi arrives to find the woman he loves gunned down. Moco then shoots the Mariachi's left hand, rendering him useless as a guitar player, and proceeds to taunt and laugh at the Mariachi. Overcome with grief and rage, the Mariachi picks up Azul's gun with his right hand and kills Moco, taking revenge for Dominó's death. Moco's surviving henchmen, seeing their leader dead, walk off carelessly and leave Moco's body and the wounded Mariachi behind. The Mariachi leaves the town on Dominó's motorbike, taking her pit bull and her letter- opener by which to remember her. His dreams to become a mariachi have been shattered, and his only protection for his future are Azul's former weapons which he takes along in the guitar case. He rides off into the sunset. ===== Annie Clarke and Chris Harper live in the village of Knapely, where they spend much time at the local Women's Institute and with each other. When Annie's husband, John, is diagnosed with terminal leukaemia, Chris regularly visits them at the hospital. Chris complains about the uncomfortable couch in the waiting room. After noticing a "girlie" calendar in a local shop, she hits upon an idea to raise funds to buy a new sofa. She proposes producing a calendar featuring members of the Knapely branch of the Women's Institute discreetly posing nude while engaged in traditional WI activities, such as baking and knitting. Her proposal initially is met with skepticism, but she eventually convinces ten additional women to participate in the project with her and Annie. They enlist Lawrence, a hospital worker and amateur photographer, to help with the project. The head of the local Women's Institute branch refuses to sanction the calendar, so Chris and Annie plead their case to the national congress of the Women's Institute in London. They are told the final decision rests with the local leader, who grudgingly agrees to the calendar's sale. The initial printing quickly sells out and gains national media attention. The women appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles. The publicity surrounding the calendar eventually takes a toll on their personal lives and, during a photo shoot, tension boils over, Chris and Annie angrily clash. Annie accuses Chris of ignoring her husband and son and the demands of the family business in favour of newfound celebrity; Chris believes Annie revels in her Mother Teresa-like status of catering to the ill and bereaved who have bombarded her with fan mail. All is resolved eventually, and the women resume their normal, pre-calendar lives. ===== The title character, James Wait, is a dying West Indian black sailor on board the merchant ship Narcissus, on which he finds passage from Bombay to London. Suffering from tuberculosis, Wait becomes seriously ill almost from the outset, eliciting suspicion from much of the crew, though his ostensible plight arouses the humanitarian sympathies of many. The ship's white master, Captain Allistoun, and an old white sailor named Singleton remain concerned primarily with their duties and appear indifferent to Wait's condition. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the ship capsizes onto her beam-ends during a sudden gale and half her hull is submerged, with many of the crew's rations and personal belongings lost; the men cling onto the deck for an entire night and day, waiting in silence for the ship to turn over the rest of the way and sink. Allistoun refuses to allow the masts to be severed, which might allow the hull to right itself but would prevent the ship from making use of her sails. Five of the men, realizing that Wait is unaccounted for, climb down to his cabin and rescue him at their own peril. When the storm passes and a wind returns, Allistoun directs the weary men to catch the wind, which succeeds in righting the ship. The voyage resumes but eventually drifts into the doldrums, where the head winds diminish and the ship is becalmed for many days. Rations grow even scarcer and the men become anxious to return home. Wait eventually confesses to a lazy Cockney sailor named Donkin that he is not as sick as he first claimed: that he is feigning illness to avoid having to participate in the laborious work required of every healthy seaman. Many others had already grown suspicious of him, and Captain Allistoun reveals Wait's charade before the entire crew. Wait claims he feels well enough now to work, but the captain orders that he be confined to the forecastle for the remainder of the voyage, a decision which quickly polarizes much of the crew between Wait's supporters and detractors. Allistoun prevents a near-mutiny encouraged by the conniving Donkin. Forced to stay abed, Wait grows increasingly frail as his condition deteriorates. The ship continues to drift without a breeze and some of the crew, including Singleton, begin to whisper that Wait himself is responsible, and that only his death will bring favorable winds. As the ship passes the Azores and Wait nears death, Donkin discreetly plunders Wait's personal belongings from his sea chest. Wait eventually succumbs and dies -- the first proof that he was genuinely ill. This occurs within sight of land, as Singleton had predicted, and a strong wind returns immediately after Wait's body is committed to the sea. The Narcissus soon arrives in England. ===== After an introduction by the wolf, the plot loosely follows the traditional story of the three little pigs. The first pig, using a prefabricated home kit, erects a wire structure, then quickly covers it with straw. The second pig uses hundreds of matches to make up his house, though when he puts the last match in place on the roof, the entire building collapses. The third pig goes through the tedious task of laying bricks for his house. Satisfied with their homes, the first two pigs dance around, act silly, and laugh with each other. The wolf arrives dressed as a gypsy, and sets about, through dance, trying to lure the first two pigs into a position to be captured. The pigs are suspicious and, when the wolf thinks he has them, the pigs instead rough him up and emerge each wearing parts of his costume; they briefly dance until the wolf approaches threateningly. He chases them to the straw house, which he incinerates in seconds with a lit match. The pigs flee to the match house. Though it has a front door, it is still in a state of collapse; the pigs speedily pile the matches up to form a house, then the wolf drops one last match onto the roof and it all falls apart. The pigs race to the brick house. The wolf attempts to bash in the front door, then resorts to huffing and puffing to blow the house down (to which the pigs respond by offering Lusterine mouthwash), but he fails. The wolf sets up to run at the front door; the three pigs work together to squelch this effort. The third pig is not thrilled to have the other two in his house, especially when they again begin dancing around, acting silly and laughing. Then, they notice an apparent homeless woman (the wolf) outside the window, playing a violin in the snow. The 'snow' is actually talcum powder held on a stick above the wolf's head. The first two pigs take pity and push the third pig (who realizes it is the wolf) away from the door to let the despondent person in. The wolf continues the deception, and continues playing the violin. The third pig, upon peeking under the clothing and seeing that the wolf has a record player on his back, flips the record over. Fast-paced music begins and the wolf dances to it, but loses his costume as a result. The wolf then chases the pigs up to the second floor of the house. The pigs make their escape in an elevator, but when the wolf tries to use it he drops into an empty shaft. After a long fall, the doors open and he falls at the feet of the pigs. Throughout the short, the pigs' motions are synchronized to the music. ===== ===== The game takes place in an unknown city that is controlled by the Millennion organization. The city is overrun by crime and a mysterious drug known as seed. The story follows Grave as he sets out on a course for revenge against the man who killed him, his former best friend and colleague from Millenion, Harry Macdowell. Stages in the game are presented as missions issued by Dr. T, and follow Grave as he hunts down the boss of that stage. Settings include a bar, a lab, the subway, and even a traditional Japanese dojo set atop a sky scraper. These environments are complemented or contrasted by the urban environment that surrounds them. ===== ===== Anderson (Duvall) is a successful American hitman whose employer sends him to do a job in Argentina. His contacts inform him that his target is a former general who took part in Argentina's last military dictatorship. Following a phone call with one of the co-conspirators, Anderson learns that his job is delayed due to his target sustaining an injury in a riding accident. Angry and frustrated that he is stuck in Argentina until the target is recovered from his accident, he walks the street and hears music behind a red curtain. He finds that behind the curtain is a beautiful woman gracefully dancing the tango with a man. He is immediately entranced by the dancing and wants to learn more about it, which leads to his meeting with Manuela, a local tango dancer and instructor, and the woman he first saw behind the red curtain. Things are not as easy as they seem. Although Anderson has immersed himself in the world of Manuela and dancing tango, he continues to prepare for and plan to assassinate the general. A paranoid Anderson simultaneously rents a room in two different hotels. From the safety but close proximity of one hotel room, he witnesses police converge on the other hotel. Anderson will fulfill his obligation to do the job despite the obvious reality that there is a leak. Although Anderson initially plans on shooting the general from the rooftops, he ends up pretending to deliver flowers while the general is in his backyard and shoots him point-blank in the heart. The police investigate, bringing in the prostitute Anderson slept with, but she has no information on him. Meanwhile, Anderson desperately tries to get a hold of his co-conspirators so that he can leave Argentina. Unknown to Anderson, his Argentinian co-conspirator Miguel (Rueben Blades) has been arrested by Buenos Aires police. Miguel is harshly interrogated, but can breathe a sigh of relief when his conspirator within the Argentinian federal authorities shows up. Anderson, thinking that he's been abandoned and is stuck in Argentina plus will be found out for the general's murder, hides out in his room until he realizes that the joy he had with the tango was fleeting. He suddenly remembers that he left the special boots he bought for his daughter, in the other rental room and risks his life to retrieve them. He decides to try to go back home before he gets killed in Argentina. Meanwhile, Manuela goes about her life with what appears to be her toddler daughter. Although Anderson is almost stopped at the Argentinian airport, he eventually makes it out of Argentina safely. On the airplane back to the U.S., Anderson dreams about dancing the tango with Manuela. He makes it home to his family, showing them a few steps of the tango he learned, but right before he goes in the house he scans the area - just in case. ===== On an alien planet the genocide of the Chimeron by the merciless Bannermen led by Gavrok is almost complete. The last survivor, Chimeron Queen Delta, escapes clutching her egg, the future of her species. She reaches a space tollport where the Navarinos, a race of shape-changing tourist aliens, are planning a visit to the planet Earth in 1959 in a spaceship disguised as an old holiday bus. She stows aboard, meeting Mel, while the Seventh Doctor follows in the TARDIS. The Doctor and Mel won the trip as a prize for arriving in the Navarino spaceport in time to be declared the ten billionth customers. As the tourist vehicle departs, the Bannermen arrive to hunt down the fugitive, and they kill the tollmaster. The holiday vehicle from Nostalgia Tours collides with an Earth satellite and is diverted off track, landing at a holiday camp in South Wales rather than Disneyland. They reach the Shangri-La holiday camp, led by camp director Burton, played by Richard Davies. Delta's egg hatches into a bright green baby that starts to grow at a startling rate. The Chimeron Queen supports this development with the equivalent of royal jelly given to bees. Delta captures the heart of Billy, the camp's mechanic, to the chagrin of Ray, who loves Billy herself. Ray confides her situation to the Doctor, and they stumble across a bounty hunter making contact with the Bannermen to tell them of the Chimeron's whereabouts. Gavrok and his troops soon arrive. Delta and Billy head off for a picnic while the Doctor busies himself coordinating things back at the camp. Meanwhile, the Bannermen have destroyed the Navarino bus with all its passengers. Two American CIA agents, Hawk and Weismuller, appear on the scene, tracking the missing satellite. Gavrok booby-traps the TARDIS in an attempt to kill the Doctor. A battle ensues with Gavrok and his Bannermen against the Doctor and his crew: Ray & Billy, Goronwy, Mr. Burton and the two CIA agents. The Bannermen are foiled by honey, Goronwy's bees and finally by the amplified scream of the Chimeron child Princess—a sound which is painful to Bannermen. Goronwy explains to Billy the purpose of royal jelly in the lifecycle of the honeybee, provoking the mechanic to consume Delta's equivalent that she has been feeding her daughter, in the hope of metamorphosing into a Chimeron. As Gavrok and the Bannermen attack Shangri-La, the amplified scream of the Chimeron princess traumatises the attackers, including Gavrok, who becomes so stunned that he falls into the booby-trap he placed on the TARDIS and is killed. Delta and Billy leave together with the child, the two agents watch on with surprise and Goronwy winks knowingly as the Doctor and Mel slip away. ===== In the Amazon rainforest, entomologist Dr. James Atherton hopes to discover new species of insects and arachnids. In a Venezuelan tepui, he captures an aggressive new species of spider, which is revealed to be lacking sex organs, thus, making it a drone or soldier - atypical in spiders. A fertile non-drone male of the same species bites nature photographer Jerry Manley, who has a massive seizure from the venom and dies. The scientists bring his body back to the United States, blaming his death on a fever - unaware the spider has crawled into the coffin. Manley's desiccated corpse arrives at the funeral home in his hometown of Canaima, California. Escaping outside, the spider is picked up by a crow and bites the bird, which falls dead outside the barn of Ross Jennings, a family physician who has just moved from San Francisco to take over the practice of the retiring town doctor and, like his son, suffers from arachnophobia. Ross faces a lack of patients after the elderly town doctor Sam Metcalf changes his mind about retiring. The Amazonian spider mates with a female domestic house spider and makes a nest in Jennings' barn, producing hundreds of infertile drone offspring with their father's lethal bite. Ross' first patient, Margaret Hollins, dies after being bitten by one of the new spiders. Ross has doubts about Metcalf's diagnosis of a heart attack. Metcalf accuses Ross of malpractice, as Ross had taken Margaret off blood pressure medication Metcalf prescribed. A spider kills high school football player Todd Miller just after Ross performed a routine team checkup, earning him the nickname "Dr. Death". The next victim is Dr. Metcalf, who is bitten and dies in front of his wife. With Metcalf dead, Ross becomes Canaima's town doctor. Knowing Metcalf was bitten by a spider and that a minute amount of an unknown toxin was detected in his body, Ross suspects deadly arachnids could be infesting the town. Ross and county coroner Milt Briggs orders Hollins and Miller exhumed and perform autopsies on the victims and confirm Ross' suspicion that the deaths were caused by spider bites. Ross calls Atherton, the country's leading expert on spiders, and asks him to aid his investigation. Skeptical, Atherton sends his assistant Chris Collins, who becomes convinced there is a deadly strain of spiders in Canaima. Ross and Chris manage to catch one of the spiders. When Chris mentions the new species Atherton discovered, Ross realises that one of the Venezuelan spiders "hitched a ride in Manley's coffin". Atherton joins Ross, Chris, Milt, Sheriff Lloyd Parsons, and exterminator Delbert McClintock in Canaima, and they discover the spiders have a short life expectancy. Atherton tells them the spiders are soldiers, sent out to eliminate potential threats for the lead male spider, "the general". He learns that the general produced a queen, which it likely mated with to produce a second nest, guarded by the queen, which could produce fertile offspring, possibly culminating in their worldwide dispersal. The group sets out to destroy both nests and kill the queen and the general. Deducing that one nest is in his barn, Ross sends Delbert to destroy it. Delbert finds Atherton dead, bitten by the general after disturbing the web. Ross and Chris discover the spiders have killed mortician Irv Kendall and his wife Blaire. Chris gets the Jennings family out of their infested house, but Ross falls through the floor into his wine cellar, revealed to be the spiders' second nest guarded by both the queen and the general. After electrocuting the queen, Ross battles the general while attempting to burn the second egg sac. Trapped underneath fallen debris as the general prepares to bite him, Ross overcomes his paralytic fear of spiders and flings the general into the fire. As the egg sac hatches, the general jumps out of the fire. Ross shoots it with a nail gun, sending the flaming spider into the egg sac and destroying the nest as Delbert rescues Ross. With the general, the queen and egg sac destroyed, and the drones either killed by Delbert or left to die due to their reduced lifespan, the spider threat is over. The Jennings family moves back to San Francisco, where Ross' wine toast with his wife Molly is interrupted by an earthquake tremor. ===== ===== The book begins shortly after the ending of The Colour of Magic, with wizard Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage falling from the Discworld. They are saved when the Octavo, the most powerful book of magic on the Discworld, readjusts reality to prevent the loss of one of its eight spells, which has resided in Rincewind's head since his expulsion from Unseen University: Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage end up in the Forest of Skund. Meanwhile, the wizards of Ankh-Morpork use the Rite of Ashk-Ente to summon Death to find an explanation for the Octavo's actions. Death warns them that the Discworld will soon be destroyed by a huge red star unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read. Several orders of wizards travel to the forest of Skund to try and capture Rincewind, who is currently staying with Twoflower and the Luggage in a gingerbread house in the forest. In the subsequent chaos, Rincewind and Twoflower escape on an old witch's broom, while the Archchancellor of Unseen University is killed when his attempt to obtain the spell accidentally summons the Luggage on top of him, crushing him to death. His apprentice, Ymper Trymon, uses the opportunity to advance his own power, intending to obtain the eight spells for his own good. Rincewind and Twoflower run into a group of druids who have assembled a "computer" formed from large standing stones, and learn of the approaching red star. As Twoflower attempts to stop the druids from sacrificing a young woman named Bethan, Cohen the Barbarian, an octogenarian parody of Conan, attacks the druids. Twoflower is poisoned in the battle, forcing Rincewind to travel to Death's Domain to rescue him. The pair narrowly avoid being killed by Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter, and as they escape Death's Domain, Rincewind learns from the Octavo itself that it had arranged for its eighth spell to escape into his head, to ensure the spells would not be used before the right time. Rincewind and Twoflower travel with Cohen and Bethan to a nearby town, where the toothless Cohen leaves to have some dentures made for him, having learned of them from Twoflower. While he is gone, Rincewind, Twoflower and Bethan are attacked by a mob of people who believe the star is coming to destroy the Discworld in response to the presence of magic. The trio escape into one of many shops that sell strange and sinister goods and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them. The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sorcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock. They are able to return to Ankh-Morpork via the shop. As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker, Trymon tries to put the seven spells still in the Octavo into his mind, in an attempt to save the world and gain ultimate power. However, the spells prove too strong for him and his mind becomes a door into the "Dungeon Dimensions", home to all manner of eldritch creatures. Rincewind and Twoflower manage to kill the now-mutated Trymon, and Rincewind reads all eight of the Octavo's spells aloud. This causes eight moons of the red star to crack open and reveal eight tiny world- turtles that follow their parent A'Tuin on a course away from the star. The Octavo then falls and is eaten by the Luggage. Twoflower and Rincewind part company as Twoflower decides to return home, leaving the Luggage with Rincewind as a parting gift. Cohen and Bethan also leave to get married. Rincewind decides to re-enroll in the university, believing that with the spell out of his head, he will finally be able to learn magic. ===== In the novel, much of which was originally published as a series of stories in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, hidden throughout a future America of 1972 are a group of incredibly gifted children -- all approximately the same age, all preternaturally intelligent, and all hiding their incredible abilities from a world they know will not understand them.Children of The Atom - Information on the novel and author Wilmar Shiras These children were born to workers caught in an explosion at an atomic weapons facility, and orphaned just a few months after birth when their parents succumbed to delayed effects from the blast. The children in the novel are mutants, brought together to explore their unique abilities and study in secret at an exclusive school for gifted children, lest they be hated and feared by a world that would not understand them. The Oakland Tribune described it in 1953 as "the inevitable adjustments and maladjustments of minority genius to majority mediocrity". In Shiras' book, none of the children are given paranormal super powers such as telekinesis or precognition—their primary difference is simply that of incredible intellect, combined with an energy and inquisitiveness that causes them to figuratively devour every book in their local libraries, to speed through university extension courses, and to publish countless articles and stories all over the world, but all done carefully through pen-names and mail- order, to disguise their youth, and protect them from the prejudicial stereotypes that less intelligent adults continue to try and enforce on children. ===== The story follows the progress of a group of computer hackers (called "warlocks" in the story) who are early adopters of a new full- immersion virtual reality technology, called the "Other Plane". Warlocks penetrate computers around the world for personal profit or curiosity. Forming a cabal, they must keep their true identities—their "True Names"—secret even to each other and to the "Great Adversary", the United States government, as those who know a warlock's True Name can force him to work on their behalf, or even cause a "True Death" by killing the warlock in real life. The protagonist is a warlock known as "Mr. Slippery" in the Other Plane. The government learns Mr. Slippery's True Name—Roger Pollack, a holonovelist in Arcata, California—and forces him to investigate the Mailman, a mysterious new warlock which it suspects of conducting a large-scale subversion of databases and networks. The Mailman has been recruiting others, such as the warlock DON.MAC, by promising great power in the real world, and claims to be responsible for a recent revolution in Venezuela. Because he never appears in the Other Plane, and reacts to events only after a significant delay, Mr. Slippery and fellow warlock Erythrina begin to suspect that the Mailman may be an extraterrestrial invader, subverting global databases to gradually conquer the Earth while causing True Deaths of the warlocks he recruits. Mr. Slippery and Erythrina receive permission from the government to use the old Arpanet to access massive amounts of computational power around the world as they search for the Mailman. As they become the most powerful warlocks in history they realize that DON.MAC is a sophisticated "personality simulator" working for the Mailman. It violently defends itself, and both sides use network connections to military weaponry to attack in the real world. Erythrina is forced to reveal her True Name to Mr. Slippery as the battles, real and virtual, cause global chaos. They succeed in destroying the many copies of the Mailman's AI, and although tempted to keep their power over the world realize that they do not wish to be tyrants. Ten weeks after the war and resulting worldwide economic depression from the disruption in computer systems, Mr. Slippery returns to the Coven and learns that the Mailman may have survived. Fearing that Erythrina succumbed to temptation for power, Pollack visits her—Debbie Charteris of Providence, Rhode Island—in person. The elderly Charteris, an early military computer programmer, reveals that the Mailman was not an extraterrestrial, but a National Security Agency AI research project to protect government systems. Mistakenly left running, it slowly grew in power and sophistication, and used non real-time communication to disguise its inability to fully emulate the human mind. As Charteris succumbs to senility she transfers more of her personality to the defeated Mailman's kernel, and tells Pollack that "when this body dies, I will still be, and you can still talk to me". ===== Four intellectually disabled men share a house and are looked after by Jack (Tony Goldwyn), their social worker. The four men try to make sense of a mixed-up world, dealing with everything from runaway rodents to helping Norman (Nathan Lane), who has a new girlfriend (Mare Winningham). Jack's life with his wife is put on hold, and he feels it's time to let them go. ===== The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called "the Greek". Frank and Cora feel an immediate attraction to each other and begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities. Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love and working at a diner that she wants to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman make the scheme fail. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank is also gravely injured in the crash, while Cora simulates minor injuries and bruises. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred but does not have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on each other, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists on offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery, a few valuable hours are gained. The lawyer uses the time to manipulate the insurance companies financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony, which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution's arsenal. The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time. After the trial, Cora's diner begins to boom, but their relationship worsens. While Cora is attending her mother's funeral, Frank has an affair with a wild cat tamer. Upon returning home, Cora tells him that she is pregnant. However, she is also angered when she finds out about his affair. Frank and Cora eventually patch things up, get married and plan a happy future and a family. Then Cora is killed in a car crash while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of murdering Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution. ===== The story takes place in the ancient Indian kingdom of Kapilavastu. Siddhartha decides to leave behind his home in the hope of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic wandering beggar of the Śamaṇa. Joined by his best friend, Govinda, Siddhartha fasts, becomes homeless, renounces all personal possessions, and intensely meditates, eventually seeking and personally speaking with Gautama, the famous Buddha, or Enlightened One. Afterward, both Siddhartha and Govinda acknowledge the elegance of the Buddha's teachings. Although Govinda hastily joins the Buddha's order, Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha's philosophy, though supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person. He argues that the individual seeks an absolutely unique, personal meaning that cannot be presented to him by a teacher. He thus resolves to carry on his quest alone. Siddhartha crosses a river and the generous ferryman, whom Siddhartha is unable to pay, merrily predicts that Siddhartha will return to the river later to compensate him in some way. Venturing onward toward city life, Siddhartha discovers Kamala, the most beautiful woman he has yet seen. Kamala, a courtesan, notes Siddhartha's handsome appearance and fast wit, telling him that he must become wealthy to win her affections so that she may teach him the art of love. Although Siddhartha despised materialistic pursuits as a Shramana, he agrees now to Kamala's suggestions. She directs him to the employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami treat him as an equal rather than an underling. Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing a voice of patience and tranquility, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an ascetic, against Kamaswami's fits of passion. Thus Siddhartha becomes a rich man and Kamala's lover, though in his middle years he realizes that the luxurious lifestyle he has chosen is merely a game that lacks spiritual fulfillment. Leaving the fast-paced bustle of the city, Siddhartha returns to the river fed up with life and disillusioned, contemplating suicide before falling into a meditative sleep, and is saved only by an internal experience of the holy word, Om. The very next morning, Siddhartha briefly reconnects with Govinda, who is passing through the area as a wandering Buddhist. Siddhartha decides to live the rest of his life in the presence of the spiritually inspirational river. Siddhartha thus reunites with the ferryman, named Vasudeva, with whom he begins a humbler way of life. Although Vasudeva is a simple man, he understands and relates that the river has many voices and significant messages to divulge to any who might listen. Some years later, Kamala, now a Buddhist convert, is traveling to see the Buddha at his deathbed, accompanied by her reluctant young son, when she is bitten by a venomous snake near Siddhartha's river. Siddhartha recognizes her and realizes that the boy is his own child. After Kamala's death, Siddhartha attempts to console and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether. Although Siddhartha is desperate to find his runaway son, Vasudeva urges him to let the boy find his own path, much like Siddhartha did himself in his youth. Listening to the river with Vasudeva, Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature. After Siddhartha's moment of illumination, Vasudeva claims that his work is done and he must depart into the woods, leaving Siddhartha peacefully fulfilled and alone once more. Toward the end of his life, Govinda hears about an enlightened ferryman and travels to Siddhartha, not initially recognizing him as his old childhood friend. Govinda asks the now-elderly Siddhartha to relate his wisdom and Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; that language and the confines of time lead people to adhere to one fixed belief that does not account for the fullness of the truth. Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle, every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always be considered complete. Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness. Siddhartha then requests that Govinda kiss his forehead and, when he does, Govinda experiences the visions of timelessness that Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river. Govinda bows to his wise friend and Siddhartha smiles radiantly, having found enlightenment.Thus he experiences a whole circle of life.He realized his father's importance and love when he himself became a father and his own son left him for knowing the outside world. ===== Anna (Lea Massari) meets her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) at her father's villa on the outskirts of Rome before leaving on a yachting cruise on the Mediterranean. They drive into Rome to Isola Tiberina near the Pons Fabricius to meet Anna's boyfriend, Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti). While Claudia waits downstairs, Anna and Sandro make love in his house. Afterwards, Sandro drives the two women to the coast where they join two wealthy couples and set sail south along the coast. The next morning the yacht reaches the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. After they pass Basiluzzo, Anna impulsively jumps into the water for a swim, and Sandro jumps in after her. When Anna yells that she's seen a shark, Sandro comes to her side protectively. Later onboard Anna confesses to Claudia that the "whole shark thing was a lie," apparently to get Sandro's attention. After noticing Claudia admiring her blouse, she tells her to put it on, that it looks better on her, and that she should keep it. At one of the smaller islands, , the party comes ashore. Anna and Sandro go off alone and talk about their relationship. Anna is unhappy with his long business trips. Sandro dismisses her complaints and takes a nap on the rocks. Sometime later, Corrado (James Addams) decides to leave the small island, concerned about the weather and rough seas. They hear a boat nearby. Claudia searches for Anna, but she is gone without a trace. Sandro is annoyed, saying this type of behavior is typical. They explore the island and find nothing. Sandro and Corrado decide to continue their search on the island while sending the others off to notify the authorities. Claudia decides to stay as well. Sandro, Corrado, and Claudia continue their search and end up at a shack where they stay the night. As they talk, Sandro takes offense at Claudia's suggestion that Anna's disappearance is somehow due to his neglect. In the morning, Claudia wakes before the others and watches the sunrise. After finding Anna's blouse in her bag, she meets Sandro out near the cliffs, and they talk about Anna, but Sandro now seems attracted to Claudia. The police arrive and conduct a thorough search, but find nothing. Anna's father, a former diplomat, also arrives in a high-speed hydrofoil. When he sees the books his daughter has been reading—Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Holy Bible—he feels confident that she hasn't committed suicide. The police announce that smugglers were arrested nearby and are being held in Milazzo. Sandro decides to investigate, but before leaving, he finds Claudia alone on the yacht and kisses her. Claudia rushes off, startled by his actions. She decides to search the other islands on her own. They all agree to meet up at Corrado's Villa Montaldo in Palermo. At the Milazzo police station, Sandro realizes the smugglers know nothing about Anna's disappearance. When he discovers that Claudia has arrived from the islands, he meets her at the train station where their mutual attraction is evident, but Claudia urges him not to complicate matters and begs him to leave. She boards a train to Palermo, and as the train pulls away, Sandro runs after it and jumps aboard. On the train Claudia is annoyed, saying "I don't want you with me." She says it would be easier if they sacrifice now and deny their attraction, but Sandro sees no sense in sacrificing anything. Still focused on her friend's disappearance, Claudia is troubled by the thought that it "takes so little to change." Sandro relents and gets off the train at Castroreale. In Messina, Sandro tracks down the journalist Zuria, who wrote an article about Anna's disappearance. Their meeting is interrupted by crowds of excited men following a beautiful 19-year- old "writer" and aspiring actress named Gloria Perkins (Dorothy De Poliolo) who is actually an expensive prostitute. Sandro stops to admire her beauty. Zuria says he heard stories that Anna was spotted by a chemist in Troina. After bribing Zuria to run another story on Anna, Sandro heads to Troina. Meanwhile, Claudia meets her boating companions at Corrado's Villa Montaldo in Palermo. No one seems to take Anna's disappearance seriously except Claudia. Even Corrado's young wife Giulia openly flirts with the young prince in front of her husband. After reading Zuria's follow-up story, Claudia leaves the villa for Troina to continue her search. In Troina, Sandro questions the chemist who claimed to have sold tranquilizers to Anna. Claudia arrives, and they learn that the woman identified by the chemist left on a bus to Noto in southern Sicily. Sandro and Claudia resume their search together and drive south. Outside Noto, they stop at a deserted village, and then find a hill overlooking the town where they make love while a train goes by. Later in town, they go to the Trinacria Hotel where they believe Anna is staying. Claudia asks Sandro to go in alone. While Claudia waits outside, a crowd of men gather around her. When she thinks she sees Sandro and Anna coming down the stairs she runs into a paint store, but Sandro follows and confirms that Anna is not there. Claudia remains torn between her feelings for Sandro and her friendship with Anna. At the Chiesa del Collegio, a nun shows them the view from the roof. Sandro talks about his disappointments with his work, far removed from his youthful ambitions as an architect. Suddenly he asks Claudia to marry him, but she says no—things are too complicated. She accidentally tugs on a rope that rings the church bells, which are answered by connected church bells at another church. Claudia is delighted by the sounds. The next morning, she wakes in a joyful mood, dancing and singing in the room while Sandro looks on amused. They both seem passionately in love. Sandro goes for a walk to the Piazza Municipio, where he notices an ink sketch left by one of the students. With his keychain he "accidentally" knocks over the ink onto the sketch. The student notices and confronts Sandro, who denies he did it on purpose. Sandro returns to the hotel and tries to make love to Claudia, but she resists, telling him they should leave. At Taormina, they check into the San Domenico Palace Hotel where Sandro's employer Ettore and his wife Patrizia are preparing for a party. Claudia decides not to attend because she's tired. At the party, Sandro checks out the women—recognizing Gloria Perkins. Back in the room, Claudia is unable to sleep. Noticing that Sandro has not yet returned, she goes downstairs to Patrizia's room to inquire about Sandro. Claudia confesses that she's afraid Anna has returned and that Sandro will return to her. After searching the hotel, Claudia finally discovers Sandro having sex with Gloria on a couch. Claudia runs off, and Sandro follows her onto the hotel terrace where he finds her quietly weeping. Sandro sits on a bench and says nothing; he too begins to cry. Claudia approaches him, and after hesitating, she enigmatically places her hand on his head while looking out at the snow-covered image of Mount Etna on the horizon. ===== World map of Wonderland In 1863, Alice is awoken from a dream of Wonderland by a house fire. Alice's parents are killed and she is able to save herself, but is left with serious burns and psychological damage. She is brought to Rutledge Asylum in a state of catatonia, where several years of treatment fail to rouse Alice from her coma. When Alice's toy rabbit seems to call to her for help, Alice mentally retreats to Wonderland, which appears to have been disfigured by her broken mind. Alice meets the Cheshire Cat, who invites Alice to follow the White Rabbit. Alice learns from nearby village inhabitants that the Queen of Hearts has put Wonderland in decline and despondency, and that the White Rabbit has promised a champion in Alice. Alice is directed to an old gnome who can aid Alice's pursuit of the White Rabbit by reducing her size. The gnome and Alice infiltrate the Fortress of Doors and enter the school inside, where they create an elixir that shrinks Alice and allows her passage to the Vale of Tears. After aiding the Mock Turtle in retrieving his stolen shell from the Duchess, Alice catches up to the White Rabbit, who takes Alice in the direction of the Caterpillar before he is crushed by the normal-sized Hatter's foot. Alice meets with the Caterpillar, who explains to her that Wonderland's current form is the result of Alice's survivor guilt and advises her to slay the Queen of Hearts to restore Wonderland's integrity. Alice returns to normal size after nibbling from a mushroom guarded by the Voracious Centipede. In the center of a plateau, Alice discovers a piece of the Jabberwock's Eye Staff. The voice of an unseen oracle tells Alice that before the Queen of Hearts can be slain, Alice must first eliminate the Queen's sentinel – the Jabberwock, who can only be killed with the completed Eye Staff. In her search for the remaining pieces of the Eye Staff, Alice defeats the Red King in the chess-themed Looking-Glass Land, as well as the Hatter's minions Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Alice later finds that the Hatter is conducting cruel experiments on the March Hare and Dormouse, and he is keeping the Gryphon captive. After killing the Hatter, Alice frees the Gryphon, who offers to rally forces against the Queen of Hearts and takes Alice to the Land of Fire and Brimstone, the abode of the Jabberwock. Within the remains of Alice's old home, the Jabberwock wracks Alice with guilt over her parents' deaths and overpowers her in a fight until the Gryphon returns and rescues Alice by depriving the Jabberwock of one of his eyes. With the Jabberwock's Eye Staff fully assembled, the Gryphon directs Alice to Queensland and takes off with the intention of stopping the Jabberwock himself. On her way to the Queen of Hearts's castle, Alice sees the Gryphon and the Jabberwock engaged in an aerial battle, which ends with the Gryphon mortally wounded. Following Alice's victory against the Jabberwock, the dying Gryphon entrusts Alice with the final battle against the Queen of Hearts. At the entrance to the Queen's Hall, the Cheshire Cat attempts to confess to Alice about the nature of the Queen of Hearts, but he is suddenly executed as he states that "You are two parts of the same..." Alice engages in a fight with a figure puppeteered by the real Queen of Hearts, a giant fleshy tentacled creature who warns Alice that destroying her will destroy them both. Upon Alice's final victory over the Queen of Hearts, Wonderland is restored, and many of the characters who had died in the journey are revived. Her mind repaired, Alice leaves Rutledge Asylum. ===== A character named Andrew Martin requests an unknown operation from a robotic surgeon. However, the robot refuses, as the operation is harmful and violates the First Law of Robotics, which says a robot may never harm a human being. Andrew, however, changes its mind, telling it that he is not a human being. The story jumps to 200 years in the past, when a robot with a serial number beginning with "NDR" is brought to the home of Gerald Martin (referred to as Sir) as a robot butler. Little Miss (Sir's daughter) names him Andrew. Later, Little Miss asks Andrew to carve a pendant out of wood. She shows it to her father, who initially does not believe a robot could carve so skillfully. Sir has Andrew carve more things, and even read books on woodwork. Andrew uses, for the first time, the word "enjoy" to describe why he carves. Sir takes Andrew to U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, Inc. to ask what the source of his creativity is, but they have no good explanation. Sir helps Andrew to sell his products, taking half the profits and putting the other half in a bank account in the name of Andrew Martin (though there is questionable legality to a robot owning a bank account). Andrew uses the money to pay for bodily upgrades, keeping himself in perfect shape, but never has his positronic brain altered. Sir reveals that U.S. Robots has ended a study on generalized pathways and creative robots, frightened by Andrew's unpredictability. Little Miss, at this point, is married and has a child, Little Sir. Andrew, feeling Sir now has someone to replace his grown-up children, asks to purchase his own freedom with Little Miss's support. Sir is apprehensive, fearing that freeing Andrew legally would require bringing attention to Andrew's bank account, and might result in the loss of all Andrew's money. However, he agrees to attempt it. Though facing initial resistance, Andrew wins his freedom. Sir refuses to let Andrew pay him. It isn't long afterwards that he falls ill, and dies after asking Andrew to stand by his deathbed. Andrew begins to wear clothes, and Little Sir (who orders Andrew to call him George) is a lawyer. He insists on dressing like a human, even though most humans refuse to accept him. In a conversation with George, Andrew realizes he must also expand his vocabulary, and decides to go to the library. On his way, he gets lost, and stands in the middle of a field. Two humans begin to walk across the field towards him, and he asks them the way to the library. They instead harass him, and threaten to take him apart when George arrives and scares them off. As he takes Andrew to the library, Andrew explains that he wants to write a book on the history of robots. The incident with the two humans angers Little Miss, and she forces George to go to court for robot rights. George's son, Paul, helps out by fighting the legal battle as George convinces the public. Eventually, the public opinion is turned in favor of robots, and laws are passed banning robot-harming orders. Little Miss, after the court case is won, dies. Andrew, with Paul's help, gets a meeting with the head of U.S. Robots. He requests that his body be replaced by an android, so that he may better resemble a human. After Paul threatens legal action, U.S. Robots agrees to give Andrew an android body. However, U.S. Robots retaliates by creating central brains for their robots, so that no individual robot may become like Andrew. Meanwhile, Andrew, with his new body, decides to study robobiology - the science of organic robots like himself. Andrew begins to design a system allowing androids to eat food like humans, solely for the purpose of becoming more like a person. After Paul's death, Andrew comes to U.S. Robots again, meeting with Alvin Magdescu, Director of Research. He offers U.S. Robots the opportunity to market his newly designed prostheses for human use, as well as his own. He successfully has the digestive system installed in his body, and plans to create an excretory system to match. Meanwhile, his products are successfully marketed and he becomes a highly honored inventor. As he reaches 150 years of age, a dinner is held in his honor in which he is labeled the Sesquicentennial Robot. Andrew is not yet satisfied, however. Andrew decides that he wants to be a man. He obtains the backing of Feingold and Martin (the law firm of George and Paul) and seeks out Li-Hsing, a legislator and chairman of the Science and Technology committee, hoping that the World Legislature will declare him a human being. Li-Hsing advises him that it will be a long legal battle, but he says he is willing to fight for it. Feingold and Martin begins to slowly bring cases to court that generalize what it means to be human, hoping that despite his prosthetics, Andrew can be regarded as essentially human. Most legislators, however, are still hesitant due to his immortality. The first scene of the story is explained as Andrew seeks out a robotic surgeon to perform an ultimately fatal operation: altering his positronic brain so that it will decay with time. He has the operation arranged so that he will live to be 200. When he goes before the World Legislature, he reveals his sacrifice, moving them to declare him a man. The World President signs the law on Andrew's two-hundredth birthday, declaring him a bicentennial man. As Andrew lies on his deathbed, he tries to hold onto the thought of his humanity, but as his consciousness fades his last thought is of Little Miss. ===== Sue Charlton is a feature writer for her father's newspaper Newsday, and is dating the editor Richard Mason. She travels to Walkabout Creek, a small hamlet in the Northern Territory of Australia, to meet Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee, a bushman reported to have lost half a leg to a saltwater crocodile before crawling hundreds of miles to safety. On arrival in Walkabout Creek, she cannot locate Dundee, but she is entertained at the local pub by Dundee's business partner Walter "Wally" Reilly. When Dundee arrives that night, Sue finds his leg is not missing, but he has a large scar which he refers to as a "love bite". While Sue dances with Dundee, a group of city kangaroo shooters make fun of Dundee's status as a crocodile hunter, causing him to knock the leader out with one punch. At first, Sue finds Dundee less "legendary" than she had been led to believe, being unimpressed by his pleasant-mannered but uncouth behaviour and clumsy advances towards her. She is later amazed, however, when in the outback, she witnesses "Mick" (as Dundee is called) subduing a water buffalo, taking part in an aboriginal (Pintinjarra) tribal dance ceremony, killing a snake with his bare hands, and scaring away the kangaroo shooters from the pub from their cruel sport. The next morning, offended by Mick's assertion that as a "sheila" she is incapable of surviving the Outback alone, Sue goes out alone to prove him wrong but takes his rifle with her at his request. Mick follows her to make sure she is okay, but when she stops at a billabong to refill her canteen, she is attacked by a large crocodile and is rescued by Mick. Overcome with gratitude and seeing Mick's willingness to change his bigotry, Sue finds herself becoming attracted to him. Sue invites Mick to return with her to New York City on the pretext of continuing the feature story. At first Wally scoffs at her suggestion, but he changes his mind when she tells him the newspaper would cover all expenses. Once in New York, Mick is perplexed by local behaviour and customs but overcomes problematic situations including two encounters with a pimp and two attempted robberies. After this Sue realises her true feelings for him, and they kiss. At a society dinner at her father's home in honour of Sue's safe return and of Mick's visit, Richard proposes marriage to Sue, and in a haze of confused emotions, she initially accepts in spite of Richard having recently revealed his self-centered and insensitive "true colours" during a period of intoxication. Mick, disheartened at Sue's engagement, decides to go "walkabout" around the United States, but Sue has a change of heart and, deciding not to marry Richard, follows Mick to a subway station. There, she cannot reach him through the crowd on the platform, but has members of the crowd relay her message to him, whereupon he climbs up to the rafters and walks to Sue on the heads and raised hands of the onlookers and kisses her. ===== ===== The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born. This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard; on the Discworld, the number eight has many of the magical properties that are sometimes ascribed to seven in other mythologies. Billet wants to pass his wizard's staff on to his successor. However, the newborn child is actually a girl, Esk (full name Eskarina Smith). Since Billet notices his mistake too late, the staff passes on to her. As Esk grows up, it becomes apparent that she has uncontrollable powers, and the local witch Granny Weatherwax decides to travel with her to Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to help her gain the knowledge required to properly manage her powers. But a female wizard is something completely unheard of on the Discworld. Esk is unsuccessful in her first, direct, attempt to gain entry to the University, but Granny Weatherwax finds another way in; as a servant. While there, Esk witnesses the progress of an apprentice wizard named Simon, whom she had met earlier, on her way to Ankh-Morpork. Simon is a natural talent who invents a whole new way of looking at the universe that reduces it to component numbers. Simon's magic causes a hole to be opened into the Dungeon Dimensions while he is in Esk's presence. The staff, acting to protect Esk, strikes Simon on the head, closing the hole but trapping his mind in the Dungeon Dimensions. Esk throws the staff away, believing that it attacked Simon. While attempting to rescue him, Esk ends up in the Dungeon Dimensions. The extreme cold there causes the staff, now washed out to sea, to create a huge ice sheet, causing a storm that floods the university as well as the surrounding city. Esk and Simon discover the weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions—if you can use magic, but don't, they become scared and weakened. With the help of Granny Weatherwax and Archchancellor Cutangle, who have retrieved the staff, they both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld. Esk and Simon go on to develop a new kind of magic, based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others. ===== Gabriel, an office temp by day and aspiring Broadway composer by night, makes eye contact with Mark, a go-go dancer in a gay bar. The two meet again in the subway the same night, and go back to Gabriel's place to have sex. They are thwarted in the attempt first by Gabriel's aspiring actress friend Katherine, who is obsessed with her role in an adaptation of Salomé set in a women's prison, and then by Gabriel's roommate Rich, who returns home with his girlfriend Judy and has similar (and conflicting) plans for the apartment. Gabriel and Rich argue over which of them should get to use the apartment that night, and decide to settle the matter with a coin toss. When Gabriel loses the coin toss and he and Mark have to leave, Gabriel seeks out his friend Perry to request the use of Perry's place. Unfortunately, as Perry escorts Gabriel and Mark there, they run into Perry's ex-boyfriend. Perry and his ex tearfully reconcile and they go back to Perry's, frustrating Gabriel and Mark yet again. The two then decide to hit a gay club for some dancing. There, a malicious drag queen, Miss Coco, corners Gabriel in the restroom. She badmouths Mark to Gabriel, telling him of the time they trickedwhich sounds very much like how Gabriel and Mark metand how Mark left abruptly after climaxing, leaving her with a fake phone number to boot. Crushed by this news, Gabriel decides to take off. Mark follows Gabriel back to his and Rich's apartment to talkand also because he has left his house keys there. They go in to look for the keys and try to talk things out while Judy mediates, topless. Mark asserts that while he did indeed trick once with Miss Coco, it was actually the latter who tried to take advantage of him by secretly videotaping their encounter without Mark's consent. Gabriel accepts this story, but still does not trust Mark, so Mark leaves angrily. Judy then finds Mark's keys, and Gabriel chases after Mark with them down into the subway. Just when it seems that Mark is gone forever, he reappears; he and Gabriel made a connection after all. Having reconciled, they decide to get something to eat but run into Katherine and some of her theatre friends at a diner, where Katherine proceeds to monopolize the conversation. Gabriel finally blows up at her, and Katherine, humiliated, melts down and leaves in a huff. Gabriel chases after her and apologizes; they smooth things over and Katherine and her friends depart. As the new morning dawns, Mark gives Gabriel his phone number, they kiss, and Mark heads home. Gabriel calls the number on a nearby payphone, and is relieved to learn that it's Mark's actual number. While they never found a spot to trick, Mark and Gabriel instead formed a budding relationship beyond the simple one night stand they'd first been trying for. ===== The story follows a plot by a secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet king, under the control of the Supreme Grand Master. Using a stolen magic book, they summon a dragon to strike fear into the people of Ankh-Morpork. Once a suitable state of terror and panic has been created, the Supreme Grand Master proposes to put forth an "heir" to the throne, who will slay the dragon and rid the city of tyranny. It is the task of the Night Watch - Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and new volunteer Carrot Ironfoundersson - to stop them, with some help from the Librarian of the Unseen University, an orangutan trying to get the stolen book back. The Watch is generally regarded as a bunch of incompetents who walk around ringing their bells without accomplishing anything, which is largely accurate. Carrot's arrival changes this; Whereas the existing officers are either cynical, incompetent, mildly crooked or all three, Carrot is honest, straightforward and idealistic. Additionally, he is 6'6" tall and enormously strong. Having memorized the Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork, on his first day he tries to arrest the head of the Thieves' Guild for theft (the Thieves' Guild is permitted a quota of legally licensed thieving, a concept that the book of ancient Laws does not take into account). Brought up as a dwarf – dwarves are a literal, dutiful people – Carrot has an absolute dedication and conscientiousness that unnerve his colleagues who view them as bordering on the suicidal in the face of the reality of Ankh-Morpork life. Carrot's policing style is reminiscent of traditional idealized portrayals of British police, but astoundingly, it actually seems to work. Carrot's enthusiasm strikes a chord with Vimes, who decides that the Watch should try to carry out its ostensible duties. Vimes begins investigating the dragon's appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot. The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon's own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork (keeping the head of the Elucidated Brethren as its mouthpiece) and demands that the people of Ankh-Morpork bring it gold and regular virgin sacrifices. Shortly after, Vimes is imprisoned in the same cell as the Patrician, who has been leading a relatively comfortable life with the help of the rats he uses as spies. The Librarian helps Vimes to escape and he runs to the aid of Sybil, who has been chosen as the first virgin to be sacrificed. The Watch's swamp dragon, Errol, reorganises his digestive system to form a supersonic propulsion system and fights the king, eventually knocking the king out of the sky with a shock wave. As the assembled crowd closes in on the king for the kill, Sybil tries to plead for the dragon's life. Carrot instead places it under arrest, however Errol lets the dragon escape, revealing that the dragon is in fact female, the battle between the two being a courtship ritual. Sam Vimes proceeds to arrest the Supreme Grand Master (Lupine Wonse, the Patrician's secretary) but accidentally causes the man's death when he tells Carrot to "throw the book at him." The man was attempting to summon another dragon, and dies from falling off a broken floor after being hit by the Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask only for a modest pay raise, a new tea kettle, and a dartboard. However, the Watch House at Treacle Mine Road was destroyed by the dragon. Lady Ramkin donates her childhood home at Pseudopolis Yard as the new Watch House. ===== The main character of Pyramids is Pteppic, the crown prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi, the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt. Young Pteppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he mystically senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, as Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not actually allow the pharaohs to rule the country. After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Pteppic is forced to escape from the palace with a handmaiden named Ptraci, condemned to death for not wishing to die so as to aid the last king in the afterlife. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Pteppic's father warps space-time so much that it "rotates" Djelibeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by ninety degrees. Pteppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom's multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi's dead rulers come back to life. Also, the nations of Ephebe and Tsort prepare for war with one another as Djelibeybi can no longer act as a buffer zone between the two. Eventually, Pteppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Pteppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby restarting the cycle). Pteppic then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half- sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes. ===== Several episodes explore the theme that each resurrection creates a new incarnation with little to no memory of its past life, the immediate past incarnation referred to as the current's "father". Thus, every incarnation is free to develop its own personality and pursue its own personal interests. The vampire is able to pose as a "dreadful dynasty, the counts of Duckula". The preceding generations included knights, sorcerers, scientists, artists, Egyptologists and even professional gamblers, all of whom are also secretly "vicious vampire ducks". As the title sequence puts it, "the latest reincarnation did not run according to plan". The successful conclusion of the ritual, which was to be performed "once a century, when the moon is in the 8th house of Aquarius", requires blood, the source of sustenance for any vampire, but Nanny accidentally substitutes ketchup. Consequently, the newest version is not a blood-sucking vampire, but a vegetarian one. He is more interested in juicy carrots than hunting for victims. Igor is appalled. Even worse, his "new" master is obsessed with pursuing wealth and fame as an entertainer. The stories often revolve around Duckula's adventures in search of riches and fame, assisted by the castle's ability to teleport around the world. Another regularly occurring theme is the repeated attempt by Igor to turn Duckula into a proper vampire. Some episodes feature Duckula's nemesis Doctor Von Goosewing (based on Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, the nemesis of Dracula), a vampire hunter who blindly refuses to believe the current incarnation of Duckula is harmless. There is also an array of bizarre, often supernatural foes, from zombies to mechanical werewolves. Another feature of the show is a cuckoo clock whose bat-like Borscht Belt comedian styled characters come out and make jokes about the current situation (or corny jokes in general). The clock is also a vital part of the castle's traveling mechanism, and even has the ability to turn back time. A series of annuals and monthly comics further detailing the adventures of Count Duckula and associated characters were released throughout the time that the series originally aired and for a short time afterwards. =====