From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Bleacher Bums takes place in the bleachers of Chicago's Wrigley Field. The characters are a bunch of Chicago Cubs fans, watching a game in progress on a summer afternoon. Most of them have been allegedly gathering here for some time and know each other; even if they might not necessarily like or tolerate each other. Beer is being drunk, hot dogs are being eaten, and friendly wagers start to take on increasing importance. ===== Black art student Perry (Anthony Mackie) is thrown out by his parents for his homosexuality and is further disturbed by a potential romantic entanglement with a white boy in his class. He befriends an elderly homeless man named Bruce Nugent (Roger Robinson), who turns out to have been an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Through recalling his friendships with other important Harlem Renaissance figures Langston Hughes (Daniel Sunjata), Aaron Douglas (Leith M. Burke), Wallace Thurman (Ray Ford) and Zora Neale Hurston (Aunjanue Ellis). Bruce chronicles some of the challenges he faced as a young, black, gay writer in the 1920s. Perry discovers that the challenges of homophobia and racism he faces in the early 21st century closely parallel Bruce's. ===== Katherine Thatcher (Mia Sara), a young woman trying to learn the identity of her father, is drawn into a Romanian vampire underworld. She is unaware that her father (Perkins) is a vampire. The vampire community is surprised to find that someone has been born from a union between a vampire and a woman and they seek to draw her into their plans. ===== Show Business parodies and satirises formulaic Bollywood cinema, using it as a metaphor in an attempt to raise and answer questions about contemporary India and Indians. It is a fictional work that tells the story of Ashok Banjara, a Bollywood superstar. Ashok Banjara is critically injured while shooting for a film and his entire life in Bollywood flashes in front of his eyes as he lies suspended between life and death in a hospital. The character and many incidents of Ashok Banjara's life are inspired by that of Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest superstar in Bollywood's history. ===== Show Business begins with Ashok Banjara, a superstar in Bollywood, fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of a hospital after an accident on the sets of a film that he is shooting. Suspended between life and death he sees his entire life in Bollywood flashing in front of his eyes like a film. Details of Banjara's career in Bollywood are revealed primarily in flashback. A young Ashok Banjara leaves Delhi and comes to Bombay to make his fortune and find fame in Bollywood. He achieves the big league with his second film Godambo that establishes him as an action star. Soon Banjara is known for playing the role of an angry young man fighting for the poor and the helpless against the establishment. A successful Ashok Banjara marries Maya, a talented co-star and convinces her to stay away from films for the sake of the family. Banjara, though is something of a philanderer, bedding most of his heroines. The actress Mehnaz Elahi becomes his mistress. At the pinnacle of his success as a Bollywood star, Banjara is enticed to join politics and he wins the election easily (from his politician father's constituency). However, to his dismay, he finds that the party has no significant role for him and he languishes in the back benches in the parliament. Meanwhile, Banjara makes a film, Mechanic. This film is Banjara's first flop. Sometime later Banjara is implicated in a money-laundering scandal. His party extricates him by saying that he is irrelevant in the party's scheme of things. Banjara quits politics. The scandal has destroyed his fortune and Banjara finds that he has to seek work again. With no mainstream director or producer ready to cast him now, in desperation Banjara agrees to work in a mythological film (he hates mythological) called Kalki. It is on the sets of Kalki that Banjara meets his accident. Fate is not without its sense of irony. Kalki is supposed to be Banjara's comeback vehicle - one that will restore his fortunes and once again establish him solidly with his audience. Banjara's accident on the sets of Kalki sees an audience of hundreds gathered outside the hospital waiting for news on his health. Millions of others praying for his recovery from their homes. ===== Looking in his book for Earth creatures and finding the Tasmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian gets the idea of capturing Taz for his zoo. He heads to Earth, beams Taz up into his flying saucer, and takes Taz to his Martian zoo meanwhile Taz escapes. After making his way back to Earth, Taz returns to Mars and visits Marvin's house to find and defeat him in battle. after defeating Marvin, Taz steals a space ship and steers it to Earth. The game ends when the devil eats a pile of fruit on the way home and went away spinning all the way. ===== Manor Farm is a formerly prosperous farm that has fallen on hard times, while suffering under the now-ineffective leadership of its aggressive and drunken owner, Mr. Jones. One night, Old Major, the prize pig and the second-oldest animal on the farm, calls all of the animals on the farm together for a meeting, where he decries their abuse and unhappiness under Jones, encouraging the animals to oust him, while emphasizing that they must hold true to their convictions after they have gained freedom. With that, he teaches the animals a revolutionary song, "Beasts of England", before collapsing dead mid-song, much to their horror. The next morning, Mr. Jones neglects to feed the animals for breakfast, and they decide to break into his storehouse to help themselves. When Mr. Jones wakes up, before threatening them with his whip, the animals revolt and drive him away from the farm, eventually renaming it "Animal Farm". Several of Jones' acquaintances in the surrounding village rally against them, but are beaten back after a fierce fight. The animals begin destroying every trace of the farmer's influence, starting with the weapons used against them. A subsequent investigation of the farmhouse leads them to decide against living there, though one of the head pigs, an antagonistic Berkshire boar named Napoleon, takes interest in the abandoned house. He finds a litter of puppies left motherless and begins to raise them in private. The Commandments of Animalism are written on a wall of the barn to illustrate their community's laws. The most important is the last, stating that: "All animals are equal." All the animals work, but the workhorse, Boxer, and his friend Benjamin the donkey, who is also the film's protagonist, put in extra work. Meanwhile, Snowball attempts to teach the animals about reading and writing. Food becomes plentiful and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership, and set aside special food items "by virtue of their brainwork". As winter sets in, Snowball announces his idea for a windmill, while Napoleon opposes it. As Snowball defiantly swears to lower the animals' workdays, Napoleon has his dogs chase down Snowball and kill him. Afterwards, Napoleon declares that Snowball is a traitor and makes himself the new leader, along with Squealer as his propagandist, and makes changes. Meetings will no longer be held, but instead, he will make the decisions. The animals eventually work harder because of the promise of an easier life, once the windmill is completed. During this time, the pigs also decide to alter their own laws. "No animal shall sleep in beds", is changed to "No animal shall sleep in beds with sheets", when the pigs are discovered to have been sleeping in the old farmhouse. Before long, Napoleon's greed drives him to negotiate with a local trader named Mr. Whymper for a supply of both jellies and jams. The price is all of the hens' eggs. When the hens discover this, they attempt to revolt by throwing their eggs at the pigs during an attempted seizure by force. To instill fear, Napoleon holds a "trial" where a sheep and duck join the hens accused as traitors. They are taken outside and murdered by the dogs, with their blood used to add the words "without cause" to the end of the commandment "No animal shall kill another animal." Napoleon bans "Beasts of England", stating that the revolution is complete and the dream of Animal Farm has finally been realized. He then threatens to execute any animal caught singing it. Growing jealous of Whymper's financial success due to his trading with Animal Farm, a hostile group of pirate farmers attack the farm. Mr. Jones, shunned for his failure and drunkenness, uses dynamite to blow up the windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at a great cost of lives and Boxer is wounded. Boxer continues working until he collapses one night while working on rebuilding the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer away, which Benjamin recognizes as the "death wagon" from Whymper's glue factory. Afterwards, a supply of alcohol is secretly delivered. At the same time, Squealer delivers a phony speech, claiming to have been near Boxer's side at his deathbed, and states that his last words were to glorify Napoleon. The upset animals see through the propaganda and recognize how tyrannical Napoleon has become, but are driven away by the snarling dogs before anything can be done. That night, the pigs toast to Boxer's memory by consuming whiskey they bought with his life. Years pass and Napoleon, through civilizing his fellow pigs, has expanded the neighboring farms into an enterprise. The pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, drink alcohol and wear clothes. The Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". This change finally spurs the oppressed animals of the nearby farms to gather at Animal Farm to decide upon their future. Napoleon holds a dinner party for a delegation of outside pigs, who congratulate him on having the hardest-working and lowest-consuming animals in the country. Napoleon gives a toast to a future where pigs own and operate farms everywhere. Benjamin, overhearing the conversation, briefly imagines that all the pigs have taken on the likeness of Mr. Jones. Realizing that their living situation is even worse than it was before the revolution, the animals storm the farmhouse to overthrow Napoleon and avenge the deaths of Snowball, Boxer, and their compatriots. Napoleon tries to summon his guard dogs, but they are too drunk to respond, while the pigs in attendance are too scared to face the invading horde. The animals trample Napoleon and the pigs to death before reclaiming the farm, with Benjamin standing in grim triumph at their head. ===== It is initially set in Japan following the end of World War II and follows the story of Lustbader's hero Nicholas Linnear, a man raised by Anglo-Chinese parents. As a youth, Linnear is introduced to the world of aikido, kenjutsu, and iai-jutsu at a local dojo of the Itto Ryu also attended by his cruel and violent older cousin Saigō. Linnear is a natural and soon becomes adept, much to the annoyance of Saigō. During a training exercise Nicholas and Saigō duel and Nicholas defeats him. Saigō is enraged and leaves swearing revenge. When they next meet Saigō is a considerably more skilled martial artist than Linnear and defeats him quickly. Later we learn Saigō has joined a Kuji-kiri ryu in order to learn black ninjutsu and has become a ninja. Linnear himself soon becomes introduced to Aka i ninjutsu, or the red, ostensibly "good" side of ninjutsu, through the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu. The ninja are introduced not as magical or almost mythical people, but rather as supreme martial artists who have reached the highest level and seek to progress further. It is suggested that by becoming ninja they strive to advance to an even higher plane, gaining skills such as haragei, or sensing the surrounding world in a different manner. However, we soon learn this is not without a high personal cost. Many years later, Linnear has moved to America and leads a peaceful academic existence. After quitting his job in advertising, he meets a beautiful, if disturbed, woman called Justine with whom he falls in love. This peace is shattered when a prominent local businessman is murdered in an extremely unusual manner (by a poisoned ninja shuriken). The local police are baffled and consult Nicholas as he is known to be an authority on oriental studies. Linnear quickly realises that a ninja is the murderer and the next target is his new girlfriend's father, Raphael Tomkin, for whom he begins working as a bodyguard, although not without persuasion. Linnear also befriends Lew Croaker, a local detective. Linnear's investigations reveal Saigō is the ninja and this puts him on a deadly collision course with his older cousin. ===== During an episode of The Adventures of Captain Proton on the holodeck in a recurring Voyager hologram program in the style of vintage movie serials such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Ensigns Tom Paris and Harry Kim are forced to leave the program running when spatial distortions trap the ship and disrupt their control over the computer. While the command staff of Voyager seek to discover a way to free the ship from the spatial distortions, extra-dimensional aliens who exist in a photonic state cross over from their own dimension through a distortion located in the holodeck. There, they are detected and attacked by Dr. Chaotica, who believes them to be from the fifth dimension, and whose holographic (photonic) weaponry — though harmless to humans — is deadly to the aliens. Eventually, the crew discover the war being waged between Chaotica and the fifth dimension and must defeat him by playing out their roles as the fictional Captain Proton (Tom Paris), his sidekick Buster Kincaid (Harry Kim) the President of Earth (the Doctor, who is himself a photonic being), and Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People - a campy space queen who is destined to be Chaotica's bride. Paris asks Captain Janeway to take on the role of femme fatale Queen Arachnia. Mortified, she refuses such an indignity, but reluctantly agrees in order to help Voyager out of its predicament. Inside the program and now in full costume, Janeway/Queen Arachnia uses her charms to try to manipulate Chaotica into lowering the "lightning shield" protecting his fortress under the pretence that her loyal subjects in their "spider ships" can attend their wedding. Chaotica becomes suspicious of Arachnia so she attempts to deactivate the shield herself but Chaotica traps her in his "confinement rings" force field for double crossing him, telling her he will kill her after their wedding night. Using a vial of her "spider pheromones" to hypnotize Chaotica's guard, Arachnia manipulates him into freeing her. She then deactivates the lightning shield enabling Captain Proton to fire his "destructo beam" at Chaotica and defeat him, thereby freeing Voyager and allowing ship and crew to continue on their journey home. ===== ===== Abelard, arguing with his teacher William of Champeaux, sets up a new, dialectic philosophical school of his own, which proves popular and is even fashionable at the royal court of France. One of his followers is Heloise, with whom he also starts a sexual affair, under the guise of private tuition. His school's success worries Bernard of Clairvaux, who feels it is subjecting divine revelation to reason and may thus destroy the Roman Catholic Church and Christianity itself, but for now he merely subjects Abelard to surveillance rather than opposition. Bernard and Abelard do meet, briefly, at the court when Bernard goes there to force the king to give back lands he had seized illegally from a French bishop. Abelard tries to explain that he is not trying to destroy religion but to better understand it through reason using the brain and intellect that God has given him. However, Bernard will not accept this and refuses to accept Abelard's challenge to dispute with him publicly, as Bernard dogmatically feels he is right and Abelard is wrong and so there is nothing to dispute. Bernard's agents Alberic and Lotholf reveal the affair to Heloise's uncle and surrogate father Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame, and he is disgusted by it. Abelard offers to marry Heloise to resolve the situation and remove the disgrace, but she refuses, wanting to be his lover rather than conform to the oppressive norm of medieval marriage. She is smuggled out of Paris to Abelard's sister Denise in Brittany, where she gives birth to their child and waits until two years later Abelard arrives. They return to Paris and get married secretly in Fulbert's garden, but he then refuses to accept a secret marriage and they flee together to a nunnery where Heloise was taught as a girl. There they are kept apart in separate rooms, but secretly consummate their marriage on the altar of the monastery chapel. Abelard is then hunted down and castrated by Fulbert's cousins in Fulbert's presence, and both he and Heloise are forced to enter monasteries. Bernard at last accepts the challenge to publicly dispute with Abelard before the king and bishops of France, but this turns into a show trial when Bernard immediately lists 12 points on which Abelard is heretical and Abelard refuses to answer them, maintaining a complete dignified silence and thus forcing his chief supporter the king to back Bernard and declare Abelard a heretic. Abelard and Bernard meet, and fail to make a reconciliation, and then Heloise attends Abelard on his deathbed. After Abelard's death, Bernard burns all of Abelard's heretical works and thus thinks he has won the struggle with him. He then goes to Heloise to affect a reconciliation, but this also fails. The play then ends abruptly with Heloise anachronistically showing Bernard a 20th- century, Penguin copy of the couple's letters, to prove that he has not erased Abelard and Heloise from history as effectively as he thought. ===== A year prior to the first scene, Stan Laurel married Oliver Hardy's sister (played by Oliver), and Oliver married Stan's sister (played by Stan) in a double wedding. They all live together and Stan and Ollie work in the same office. After some gags involving telephones, the wives are seen making preparations for a surprise party to celebrate their first anniversary during which a cake lands on Mrs. Laurel's head, causing her to bear an uncanny resemblance to a portrait of Elizabeth I on the dining room wall. Stan and Ollie then arrive but the couples cannot help but squabble throughout the party. In the final scenes, a delivery boy (played by Charlie Hall) arrives with another cake, which is thrown in Mrs. Laurel's face by an acrimonious Mrs. Hardy. ===== Harry Jones (Secombe) is a clerk in Mr Crab's general mercantile store and an amateur actor in community theatre, where he is currently playing a Scotland Yard inspector, "Batts of the Yard". When the absentminded Professor Osrick Purehart (Bentine) leaves a secret military formula in the store, mayhem ensues as two suspicious secret agents (actually enemy spies), who have been shadowing the professor, question Harry regarding the professor, none of them realising that Harry now has the formula in his possession. Convinced by the two spies to follow the professor, Harry goes to an Army post, Camp Warwell, where he is mistakenly enlisted in the Z Men, ostensibly an elite unit guarding atomic secrets but in reality a ragtag group of reservists, retreads, and others of marginal (at best) competence. The spies kidnap an adjutant newly assigned to the camp and one of them then impersonates him to gain entry to Camp Warwell. The post's commander, Colonel Bloodnok (Sellers), has been assigned for security purposes a supposed "daughter" (Carole Carr) who is actually a female MI5 operative. Harry soon becomes smitten with the "daughter", and they work together to foil an attempt by the secret agents to purloin Professor Purehart's formula.Time Out London review ===== Nina Yamada is a seventh grade student who dreams about a prince charming who will always protect her, no matter what. One day, Nina accidentally swallowed a Crystal Pearl that she assumed was candy that came with her cake. But the Crystal Pearl was the goal of a sorcery examination. Nina becomes the new target by many probationer sorcerers and goes on for half a year. During this whole mix up, she meets two wizard boys named Zero and Ichii and comes to a conclusion that they protect her until a potion is made to remove the Crystal Pearl from her. However, this potion will take about six months to complete. Despite how long it took Zero and Ichii decided to protect Nina. Even at school and at home, Zero and Ichii protect Nina where ever she goes. Despite Nina finding it annoying that the two follow her around everywhere, it is for her own good. ===== Jase (Jason Mason) works as a lagger, one of a gang of labourers considered "too dumb to draft" into the army and thus conscripted into labour on public works. His group has the task of connecting a new nuclear power station to the grid in the Highlands of Scotland, which have become colder and sparsely inhabited due to climate-change. This takes place against the backdrop of a long-running war between China and the West, which started due to an air-rage incident when a Chinese businessman, under stress due to a smoking-ban, got mistaken for a terrorist. Jase and his fellow laggers encounter a hitchhiker named Ailiss, whom Jase identifies as one of a group of New Age Settlers (also known as crusties or bandits), people who foresee the imminent end of modern society and who have retreated to a semi-hidden rural commune. However, their presence worries the authorities, who become concerned about the security of their nuclear-power station. Believing that they have inadvertently set the settlers up for arrest or worse, three laggers travel to the commune to warn them. Discovering the commune under attack, they accidentally defeat the government forces by allowing their truck to crash into and destroy a helicopter. Jase finds himself acclaimed a hero by the settlers, and decides to join them. ===== Record-company owner Marty Starr (Rik Mayall) concludes that Marla Dorland, aka Mavis Davis (Jane Horrocks) is a fading star. Meanwhile, he has to meet alimony payments to his ex (Jaclyn Mendoza), while he's forced to promote the untalented son of a mobster, Rathbone (Danny Aiello). To get out from under, Marty decides that the death of Marla/Mavis could jolt record sales by turning her into a legend. He hires hitman Clint (Marc Warren), but eliminating Mavis turns out to be more difficult than they thought. ===== Gar Davis has to get out of Largo in a hurry because a man's been killed. He comes across a man in Comanche territory killed by an arrow. Gar takes the man's jacket, then shoves the corpse over a cliff, hoping the posse pursuing him will think he's the one who is dead. Trying to steal a horse, Gar's face is grazed by a bullet shot by young Chad Grey, whose mother Celia tends to the stranger's wound. Indians attack the house. Gar helps fend them off, after which he and the Greys take off on horseback toward the safety of Fort Dobbs. On the trail, an outlaw called Clett kills a Comanche who's about to bushwhack Gar, saving his life. Gar doesn't trust him, though, because Clett is carrying cases of rifles that he could be selling to the Indians rather than to soldiers at the fort. Clett tries to take advantage of Celia, but even though Gar comes to her aid, Celia no longer trusts him because she's found the jacket Gar stole. It belonged to her husband, so Celia is now convinced that Gar murdered him, making her a widow. Fort Dobbs' soldiers are all dead. A sheriff appreciates Gar's help fighting the Indians, but lets him know he must place Gar under arrest. Gar claims he killed the Largo man in self-defense after an argument. Permitted to ride to Santa Fe to get help, Gar ends up killing Clett for the rifles, bringing them back to save the fort and to win the widow's trust. ===== The story of Shiren the Wanderer 2 is set before the events of the original Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, and follows Shiren, a ten-year-old boy who travels through the mountains with his weasel friend Koppa. They come across the village of Natane, where they stop to eat. While they are eating, a tribe of demons attacks the village; Shiren decides to build a castle to defend the village and the villagers. ===== Valuable antique weather vanes are being stolen in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. A Navy employee removes a top secret document from the Pentagon and then goes missing. Fenton Hardy, Frank and Joe's father, is assigned to find the man and the document. The Hardy brothers discover the connection between the two seemingly unrelated cases. ===== ===== Raju, a courageous and spirited young man, is a caregiver to four young orphans. He is a tourist guide in a picturesque hill station. One of the children is accidentally injured. An ayurvedic guru suggests the only cure for the child's injury - herbs found only on the banks of Lake Manasarovar. Raju goes to the Himalayas to retrieve these powerful herbs. During the same time, a celestial being, Indraja, the daughter of Lord Indra, happens to visit Manasarovar. She accidentally drops her ring there. This ring is her passport to Heaven. Raju finds the ring and starts wearing it, oblivious to its divine power. Indraja is unable to enter Heaven as she lost her ring. Brihaspathi, the Deva-guru, instructs her to go back to Earth to retrieve it before the next Kartik Poornima. In search of the ring, Indraja finds her way to Raju's hometown. Due to her strange language and lack of emotional and social awareness, she is initially considered insane. Her umpteen confessions about her divinity are subject to laughter. Raju and the children take pity on her and provide her shelter in their home. She becomes close to the children and often ends up in trouble trying to take the ring from Raju. In the meanwhile, Raju is caught up in a moral squabble with KP, an arrogant millionaire. KP's goons launch a series of attacks on Raju and Indraja. Raju overcomes them, unaware that the ring is helping him. KP gets suspicious about Raju's supernatural power. KP approaches Mahadrashta, a sorcerer who sacrifices women to attain his powers. Mahadrashta discovers that Indraja is a celestial being and wants to sacrifice her to become immortal. The kids take Indraja on a car ride one day and the car loses control. Raju averts a major accident and blames and abandons Indraja. The youngest of the orphans is critically injured when Mahadrashta's men bomb the school. When everyone's asleep, Indraja puts on the divine ring and saves the child. Raju realises Indraja's true self and repents for his folly. The two realize that they have fallen in love. Raju uses the ring's power to scare K. P. and his goons. During this time, Mahadrashta tries to acquire it from one of the kids by hypnotizing her. A monkey grabs the ring and carries it far away, dropping it in the bowl of Kumkuma at the feet of a statue of Hanuman. Raju and the kids search for the ring in vain. Mahadrashta and his men plant false evidence in Raju's home to fabricate the lie that Indraja is a sorceress. Raju and Indraja are pelted with stones and Indraja is carried away by Mahadrashta. The kids discover the ring and Raju sets out to save Indraja. A hypnotized Indraja does not recognize or respond to their calls. Upon coming in contact with the ring, she comes to her senses and destroys K. P. and his men. Raju kills Mahadrashta, refusing to use the ring, as he believes human power is enough to defeat evil. The very same evening is Kartik Poornima, the final call for Indraja to return to heaven. Her thoughts are flooded with the loving memories of her time with Raju and the kids. She is caught between her love for Raju and her obligation to return to heaven to remain divine and immortal. Indraja throws away her ring and chooses to go back to Raju to lead a mortal life. ===== The Hardy Boys investigate the disappearance of an eighteen- year-old girl suspected of joining a sinister religious cult. A few days later the boys get an offbeat assignment from a comic book publisher: The real life double of his character, Apeman, is turning up everywhere and causing considerable damage. Frank and Joe tackle both cases and uncover an intricate scheme by a clever gang of crooks. ===== When five Egyptian statuettes are stolen from a museum, the Hardy Boys travel to Egypt. En route, the boys are asked to safeguard a mysterious mummy and find themselves tangled in a web of international intrigue. On the Nile, the young detectives uncover a secret hiding place with countless stolen treasures. ===== A painting is stolen, and the Hardy Boys are suspects. Determined to find the artwork, the young detectives fly to Florida, where they disguise themselves and join a group of sinister smugglers. Though the painting fails to appear, an important clue sends the boys on a perilous trek through the Everglades. Threatened at every turn by greedy enemies, the Hardys fight a tricky and powerful battle to expose the truth. ===== When an ancient stone idol disappears, the Hardy Boys are off on another fast-paced adventure. It's a mystery that takes the boys from a primitive village in the Andes Mountains to Antarctica and finally to Easter Island. By using their fine investigative skills, the Hardy Boys find that the mystery of the stone idol is not what it seems. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1981 American novels Category:1981 children's books ===== Chet Morton's cousin, Vern, is on his way to California to find a rare and valuable coin mysteriously missing from his uncle's bank vault. When he stops in Bayport, his brand-new car is stolen. The Hardys take on a double mystery – and double danger – as they head for the West Coast to investigate this sinister mystery. ===== Frank and Joe Hardy receive a special delivery package containing a photo copy of a 200 year old letter supposedly written by the “Outlaw of the Pine Barrens” telling about a lost treasure of silver hidden in the pine forests of New Jersey. This letter arrived at the same time they received a phone call from someone identifying himself as the Outlaw warning them to stay away from the Pine Barrens and forget any ideas of searching for the silver. They determine that the real Outlaw of the Pine Barrens has been dead for two centuries. The Hardys can't pass up this great opportunity for both adventure and mystery and get their gang together of Chet, Biff, and Tony, and head off for a camping trip to New Jersey. In the woods, they soon encounter a criminal gang of smugglers, combined with the “ghost” of the outlaw, and the New Jersey Devil himself, all attempting to thwart their mission. Following a one word clue of “fishhook”, the boys have their father's pilot, Jack Wayne, fly them over the pine barrens in their family plane, the Skyhappy Sal, so they may parachute into the wilderness. This adventure enables them to follow the final clues in order to solve the mystery. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1981 American novels Category:1981 children's books ===== On a visit to Germany the Hardy brothers investigate the theft of plans for a newly invented submarine and the mysterious disappearance of valuable coins and paintings. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1981 American novels Category:1981 children's books Category:Novels set in Germany ===== Lydia Aspen, a seemingly shy girl from a wealthy but isolated background, is encouraged by her aunts, her new carers, to discover the delights of growing up. They entrust her education to Mr Richardson, the young apprentice for Evensford's local newspaper, who is sent to their house to "get a story" about the recent death of Lydia's father. Richardson's access to the Aspens is unusual, as they are rarely seen by anyone from the town and hide behind their stone walls and perimeter of trees; introducing Lydia to the town's inhabitants gives Richardson a great sense of pride. Visiting the Aspen estate also allows Richardson the chance to escape from the great engulfing vacuum of Evensford, with its endless stretch of factory roofs and back alleys. As Lydia and Richardson spend more time together, he realises that his initial concept of Lydia was wrong, that she is far from being shy, and is often impetuous and demanding and enjoys captivating the young men who become her companions. Richardson soon discovers that his promise to love her, no matter what she does to him, is going to push him beyond the pain and feelings he thinks he is capable of experiencing. ===== The movie opens with a bakery truck driving down the street, and Beaver and Wally riding together on Wally's bicycle, delivering morning newspapers. Beaver tosses the newspapers wildly into the air with both hands: one of them plops into a wet cement, another one lands on a roof, one into a dog's mouth, one into a birdbath, one onto a cat, one into a man's leaf-vacuum nozzle, and one lands smack on a painter's head. Then the leaf vacuum explodes and throws dirt through the truck driver's window, causing him to slam on his brakes and have his sticky pies thrown about. Beaver and Wally apologize then ride away. Beaver has his heart set on a bicycle in a store window, but does not think his parents will buy it for him. Eddie Haskell tells him that if he flatters his father by signing up for football, he will get it on his birthday. Beaver joins the football team and endures the practices, despite his disadvantage of being smaller than his teammates. Beaver even goes so far as to refuse his father reading him a bedtime story and kissing him goodnight. Beaver looks forward to his first football game. Ward is glad Beaver signed up for football, but the first game ends poorly when Beaver is tricked into passing the ball to a kid on the opposing team, whom Beaver remembered as a friend from summer camp. When Beaver celebrates his birthday, where guests eat cake and play spin the bottle, he is presented with the new bicycle, as well as a computer. On the first day of school, five days later, Ward and June tell Wally to accompany Beaver for a few days while Beaver gets used to riding his bicycle to school. Beaver has a kind new teacher named Miss Landers. After school, Eddie asks Wally to come to the soda shop to see him flirt with Karen. Eddie does not want the Beaver to follow them, so Wally leaves him alone at the bike rack, telling him he will be back for him. Beaver is polishing his bike when a teenaged boy comes over and asks if he can show Beaver some cool bike tricks. Beaver agrees and the boy shows him some tricks before riding off with the bike. Inside the soda shop, Karen likes Wally and not Eddie. When Wally and Eddie come out of the shop and hear that Beaver's bike was stolen, they look for it, but cannot find it. During dinner that night, the boys try to cover up for the missing bike. When Ward finds out the truth, he is upset with the Beaver, but angrier at Wally because he was responsible for watching Beaver. In the boys' bedroom, they get into a fight, which sends Beaver's new computer flying out the window. Wally grabs the wire and tries to pull it in, but the wire breaks, and it crashes into pieces. This results in Ward completely losing all of his patience and grounding the boys. After the grounding, Beaver skips football practice and studies; and Wally spends time with Karen, who breaks up with him after reuniting with her ex-boyfriend, Kyle. Beaver goes into the city and gets hit by a truck, but is unharmed. Beaver encounters the guy who stole his bike. The youth, who is the younger brother of Kyle, challenges Beaver, as a way of getting his bike back, to climb up to a gigantic coffee mug atop the local cafe, which Beaver falls into and can't get out. The fire department and Ward help get him down, Ward realizing the Beaver may be under too much pressure. Ward had found out about Beaver skipping football practice and says Beaver can quit the team; but Beaver rejoins the team. During the last game, he catches the ball and scores a touchdown, while chasing after his stolen bike. At the Mayfield Festival, he again encounters the boy on the stolen bike and chases him. Kyle trips the Beaver to help his little brother escape, and Wally retaliates by pushing Kyle into a tub of fudge. Karen is also put off by Kyle's bullying and leaves him for Wally. Beaver uses a concession stand to block the boy's way, causing the boy to fly across a judges' table of pies set up to be judged and into an entire cart of them. Beaver gets his bike back. At home, Ward sees him polishing it; tells him that it would be safer if it stays in the house; and, at Beaver's request, reads him a bedtime story. ===== After her young son is killed in a bank robbery, the widowed dance-hall hostess Kit Tilden (Maureen O'Hara) is determined to bury him beside his father in Siringo, now deserted and located in Apache territory. Yellowleg (Brian Keith), the ex-army Northern sergeant who accidentally killed her son, decides to help take the body across the desert to be buried, whether Kit wants help or not. He forces the other two bank robbers - Turk, a Confederate deserter; and Billy, a gunslinger - to accompany them. After Billy attacks Kit, Yellowleg throws him out of their camp. Turk then deserts. Yellowleg and Kit become closer during the journey to Siringo. After arriving at the long abandoned settlement, they discover that Turk and Billy have followed them, leading to a gunfight between the three men. ===== Paul, Matt and Will, three best friends decide to go on holiday together. Paul (James Dreyfus) brings his lover Ben, but their five-year relationship is unstable owing to Paul's continued moodiness over the death of his brother Mark; Matt brings Owen, with whom he wants a lifelong relationship but whose boisterous personality doesn't suit him; and Will brings Adam, a 20-year-old one-night stand. Mark's lover also comes along for some sense of closure. ===== ===== On the Northwest Frontier of India, circa 1880, contact has been lost with a British outpost at Tantrapur in the midst of a telegraph message. Colonel Weed dispatches a detachment of 25 British Indian Army troops to investigate, led by three sergeants of the Royal Engineers: MacChesney, Cutter, and Ballantine, long-time friends and veteran campaigners. Although they are a disciplinary headache for their colonel, they are the right men to send on a dangerous mission. Accompanying the detail are six Indian camp workers, including regimental bhisti (water carrier) Gunga Din, who longs to throw off his lowly status and become a soldier of the Queen. They find Tantrapur apparently deserted and set about repairing the telegraph. However, they are soon surrounded by hostile natives. The troops fight their way out, taking heavy losses. Colonel Weed and Major Mitchell identify an enemy weapon brought back by the survivors as belonging to the Thuggee, a murder cult that had been suppressed 50 years previously. Weed intends to send MacChesney and Cutter back with a larger force, in order to retake the town and complete the telegraph repairs. Ballantine, however, is due to muster out of the army in a few days; Weed orders Sgt. Higginbotham, disliked by both MacChesney and Cutter, to join the expedition as Ballantine's replacement. Once he is discharged, Ballantine plans to wed Emmy Stebbins and go into the tea business, a combined calamity that MacChesney and Cutter consider worse than death. MacChesney and Cutter are invited to the engagement party; intending to cause mischief, they spike the punch, which is subsequently drunk by Higginbotham. Higginbotham is so sick the following morning that he is unable to march out with the expedition, so a reluctant Ballantine is ordered to replace him. At Tantrapur, Ballantine is eager to complete as much of the repairs as possible before his enlistment ends, while Cutter and MacChesney are frustrated and bored by the lack of action. Both suspect that if he could see some combat, Ballantine would change his mind about leaving the army. Ballantine's enlistment ends while the detachment is still at Tantrapur, and a relief column led by Higginbotham, with Emmy riding along to surprise Ballantine, arrives. Meanwhile, Gunga Din tells Cutter of a temple he has found, one made of gold. Cutter is determined to make his fortune, but MacChesney will have none of it and has Cutter put in the stockade to prevent his desertion. That night, Cutter escapes with Din's help and goes to the temple, which they discover belongs to the Thugs when the cultists return for a ceremony. Cutter creates a distraction and allows himself to be captured so that Din can slip away and sound the warning. When Din gives MacChesney the news, he decides to go to the rescue, while Higginbotham sends word to headquarters to call out the entire regiment. Ballantine wants to go, too, but MacChesney points out that he cannot, as he is now a civilian. Ballantine reluctantly agrees to re-enlist, on the understanding that the enlistment paper will be torn up after the rescue. Emmy tries to dissuade him from going, but he refuses to desert his friends. MacChesney's eagerness leads him to head to the temple without questioning Din in detail. As a result, MacChesney, Ballantine, and Din foolishly enter the temple by themselves and are easily captured. They are thrown into a cell with Cutter, where they discover he has been tortured since his capture; the guru demands that they reveal the details of their regiment's location. MacChesney tricks the Thuggee guru into thinking he is prepared to betray his friends and the British army, and the soldiers use the opportunity to take the guru hostage. A standoff ensues, and the soldiers take the guru to the roof of the temple, where they discover the true size of the Thuggee forces. Still from Gunga Din trailer showing Victor McLaglen and Cary Grant Sam Jaffe as Gunga Din As the regiment marches toward the temple, the guru boasts that they are falling into the trap he has set. He orders his men, still clustered around the temple, to take their positions, but they refuse to abandon him. When he sees that they are unwilling to leave him in enemy hands, he commits suicide to remove that obstacle; the Thuggee force moves into position, while other cultists swarm up the temple in order to kill the sergeants. Thugs shoot and bayonet Cutter. Gunga Din is also bayoneted, but manages with the last of his strength to climb to the top of the gold dome of the temple and sound the alarm with a bugle taken from a dead Thug. He is then shot dead, but the British force is alerted and defeats the Thuggee forces. At Din's funeral pyre, the colonel formally inducts Gunga Din as a British corporal—then he asks visiting journalist Rudyard Kipling to hand him the draft of the poem Kipling has just completed, so that he might read the final words himself over Din's body. Ballantine announces his intention to remain in the army, and instead of tearing up his re-enlistment papers, gives them to the colonel, much to the approval of MacChesney and Cutter. The film ends with a final image of Gunga Din's spirit, standing proudly and saluting at attention, now in British uniform. ===== Set against the exotic background of the Bahama Islands, it's the saga of wealthy, aristocratic families from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia who, following the American Revolution, fled the South for the Bahamas, where they remained loyal to England. Abandoning their plantations for the islands, they established new dynasties in the Bahamas, where the Crown rewarded their loyalty with huge grants of land. "Wind from the Carolinas is fiction and as such certain liberties have been taken but not with the basic facts. Certainly, the settlement of the Bahama Islands was the result of one of the most dramatic of migrations. From the plantation aristocracy of Carolina, Virginia and Georgia came families who were passionately sincere in their loyalty to the British Crown and wanted nothing to do with the American Revolution and its theory of democracy. At the close of the War for Independence they found life all but unendurable. They were hated and reviled as Tories by what they considered to be a disorganized rabble. They were subjected to taunts and violence. At their request transports of the Royal Navy took entire families, their slaves, livestock, furnishings, and in some cases, even the bricks of their manors to the Bahamas. There they attempted to recreate the Colonial magnificence they had known with mansions, slave quarters and vast cotton fields. The failure was tragic and the history of the Out Islands has been one of wealth and poverty in cycles brought about by influences far beyond their shores." - Robert Wilder, Author ===== The basic plot concerns a school teacher named Ushimatsu Segawa (family name written last) who struggles with a commandment given to him by his late father. He is never to reveal his burakumin background, which his father had tried so hard to conceal as well. Ushimatsu idolizes Rentarou Inoko, a burakumin rights' activist and successful writer (particularly considering the social position given to those considered burakumin). Ushimatsu wishes to reveal his background to Rentarou, as his need to hide away part of himself in order to be accepted by society in general leads to his feeling constricted by this superficial identity, and to his desiring to form a more meaningful connection with Rentarou through their common experience. This novel also touches on the dangerous, destructive nature of gossip, and questions society's inability to accept what is not understood. It attempts to build understanding and empathy for this group of people at a time (the novel's publication's) when a great deal of prejudice still existed towards this group. ===== Huey's culturally sensitive teacher, Mr. Uberwitz, offers him a chance to direct the school's Christmas play in the hope of seeing an African- American perspective on the holiday. Huey is skeptical at first, thinking that Uberwitz will get fired for making this offer, but accepts on the condition that Uberwitz sign an agreement giving him full creative control. He begins writing a new play that adheres to his unique vision, sets up an office to manage the organizational work, and hires Quincy Jones as music director. Finding that the students cast in the play are goofing off instead of rehearsing, Huey angrily fires all of them and consults with Jones about bringing in high-profile movie stars to fill the roles. He ignores protests from the Woodcrest PTA over the children's dismissal. When Huey refuses the school principal's demand that Jesus not be portrayed as black, the principal tears up Huey's agreement with Uberwitz. Demoralized and exhausted, Huey turns control over to Uberwitz, asking only to have his name removed from the production. Uberwitz stages the play exactly as Huey wrote it, but only ten people show up to see the play. It is well-received by the local theater critics who attend, but almost no one else in Woodcrest is there to see it due to the PTA protests. Huey considers the play a success, but he regrets his decision to exclude his classmates and is disappointed that the public did not want to see his artistic vision. His vision was never made into a TV special nor a movie which Huey accepted out of arrogance. Uberwitz loses his job as Huey had predicted, but eventually becomes a college professor specializing in African-American studies. Meanwhile, Riley feuds with a shopping mall Santa, attacking him first with a folding chair and golf club and later with his airsoft guns. Riley is angry over not getting a set of wheel rims for Christmas in the past. Uncle Ruckus is hired by the mall to provide security for Santa, but proves inept at the job when Riley attacks again. Ruckus eventually becomes the new Santa, causing Jazmine to lose faith in the idea of Santa Claus until Ruckus claims that the real Santa had secretly chosen him to fill in after seeing how dangerous the mall could be. Jazmine accepts this story and attends Huey's play with Riley and Granddad, applauding enthusiastically as they sleep through it. ===== Eve finds the body of famous Prosecuting Attorney Cicely Towers on the night of May 2. Eve returns to Cop Central to find that Commander Whitney was very good friends with Towers, having started out together when they were very young. Due to this fact, he has personally arranged that Eve be primary. Another victim is found, murdered by the same MO, an actress named Yvonne Metcalf, whose shoe is missing. C. J. Morse is already on the scene, filming the woman's dead body. He snidely informs Eve that Metcalf used to have a relationship with Roarke. Eve tells Roarke that the killer is stalking famous women. He is unhappy to find that Eve has decided to capitalize on this by becoming bait. Nadine promises to help this by delivering as much media attention as possible, but the scheme doesn't work. Roarke, who has to leave on another business trip, surprises Eve with her own suite of the house, which he has converted (partly with furniture from her apartment) into her own home office, adjoining his. Eve and Roarke have a night in Mexico; on their return, Eve finds that the lab has tested David's knife as being negative for the murder weapon. The new police chief, Harrison Tibble, tells her to release David and Marcus on lack of evidence. He adds that there is too much emotion involved in this case, lightly censuring both her and Whitney. Afterwards, Eve finds out that Nadine is missing. During the fight with Morse, Eve miscalculates and gives him the upper hand. Before he can kill her, Roarke intervenes and saves her, and the knife instead stabs Morse in the throat. (It is not clear whether or not this was accidental or intentional on Roarke's part.) Roarke proposes to Eve as they walk away from the scene. ===== An unnamed single mother (Ruan Lingyu) works as a prostitute to support herself and her baby son. One night, fleeing from a police night patrol, she runs in to the room of a thug (Zhang Zhizhi) who forces her to stay the night with him for him in exchange for hiding her from the police. Later, however, he and two of his henchmen show up at her place and claims her as his private property. When the woman attempts to flee, the thug tracks her down and frightens her by claiming to have sold her son to punish her. The thug returns the child but she realizes that she has no choice but to submit to him. While living with the thug, she secretly stashes her nights’ earnings behind a hole in the wall, in order to provide her son with an education. When the son becomes of age, she enrolls him in school. But soon after, the parents learn that the boy’s mother is a prostitute and they send reproachful letters to the school, complaining that they cannot allow their children to study together with a child from a disreputable background. Without a choice, the principal pays a visit to the goddess’ home to investigate the accusations of her profession, but the rumors prove to be true. As he sets his mind on expelling the boy, he is swayed by the mother’s genuine love for her son and her heartfelt cries of why her son cannot receive what is best for him, due to her depraved background. Realizing his wrong, the principal goes back to the school to convince other members of the school committee but they do not listen to him. Upon his failure, the principal resigns from his position and the boy’s expulsion goes through. Subsequently, the mother plans to move to a new place with her son where nobody will recognize who they are. When she tries to take out her savings from the hole in the wall, she realizes that the thug has stolen the money to support his gambling habits. When she asks him to return her money, he laughs and informs her that he has already spent it. In a moment of anger, she kills the thug by smashing a bottle on his head. In the end, the mother is convicted of the murder of the thug, Zhang, and sentenced to 12 years in jail. When the school principal reads of this news in a newspaper article, he visits her behind prison bars and promises her that he would adopt her son from the orphanage and raise him well, with good education like she wanted. Worried for her son’s future and not wanting him to be burdened with his mother’s dark history, she asks the principal to tell her son that his mother is dead. After the principal leaves, the young mother smiles as she envisions a bright future for her son, but her smile quickly fades away as she comes back to the cold reality of her life in the prison cell. ===== In the winter of 1948, the Kuomintang of China (KMT) is losing in the Huai Hai Campaign with Communist Party of China (CPC) during the Civil War. Kuomintang government officials start to persecute the people more severely to keep their the original luxurious life. At a Shanghai shikumen house, Mr. Hou, a former Hanjian (Section chief of the Kuomintang defense department) and now an opportunist KMT official, is planning to sell the house which he seized from the owner Kong Yuwen, and then about to fly to Taiwan. His mistress, Yu Xiaoying or so-called Mrs. Hou, gives an ultimatum to the rest of the tenants to move out. The house is tenanted by three families: Mr. Kong, a proofreader in a newspaper agency, whose son joined the New Fourth Army; Mr. and Mrs. Xiao, foreign goods vendors with their three kids, Da Mao, Er Mao and Little Mao; and a schoolteacher, Mr. Hua, his wife and their daughter Wei Wei. When Mr. Xiao proposes they should band together, others disagree and want to find other ways out. So Mr. Kong and Mr. Hua try to find a place to stay at their workplaces respectively, while Mr. and Mrs. Xiao hope to invest in black market gold in order to buy the house from Mr. Hou with three gold bars. However, things don't go as they expected. The employer is unwilling to provide Mr. Kong with accommodation. Mr. Hua was arrested by KMT agents since he signed a protest letter over the school administration permitting for police to unjustly arrest its employees. Mr. and Mrs. Xiao find their scheme of making rich go to nought after gold price rises sharply due to the government’s manipulation. What's worse, they're beaten by the crowd who are also waiting to trade gold yuan notes for gold at central bank. Meanwhile, desperate as she is, Mrs. Hua resorts to ask Mr. Hou for rescuing her husband out of jail, but Hou only wants to make her as his mistress. Infuriated, Mrs. Hua rejects him and rushes home, while her daughter falls desperately ill. With generous help from Mr. Kong and Xiao Amei— Mrs. Hou’s kind-hearted maid— Wei Wei, Mr. and Mrs. Xiao fully recover from their illness and injuries. The tenants finally decide not to move out in a showdown with Mr. Hou. Soon, Hou receives a phone call, telling him that the defeated KMT is about to abandon its capital, Nanjing and retreat to Taiwan. In the early morning, he and his mistress sneak out of the house and prepare to flee to Taiwan. The KMT agents release Mr. Hua while his fellow teachers are executed. As the remaining KMT members all run off from Mainland China, the tenants celebrate Chinese New Year in 1949, promising to improve themselves in the face of the coming new society. ===== Nymphomation tells the story of a lottery in Manchester and a group attempting to crack the secrets of that lottery, but it also sets the background for much of the mythology found in Noon's previous novels. The AnnoDomino Company has been granted a 12-month trial period to run a lottery in Manchester, before rolling it out across the rest of the country should it prove successful. The head of the company is the mysterious character known only as Mr Million. Adult players are able to purchase dominoes displaying two constantly changing numbers for one puny each. Once a week these numbers will solidify, at the same time as that week's winning numbers are displayed on television by Lady Cookie Luck and presenter Tommy Tumbler. The one person whose domino exactly matches wins 10 million; those holding half-matches wins 100 punies. Anyone who wins with a double-six becomes the new Mr Million; anyone who wins with a double-blank will win the 'Joker Bone'. The air of Manchester is alive with the sound of blurbflies: organic/mechanic creations of the AnnoDomino Company that call out adverts to the populace. ===== The Queen of the Fairies having died, the fairies tried to elect a new one, but there were two candidates they could not choose between. They decided whoever did the greatest wonder would be queen. One, Surcantine, resolved to raise a prince whom nothing could make constant, and the other, Paridamie, a princess whom no one would see without falling in love. Nearby, King Bardondon and Queen Balanice had an infant daughter, Rosanella. One day the queen dreamed that an eagle had snatched a bouquet of roses from her, and when she woke, the princess had vanished. Soon after, peasant girls brought her twelve baskets, saying they might prove a consolation. Each one contained a beautiful baby girl. This renewed the queen's grief, but she set about providing for them, and this distracted her. She named them, but as they grew, though all were beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished, their dispositions were so clear that they came to be called by them: Sweet, or Grave, or Beautiful. Meanwhile, Surcantine raised Prince Mirliflor to be perfect in every way except his fickleness, and he broke every heart in his father's kingdom. He went to visit King Bardondon and found himself in love with all twelve of the maidens, but one day giants carried them all off. The prince despaired, but soon after Paridamie appeared with Rosanella, and told the queen that soon she would not miss her twelve maidens. The prince did not want to meet her, but he had to, and found that she combined in herself all the charms of the twelve, and asked her to marry him. Paridamie appeared, and revealed that the twelve had in fact all been Rosanella, so that they might charm the prince separately and, combined again, cure Mirliflor of his inconstancy. Surcantine owned herself defeated, and even attended the wedding and gave them a gift. ===== Lewis and Clark and George opens with Salvator Xuereb (playing Lewis) and Dan Gunther (Clark) at a water tank site wearing prison jump suits. The scene is desert scrub and the two state prison escapees have just located a buried metal box with a loaded revolver, treasure map, and Cuban cigars. A road trip begins as the two hike off through the desert to find the treasure, eventually joined by Rose McGowan (George). ===== Mai Kazuki is from a family of magicians. Her grandparents are leaders of a troupe, Magic Carat, and their daughter — Mai's mother — debuted under them. Naturally, Mai wants to become a magician herself, just like her hero, the fabulous legend Emily Howell. Unfortunately, because she is still a young girl, she is very clumsy and unsure. One day, while helping her grandfather move things, Mai sees a strange light enter an odd, heart-shaped mirror and turn into a mirror fairy named Topo. He takes over the body of her favorite stuffed toy, a flying squirrel doll, and explains that he must give magic to the one who can see him. He gives her a bracelet with the symbols of the 4 card suits (spade, club, diamond and heart) which produces a magic wand. By waving the wand, Mai becomes Magical Emi, a teenage magician. She stars in her grandparents' shows, and uses magic to help solve problems. But at the end of the day, she wants to become a magician all by herself. ===== Nanami Takahashi, a teenage girl in her first year of high school, hopes to make new friends quickly. The center of attention at her school is Motoharu Yano, a very popular boy, whom Nanami dislikes at the beginning, due to his apparent superficiality. However, she soon falls in love with him, but Yano is still affected by the loss of his girlfriend, Nana Yamamoto. Nana was killed in a car crash a year before the beginning of the story. Because she was with her ex-boyfriend at the time of her death, Yano suspects she was cheating on him. Due to this, he is unable to trust people or to talk about his relationship with her; instead, he chooses to pretend he does not care very much about the situation. Nanami confesses her love to Yano but is rejected when he is unable to tell her if he loves her back. Despite that, she is still willing to support him and reassures him she will always be by his side. Soon, Yano realizes he has fallen in love with her as well, so they start going out. However, Yano's secrets (including the fact that he slept with Nana's little sister, Yuri, after the accident and his unwillingness to talk about his feelings for his dead girlfriend) make Nanami unsure to the point that she decides to end the relationship, believing she is unable to make him happy. The story becomes even more complicated when Masafumi Takeuchi, Yano's best friend, also falls in love with Nanami and becomes Yano's rival. Due to these circumstances, Nanami is confused over whom she should choose, but she soon realizes that Yano is the one she genuinely loves. She agrees to start going out with him again, on the condition that she can find out more about the relationship between Nana and Yano and his true feelings about what had happened. Their romance takes an unexpected turn when Yano finds out that his mother, Yoko, wants to move to Tokyo. Upon hearing this, Nanami tells him to make a decision without taking her into consideration. The anime ends with Yano's departure; however, the two of them decide to continue their relationship. The manga picks up four years later. It is revealed that Yano and Nanami kept in touch for about six months; then, suddenly, he stopped contacting her and disappeared without a trace. Tired of waiting, hurt and confused, Nanami starts a relationship with Takeuchi. Even so, she is still in love with Yano and unable to forget about their common past. She befriends a co-worker named Akiko Sengenji, who is revealed to be one of Yano's classmates from the Tokyo high school he transferred to. In a series of flashbacks, it is shown that Yano was forced to work part-time when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, but kept everything hidden from Nanami, not wanting to worry her. Following an unexpected visit from Michiko, her former friend and the wife of Yano's father, Yoko became increasingly paranoid, fearing he would leave her. When Yano announced his decision to go and visit Nanami, she accused him of being insensitive. After a short, but violent fight, Yoko hung herself; as in Nana's case, Yano blamed himself for her death and therefore decided to sever all the ties with his past. Sengenji is also in love with Yano, but, despite this, she sees Nanami as a friend, not as a rival. She is the one who reveals Yano's whereabouts to Nanami (including the fact that he adopted his father's name, Nagakura) and later the fact that he lives with Yuri Yamamoto. As a result, Nanami rejects Takeuchi when he proposes to her, feeling that it wouldn't be fair to marry him. Upon meeting Nanami for the first time in more than five years, Yano claims he is in love with another woman. However, when he and Nanami meet again, she tells him that she knows about the relationship between him and Yuri. He then admits that he only stays with Yuri because her mother is dying and he feels he can't leave her alone. He also tells Nanami about his mother's suicide, and also about his panic attacks. During this meeting, it is hinted that he's still in love with her. Meanwhile, Takeuchi decides to continue his relationship with Nanami, but only as friends. He tells her that she will eventually reach Yano and asks her to wait for him. He also starts to push Yano to admit his own feelings for Nanami and points out that no matter how strong she seems, she is unable to deal with the situation by herself. Nanami and Yano have an unexpected meeting, during which Yano finally confesses he wanted her to hold him back instead of letting him leave with his mother. Shortly after, Yuri's mother dies, which prompts Yuri to end her relationship with Yano. She reveals to him that her sister Nana never cheated on him and that she only wanted to have a proper break-up with her ex- boyfriend at the time of the accident. Yano decides to start over with Nanami and tries to contact her on the telephone. He fails several times due to her busy schedule, but eventually reaches her. During their conversation, a severely over-worked and anemic Nanami falls down a flight of stairs and is brought to the hospital injured and unconscious. Terrified by the possibility of losing her as well, Yano rushes to her side; as a result, the two of them are reunited. The finale of the manga shows Yano proposing to Nanami and then visiting Nana Yamamoto's gravesite with her. ===== The story is framed by testimony in the court of Judge Murdock, where Dixie Crane is seeking a divorce. He asks how the principals first met and the first flashback begins...Eddie Crane a young composer, is struggling with a tune he has just written. When his girlfriend, Dixie Donegan, provides words almost by accident, the song is published and is a great success. A few years later, now married and successful songwriters with a hit Broadway show behind them, Dixie realizes that Eddie is spending more time in rich New York society than composing. They divorce, but quickly realize they miss working together, and their new work raises them to the top of the charts, and they are honored at an industry banquet, where Dixie sings ”The Last Time I Saw Paris.” (The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1941, even though it was not written for the film.) Eddie becomes intensely jealous, and thanks to the machinations of their friends, they end up getting married again. Driving home after the ceremony, they discover that their plans are very different. Dixie wants to start writing the music for a big new show—their dream project—right away. Eddie plans a honeymoon in Bermuda first. Dixie not only refuses the honeymoon, she tells him they are going to have to continue to live apart while they write the new show. They separate, and Eddie quits the show. He begins composing a symphony under the aegis of Mrs. Wardley, a wealthy patron of the arts who has her eye on Eddie as well as his music. The opening of Dixie’s show is represented by the legendary “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” production number featuring Eleanor Powell. Eddie disappears for 6 months and returns from South America too late to protest the second divorce, also in Judge Murdock’s court. Not realizing that this time the judge refused to grant it, he proposes to Dixie. ===== This children's tale is about a doll made of china named Annabelle, who has existed for more than one hundred years. The book is set in the present time period and is told in third person. Annabelle and her family belong to an 8 year old girl named Kate Palmer. The dolls can move, talk, and play the miniature piano in their house but always return to the same spot they started from when a human approaches. The consequence of being seen moving is being "frozen" for twenty-four hours, also called Doll State. If a doll does something especially incriminating, the doll is "frozen" forever, called Permanent Doll State. Kate's sister Nora receives a doll house and plastic doll family named the Funcrafts for her 5th birthday. The Funcrafts' daughter is Tiffany and she becomes Annabelle's best friend. In the book Annabelle and her friend Tiffany form a group called Society for Exploration and Location of Missing Persons (or SELMP for short), when Annabelle finds her Auntie Sarah's Journal. Auntie Sarah has been missing for 45 years and has not been seen or heard from in all that time. Annabelle and Tiffany become determined to find her. Using the clues from the journal, they deduce she is stuck somewhere, so they go on a journey and successfully locate her. The doll family is happily reunited once again. ===== Screenshot from shortly after the start of the game. The game's plot takes place in an unspecified (albeit vaguely Eastern European) nation headed by the dictator Orlovsky. The protagonist is a government agent tasked with discovering the whereabouts of a missing scientist named Horselover Frost. He begins his quest in a third-floor room of a luxury hotel (which is in fact the headquarters of the government's intelligence arm). After collecting his belongings in a suitcase, the protagonist takes an elevator ride to the lobby, during which a boy replaces the case with another identical one containing various spy-related paraphernalia. In the lobby, the government's intelligence chief briefs the protagonist on his mission. The protagonist then moves to the central railway station. From this point on all the events of the story take place on trains or at the various stations (which include the national science institute) along the nation's main rail line. The player must engage in scripted conversations with various individuals, each of whom reveals pieces of information that advance the protagonist in his quest. ===== A young French woman, Madeline Minot, arrives in New York in 1848, looking for expatriate Charles Thevenet. She is initially turned away at the door by his mistress and housekeeper, Lorna Bounty, but persists, presenting Charles with a letter of introduction from his only grandson, Paul, a romantic revolutionary with whom Madeline is in love. Charles is an old, wealthy, and dissipated rake, who correctly guesses Madeline's purpose in visiting him: she has been sent by Paul to ask him for money to support the revolution in France. Assisted by hulking butler, Martin, and cook Mrs. Flynn, who are also after Charles' fortune, having waited for the old man to die for ten years, Lorna lets Charles drink as much as he wants, contrary to the instructions of Dr. Roland, and replaces some prescribed medicine. Martin (Joe De Santis) and Lorna (Barbara Stanwyck) consider the changing situation. Madeline has one ally, a chance acquaintance named Dupin, a heavy-drinking impecunious poet, to whom she turns when she suspects that Charles' medicine has been laced with poison. They take a sample to a pharmacist, who determines that it is sugar water. Dupin becomes acquainted with Lorna, and recognizes her as a former actress who achieved fame with Charles' backing. During her stay at Charles' residence, Madeline softens the old reprobate's heart. He summons his lawyer, Durand, and changes his will. Then he secretly puts arsenic in his drink, ready to end his life. However, he suffers a stroke that paralyzes him, leaving him only partial control of his face. He watches helplessly as Durand drinks the fatal brandy. The will is then snatched up by Charles' pet raven and hidden in the fireplace. Before the old man dies, he tries to pass along to Dupin the location of the will solely with his eyes. Lorna guesses that there is a new will and its contents. After the funeral, she and her accomplices search desperately for it without success. Dupin is more perceptive; from the clues, he finds and retrieves the document, though he has to fight Martin off to escape the house alive. When the will is read, it reveals that Paul does inherit the money; Lorna, Martin and Mrs. Flynn are left only the house. At the end of the film, Madeline goes looking for Dupin to thank him. Dupin's generous bartender, Flaherty, tells her he has gone, leaving only a seemingly worthless IOU for his sizable bar bill. On one side is a draft of a verse about a woman named Annabel Lee, and on the other, the IOU's signature, which reveals Dupin's real name: Edgar Allan Poe. ===== When his leading lady (and fiancée) Monica Welles (Redgrave) is found dead from an apparent suicide after the opening night of her Broadway stage debut, playwright Alex Dennison (Preston) is left heartbroken. On the first anniversary of her death, he gathers the cast and crew from that ill-fated night in the same Broadway theater, ostensibly to read a new play he is working on, a mystery in which a famous actress is killed. As the reading progresses, the scenes seem to the cast to be uncomfortably close to actual encounters they might have had with Monica. When pressed, Alex finally reveals that he believes that Monica was murdered and that someone at the theater is her killer. ===== The opening sequence is a 1943 black-and-white Cinesound newsreel Monarch of the Rails showing the locomotive being built. The film then changes to colour and shows the locomotive at the Enfield Locomotive Depot, then the home of the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum. The fireman lights the fire and the driver inspects the locomotive. When ready the locomotive is turned on the turntable. The main part of the film shows the train travelling through the New South Wales countryside through disparate locations including the Sydney suburbs, Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge, Ten Tunnels Deviation, Blayney station and the Picton-Mittagong loop line. These scenes are interspersed with vignettes of life the 1940s including a travelling salesman, a country wedding and soldiers in a pub, all linked to the train journey. Most of the audio is live sound of the train, with some overlaid with original music by George Dreyfus. ===== Paul Zindel's dark comedy explores the relationship among three very different sisters after the death of their mother in the early 1960s. Having been abandoned by their father in early childhood, Catherine, Ceil and Anna Reardon were raised in a small apartment by their mother. The three ladies are educated and become members of their local school community. Anna Reardon becomes a chemistry teacher, Catherine Reardon the assistant principal, and Ceil (Reardon) Adams is the superintendent of schools. The scene of the play is in the Reardon family apartment and the story begins after sisters Catherine and Anna Reardon are living following the death of their mother. Several months of caring for her sick mother only to see her pass has left Anna suffering a severe nervous breakdown. She has become a complete hypochondriac, obsessed with animals and rabies. She is also on an extended break from school for allegedly molesting a male student. Catherine's reaction to both her mother's death and her sister's ailment has been to drink "a little". She is consistently drunk throughout the show. Ceil did not have any sort of contact with the family while her mother was suffering, but rather ran off to marry her sister Catherine's boyfriend, Edward Adams (who never appears on stage). Ceil has come to the Reardon home to coax Catherine into having Anna committed. Neither Anna nor Catherine is interested in anything their sister has to say. Halfway through dinner, which consists of zucchini and kiwi, Fleur Stein invades the family conversation. Fleur works in guidance at Anna and Catherine's school, and wishes to butter up Mrs. Adams in attempt to gain a better salary. She is very colorful and somewhat obnoxious, which her husband, Bob makes perfectly clear once he arrives. After a humorous, but often bitter evening, Ceil demands that Anna be locked up. Catherine refuses this demand, and Ceil essentially abandons the two women to take care of each other. ===== Set over a single 1963 summer in one of Sarajevo's neighbourhoods, the plot follows the fortunes of a school boy nicknamed Dino (Slavko Štimac) who grows up under the shadow of his good, but ailing, father. Simultaneous to being enthralled with a life that flashes before his eyes and ears in the local cinema and youth centre (where, among other things, he watches Alessandro Blasetti's Europa di notte and listens to Adriano Celentano's "24 Mila Baci"), Dino gets a taste of the world inhabited by local thugs and petty criminals. However, when he is rewarded via a liaison for providing a hiding place for prostitute "Dolly Bell" (Ljiljana Blagojević), his world is turned upside down as he falls in love with her. ===== The story is told by a Native American elderly man to a Native American boy who wants to give up dancing and leave the reservation by bus. The story he tells is about a Native American man named Charlie Silvercloud III who thinks that he will be hit by a milk truck on his 25th birthday, like his father and grandfather before him due to a curse. His birthday is two weeks away. Charlie has a checklist of things he wants to do before his two weeks are up, but because he does not have long to live and has no way to do anything extreme, his list is somewhat more practical than most "bucket" lists. His checklist includes canceling his cellphone contract, watering the plants, and returning library books. His mother tries to prevent the curse from killing him by mapping the milk truck route and is trying to stop Charlie from going outside during certain times just in case he might be killed earlier than expected. While looking for a casket to buy for his assumed death, he meets Bessie Smith who is looking for casket for her mother. Bessie owns a dog named Roadkill because he is able to play dead so convincingly that crowds gather when he plays dead. Bessie and Charlie start seeing each other, but Charlie cannot decide if he should continue the relationship because of his impending death. Things become more complicated when Charlie finds out that Bessie is being stalked by a man who drives a milk truck for the local dairy. ===== Ill and with only six months to live, a man named Manuel (Eddie Garcia) has one thing left that he wants to do, which is to find his beloved Corazon (Boots Anson-Roa). His family has its own problems, with his son Rod (Christopher de Leon) is still mourning his wife's death, while grandson, Kyle (Dennis Trillo) has recently been dumped by his wife Peggy (Tin Arnaldo). Manuel embarks on his search in Ilocos but is unable to locate her. Rod and Kyle pick him up from Ilocos, and on the way home Manuel takes the opportunity to tell them about his past and why he was in Ilocos. In his youth, Manuel's (Mark Herras) best friends included a fellow named Domingo (Polo Ravales), Corazon or Cora (Jennylyn Mercado) and Azon (Pauleen Luna). Manuel falls in love with the lively and cheery Azon, not knowing that Cora has a secret crush on him. When Azon tells Manuel that her mother wants to move far away, she asks him to come with them but Manuel declines. Before spending the night together, Azon gives Manuel a piece of her pendant, and tells him that if the pendant returns, then they are meant to be together. Manuel wakes up with Azon gone. Not long after, the Second World War erupts in the Philippines and Manuel and Domingo join the army. Azon tries to find a way to say goodbye to Manuel but is unable to reach him and instead meets Domingo, who explains the situation. Azon gives Domingo her address and asks him to tell Manuel to find her. During the war, Domingo and Manuel are captured by the enemy and walks the Death March. Domingo is wounded so badly that he can't walk. Domingo gives Manuel Azon's address, and then forces him to leave. Manuel reluctantly follows, and eventually survives the war. He is reunited with Cora in a hospital, where she is a nurse. While waiting to recover from a foot injury, Manuel sees that Cora cares for him deeply and the two embark on a romance. Cora is soon pregnant and she marries Manuel. After Cora gives birth, she decides to leave Manuel seeing that he is still in love with Azon. Before she leaves, she gives him half a picture of her, saying that if the two halves are reunited again, that means that they are meant to be together, much like what Azon had said to Domingo with her pendant. In the present, Manuel's son and grandson reluctantly decide to help Manuel's search despite realizing that they are searching Azon, the woman who broke up their family. In time, the trio are successful with their search and it is revealed that Manuel was actually looking for his wife, Cora, whom he realized he really loved after she has left him. The story ends when, Manuel and Corazon dance in a night of blue moon, a wish she had stated when they were still married. Manuel passes some time later. ===== Because of the environmental pollution, the Earth has become a contaminated desert, there are only patches of land. Some to be said to be inhabited by "sub-humans", contaminated people. However, there are a few areas along the shore where normal people live, but they've become suspicious of strangers, and know nothing of the people of the outside world. One day, a young girl named Marine washes up on the shore of one of the inhabited lands. She has no memory of where she came from. She is found by a young boy named Kazuya, who loves the sea and has a natural curiosity about the outside world. The two of them become friends but then rumors start spreading that Marine might be a sub-human, and she is locked up. Now Kazuya must help her escape, and uncover the mystery of who she is and where she came from. ===== Boog (Chris Williams) is a 900-pound grizzly who is the star of the town Timberline's nature show. In a dream, Boog chases after a giant version of his teddy bear Dinkleman, but he is soon woken by Beth (Kari Wahlgren), who takes him to the town center for Boog's performance. But Beth finds that Shaw, a cruel hunter, has already hunted a buck. She goes into Sheriff Gordy's police office to confront Shaw. The buck (Matthew W. Taylor) wakes up and introduces himself, his name being Elliot. Boog reluctantly frees him, and Shaw (Darryl Kurylo) vows revenge on Boog after Sheriff Gordy (Carlos Alazraqui) tells him he's been living in the woods too long. That night, Elliot decides to "free" Boog in return. He manages to lure him to the convenience store, where they finish all the chocolate bars there, but they're discovered by the police and incapacitated with a tranquilizer gun by Beth and brought to the Timberline National Forest until the start of open season. There, Elliot claims that he knows how to get back to Timberline, prompting a road trip. They encounter a squirrel called McSquizzy (Michael Gough) and his army of squirrels called the Furry Tail Clan (Carlos Alazraqui), who abuse them with nuts. Boog meets a few members of Elliot's herd: Giselle (Kari Wahlgren), a doe whom Elliot has a crush on, and Ian (Patrick Warburton), the head of the herd who hates Elliot. It's revealed that during this time of year, the Deer Games are held, with only one sport: Running. Elliot competes with Ian and wins the race, but he's kicked away by a jealous Ian as revenge. In the Timberline National Forest, Boog and Elliot help all kinds of animals with their tasks. The two meet McSquizzy again, who directs them to a shortcut: A mine. After riding through the mine in a minecart, Boog and Elliot continue their journey across a valley, and climb up a mountain, only to encounter Shaw, they escape the hunter by rolling down the hill in a big snow ball. They get to a beaver's dam, which Elliot claims is the way home. Not letting them cross, the two help the beavers find a missing piece for the dam: An outhouse. They find Boswell (Maurice LaMarche), trying to push the outhouse down from a hunting camp. Boog and Elliot jump onto it, and it quickly breaks and they ride it down the river rapids until they reach the dam. Boog quickly realizes that Elliot had never known how to go to Timberline because he'd asked some moles (since they're blind) for directions. Boog's weight causes the dam to break up. Having lost Elliot in the flood, Boog looks for shelter for the night. Boog enters Shaw's house, only to be confronted by Shaw himself. Shaw locks Boog in his basement but Boog eventually escapes, and encounters McSquizzy on a sign, who threatens to not show him the way back home if he doesn't help the animals during open season. Boog goes the right way, but he decides to go back and help the animals, suggesting to the wilds that they fight back. Agreeing to this, Serge (Danny Mann), Deni, and the rest of the ducks fly around the Timberline National Forest, dropping propane tanks everywhere, while the other animals collect items helpful for the fight. The wilds ultimately win the battle against the hunters. But while they're celebrating, Shaw appears and tries to shoot Boog. Elliot sacrifices himself by jumping in front of Boog and takes the hit instead, seemingly killing him, which angers Boog. Boog defeats Shaw after throwing a skunk, a rabbit, and a squirrel at him, roars him, and then he ties Shaw up with his gun. The game then closes as Elliot awakens having survived the gunshot and the wilds celebrate their victory by mauling Shaw. ===== A clueless, aspiring criminal named John "Rugged" Rudgate (Stanford) spends his days forging rebate coupons and selling speakers out the back of his van. One day, Rugged runs into an old acquaintance, the dim-witted Jeff Lagrand (Schneider), who recently returned home to help his cynical sister run the storage facility that they inherited from their father. When Rugged tries to force his way into the Lagrand family business, things go terribly wrong—and the situation gets even more complicated when an emotionally unstable cop begins investigating. ===== The story begins with Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden), the local hardman of Walford - a fictionalized borough in East London - and its community Albert Square, waking up from a nightmare in which he has blood on his hands. This causes Phil to realize that he is seeing images of his former love rival, Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman), being murdered on New Years Eve 2005. The dream ends with Phil finding himself face-to-face with Johnny Allen (Billy Murray), the square's criminal kingpin who appears to taunt Phil by laughing towards him. Later on that morning, Phil seemingly wishes to spend time with his brother Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) by arranging for them to go and play a round of golf. Grant agrees and the brothers set off to play gold, but stop at a roadside café in Essex. There, the two discuss their own personal problems - namely Phil's struggle to avoid a relapse in his alcoholism - over lunch. A strange man walks into the café and makes a sarcastic joke about Phil and Grant's bald heads, remarking: "Right Said Fred have reformed." The stranger follows Phil into the toilets and starts singing "I'm Too Sexy". Phil reacts by punching the stranger and knocking him out. When they leave the café, Grant tells Phil that he has been seeing a therapist in a bid to confront his demons. They pass a large house in the countryside and Phil orders Grant to stop. Phil announces that he is ready to confront his demons and that they have arrived at Johnny's house. Phil scours Johnny's house in a bid to break in, while Grant begs him to stop being stupid. Phil explains that he is keeping the promise that he made with Dennis' wife Sharon (Letitia Dean) to confront Johnny for Dennis's murder, which Johnny had ordered. Johnny spots Phil on his CCTV system and quickly finds him. Phil attacks Johnny but Johnny manages to overpower him with a stick. Grant soon arrives on the scene and finds Phil being threatened by Johnny and his henchman, Danny Moon (Jake Maskall). Grant beats up Danny, while Johnny re-enters his office and starts arguing with his daughter Ruby Allen (Louisa Lytton) - who is angry with him for being an alcoholic. Phil finally intimidates Johnny into admitting his involvement in Dennis' death, and begins to throttle him. Phil and Grant face execution at the hands of Johnny's henchman Danny Phil's anger towards Johnny gets more intense and he threatens to shoot him, but Grant stops him from pulling the trigger just in time. Danny once again tries to defend Johnny but receives another beating from Phil and Grant, and stays at the house while Johnny flees in his car. Phil and Grant give chase to Johnny and follow him to a deserted goods yard, where Phil almost runs him over. Johnny escapes and then Grant and Phil get into an argument. Grant insults Phil for being a bad father and almost gets run over himself, but Phil smashes the car into a pile of skips instead. The skips collapse on Phil's car but he emerges unscathed. Johnny returns from where he had left the Mitchells and holds them at gunpoint. Armed with a gun, Johnny frogmarches Phil and Grant to a soundproofed cell back at his house. Grant quickly establishes that Johnny is intent on killing them both, and his expectations are confirmed when Johnny orders Danny to lead them away into the nearby woods to kill them both and then bury their bodies. Phil hears a gunshot and opens his eyes to see Danny lying dead on the floor. Phil turns his head to see Danny's brother, Jake Moon (Joel Beckett), standing nearby with a gun - looking mortified; Jake had just killed Danny despite not wanting to do so. Jake is devastated at having killed his brother, as he only wanted to stop him from killing someone. After the Mitchells leave, Jake buries Danny's body in the woods. Meanwhile, Ruby discovers mobile phone footage of Dennis' murder. She announces that she has informed the police about Johnny's crimes and that they are on their way to the house. Johnny is arrested and immediately confesses to the police that he murdered his gangland predecessor, Andy Hunter (Michael Higgs), and later ordered Danny to kill Dennis. ===== The game chronicles the story of the Drasle family (an abbreviation for "Dragon Slayer"; though the characters are given the last name "Worzen" in the credits) and their attempt to destroy an ancient dragon named Keela that is magically entrapped in a painting within an underground labyrinth. To accomplish this goal, they must find the "Dragon Slayer", a magical sword that is protected by four hidden crowns. The player must use the unique abilities of each member of the family to regain possession of the crowns and destroy the evil Keela. Like many games of its era, the story of Legacy of the Wizard is explained almost entirely in the game's instruction manual. The game itself contains very little text, and does little to add to or even to explain the story of the game. ===== The film introduces Mike (Borchardt) as a writer struggling with a lack of artistic productivity. To deal with the pressures he feels from within and without, he escalates his abuse of alcohol. One day when faced with overwhelming deadlines, he takes a large quantity of pills with alcohol resulting in an overdose and hospitalization. When Steve (Tom Schimmels) takes notice of Mike's increasing volatility and isolation, he confronts the defensive writer. Steve shows genuine concern for his friend's self-destructive behavior and intervenes. The film suggests by lack of others at the intervention that Steve may be the only friend Mike has left. Steve suggests a support group with which he has been affiliated and after gaining some perspective, Mike joins them. After becoming a part of the group, he comes to realize that it has a deeper occult agenda and uses extreme, sometimes supernatural, tactics to "help" new members remain clean and sober. ===== The novel opens on 13 May 1876 with a university student, Pyotr Kokorin, committing suicide in the public park in front of a beautiful young noblewoman, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva. His will leaves his large fortune to the newly opened Moscow chapter of Astair House, an international network of schools for orphan boys founded by an English noblewoman, Lady Astair. The apparently open-and-shut suicide case falls to inexperienced 20-year-old detective Erast Fandorin. He interviews Elizaveta, and immediately falls in love with her. Further investigation reveals that Kokorin was playing Russian roulette (called "American roulette" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev. Fandorin tails Akhtyrtsev, who leads him to a sensuous dark-haired woman, Amalia Bezhetskaya, whom Fandorin recognizes from a picture in Kokorin's room. He follows Bezhetskaya to her home, where she spends her time toying with the many men who come to visit. At Bezhetskaya's home, Fandorin meets Count Zurov, an Army officer that Amalia seems fond of, and sees Akhtyrtsev again. Akhtyrtsev and Fandorin leave Amalia's house together to go drinking, and Akhtyrtsev reveals to Fandorin that the Russian roulette game between him and Kokorin was Bezhetskaya's idea. Just as the mystery of Kokorin's suicide seems to be solved, a mysterious white-eyed assassin stabs Akhtyrstev to death and tries to kill Fandorin, only to fail when his knife bounces off the corset Fandorin is wearing. As he kills Akhtyrtsev, the white-eyed man hisses one word: "Azazel". The murder of Akhtyrtsev brings a great deal of attention to what had seemed a routine case. Fandorin gets a new boss, Ivan Brilling, a sophisticated detective familiar with modern investigative techniques. Brilling believes that the murder is the work of a terrorist organization called "Azazel" that is operating in Moscow. He sends Fandorin off to interview Lady Astair, whose Astair House has now acquired Akhtyrtsev's fortune along with Kokorin's, because both students left all their assets to Astair House after Amalia Bezhetskaya encouraged them to do so. Lady Astair is helpful to Fandorin, who leaves her school convinced of her innocence and impressed by her charitable mission. Next, Fandorin investigates Count Zurov. After Fandorin beats Zurov at cards, the count challenges him to a duel, but it turns out to be a practical joke on Fandorin, and the count befriends him. Zurov, believing Fandorin to be as much in love with Amalia as he is, and wishing that Fandorin will win her heart so that Zurov can let her go, reveals to Fandorin that she is staying at the Winter Queen Hotel in London. Fandorin journeys to London, where he tracks down Bezhetskaya to a house in town. He sneaks into her room after she leaves it and finds a paper that appears to be a list of Azazel members all over the world, many of whom hold high ranks in government or the military. Fandorin is about to leave when Bezhetskaya catches him in her room. They struggle, a shot goes off in the dark, and Fandorin flees, believing that he has killed Amalia. He has not, however, because Amalia and her henchmen kidnap Fandorin from his hotel room. Amalia leaves her henchmen to kill Fandorin, and they are about to do so when Count Zurov appears out of nowhere and saves Fandorin's life. Zurov admits to Fandorin that jealousy over Amalia led him to follow Fandorin to London. Fandorin assures Zurov that he is no rival for Amalia, and Zurov leaves to either kill her or "take her away somewhere". Meanwhile, Fandorin hurriedly leaves for St. Petersburg to intercept the letter that Amalia has mailed to her Azazel contact there. He succeeds, and sees the letter delivered to Gerald Cunningham, a teacher at the Moscow Astair House. Fandorin reports this to Brilling, and they go together to arrest Cunningham—but Brilling shoots Cunningham dead, and reveals to Fandorin that he is also an agent of Azazel. Fandorin and Brilling struggle, and Brilling is killed. Fandorin travels back to Moscow to continue the investigation. While on the way, he meets Elizaveta on the train, and finds out that she is as smitten by him as he is by her. Upon arrival in Moscow, he once again goes to see Lady Astair and asks her if she knows anything about Cunningham's activities with Azazel. While talking to Lady Astair, Fandorin suddenly realizes that Cunningham was too young to have started Azazel, and that Lady Astair is the real criminal mastermind. Lady Astair confesses to Fandorin, admitting that she is the head of Azazel. She tells him that her Astair Houses are part of a plot to train bright young orphan boys to serve her and her group, which plans to eventually take over the world. She then tells one of her servants, the German professor Blank, to give Fandorin a lobotomy so that they may retrain him as a member of Azazel, but Fandorin escapes and confronts Lady Astair, who is waiting for him with a bomb. Lady Astair traps him with her, but after Fandorin begs for his life, she lets him go in return for a promise to not hunt down her "children" from the Astair Houses. Lady Astair then appears to commit suicide with her bomb. Fandorin, however, is ordered to help the campaign to root out members of Azazel in Russia, which he does. His guilt at breaking his promise mars his happiness on the day of his wedding to Elizaveta. After the newly married couple retreat to their hotel suite, a messenger brings Fandorin a package. Fandorin walks to the window and sees the messenger frantically running into a carriage driven by the white-eyed assassin that earlier tried to kill Fandorin. Fandorin jumps out his window in an attempt to arrest the killer, and thus escapes the bomb, which blows up and kills his young bride. The novel ends with a dazed Fandorin walking the streets of Moscow, his hair having turned gray at the temples due to his shock over his wife's death. ===== Mark Bradley (Richards) is a radio commentator whose pilot, Joe Walker (Smith), is flying him across the South Pacific to a conference in Australia. Engine trouble develops, and Walker must make a forced landing on the beach of a small, uncharted island inhabited by Dr. Paul Lujan (Napier). On the island with Lujan are his three naive daughters, who have never known another man except their father. Lujan, unfriendly to the point of hostility, orders the intruders to leave his island, but one of their aircraft's two engines is too badly damaged for them to be able to comply without first making repairs. He grants them a couple days in order to do so. In the meantime he grudgingly introduces Bradley and Walker to his trio of young, beautiful daughters, Venus (Stevenson), Urana (Jergens), and Mercuria (Blair). The two men soon learn that Dr. Lujan was an atomic scientist who fled the civilized world with his family because he fears the havoc being caused by the discovery of nuclear energy. To the doctor's disapproval, his two older daughters easily fall in love with the two attractive strangers and try to help them, while the third, 16 and jealous of her sisters, tries to foil their plans. This forces them to make a choice between staying on the island with their father or returning with the two men to a civilization they have only experienced via short wave radio broadcasts. When Bradley mentions that he plans on doing a radio broadcast about Lujan and his island location after he returns to civilization, the doctor begins to scheme a way to keep the men and his daughters on the island. ===== The novel's hero is the Army Colonel Keith Landry, who served as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and fought in Vietnam. Later on he transferred to the Army Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer and operative for almost 25 years. After the end of the cold war is over Landry retires and moves back to Spencerville, the small Midwestern town where he grew up. The town changed over the years but two people are still there: Annie Prentis, his first love, and her possessive husband Cliff Baxter. Landry wants to get Annie back and that means a confrontation with Baxter, once the high school bully, and now Spencerville corrupt police chief. ===== Jim Chee wakes from restless sleep about 2:30 am, hearing the cat enter through the cat door into his trailer. When Chee is out of bed, three shotgun blasts come through the trailer wall over his bed, tearing apart his mattress instead of him. In daylight, he finds where a vehicle leaking oil had parked in the night and the footprints of a small person. This is added to the list of unsolved homicides facing Lt. Joe Leaphorn. Leaphorn asks that Chee be assigned full-time to aid him in solving the three homicides of Irma Onesalt, Dugai Endocheeney, and Wilson Sam, and to find who shot Chee. Capt. Largo agrees. The first connection among these homicides comes when they learn that Endocheeney received a letter from the office where Irma Onesalt worked. Then Leaphorn learns of the list of people for whom she sought death dates, though some on the list were alive when she was posing her question. Leaphorn and Chee learn to communicate effectively with each other, as they pursue the investigation. Chee sleeps away from his trailer bed, fearing a repeat attack until the culprit is found. The next link among the cases is small bone beads, made from a long dead bovine. One was in the shotgun shells that entered Chee's trailer; another in the knife wounds that killed Endocheeney; and one was found in Bistie's wallet when he was taken in for questioning. Leaphorn and Chee go to Bistie's home to talk again, after he was set free by public defender Janet Pete. No one is home, but there is evidence of someone recently dragged out of the hogan. As they follow tracks outdoors, someone shoots Leaphorn in his right arm. After he is taken to the hospital at Gallup, Chee and other officers follow the drag marks to find Bistie's corpse, dead from two gunshots to the chest, likely from the same gun that hit Leaphorn's arm. Chee observes a small mark above the bullet wounds on Bistie's body, likely from a crystal gazer who made a cut and claimed to take bone from his body, telling Bistie it was from a skinwalker. They do not catch the shooter. Chee gets two letters. One is from Mary Landon saying she will not return to the reservation. The other is from a client for a Blessing Way ceremony, a pleasing prospect. The belief or superstition of skinwalkers involves the skinwalker somewhat magically blowing a bit of bone into a victim, who will die unless the skinwalker is killed. Bistie's daughter thinks her father had been trying to kill a skinwalker, to regain his own life, which would end soon by untreatable liver cancer. She did not call the public defender for her father. Janet Pete says Mr. Curtis Atcitty called her, but Bistie told her he knew no such man. Pete thinks this Atcitty used her to get Bistie out of jail both before he might talk to the police and so he could be killed. Another client, Irma Onesalt, was shot ten days after she approached Pete for help on her list. Leaphorn learns from Shorty McGinnis that Wilson Sam had received a letter from Irma Onesalt about two months earlier, making enough links among the victims for Leaphorn. He brings Emma to the hospital for tests. Chee visits the Badwater Clinic, learning of the argument between Onesalt and Yellowhorse from Mrs. Billie at the desk. He then proceeds to his meeting at Dinebito Wash with Alice Yazzie to arrange the Blessing Way ceremony. Capt. Largo knows where Chee is; Leaphorn pursues him after learning that it is an empty home where the meeting is set up. Leaphorn meets Lenny Skeet in Piñon, where they both drive to the hogan. Chee realizes too late that he has been set up. A young mother shoots him in the back with her automatic shot gun as he runs. With the door of the hogan between them, she tells him he is a skinwalker who marked her baby for death. She tells him Dr. Yellowhorse told her Chee was a witch, a sorcerer. He tells her he is not. Lenny Skeet and Leaphorn arrive to find Chee barely alive in that hogan. They bring him to Badwater Clinic, where he murmurs Woman, Baby dying, before his treatment began. Dr. Vigil tells Leaphorn that Emma has a brain tumor. Surgery will reveal its status, and tell the odds of her surviving the tumor, forcing him to accept hope again. Then the reason for the homicides falls into place, and he must get from Gallup to Badwater Clinic, because Dr. Yellowhorse, the man who wants to improve health of the Navajo people, will kill Chee. Yellowhorse assumed Chee would figure out his scheme as Irma Onesalt had. Yellowhorse was cheating by claiming reimbursements months after patients died at the clinic or went home healthy, so she had to be killed. Yellowhorse returns to the clinic and goes straight for Chee, both threatening Chee's life and confessing what he did. The woman, the grieving mother arrives next with her shotgun, and kills Yellowhorse, the skinwalker, just as Leaphorn arrives. Yellowhorse first arranged for men to be killed whose names were on Irma Onesalt's list. Then he had her killed and next set the bereaved mother toward Chee. Agent Streib is already working on tracing the financial crimes. They guess he will not think to trace down which patients Yellowhorse persuaded to kill the four victims, as the mother attacked Chee, but that is okay, it is over. ===== Amelia Peabody is introduced in the series' first novel, Crocodile on the Sandbank as a confirmed spinster, suffragist, and scholar, living in England in 1884. She inherits a fortune from her father and leaves England to see the world, with the side benefit of escaping various suitors and family members who were neither aware that she would be the sole beneficiary of her father's estate nor that he had amassed a small fortune over the course of his lifetime. In Rome, Amelia meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young Englishwoman of social standing who has run off with (and subsequently been abandoned by) her Italian lover, and the two make their way to Egypt. There they meet the Emerson brothers, Egyptologist Radcliffe and his philologist brother Walter. Over the course of the first book the couples pair up: Amelia marries Radcliffe (referred to throughout the series by his last name "Emerson"), and Evelyn marries Walter. Following the birth of their son Ramses (né Walter) Emerson ("as swarthy as an Egyptian and as arrogant as a Pharaoh"), the Emersons initially settle in Kent, from where Emerson commutes to a job lecturing in Egyptology at university in London. Despite Amelia's suggestions that he resume seasonal digs in Egypt, Emerson insists on staying in England with his family while Ramses is too young to travel. Peabody and Emerson return to Egypt at least once without Ramses (The Curse of the Pharaohs) in 1892 before deciding to bring him along on their annual digs (The Mummy Case), beginning in the 1894-95 season. Amelia's desire to explore pyramids is countered by Emerson's refusal to be diplomatic with the Egyptian Service d'Antiquites, resulting in the loss of their firman (permit) to excavate at one of the major pyramid fields, and instead being awarded Mazghuna, a minor pyramid field southwest of Cairo. While the Emersons are excavating at Mazghuna, they encounter an enigmatic criminal mastermind who runs an illicit underground antiquities trade, stealing artifacts from tombs, which puts him at odds with the Emersons. Amelia initially calls him "The Master Criminal," although his nom de guerre is eventually revealed to be Sethos. Sethos is initially presented as a rival to Emerson for Amelia's affections, but later becomes an important part of the Emerson's large circle of friends, allies, and acquaintances in later books when it is revealed that he is Emerson's theretofore unknown half-brother, Seth. The Emerson family expands again during the 1897-1898 season while on an archaeological expedition to Nubia. The family encounters a hitherto unknown civilization in a remote wadi in the desert (The Last Camel Died at Noon), becomes embroiled in turbulent politics, and discovers Nefret Forth, the daughter of a long-presumed dead explorer. Nefret returns to England with the Emersons and becomes their ward. Another key character is introduced in the 1899-1900 season (The Hippopotamus Pool), that of David Todros, the son of Abdullah's estranged daughter and her Christian husband. David is living in a state of semi-slavery, working for a forger of antiquities. A key character in that novel, he is later taken in by Evelyn and Walter Emerson as a ward. David later marries Evelyn and Walter's daughter Amelia (known as Lia to avoid confusion with her aunt). The introduction of Nefret initiates a running story arc of sexual tension between her and Ramses. This becomes an important part of the plot in a subset of four books beginning with Seeing a Large Cat, coinciding with the introduction of "excerpts from Manuscript H" in which the younger generation of the family begins a parallel narration to Amelia's. Among the pitfalls in this story arc is the arrival of Sennia, a young girl initially suspected to be Ramses' illegitimate daughter with a local prostitute. Sennia's arrival, and the suspicions about Ramses that it raises, precipitates Nefret's brief marriage to another man. Sennia is revealed to be the child of Amelia's nephew Percival, first seen in Deeds of the Disturber, who is reintroduced as an adult in a villainous role for several volumes beginning with The Falcon at the Portal. Sennia is adopted by the Emersons, who take her back to England at the conclusion of the volume. The tension between Ramses and Nefret is finally resolved in He Shall Thunder in the Sky, with their marriage taking place at the end of that book and recounted in flashback sequences in the next. The two eventually have three children: a set of fraternal twins (a son, David John, and a daughter, Charlotte, or "Charla"), and an unnamed daughter born after the current conclusion of the series. It is through the youngest daughter that John Tregarth, a character in Peters's Vicky Bliss series, is descended from the Emerson-Peabodys. Additional characters in the series include members of the large Egyptian family who support the Emersons in their digs. The head of the family is Abdullah ibn al-Wahhab, Emerson's reis or foreman, who supervises their archaeological digs. Abdullah has several children, among them his youngest son, Selim, who, originally assigned as a bodyguard of sorts for Ramses (The Mummy Case), eventually replaces his father as reis (dig supervisor). Abdullah's daughter-in-law, Khadijah, her cooking, and her green healing poultice (which is effective, although its exact contents are never quite determined) are frequently mentioned. After Abdullah's death (The Ape Who Guards the Balance) the character appears to Amelia in dreams as a spiritual guide (although it is left ambiguous whether his appearance is a manifestation of Amelia's own subconsciousness or supernatural in nature). Chronologically, the latest book in the series (Tomb of the Golden Bird)) takes place in 1922-23, around the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb. ===== In their bedroom asleep one night, Bonnie and Leith Von Stein are violently attacked and stabbed by home intruders. Bonnie barely survives, but her husband does not. The investigation into who could do such a thing, and for what purpose, takes an unexpected twist when Bonnie's son Chris Pritchard becomes a prime suspect in the case. Police theorize that it is possible Chris provided two friends from school, Henderson and Upchurch, with a detailed map to the Von Stein family's home, resulting in his mother and stepfather being assaulted while Chris was away at college and his sister Angela asleep in her own bedroom at home. The savagery of the crime and the absurdity of the charge leads Bonnie to hire attorney Bill Osteen to represent Chris, in as much as she finds it impossible that he could have played a role in her husband's murder. The more police investigate, however, the more Osteen tries to prepare Bonnie that her son may indeed be involved. And that even Angela may know more than she has been telling. ===== In the near future, a newly created device called the "DC Mini" allows the user to view people's dreams. The head of the team working on this treatment, Doctor Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside of the research facility, by assuming her dream world alter-ego/other personality "Paprika". Chiba's closest allies are Doctor Toratarō Shima, the chief of the department, and Doctor Kōsaku Tokita, an obese, genius man-child and inventor of the DC Mini. Paprika counsels Detective Toshimi Konakawa, who is plagued by a recurring dream. She gives Konakawa a card with the name of a website on it. Because they are unfinished prototypes, the DC Minis lack access restrictions, allowing anyone to enter another person's dreams, which poses grave consequences when they are stolen. Shima goes on a nonsensical tirade and jumps through a window, nearly killing himself. Upon examining Shima's dream, which is a parade of random objects, Tokita recognizes his assistant, Kei Himuro, which confirms their suspicion that the theft was an inside job. After two other scientists fall victim to the DC Mini, the chairman of the company, Doctor Seijirō Inui, who was against the project to begin with, bans the use of the device. This fails to hinder the crazed parade, now in Himuro's dream, which claims Tokita. Paprika and Shima find that Himuro is only an empty shell. The real culprit is Inui, who believes that he must protect dreams from mankind's influence through dream therapy, with the help of Doctor Morio Osanai. Paprika is captured by the pair after an exhausting chase. Osanai admits his love for Chiba and peels away Paprika's skin to reveal Chiba underneath. However, he is interrupted by the outraged Inui who demands that they finish off Chiba; as the two share Osanai's body, they battle for control. Konakawa enters the dream and flees with Chiba back into his own recurring dream. Osanai gives chase, which ends in Konakawa shooting Osanai to take control of the dream. The act kills Osanai's physical body in the real world. Dreams and reality begin to merge. The dream parade runs amok in the city, and reality starts to unravel. Shima is nearly killed by a giant Japanese doll, but is saved by Paprika, who has become separate from Chiba. Amidst the chaos, Tokita, in the form of a giant robot, eats Chiba and prepares to do the same to Paprika. A ghostly apparition of Chiba appears and reveals that she has been in love with Tokita and has been repressing these emotions. She comes to terms with her repressed desires, reconciling herself with the part of her that is Paprika. Inui returns in the form of a giant humanoid nightmare, reveals his twisted dreams of omnipotence, and threatens to darken the world with his delusions. Paprika throws herself into Tokita's body. A baby emerges from the robotic shell and consumes Inui, aging into a fully-grown combination of Chiba and Paprika as she does so, then fades away, ending the nightmare. In the final scene, Chiba sits at Tokita's bedside as he wakes up. Later, Konakawa visits the website from Paprika's card and receives a message from Paprika: "Atsuko will change her surname to Tokita...and I suggest watching the movie Dreaming Kids." Konakawa enters a movie theatre and purchases a ticket for Dreaming Kids. ===== The story takes place in Breckenridge, Georgia, where 14-year-old Connor Strong (Lucas Black) becomes deeply attached to a young chestnut colt named Flash, which is up for sale by one of Connor's neighbors. Determined to own the horse, he talks it over with his family, which is composed of his widower father David (Brian Kerwin) and his Grandmother Laura (Ellen Burstyn). As the family is struggling financially, Connor is disappointed to learn they don't have the $500 needed to purchase the horse. Connor takes a job at the local grocery store in an attempt to raise the money to buy Flash. Meanwhile, their continuing pattern of falling behind on their mortgage payments troubles David to the point that he considers taking a job in the merchant marines, a job he'd held several years earlier which yields a $25,000 payout, which includes a $5,000 signing bonus. When discussing this with Laura, he's elated at the prospect of getting ahead in terms of finances, but is dismayed by the thought of being away at sea for five months, remembering a promise he'd made to his late wife that he'd never leave Connor. Despite all this, David takes the job, and with a portion of the signing bonus, buys Flash for Connor. While Flash and Connor bond instantly, things quickly begin to unravel after David leaves. The signing bonus David had intended to provide for Connor and Laura during his absence is seized by the bank for past due bills, forcing Laura to take a job at the local textile mill. The mill is owned by Alfred Rutherford, Breckenridge's wealthiest resident. While working for the grocery store, Connor delivers groceries to the Rutherford's home, where he meets their son Tad, who is the same age as Connor, and the two quickly become friends. However, the conditions at the mill prove to be detrimental to Laura's health and she suffers a heart attack while on shift, and dies not long afterward. Left on his own, Connor takes on making the arrangements for Laura's funeral, and in his determination to honor the woman who'd raised him since his mother died, he sells Flash to the Rutherfords to give to Tad in order to pay the expenses. In order to stay near Flash, Connor volunteers to work in the stables for free, and after his house is boarded up by the bank, the Rutherford's groundskeeper gives him a room in the stables. Meanwhile, things for Flash do not go smoothly either. While Tad adores the horse, his father treats Flash very harshly while trying to train him as a racehorse, while at the same time berating Tad for not pushing him hard enough. Upset by this and longing for his father's approval, Tad whips Flash many times, and after calming down he goes to see Flash to apologize. However, Flash responds in a defensive way, injuring Tad. Outraged, Alfred threatens to put Flash down, causing Connor to take Flash and run away. Labeled as a horse thief and with the sheriff looking for him, Connor's only option is to find his father, who is scheduled to depart his ship in New York in only a few days. Regardless of the time limit, Connor and Flash begin to head north. After four days he makes it to North Carolina, and after winning a horse race at a county fair, he uses the winnings to pay for train tickets for him and Flash, except the money is only enough to get them as far as Trenton, New Jersey. Despite injuring his leg during the train trip, Flash pushes through to get Connor to New York in time, where he catches David just as he's leaving his ship. With the story of Connor and Flash's journey making headlines, they are greeted with a heroes' welcome upon their return to Breckenridge, along with an infuriated Alfred Rutherford, who threatens to have Connor arrested and have Flash put down, only to be stopped by Tad, who admits Flash hurting him was his own fault and that Connor was justified in his actions. After calming his father's nerves, Tad gives Flash back to Connor, and alongside his father, Connor takes Flash home. ===== Three friends, Angela Silver (SnowAngel), Zoe Barrett (zoegirl), and Madigan "Maddie" Kinnick (mad maddie) are just starting tenth grade of high school. At the beginning of the book, the trio, who refer to themselves as the "winsome threesome," believe that they will stick together forever. Zoe wants something meaningful and big to happen in her life, Angela knows it is going to be a fabulous year and that she is going to meet the boy of her dreams, and Maddie can't help but feel low and down on herself. When Angela discovers that Rob Tyler is in her French class, she develops a crush on him. Maddie notices how mean Jana Whitaker, the school's queen bee, is to her and to other students. Rob finally asks Angela out and the two have a fun time together, which is how Angela describes it. Later, she reveals to her friends that Rob is "the one", as in the one she goes all the way with. The next day, Angela is unable to go on a planned date with Rob since her mother grounded her for going to a bar without permission. Angela then learns that Rob went out with Tonnie Wyndham while she had to stay home. Rob apologizes and states that Tonnie refused to let him call Angela. Days later, Rob goes on another date (while he was supposed to be on a date with Angela and left her waiting) with Tonnie and says that she asked him out and he didn't know how to say no. Angela breaks up with him after this. Zoe has been experiencing favoritism in one of her classes by a young teacher who gives her special attention. She struggles when the line of appropriateness becomes blurred, she needs her friends a time when Maddie's new friendship with Jana is creating fractures in the friend group. Maddie gives Jana a ride home (when she was supposed to give Angela a ride) and Angela gets mad at her too. For Halloween, the trio plan to go trick or treating as mold, fungus and dust. When Halloween arrives, though, Maddie ditches her friends and doesn't show up. Instead she goes to a party with Jana Whitaker and ends up getting really drunk and taking her shirt off and dancing exposed in front of guys, which Jana photographs without Maddie's permission. They all go through their ups and downs of tenth grade. ===== It is prior to the American entry into World War II, and Japan's fiendish Black Dragon Society is hatching an evil plot with the Nazis. They instruct a brilliant scientist, Dr. Melcher, to travel to Japan on a secret mission. There he operates on six Japanese conspirators, transforming them to resemble six American leaders. The actual leaders are murdered and replaced with their likenesses. Dr. Melcher is condemned to a lifetime of imprisonment so the secret may die with him. ===== Prior to delivering a cargo to the nearby planet Xathru, Jordan McKell, a smuggler for a crime lord nicknamed Brother John and his shadowy boss, Mr. Antoniewicz, is on the planet Meima with his partner, Ixil, a member of an alien species called the Kalixiri. McKell is offered a job by a man named Alexander Borodin, whom he recognizes as the famous industrialist and sometime-archaeologist Arno Cameron. Cameron wants McKell to pilot the ship Icarus, which is carrying a very important cargo in its sealed storage core, to Earth. McKell accepts the job and instructs Ixil to continue on to Xathru, intending to pick him up there. He and Ixil theorize that Cameron's archaeological dig on Meima had uncovered an advanced, alien stardrive, which he intends to be brought to Earth by the Icarus. While waiting to board the Icarus, McKell becomes acquainted with the rest of the Icarus' rag-tag crew, all of whom are complete strangers to him and to each other. At the last minute, they are informed that Cameron is unable to accompany them, and are forced to set out on their voyage without their employer. One of the crewers is killed in an accident a few hours later, and a series of other bizarre occurrences leads McKell to believe that they have a saboteur aboard; he begins keeping a wary eye on the crew. He stops as planned on Xathru to pick up Ixil and contact Brother John, who gives him a reluctant go-ahead to carry on with the voyage. While on Xathru, he is assaulted by a pair of strange aliens who say they want the Icarus' cargo. McKell escapes and pilots the Icarus to a planet called Dorscind's World. Convinced that the Icarus is carrying something far more important than he'd originally supposed, and that they are being hunted, he lands the Icarus under a false name. He then attempts to make contact with his benefactor, "Uncle Arthur", both to inform him of his current situation and to get information from him about his crewmembers and about Cameron's activities. Before he can get a call through, he is confronted by an old acquaintance, who tells him that there is now a reward out for knowledge of his whereabouts and attempts to extort money from him in exchange for not turning him in. McKell realizes that the Icarus is being hunted by the Patth (an alien race who have a near-monopoly on the galaxy's shipping industry, due to their unique stardrives, which are several times faster than those of any other race). He becomes suspicious that the Icarus isn't carrying the recently discovered alien stardrive; instead, he thinks the Icarus itself is the alien stardrive. If this stardrive were to remain outside Patth hands, it could spell the doom of the Patth economic empire. There are more scattered sabotage incidents aboard the ship, leading McKell to believe that one of the crewers is a Patth agent. He requests background information on all of them from Uncle Arthur, which is delivered to him when the ship stops at the planet Morsh Pon. McKell and Ixil discover that the ship's computer tech, Tera, is in fact the daughter of Arno Cameron. They also discover that Cameron himself had been aboard the ship, hidden in the area between the inner and outer hulls; he had unexpectedly jumped ship, however, during one of the fuel stops. The Icarus successfully evades an attack off the planet Utheno, and McKell decides to make a break for Earth, outrunning the Patth by using the alien stardrive. This requires dismantling a good deal of the ship; while exploring deep inside the Icarus' interior, McKell discovers by accident that the Icarus is not a stardrive at all; it is actually a stargate (a hitherto-theoretical interstellar-teleportation device), and Arno Cameron, instead of jumping ship as they had supposed, had instead been temporarily stuck at the stargate's other end. A forced landing on the planet Palmary leads to McKell being captured by the Patth; he is rescued, however, by some of the crew. They decide to take temporary refuge at the isolated planet Beyscrim. There, they are confronted by Antoniewicz, and it is revealed that Antoniewicz, through the crewmember Everett, had engineered most of the sabotage incidents, believing that McKell was no longer loyal to him and intending to bring him back into line. Then, recognizing the Icarus' value, he had decided to take it for himself, and maneuvered the Icarus and its crew into coming to Beyscrim. Antoniewicz's plans are thwarted, however, with the arrival of a Kalixiri commando force that had been sent by Uncle Arthur. In the end, McKell reveals that he and Ixil are not smugglers, but instead members of a military intelligence organization who had been assigned to infiltrate Antoniewicz's operation. McKell had been on Meima under orders from Uncle Arthur, his superior, to find Cameron and help him out of whatever trouble he was in, with taking the job as the Icarus' pilot a maneuver to that end; landing the Icarus on Beyscrim had merely been bait to bring Antoniewicz out of his cover. The book concludes with the crew celebrating their rescue, while Cameron makes plans for smuggling the Icarus back to Earth for research. A secondary plot thread (and a complication of the main plot) involves a chemical dependency (possibly related to a rare and fatal neurological disease) of one of the crewmen. ===== On the Isle of Wight, a train accident on the Island Line means that the main hospital, St. James's, is completely full and unable to take in any more patients. A smaller and older hospital, Mercy Falls, is being closed down, but some of the patients, including the children's ward, need to remain at the site until there is availability elsewhere. One of the children, Maggie, an orphan suffering from severe cystic fibrosis, tells the night nurse, Susan, that she has seen "her" again, frightening Susan. Another child, Simon, suffers a broken leg and is rushed to the X-ray department. No one knows how his leg broke but as Simon lies on the X-ray table, his femur inexplicably suffers a second fracture. Susan leaves the hospital on sick leave and Amy Nicholls replaces her. Amy bonds with Maggie as both are orphans. Maggie explains to Amy that there is a girl called Charlotte who lives in the abandoned ward upstairs. Roy, the operations manager, explains to Amy that Charlotte is an urban legend that has been seen by several children over the past two decades. Simon later tells Amy that Charlotte is the one who broke his leg. Amy visits Susan to ask why she left but learns that Susan died in an accident. She meets two local psychics, who explain that Charlotte can only be seen by those who are close to death. Back at Mercy Falls, the children watch Sleeping Beauty and Maggie says that true love's kiss has special power. Amy looks at the files of the other children who'd mentioned Charlotte. All of these children are deceased; Amy realizes that Maggie must be close to death. Later, Roy is killed by Charlotte after she causes him to have a major nose bleed then violently forces him, backward through a window. Amy goes up to the second floor through a hidden trapdoor. She finds an old photograph of a girl in a wheelchair with a nurse and a film-reel which shows the girl on a medical treatment for osteogenesis imperfecta or "brittle bone disease". The photograph is labelled, "Charlotte and Mandy, 1959." Charlotte begins to appear in front of a metal door shown as a grey tall figure with braces on her legs. Maggie saves Amy, dropping her favorite blanket, "Mr. Sleepy" in the process. Amy and Dr. Robert view the film and Robert explains the disease Maggie suffered from was a sickness that causes the patient's bones to be susceptible to fractures. Doctors had built metal, orthotic braces for Charlotte to wear, in the hopes of strengthening her bones. Amy now believes Charlotte is the angry ghost of the little girl who is hurting the children. She searches the records but no child called Charlotte existed. Amy finally learns why the upstairs ward is closed. The nurse caring for the little girl had become obsessed with her. When the treatments began to work and the child improved, she started purposely breaking the girl's bones and eventually murdered the child. She then put on the child's metal, orthotic braces and leapt down an elevator shaft, to her death. Robert shows Amy a file he found which proves that "Mandy" is the child's name and "Charlotte" is in fact, the obsessed nurse. Amy realizes Charlotte wants the children. The hospital starts falling apart because of Charlotte's rage as the staff desperately try to evacuate the children, assisted by additional staff from St. James's. As help arrives, Amy realises that everything is suddenly calm, and Mrs. Folder says that Maggie is missing. Amy realises that Maggie went to get her 'Mr Sleepy' and runs to the abandoned ward. Weak and exhausted, Maggie is in Mandy's old room. Despite Charlotte's presence, Amy determinedly picks up Maggie and tries to reach the trapdoor but Charlotte causes the floor to destabilise and Amy's leg is impaled by a piece of metal, causing major bleeding. As the two escape the second floor by jumping through the trapdoor, Maggie succumbs to her illness and stops breathing. Despite Amy's desperate attempts, the little girl dies in her arms. Amy then also collapses from blood loss. Robert futilely tries to revive her but Amy's heart stops beating. As the medical team step back, we see Maggie's ghost give Amy a "pure love" kiss, similar to the one she watched in Sleeping Beauty earlier, and Amy begins to breathe again. The movie ends as Amy wakes up in a different hospital with Robert at her side. An elderly patient notices Maggie's smiling ghost sitting on Amy's bedside - staying close to what she loved best in life. ===== The game setting is a medieval fantasy world similar to that of the high fantasy seen in The Lord of the Rings. The demons and abominations of nature who reside in the underground kingdom of Cadash have not forgotten that, thousands of years previously, they once shared the light with humans. Then one rose among them who was especially powerful, a demonic wizard born of a human woman – the Balrog (Baarogue or Baalogue in the arcade version, and Barlog in the TurboGrafx version). The Balrog promised his followers they could, in time, emerge from their subterranean prison and rule the world of men, taking revenge on humans for their prior defeat in battle and subsequent exile, if the Balrog could mingle his blood with that of a human king. The Balrog and his demonic armies gathered in force over the centuries, and are now powerful enough to emerge to the surface and make war with the unprepared human kingdoms which had not known war for millennia, all of which quickly fall to the Balrog. The human world is almost entirely laid to waste by the Balrog. However, this was not enough for the Balrog, whose prize is the mightiest of all human kingdoms, the Kingdom of Dirzir. One night, the beautiful Princess Salassa is kidnapped by the Balrog from the Keep of Deerzar, the capital city of Dirzir, and taken underground to the dreaded Castle Cadash. There the Balrog plans to initiate the ritual which would magically bind himself to the human princess, becoming all-powerful and invincible. Dilsarl, the distraught and helpless elderly King of Dirzir, has vowed to give his entire kingdom to the one who would rescue his beloved only daughter, and many brave heroes have disappeared into the depths of Cadash on this quest. ===== A timid insurance salesman Albert L. Tuttle (Jack Haley) visits eccentric millionaire Cyrus J. Rutherford, intent on selling him a $200,000 insurance deal. Instead he finds that Rutherford has recently died and his mansion is now full of relatives who are, according to the will, all bound to remain in the mansion until a glass- domed vault is constructed on the roof, to house the deceased millionaire who was an ardent follower of the stars. Tuttle is mistaken for a private detective sent to guard the body, and once the confusion is cleared up and the real detective fails to show, he is convinced by Rutherford's niece Carol Dunlap (Jean Parker) to remain and ensure that the body is not stolen. If the body should be buried any place other than the vault, the will states that recipients who would receive the largest request will receive the smallest, and vice versa. One of the recipients plans to reverse the will in their favor, hide the body and kill anyone who gets in their way. Unfortunately for mild-mannered Tuttle, he is directly in the way of the killer, and the rest of the conniving family. ===== Bhoopathy (Vijay) is a happy-go-lucky youth from Pollachi who is sent by his father Mani Gounder (Manivannan) to stay with his best friend Vishwanathan (Nassar) at Villivakkam, Chennai, so that he can get a job and behave responsibly. Kattabomman (Vadivelu) is Vishwanathan's assistant who torments Bhoopathy right from the day they meet. Priya (Sneha), is Vishwanathan's daughter who is engaged to an NRI groom Prakash (Kamalesh). Priya and Bhoopathy are at loggerheads with each other and constantly fight and play pranks on each other. Soon, however, Priya falls for Bhoopathy. While Bhoopathy also loves Priya back, he realises that she is already engaged to another man and is also reminded of his father's words that he (Bhoopathy) should not make him (father) lose face with his friend under any circumstances. With this in mind, he starts to keep a distance from Priya and decides to return to Pollachi, only to be stopped by Vishwanathan. Later, Priya, along with Bhoopathy and Priya's younger cousin sister Pappi, go to Ooty to attend the wedding of Priya's friend Asha (Gayatri Jayaraman). At Ooty, Bhoopathy attends the bachelor party of the groom Sriman (Sriman). While drunk, he reveals his feelings about Priya. After the marriage, Bhoopathy, Priya and Pappi, along with a photographer (Pandiarajan), go on a day-out to Black Thunder, where the photographer takes a photo of Bhoopathy and Priya holding hands. Bhoopathy keeps snubbing Priya and her romantic overtures to him during the trip as he is reminded of his promise to his father but cannot forget her. On the day before Priya's wedding, Mani arrives in Chennai and finds out about the relationship between Bhoopathy and Priya. Later that night, Prakash and his family see the photo of Bhoopathy and Priya holding hands and Prakash's father (Nizhalgal Ravi) decides to call off the wedding unless Vishwanathan can pay 1 crore to him, which Vishwanathan refuses to do. When Vishwanathan confronts Priya, Priya's aunt (Suhasini Maniratnam), who is aware of the love Priya has for Bhoopathy as well as Bhoopathy's dilemma, reveals the truth to Vishwanathan. Meanwhile, Bhoopathy is at the railway station, trying to convince Prakash to marry Priya. Vishwanathan, who has also arrived at the railway station, sees this, and realising the true reasons behind Bhoopathy backing out over his love for Priya, sends Prakash and his family away and accepts Bhoopathy's relationship with Priya. In the end, Bhoopathy marries Priya. ===== The Penderwicks, a family of six, (four sisters, their father, and their dog) get lost on the way to Arundel Cottage, which they have rented for the summer but find it with the help of a tomato seller named Harry and Cagney, the gardner at Arundel. After getting to the cottage, Skye goes exploring on the grounds, and meets Cagney in the garden. They talk until Mrs. Tifton, the owner of Arundel, comes looking for Cagney, and he hides Skye in an urn. Mrs. Tifton tells Cagney that he needs to get rid of the Fimbriata rosebush that his uncle kept alive for 30 years, but Skye and Cagney decide to move the bush to a place near the cottage. When Skye leaves, she runs into Mrs. Tifton's son Jeffrey, and, not knowing who he is, warns him to stay out of the garden and insults Mrs. Tifton. After telling Rosalind and Jane what happened, Rosalind decides they need to apologize to Jeffrey, and they send Jane to apologize on Skye's behalf the next day. Jane and Jeffrey quickly become friends. Meanwhile, at the cottage, Rosalind and Skye attempt to bake cookies for Jeffrey, but when Cagney comes over with the Fimbriata, Rosalind goes to help him, leaving Skye in charge of the cookies. Skye sets the oven to "broil" and goes upstairs, letting the cookies burn. When Rosalind finds them, Skye yells at her, calling Jeffrey a snob - just as Jeffrey and Jane approach the house. Mr. Penderwick comes in and sends them all on a walk. Jeffrey takes them to see a neighboring farmer's bull, and Batty unknowingly wanders into its pen. Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey manage to save her from being attacked, and swear not to tell Mr. Penderwick or Rosalind about the incident. Later, everyone goes to Jeffrey's house for gingerbread. The cook, Churchie, wants Jeffrey to invite the girls to his birthday party and helps the girls choose beautiful dresses from among Mrs. Tifton's old clothes. The birthday party turns out to be a disaster. At dinner, Mrs. Tifton begins to despise the girls, and afterward they find out that Mrs. Tifton is planning to marry her boyfriend Dexter Dupree, and is considering sending him to a military academy a year earlier than she had previously intended to. After the party, life at Arundel falls into a routine: Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey play soccer and practice archery almost every day, and after Cagney offers to let Batty meet his pet rabbits, she and Rosalind visit his apartment every morning. When Rosalind is too busy to take Batty one day, she goes to visit the rabbits herself, and after being scared by Mrs. Tifton, she accidentally lets one escape. She attempts to find him, but can't, and feeling upset because Cagney told her the rabbit would be killed by an animal if it got loose, she decides to walk back to her house. Hound the dog senses Batty is missing and runs away, with all the Penderwick sisters and Jeffrey following. He catches the escaped rabbit, and leads the older children to Batty, but right as they get to her, Batty walks into the street into the path of a car. Jeffrey pulls her out of the way. When the girls tell Mr. Penderwick what happened, he says that in some cultures, when a person saves another person's life, their souls are linked together. A few days later, when Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey are playing soccer together, they run into the Arundel gardens, forgetting that the Garden Club Contest was happening, and Mrs. Tifton had warned them to stay out of the garden that day. She furiously forbids Jeffrey to ever see the Penderwicks again, but when she and Dexter are out, Skye and Batty go to the Arundel mansion to check on him. Dexter and Mrs. Tifton come home early and find Skye and Batty there. She kicks them out, but Skye goes back and listens to Mrs. Tifton lecturing Jeffrey to make sure he is okay. She overhears Mrs. Tifton call her sneaky and sarcastic and say that Rosalind is always following Cagney around like a lovesick puppy, and that if she continues, some man will "let himself be caught" and that will "end her innocence." Skye also hears that Mr. Penderwick is a pushover, she thinks Batty has a mental issue because of "her tacky wings and the odd way she stares without speaking," and that Mrs. Penderwick ran away from the family because she got tired of caring for all the girls. Skye loses her self- control, storms into the room, and tells Mrs. Tifton that her mother is dead before leaving. That night, Skye tells Rosalind everything that happened, including the part about Rosalind's obsession with Cagney. Rosalind goes for a walk, sees Cagney with another girl, and falls into the pond, hitting her head on a rock. Cagney brings her home. Churchie calls Skye and tells her that Mrs. Tifton and Dexter took Jeffrey for an interview at the military school and delivers a message from Jeffrey telling Skye that it wasn't her fault. That night, Jeffrey comes over to the cottage and tells the girls that he is running away. He plans to stay with Churchie's daughter in Boston. Rosalind invites Jeffrey to stay with them for the night, and he accepts. The next morning, Mrs. Tifton and Dexter come over to the cottage, trying to find Jeffrey. Jeffrey explains to Mrs. Tifton that he doesn't want to go to Pencey, and she finally listens to him. Even better, she lets him take a lesson at the Boston Music Conservatory. In the end, the Penderwicks go home, and Jeffrey, the rabbits, and everyone else is happy, except that they have to leave each other. ===== Much like its three predecessors, Faces of Death IV provides scenes of dying, murder, accidents, druggies/mental health police brutality, execution, cult rituals, and other macabre events. Some of these include a bungee jumping trip gone awry, a magician's fatal mishap with a Houdini trick, a wrecking yard worker who has his left leg severed by a falling Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, a Satanic ritual that ends in the death of several, a cocaine dealer's fatal wedding, and more. John Alan Schwartz cameos yet again as an ambulance driver. The earlier films in the series were of a more serious nature and tone, whereas this installment leans more toward camp: "Dr. Louis Flellis" sits at his desk in front of a glowing red lava lamp, with a plastic skeletal foot on the desk in front of him during introductions to most sequences. Flellis is also shown eating a plate of barbecue ribs immediately before showing slaughterhouse footage. ===== In the aftermath of Hunting Party, the Prince was found engaged in the highly illegal and immoral sport of man-hunting. In an attempt to cover this up, Lady Cecelia and Captain Heris Serrano are enlisted by the Crown into quietly returning the prince to the capital. During the otherwise uneventful voyage, Ron notices something surprising: the Prince is far stupider than he should be as the cosseted and genengineered Registered Embryo he is, and considerably stupider than Ron remembered him being as a child. Clearly something is wrong, and poison is suggested. On Rockhouse Major, Cecelia confronts the King. He blithely dismisses her warning. Later, he mentions her discovery to one of his ministers, who repeats it to his sister, Lorenza, who hates Cecelia for following her dreams and has always wanted to get revenge; she uses the possibility of Cecelia making the poisoning of the prince as an excuse to finally carry it out. As a skilled poisoner, she is fully capable of the deed. On the space station, Heris is having the yacht overhauled and redecorated, whilst her new ex-Fleet personnel are quietly engaged procuring military-grade equipment and installing it. Brigdis Sirkin, meanwhile, has induced her lover (Amalie Yrilan) into taking up a temporary environmental tech job while Serrano decides whether to hire her or not. Towards the end of the allotted month, the smugglers balked in Hunting Party attack the two when Sirkin refuses to become their agent on the Sweet Delight, and are revealed to be Benignity agents. Before the badly injured Sirkin is rescued by Oblo and Methlin Meharry, Yrilan is killed by a sonic weapon. No sooner had this mess been cleaned up and the ship turned over to Spacenhance's redecorator than horrible news arrives from the planet: Lady Cecelia has suffered a "massive stroke". Heris is skeptical of this diagnosis, as is Brun. They maneuver to link up and begin planning how to rescue Cecelia. Cecelia in the meantime has been occasionally drifting to consciousness, and for increasing periods of time. What she hears is sufficient to prove that she is being deliberately prevented from recovering, her visual sense deliberately impaired and even worse, that she had been poisoned. Unfortunately for Cecelia, while she is not dead, she has been deemed sufficiently incapacitated that her will is being executed. In her will she had recently made a change to give the Sweet Delight to Heris, both because she was a good friend and because Heris had saved Cecelia from Admiral Lepescu on Sirialis in Hunting Party. Berenice, Cecelia's sister, had always envied her her yacht, and given the suspicious nature of Cecelia's stroke and the amendment to the will, decides to sue Heris for the yacht. With the yacht tied up in probate, Heris's options are limited. They are further limited when the King summons Heris to an audience, and quite firmly insists that she and her crew steal the Sweet Delight, and while avoiding arrest by the Fleet, discovery of their identity and also any attacks by the Benignity and their agents, take the stupid prince to the Guerini Republic to seek an antidote to the poison. Heris has little choice but to agree, and steals the yacht and busts out of the Rockhouse system at high speed. Brun and Ron take advantage of the lowered scrutiny and security (since Heris has quite visibly left, and Lorenza's agents were expecting any threat to their imprisonment of Cecelia to come from her direction) to arrange for a bunch of rowdies in hot air balloons to "visit" the long-term care facility during a festival; Cecelia is then evacuated in Brun's balloon (Ronnie having previously prepared Cecelia and had the surveillance devices put on a loop). Immediately they take her off-planet and eventually to her stable on the planet Rotterdam, where the locals like or love her. From there they begin hiring medical experts to come treat her. Heris' pickup of the prince goes badly when she proves unable to distinguish between the real prince and his clone double. The confusion is exacberated when Captain Arash Livadhi shows with a third prince whom he believes to be the real prince, but who is likewise indistinguishable. Otherwise, the trip goes smoothly, except for Sirkin, who keeps making careless mistakes and whose performance is otherwise deteriorating. As Lady Cecelia recovers and prepares to file for competency and thereby regain her estate, Brun works her way back to Rockhouse Major via low-level jobs aboard various commercial vessels; even with this ruse, she barely avoids Lorenza's hired assassins. She warns Ron and the others that Lorenza was the culprit and to be avoided. While Cecelia is regaining control, Heris leaves two of the three princes to the tender mercies of the Guerini medical establishment and travels back to Rotterdam to see Cecelia. After a joyful reunion, Cecelia returns to her yacht, and thence to the Guerini Republic. During this second trip to the Republic, Sirkin makes one mistake too many, and is relieved of her duties by Heris, who now suspects her of being a Benignity agent. However, merely taking her off-duty soon appears to be insufficient when a course modification puts them almost on top of a Benignity space-fleet base. When bridge computers begin malfunctioning, Heris orders the relatively new crew-member Skoterin to break out the small arms in the Security lockers against whatever Sirkin might be planning. Cecelia is convinced that Skoterin and not Sirkin is the traitor, and breaks Sirkin out of her quarters. When they (Cecelia's aide, a prince, and Sirkin) try to intercept Skoterin before she opens the lockers, they fail and are ambushed. Skoterin explains that her plan as a Benignity agent was to get revenge on Heris for killing two family members and to skillfully have it all blamed on Sirkin. When he tries to stop her from shooting Sirkin, the prince is killed. Cecelia and Sirkin are only saved when Petris attacks Skoterin from behind. The internal revolt quenched, all attention is turned to the attacking Benignity ships, now being harried by Livadhi's cruiser. Defeating two, they quickly beat a retreat to the Guerini. There Sirkin and Cecelia are treated with stunning success; Cecelia is rejuvenated to herself as she was at 40 years of age, restored in all senses and capacities. Now cured, Cecelia's next task is to punish Lorenza. She travels to the Familias Grand Council, at which event Lorenza is sure to be. The prince's death (for Cecelia is sure that the one of the three who sacrificed himself so heroically was the real prince) finally convinces the King that his policies have led to nothing but to disaster; his only course is to resign. Lorenza notices Cecelia's presence, hale and hearty and rejuvenated, and panics, fleeing wildly. She turns to the same therapist/Benignity agent who had arranged for Yrilan's death, seeking safe transportation away from the Familias; for her mistakes, the therapist gasses Lorenza to death. ===== The actual story is classic Simmons in its literary allusions, with epigraphs from Ezra Pound's Cantos; the protagonist's father is a Pound scholar with an especial interest in the Cantos (reading from it to his children), and the premise can be seen as deriving from a line in the Cantos as well. The mother of the family has died of some unspecified illness. Stricken by grief, the father bargains (heedless of the prospect of financial ruin) with the "Resurrectionists" to have his wife's corpse technologically revived. The resurrection is a hollow one, as all higher cognitive functions are irreparably damaged, although it does function somewhat autonomously. Their family is stigmatized, and the father slowly breaks down and his classes become less and less popular until he takes a sabbatical to write his long-planned work on the Cantos. He spends most of it drunk. Simon, the protagonist's brother, eventually commits suicide. A few years later, while the protagonist is at university (sponsored by the Resurrectionists, whom he has joined) the father commits suicide as well. He graduates and begins working for them and helping to spread the living dead. He does little but work, spending his free time with his resurrected family. ===== The two central characters are the Americans Bremen and Gail. Both are telepaths, the only other telepaths that either has ever known. Inevitably, they fall in love. When Gail dies of illness, Bremen is devastated. He gives up his career in mathematics and becomes a drifter. At the commencement of the action, he has ended up at a facility for retarded and otherwise disabled minors. He becomes sort of fond of one named Robby, who had been blinded and mentally crippled before birth by his mother's drug abuse habits, and resolves that before he leaves the facility (for he feels he has been there too long), he will use his telepathic power to give Robby a gift of sorts: images and sounds of the outside world. Bremen succeeds in penetrating Robby's mental defenses, but is unexpectedly sucked into Robby's mind, where Gail manifests. The fusion between Gail and Bremen was deep and profound enough. Unfortunately, the strain of holding Bremen and Gail in his mind and in comprehending what the show up pushes Robby's obese body to the brink and over. Bremen leaves Robby's mind, taking Gail and Robby with him while Robby's body dies. ===== It is set in a flooded post-apocalyptic New York City, to which televangelists have dispatched missionaries equipped with Satellite TV reception units to convert the heathens. Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob has been sent to NYC. There he meets the Red Bantam clan, which tattoos images of bantams on its members (as Simmons notes, this is a sly reference to the publisher Bantam Books), which Jimmy-Joe interprets as the Mark of the Beast. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Jimmy-Joe takes a survival knife that appeared as an extra present as a gift. He tells the children that "Anyone upon the roof tonight would see [the pagan and hence evil, from his perspective] Santa Claus and his reindeer." When one comes up the flights seeking him, Billy-Bob sacrifices her on the altar holding up the antenna with the survival knife. ===== It recounts the fate of a young Boy Scout during the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. There he is randomly assigned to assist a veteran, one Captain Montgomery from North Carolina. The captain brandishes an antique pistol at the unnamed scout, and orders a wagon and team. Fortuitously, just such a team shows up, and the captain heads out to "Iverson's Pits", where he expects to reach a consummation to his long-held obsession with achieving a revenge on his former commander, Alfred Iverson. Apparently, Iverson's incompetence had led him to order his men into the teeth of a Union trap while he had lunch. To cover his own failing, Iverson claimed to one and all that his men were cowards and had tried to surrender. The two hide in some weeds and ambush a young man who looks much like Iverson did. The boy stops the Captain from killing him, as the traveler is far too young. They cordially greet the traveler, whose name is Sheads, and visit his house. Jessup Sheads toasts the captain's regiment, and then Iverson himself with some of the local wine. The Captain refuses the second toast, cursing Iverson. Sheads reveals himself to be Iverson's nephew. Iverson comes down, and the nephew kills Montgomery when he draws a revolver on Iverson. About to bury the Captain, Iverson orders Sheads to kill the scout as well, to silence all witnesses, when the very earth begins moving and opening up. With its teeth, it seizes and devours Sheads. Iverson attempts to escape on his horse and kill the Scout, but he hurls a lantern at Iverson, distracting him. The pits take Iverson and his horse, and the Scout eventually becomes a historian specializing in Gettysburg. ===== Mr. Kennan apparently entered a master's degree program in Missouri, but on completing it found himself too poor to move back to the Northeast, and so is forced to take a job there teaching for a year. In The Story, Raul and Gernisavien have discovered in the "Man Ruins", a map to the location of the long-forgotten farcaster portal. Hunted by the Wizards, they travel to the city of Carnval. In that city's ancient archives, they discover the key to re-activate the portal. Once activated, they can draw on the expertise of Dobby, the sorcerer-ape. The Wizards trap them in Carnval, and they can only afford to escape aboard the Sky Galleon because Raul risks his life in the Death Game fighting the "genetically-engineered" relic of the Wizard Wars, the fearsome and unbeatable Shrike. Raul survives the requisite three minutes, and wins. After they leave the Sky Galleon, all but Raul are captured by the Wizards and taken to their fortress in the cold mountain fastnesses. There Gernisavien is about to be dissected by a Wizard to get the key which she had swallowed. Kennan plans the grand finale to coincide with the end of the school year; Raul will sacrifice himself in glorious combat with the Wizards while his friends frantically reactivate the farcaster. They will succeed, and return with an army of Humans, freeing their world. But Kennan unexpectedly lands an excellent position in the East at a college, but the exigencies of the situation are such that he must cut short the school year and leave almost immediately. He would be unable to finish The Story. Terry, when Mr. Kennan tells him that he is leaving, rejects him; the details of their discussion are not given. Kennan never sees him again. In the last days, Terry lets it be known that he knows the ending to The Story. But the tale he tells during the final recess is different from the one Kennan outlined in his letter: Raul successfully breaks into the Wizard fortress, but half-frozen and overwhelmed by their technology, cannot overcome them. He is forced to escape aboard one of their flying craft. Dobby manages to wrench one arm free, but no more, while Gernisavien is securely fastened. They know their only course of action with Raul's defeat is to have Dobby smash some chemicals together. The resulting explosion levels the mountain. Raul is safely away when it happens, but he knows that the explosion means that the quest is dead, for his friends perished with the key and knowledge necessary to reactivate the farcaster. ===== Chronologically, Once a Hero directly follows Winning Colors, even overlapping partially, but the focus distinctly shifts to young Esmay Suiza, who came to prominence after successfully leading a mutiny against her traitorous captain and intervening to decisive effect in the Battle of Xavier (as Winning Colors records). Suiza is not immediately praised and feted for her heroism, however, for her actions demand official scrutiny. Thorough and complete, neither the Board of Inquiry nor the court-martial find Suiza guilty of anything, and so she is allowed to take a vacation before her next assignment. Back home on Altiplano, Esmay is honored with Altiplano's highest award, the Starmount, although she remains convinced that she was not really a hero, that it was blind luck. While talking with an old soldier who had served under her father (one of the four highest military commanders on Altiplano) and was a family friend, she learns that the nightmares and her dislike of command and horses were psychological trauma from when, as a child, she had ventured into a warzone seeking her father. She had been waylaid and molested by one of her father's subordinates; the family friend knew this sordid tale because he had been the one to kill that subordinate, whose politically connected father meant any trial was infeasible. He felt free to tell her since he assumed that Suiza's father's coverup had failed to convince Suiza that the memories were merely nightmares during an illness or fragments of her imagination. This revelation precipitates a break with her father. Meanwhile, some mendacious and greedy civilian contractors for the Fleet have agreed to carry out a job for the barbarian space-warriors of the Bloodhorde: they would take a Fleet contract to rekey the command sequences of various missiles, and when they were aboard the specified massive Deep Space Repair vessel, covertly disable its self-destruct mechanism. This job would pave the way for the Bloodhorde boarding team. By a remarkable coincidence, it is this very same DSR, the Koskiusko ("Kos" for short) which Suiza is assigned to. After catching a resupply vehicle to the Kos, Suiza is assigned to a Major Pitak in Hulls and Architecture; Pitak immediately begins running Esmay ragged with errands and learning everything she needs to know about spaceship structural design and how to repair and fix vessels. In her spare time, Suiza slowly begins assembling a circle of friends, especially one Ensign Barin Serrano (last seen in Winning Colors hand-delivering a message to Heris Serrano from Vida Serrano before the Battle of Xavier). As the months pass by Suiza settles in; so do the traitorous civilian contractors who productively improve the hours by disabling the self-destruct without tripping the monitors. Inevitably, the Bloodhorde launches its attack, crippling the patrol ship Wraith. Wraith is repairable, but is incapable of further safe FTL jumps. So the Kos goes out to meet it, since it is in the neighborhood, although the danger of pulling the Kos out of its normal routes and so near Bloodhorde space is very real. Suiza is sent by Major Pitak to take pictures of the forward section of the hull to ascertain the full extent of the damage. Suiza discovers instead the first prong of the Bloodhorde plan: a massive mine was planted on Wraith, programmed to wait until Wraith was brought into one of the Kos's repair bays and then detonate; this would incapacitate the Kos and make it easy meat for the waiting Bloodhorde assault group. Thanks to Suiza's presence of mind, the mine is safely disarmed. But all is not well. The Bloodhorde's plan is remarkably subtle (for the Bloodhorde): though the first prong has been deflected, the second was yet to strike. After the mine is disposed of, repairs continue in earnest on the Wraith. Forward of the mine, some 25 crew members are discovered knocked out by sleeping-gas and are taken into the hospital facilities. Despite their location, open to space, they are uniformly uninjured, and eventually scattered across the Kos to help out. One interacts with Suiza. His manner strikes her as drastically unlike that of a Fleet member, and more reminiscent of commandos she had known. After making inquiries as to their location (most had vanished), whether they were injured at all like they should have been, and whether any senior Wraith officers recognize them, it is concluded that Kos has been boarded by Bloodhorde commandos seeking to capture the DSR and massively upgrade the Bloodhorde's industrial infrastructure and especially its military construction capability, greatly increasing its killing power. The captain immediately orders everybody's identification checked against their DNA and fresh IDs issued. During the change-over, the Bloodhorde kidnaps Barin Serrano, taking him as a hostage. With the Kos' FTL drive apparently broken and its self-destruct disabled, the higher-ups decide on a risky strategy of detaching the section of Kos containing most of the intruders, and ambushing the expected follow-up wave of Bloodhorde; while that wave was preoccupied boarding, they would attack the vessel and use it to either protect the Kos until its escorts returned with reinforcements or destroy it. During a meeting with Suiza to discuss how to suppress the commandos, the spoken-of commandos attack, cutting off most of the senior personnel with poison gas. They escape the cabin with the injured captain and link up with some personnel who had made it to the security lockers before the Bloodhorde. They conclude that to lead an effective resistance, they have to lead it from the T-1 arm of the Kos. But all the arms have been locked off from the core by the Bloodhorde. So, they decide to go EVA and go around. During the EVA excursions, the Kos is jumped through hyperspace. Led by Suiza, the crew of T-1 determine to retake the Kos and ambush their ambushers. When the intruders relax their guard of the bridge, one of the bridge crew women risks her life to re-open the doors to the core (and by extension, enabling an assault on the bridge). The prepared security teams overcome the few commandos in the core and regain control easily - most of the commandos had gone to T-4 to eliminate the resistance there. The crew in T-4 had used their grace time profitably, arranging an elaborate drama for the benefit of the commandos, intended to convince them that they were fighting - and defeating - the ill-prepared armed resistance of the Familias crew. The drama lures them to the repair bay, where (elated by their success), they don spacesuits and sortie out to welcome their warship into the repair bay. There it is trapped by an extremely strong adhesive. The two other warships dock without being trapped, and debark their crew in EVA suits. The robots used for painting vessels attack them, blinding and immobilizing them. The two still-mobile Bloodhorde ships are commandeered and the three remaining Bloodhorde are easily destroyed, and the day saved. Barin Serrano is discovered alive, but much abused in mind and body. Suiza is no less discomfited by her nightmares and anxieties. She and Barin begin going to psychiatric care. Eventually Suiza begins to work through her phobia of sexual contact and assuming leadership. She transfers to "command track" and becomes intimate with Barin. ===== At the end of Once a Hero, Esmay decided to pursue higher rank and command. Pursuant to this, she has transferred to a Fleet training base on the Fleet-owned planet Copper Mountain. Coincidentally, this is the same base that Brun is training at in various useful skills like escape and evasion. Simultaneously with their training, the podunk colony planet of "Our Texas" is up to its old piracy tricks using its share of the "New Texas Godfearing Militia"; it is using certain converts in the Familias to steal Fleet nuclear warheads and intercept them. Brun intends to befriend Esmay but is rejected; Esmay finds Brun to be shallow and is far too preoccupied with her staggering course load to be constantly hanging out with Brun. The final break occurs when Brun is forbidden by the base commandant and her father to participate in the field exercise which is the culmination of the Escape & Evasion course because of the scope it offers would-be assassins - already two attempts had taken place, one of which put Brun in the base hospital for a month. Brun storms down to Esmay's quarters to harangue her, accusing Esmay of not wanting to do the field exercise with her and getting her forbidden; Esmay is more than willing to reciprocate as she has learned of Brun's attempts to woo Barin away from Esmay. Brun is cut to the quick by some of the truths Esmay speaks and by her complete rejection (Brun having looked up to Esmay as a hero or almost a big sister), and leaves the base. She occupies herself travelling and inspecting various investments. Esmay is severely reprimanded for having spoken to the Speaker's daughter in such a fashion, and is assigned far away to a Search-and-Rescue (SAR) space vessel as its executive officer. After Brun leaves, the New Texas Godfearing Militia strikes, stealing the commercial hauler which is unknowingly carrying their stolen weapon; they space all the adults aboard (mutilating the women whom they describe as "abominations") and kidnapping the children and a teenaged girl named "Hazel". Brun happens to stumble on the scene (having discovered the commercial hauler's secret short cut) while the Militia was still practicing with the hauler. Against her bodyguard's better judgement, she sneaks in closer in her small yacht to see what was happening. Inevitably, the Militia notices and their warships begin maneuvering to capture the witness. Brun had not expected this, but began the complex and advanced maneuvers that would get her safely away - to discover that her chartered yacht had various safety interlocks in its computer navigation systems to prevent its users from doing anything possibly unsafe. Brun is captured by the Our Texans. As per their religious beliefs, her bodyguard is slaughtered to the man, and the Rangers decide to make Brun herself into their conception of a proper wife by having her surgically muted. She is then repeatedly gang-raped until she becomes pregnant with twins. She is transported to Our Texas and imprisoned in a maternity home while she gives birth; like all women so abducted, the plan is that she will give birth three times; if she is not dead of childbirth or executed for disobedience, she will then be auctioned off to the highest bidder to serve as perhaps the man's third or fourth wife. Records of all the proceedings are sent back to the Familias; the Ranger in charge is not completely suicidal, but believes that the threat of blowing up one of the thousands of Familias space-stations will deter any military response. Back in the Familias, suspicion and rumor (aided by less talented and jealous former classmates) and Lord Thornbuckle fasten on to Esmay as the culpable agent to blame. Somewhat fortunately for Esmay, at this unpromising juncture her great- grandmother dies. Esmay is the designated next female in the succession of the Landbride, so she inherits the title and the assets like the land. The Fleet gladly grants her leave, and her stay on Altiplano lasts just long enough for her cousin Luci to knock some sense into Esmay's head and convince her to return to Fleet and try to reconcile with Barin. She succeeds and planning for the rescue of Brun slowly proceeds; it will be timed for when Brun's twins are almost finished nursing and the time for Brun to be impregnated draws near. Presumably she will be at her best in this period. A Guerini agent will take her from the maternity facility and drive her to the spaceport. His shuttle will boost off the planet and be picked up by a Familias SAR spaceship, backed up by a decent sized task force in case the four Our Texan warships attempt to interfere. In the meantime, Brun has been preparing on her own for an escape: physically conditioning her body, brewing alcohol (to knock out her babies so their crying does not reveal her escape), and acquiring kitchen knives as weapons. The agent approaches Brun during her first practice escape, and also picks up the teenager from the merchant vessel at Brun's vigorous urging. The flight up is uneventful until the agent is offered more money by the Our Texans and changes his course to one of their warships while Hazel and Brun slept. When Brun wakes up and realizes his treachery, she kills him and seizes control of the shuttle. But the shuttle has already approached too close to the planet to escape, and she is forced to dock at an abandoned space station under heavy missile fire. The shuttle is sent on a suicide plunge into the atmosphere as a decoy, but this does not fool the Rangers, who dispatch several shuttles to destroy the station once and for all. The expert system aboard decides to help Brun and Hazel. Brun has it send a message to the Fleet SAR that she is aboard the station and not dead, and squads of neuro-enhanced space marines arrive on the station just after the three Texan shuttles unload. Another faction of Texans seize the opportunity to attempt to eliminate the first faction's troops. In the confusion, Hazel is evacuated but Esmay and Brun are blown into space by some bombs. Esmay suffers from hypoxia before the two are rescued by a space sled. By this point, the rest of the Fleet units have jumped in and easily blown the four warships guarding Our Texas. With Our Texas supine before the task force, Brun tasks Admiral Serrano with retrieving the four children captured by the Texans with Hazel. The retrieval initially goes well, as the Ranger's household, led by his first wife, cooperates, and attaches itself to Barin as their "protector". The other Rangers's successors (the Rangers themselves either dead or captured) do not intend to allow the heathens to take back children now being raised as God wants, and plan to use their stolen nuclear bombs to kill them all. With some effective help from the marines and theft of the arming keys, the threat is defused and many civilian lives saved. Esmay, Barin, and Brun are all reconciled, with the sole remaining threat being the enthusiastic media coverage. Category:Novels by Elizabeth Moon Category:1998 novels ===== As the novel opens, things are in disarray in the Familias Regnant. Lord Kemtre's monarchy has fallen as a result of the events in Hunting Party and Sporting Chance which led to the revelation of the king's illegal use of biological clones as doubles; Lord Thornbuckle ("Bunny"; Brun's father) has taken the reins of government. Crises abound: a young and foolish Family member disappears on the fractious and restless world of Patchcock; there are concerns that the drug supply for curing aging is being adulterated by the Benignity; and other concerns that Brun is somehow in danger. The Fleet, too, is restless and ill at ease; lurking and awaiting their chance is the Benignity of the Compassionate Hand (the "Black Scratch"), which has begun preparing an invasion. The recently rejuvenated and cured Lady Cecelia de Marktos has decided to channel her recently acquired youthful energy into breeding horses, using the Sweet Delight (legally now Heris's as a result of a bequest in Cecelia's will which was executed whilst Cecelia was incapacitated, but de facto Cecelia's) to visit the frontier world of Xavier (which specializes in horses), with the added complication of Brun aboard working as a low-level apprentice technician. Meanwhile, Ron and George are dispatched to the Guerini Republic. Ostensibly, they are there to get Ron away from his lover Raffaele, whose family refuses to countenance their marriage, and also to retrieve some information about Cecelia's treatment there. The true reason they are there is that, at the request of Bunny, they are taking some of the suspected adulterated rejuvenation drugs to be compared against the original known good Guerini products. While waiting on the test results, they accidentally run into the manumitted clones of the dead prince; to protect their secret, the two surviving clones take Ron and George prisoner, until the trailing Raffaele tracks them down. The clones need their help because the former king is also trying to track them down, as they are his only surviving sons, in a sense. Ron, George, and Raffaele help the clones assume new identities in exchange for them freeing Ron and George. Freed, they learn that the Guerini had discovered that the rejuvenation drugs, supposedly of Guerini manufacture, were in reality being shoddily produced on Patchcock and fraudulently sold at the higher price. Meanwhile, Heris has been quietly ferrying around Cecelia and a special guest: Livadhi's secret weapon, a remarkable scan technician named Koutsoudas. A raider out of the anarchic and barbaric conglomerate known as Aethar's World visits Xavier and is blown into space dust by the Sweet Delight. Unfortunately, this display of martial expertise is insufficient to intimidate the Benignity observer, who reports back that Xavier has only minimal defenses; this report initiates the invasion, as Xavier is strategically situated. Heris's desperate pleas for assistance against the coming strike to the local Fleet headquarters succeeds only in roping in a cruiser and two patrol boasts - all commanded by traitors in the pay of the Benignity. After Koutsoudas's spying on the command crew sorts out traitors from loyalists, Heris lays and executes her plan: she has invited aboard to dine with all of the senior officers, along with some of her "officers" (really her best hand-to-hand combat fighters). When closeted away with the traitors, she quickly kills them and takes over the cruiser using the hidden computer authority which her aunt Admiral Vida Serrano had had created specifically for her to use in such a situation. Heris bluffs her way into command of the cruiser (claiming that she was really still in Fleet, and that her court-martial had been arranged to serve as a plausible excuse for leaving Fleet when she went undercover), and of one patrol boat. The third patrol boat, the Despite, escapes and warns the incoming Benignity fleet of what awaits them. Through a lot of luck (such as mechanical problems for the foe) and some excellent micro-jumping tactics by the defenders and the unexpected assistance of the Despite, whose crew had mutinied, and now captained by a jig named Esmay Suiza (who figures more prominently in the next three books), the invading fleet is destroyed and the system held until it is relieved by a Familias battle group under Admiral Serrano, who reveals to Heris that she had been deliberately maneuvering and aiding Heris to use her as a lightning rod to flush out traitors and blunt Benignity incursions. Now imbued with Fleet imprimatur, Heris travels with Cecelia to Patchcock, where together they help an aunt of the Family concerned kick her felonious brothers out of corporate control, and rescue the youngsters, all the while defeating the Benignity- encouraged terrorists who had killed the young Family member. At the end, Brun decides to take Fleet training; George begins following after his father in law school; Raffaele and Ron quasi-elope to a frontier world colony to build a life of their own; Heris and her crew rejoin Fleet, while Heris finally is reconciled with her parents over their betrayal of her during her court- martial, and Cecelia decides to captain a new vessel on her own while continuing to raise horses. ===== ===== The Love Suicides at Sonezaki is a short play in three scenes, staged over a day and a night. The two central characters are a young orphan merchant clerk named Tokubei (whose firm deals in oil or possibly soy) and the courtesan with whom he is in love, Ohatsu. ===== In 1999 (2019 in the second edition), Nigel Walmsley, a British scientist and astronaut for NASA, is sent to attach a thermonuclear bomb to a comet named Icarus which is on a direct collision course for India. Icarus turns out to be large, solid, and made of a nickel-iron composite. Nigel is instructed to plant the weapon and leave so it can be detonated. He persuades Mission Control to let him put it in a large fissure he discovered, so it would be even more effective. In the fissure, Nigel discovers strips of metal worked in obviously artificial patterns. Awestruck at this evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life, Nigel begins exploring. Icarus is made up of a number of hollow shells, making the asteroid's mass far less than predicted. NASA insists that the demolition has to go forward, claiming Icarus would skip off the atmosphere and land in the Indian Ocean, causing widespread damage from the resultant tsunami. Nigel realizes this is a lie, and convinces his partner of that. They hide the nuke and spend the next week retrieving artifacts and materials before detonating the bomb. 15 years after their discovery the Icarus artifacts have yielded little, and Nigel's delayed detonation of Icarus has alienated him from NASA and other people. Nigel's partner, Alexandria, dies from systemic lupus erythematosus, a disease caused by pollution. An anomaly near Jupiter distracts Nigel: something, nicknamed 'the Snark', is repeating radio broadcasts. The anomaly fires its fusion engines and reveals itself to the satellites around Jupiter. As a probe vessel, the Snark's directing computer could not afford to ignore the satellites' radio emissions before it moved on to Earth. Eventually the JPL team locates the Snark around Venus. Nigel hijacks the communications, transmitting his own signal to the Snark. The Snark receives the signal as a sign of non-hostile intentions and transmits back. It also reaches out through Nigel's medical implants to his dead partner's more elaborate ones, and commandeers her body to explore and learn about Earth. The initial tentative transmissions blossom into a largely one-way torrent of information for the Snark. One day, it asks to visit Earth. A compromise is worked out: the Snark will orbit the Moon until trust is built up. As Nigel is already fully informed, he is assigned to pilot the space ship (armed with another nuke) and meet the Snark. Nigel meets the Snark, which disables his chemical weapons and begins talking to Nigel. It says that organic civilizations and species are inherently unstable; they flash brilliantly and commit suicide sooner or later. The autonomous machines they craft live on long after them, going on and evolving. But they cannot truly compete with the organics, who live "in the universe of essences". That is the reason for the Great Silence. Nigel's superiors order him to use the nuclear weapon, but he refuses. They override him and fire it anyway but the Snark flees the Solar System faster than the missile can follow. The decision to fire is covered up, but Nigel blackmails NASA into letting him go to the Moon; the Snark had directed a transmission at Mare Marginis for unknown parties, and Nigel wanted to find those parties. Four years later, Nigel is now based on the Moon. A fellow astronaut, Nikka, is involved in a crash that accidentally discovers a still active alien spacecraft wreck in the Moon's Mare Marginis – a spacecraft suspiciously armed with a once-powerful anti- spacecraft weapon. Nigel and Nikka explore the wreck, and find a functioning computer with a direct neural interface. Nigel and several others experiment with the computer's neural hook-up, and leave fundamentally changed by it, while the computer becomes inert and unable to reveal any more about its creators. Meanwhile, on Earth, some surprising experiments in human genetics conducted by the aliens are discovered alive in North America. ===== Heris Serrano has recently left the Regular Space Service, which guards the Familias Regnant, rather than face a court-martial for saving the lives of her troops by deliberately disobeying the orders of her bloodthirsty superior, Admiral Lepescu, and capturing her objectives in a way other than what he specified. Cashiered to civilian life, she must make a living as a captain. Her employment agency finds her a job as captain of the private yacht Sweet Delight for a rich Family member, Lady Cecelia. The Sweet Delight's previous captain, the sinister Captain Olin, had incurred Cecelia's wrath by failing to promptly leave the capital (where Cecelia had been to attend the Grand Council of the Familias) so she could arrive on Sirialis, Lord Thornbuckle's private estate-planet, in time for the beginning of the fox hunting season; this delay saddled her with some obstreperous relatives who are in disgrace and are sent aboard her yacht as being a convenient mobile exile. Heris discovers to her dismay that the same agency that had recommended her to Cecelia had also foisted an unrelieved stream of incompetent, regenerate, and outright criminal personnel on her ship, and that her new command was not merely overly luxurious and inefficient, it was an outright deathtrap. This point is driven home when Heris begins tracking down anomalies in the environmental systems and decides to inspect portions herself. The two environmental technicians she orders to accompany her in protective suits rush down to reach the scrubber before Heris. Heris's worst fears are realized when the two technicians blunder and unleash a cloud of deadly hydrogen sulfide; one dies, and the other is badly injured. On subsequent investigation, the life-support systems are in imminent danger of collapse. Heris orders an emergency detour to a deep-space shipyard for repairs. While in the shipyard, contraband data is discovered secreted in the scrubbers. Apparently Captain Olin, the dead Iklind, and presumably some of the others were using Cecelia's yacht to smuggle various goods for unknown parties. Cecelia and Heris agree to a bet: if the repairs were completed on schedule, Heris would tutor Cecelia on the inner workings of her ship. If not, then Cecelia would teach Heris equestrianism using her personal mechanical horse. In part because of the smuggling, Heris loses, but Cecelia does not hold her to it because of the legal interference, and insists that both sides pay up. The two discover a certain fondness for each other's pet subject, and slowly become fast friends. Ron gets cross-wise of Heris when he calls her "disgusting" for putting him and his companions in what he considers to be inferior housing during their stay at the shipyard, and compounds the offense when he intrudes on the bridge (intending to apologize) during a tricky series of FTL jumps. The final straw occurs during an emergency drill; Ron and Odious George had as a prank repainted various cylinders used in drills and tampered with equipment to confuse and humiliate the captain. Had the computer-generated drill been a little different, the cylinders would have formed a home-made bomb. Heris, with Cecelia's permission, locks Ron in his quarters, and through dexterous manipulation of the computerized fixtures and equipment tames Ron and slowly leads him to realize the errors of his ways; thereafter she begins to remedy his lax and deficient education. He is released when he has learned sufficient common sense. Ron's newfound sensibility begins wearing off when the Sweet Delight reaches Sirialis and the others (Cecelia, Heris, Brun, Raffaele, and George) all begin enjoying the fox hunting while Ron is positively miserable and unskilled at riding to the hounds. George suggests that they take a secret jaunt to one of the vacation islands to simply get away from it all and annoy their relations by disappearing for a little while. Their escape goes well, until they attempt to set down at the Bandon complex of lodges and facilities, to refuel their flitter. Their authority is denied by the systems there, and while circling the field, their flitter is shot down. Struggling to the island, they are greeted by former members of Heris's crew, who apparently are the designated prey of an illegal manhunt organized by the same Admiral Lepescu who had ruined Heris's crew. They had thought that the flitter was carrying some hunters, and so used their best weapon. They split the youngsters up into two groups, Raffaele with Brun and George with Ron, reasoning that divided there would be a better chance that at least one of them would survive long enough to be rescued. The first night, Raffaele and Brun do well, acquiring a hunter's gear when that hunter killed the long-time survivor Petris had sent to look after them; the hunter overconfidently fell to the blade of his not-yet-dead victim. The next day, they find a well-hidden cave, and hunker down in it. Ron and George do not do so swell. They improve the hours of the first night constructing a shoddy trap for hunters, and the next day Ron contracts a fever of some sort. George goes to get some water for Ron, but makes the mistake of drinking some before he notices the eerie silence of the creek: it had been poisoned by the hunters, who have begun to fear that the youngsters' absence would be noticed and have ceased to hunt fair. Ron feverishly attempts to drag George's body to safety, but George is captured by the hunters and is taken to Bandon lodge (while Ron manages to escape). At the lodge, George talks his two guards into betraying Lepescu and into letting him send a message to Lord Thornbuckle and his militia. The message reaches Heris and Cecelia who have already organized a militia expedition - they had grown suspicious of their absence and various unauthorized shuttle flights down to the islands. When they storm Bandon, a traitor in the militia kills the two guards and nearly kills George. All the hunters and victims were on the other island. Lepescu has realized that the jig was up, and begins methodically killing all the hunters and prey. His intent is to eliminate any witnesses and escape Sirialis. Ron finds the girls just before one of the surviving hunters does. They get the drop on him and discover that the crown prince Gerel is part of Lepescu's cabal. They all set out to escape the island, and are ambushed by Lepescu, who offers the prince a choice: either kill his friends, allowing Lepescu to blackmail the prince, or he will die with them. His threat is backed up by a gas grenade with a dead man's switch. Heris and Cecelia have been following the prince's tracks; while delayed by killing the traitorous militia member, they come upon Lepescu in time for Heris to shoot him in the head and end his threat. In the aftermath, Lepescu's cabal is dismantled. George recovers, and reunites with Brun and Ron, whose experience on the island have made them mature. Heris's former crew (the survivors, at least), decide not to return to the Fleet that betrayed them, and join the Sweet Delight, largely replacing the feckless former crew. The prince's participation is hushed up and he is confined aboard Cecelia's yacht until he returns to Rockhouse Major, there to answer to his father. ===== Alicia DeVries had retired to Mathison's World, a remote fringe world of the Terran Empire - a puissant interstellar polity sprawling over several sectors, and bordered by the hostile and alien Rishathan Sphere ("the Lizards"), both of which are bordered by the Quarn Hegemony ("the Spiders"), a race of fanatic businessmen allied with the humans against the Rishathan, reputedly because the Rishathan cannot take a joke. Alicia forced her retirement at so young an age after she'd taken a royal prisoner that felt honor bound to disclose the traitor in the midst of the Empire's military intelligence establishment, the traitor who'd sent her unit into a deliberate trap and so had undoubted culpability in getting most all of her former unit killed in the prior operation. Her retirement had been quiet and idyllic, until the day an extremely brutal group of space pirates razed her world and landed at her homestead, killing her younger brother, grandfather and parents. Out hunting a predator armed with only a hunting rifle and a survival knife, the raiders did not detect Alicia, and upon her return she slew all 25 of them before they could retreat to their shuttle - but at the cost of grievous wounds inflicted upon her person. As she lay dying, she wished fervidly to live in order to strike at those who had ordered the strike against her and others homes, at any cost: a long quiescent entity accepts her bargain. Tisiphone, one of the legendary three Greek Erinyes (Furies of Greek mythology), cannot heal Alicia's wounds, and so decides to instead take Alicia to a place "where time has no business" (pg 36) while rescuers are awaited. Rescuers eventually do come, but not before three separate over-flights fail to discover Alicia. Because her survival is deeply anomalous and inexplicable, Alicia is held in Fleet custody during her convalescence, and eventually handed over to personnel from the Imperial Cadre (the Emperor's elite special forces popularly known as "drop commandos"), which Alicia is legally still part of. Because of some unguarded conversations with Tisiphone, Alicia is believed to be insane, and an insane drop commando is not to be left to her own devices. So Alicia is transported to the sector capital Soissons for more advanced psychological testing and evaluation. Tisiphone spends her time infiltrating and cracking the military computer systems, plotting their escape - the Cadre clearly intends to hold onto Alicia until the anomalies are explained to their satisfaction; an untenable restraint on Alicia's seeking of revenge. Unbeknownst to Alicia, Tisiphone's plan, when executed, has Alicia leaving her hospital room, defeating the unobtrusively placed Cadreman placed to prevent just such an escape, stealing an air-breathing "skimmer" craft to travel to the spaceport and then arrange for it to look like its destruction also caused Alicia's death. Tisiphone did not stop at merely faking Alicia's death, but at the spaceport is a fully armed and prepared assault shuttle (with a suit of Cadre armor for Alicia), which she steals; the shuttle takes her to a very special ship finishing construction above Soissons: an "alpha synth". Most ships in the Path of the Fury follow a simplified pattern very similar to the one used in Weber's Honorverse, with relatively minor differences of mechanics and technology (different sub-light and FTL drive systems, true AI in the Fury universe but not the Honorverse, etc.) but the alpha synth class of vessels is peculiar to the Fury universe: it is a large vessel, with provisions for exactly one human, who pilots it by having previously mentally fused with the advanced cutting edge ("alpha") AI which runs every system on the armed-to- the-teeth vessel; Weber describes it thus: "The size of a big light cruiser yet possessed of more firepower than a battle-cruiser and faster than a destroyer, literally able to think for itself and respond with light-speed swiftness, an alpha synth was lethal beyond belief, ton for ton the most deadly weapon ever built by man." Tisiphone defeats the security systems, during which battle the sleeping AI accidentally awakes and impresses on Alicia - but not melding, rather, forming a second personality patterned on Alicia's own, but fiercely devoted to the protection of the first. Since the new AI personality has as little right to exist as Alicia does to be stealing the alpha synth, it naturally throws its lot in with Alicia and Tisiphone. The trio blast out of the system at high speed, easily eluding the warships sent after them and the solar-system's ring of defensive forts. All the while, the pirates continue their raids and their murder of millions at the behest of their shadowy commander and his enigmatic plan. Alicia and company go into business as couriers specializing in securely and swiftly delivering small cargoes; naturally many of these cargoes are illicit. Using Tisiphone's mind- reading and twisting abilities, they swiftly move their way through the criminal elements of various Rogue (independent) human worlds, tracking down the pirates' suppliers and fences. Simultaneously, Ben Belkassem, a senior field operative with the feared Operations branch of the Empire's Justice Department, is following up the same leads. Their paths intersect when Alicia tracks down the final link in the supply chain, one Oscar Quintana, when one of the visiting pirate officers (who turns out to be a former Imperial Fleet officer, and their vessels former Fleet vessels) becomes suspicious and tries to drug Alicia with a truth serum. Among the many advanced and secret modifications made to a drop commando's body are a set of programs, sensors/computers, and chemicals intended to detect capture and/or interrogation, and then either kill the captors and escape, or failing that, kill the drop commando; as Alicia's cover as a starship captain did not allow for such autonomic responses, her cover was blown. The situation goes south and Alicia is saved by the armed intervention of Belkassem. Having sucked the location of the pirate fleet out of the dying officer's mind, Alicia and Belkassem take the alpha synth (now named Megarea) to a system previously devastated by the pirates, Ringbolt, which holds the dubious distinction of being the epicenter of a vast assemblage of interstellar mercenaries eager to destroy the pirates in retaliation for the pirates' devastation of their home. After forming a unified plan of attack, Megarea attacks the pirates, damaging several vessels heavily, but herself being damaged. Since she had a close look at them (and had discovered the secret of their true Fleet origins), and cannot truly elude them, the pirates have no choice but to follow her into FTL to silence her. Her lure leads them straight into the teeth of the waiting mercenaries. The pirates are ripped apart by the mercenaries, aided by Fleet (which observed the mercenaries' departure from Ringbolt and reasoned correctly as to the why and wherefore). Unfortunately, Fleet has shoot-on- sight orders as concerns the rogue drop commando and her alpha synth, which forces Alicia to flee. Tisiphone had previously cracked the pirates' networks and Megarea had killed the flagship dreadnaught's AI, incidentally gaining knowledge of just how the pirates had had such excellent intelligence and just how their records falsified and ships acquired: the pirates' depredations were intended to suck Fleet units into that sector. When the military buildup proved insufficient to stop the pirates, they were to serve as a Reichstag fire-style excuse for the sector governor, Treadwell (a brilliant military strategist) to secede. He would then arrange a mock battle in which the pirates would appear to be destroyed; in the wake of this victory, Treadwell would no doubt freely and fairly be elected by his people as Emperor, for ending the threat the original Empire proved so impotent against. Blinded by rage, Alicia plans to ram her battered alpha synth into Governor Treadwell's base, an orbital fortress. Unbeknownst to her, the selfsame Fleet unit which had forced her to flee had also brought along a battalion of drop commandos, which focused their attention on assaulting the drifting hulk of the pirate dreadnaught and extracted from it the sole surviving senior officer. Under interrogation, she gave up the same information Tisiphone had discovered. Realizing that Alicia had no way of knowing that they had proof of Treadwell's treason, and that she would take matters into her own hand (because she had no way of knowing whether the rot went up even higher than Treadwell), and exactly what sort of plan she could some up with, Brigadier Sir Arthur Keita - Alicia's former commanding officer - her best friend (Major Tanis Cateau) and Inspector Ferhat Ben Belkassem race off in a dispatch boat to intercept Alicia at Soissons. Disaster is barely averted by the simultaneous intercession of Tisiphone and her friends and allies on a collision course with her snap Alicia out of her madness. Treadwell and his conspirators are duly executed. For their good work, Alicia is issued a full pardon, Megarea is granted her freedom as a sentient entity (Strictly speaking she belonged to the Fleet who had constructed her), and even Tisiphone is awarded a (secret) commendation. Impressed by the intelligence work she did, O Branch (through Ben Belkassem) offers the trio a place in it (and to pay for the numerous expenses involved in maintaining and supplying an alpha synth), which they accept. ===== The title of Change of Command refers to two events that drive the plot and occur just before the story begins or very early on. The first is the assassination of Bunny, or Lord Thornbuckle. The attack is believed by most to have been engineered by the New Texas Godfearing Militia who had sworn to get revenge on Thornbuckle and the Familias Regnant in general for executing Our Texas's leaders, the Rangers (for what they did to Brun and other women in Rules of Engagement). The second is the change in command of the military prison on Stack Islands in Copper Mountain, from Iosep Tolin to Pilar Bacarion, a woman who had been very close to Admiral Lepescu but had managed to evade the purges sparked by Lepescu's manhunts in Hunting Party. She plots to effect still another change of command, of a good portion of Fleet and eventually the Familias. A third possible event referenced by the title is the plot by the Benignity of the Compassionate Hand to undermine the expansionist capabilities of Fleet by arranging for the rejuvenation drugs being used on the master chiefs to be contaminated; "Project Retainer". With the help of Barin Serrano and a number of other junior officers and non-commissioned personnel, Fleet has just learned of the issue of important NCOs suffering from mental problems. Lady Cecelia is on Rotterdam engaged in the Wherrin Trials (which she wins) when the news of the assassination comes in. As it is already too late to return to Rockhouse in time for the funeral, Cecelia stays, and participate in a curious conversation with an old but not liked acquaintance named Pedar, who insinuates that it was not the Our Texans who had killed Bunny, but rather that he had been killed because he "broke the rules" and so the Rejuvenants (the shadowy quasi-political faction which supports unlimited use of rejuvenation with all that that implies), and more specifically, Pedar, had him killed. After this conversation, Cecelia covertly leaves Rotterdam for Rockhouse Major. There she stiffens the spine of Bunny's widow, Miranda, and aids her and Brun by taking the twins fathered on Brun by the Texans, fostering them with Raffaele and Ron on their colony world Excet-24; while on the colony, Cecelia discovers that something has gone very wrong in the colonial system. Most colonies appear to have been swindled and exploited. Miranda uses this breather to return to Sirialis--upon Bunny's death, his estate should have passed to his wife or his eldest son, Buttons. But his younger brother Harlis is masterminding a vigorous assault on the inheritance. Miranda suspects that Harlis has manipulated and falsified various records and intends to compare them against the full off-line backups she maintains in a remote portion of Sirialis. Hobart Conselline (of the Consellines whose sub- family, the Morrellines, were responsible for the profiteering off inferior rejuvenation drugs in Winning Colors) successfully manipulates the emergency Council meeting called after the assassination to have himself appointed Speaker, buying off Harlis with the promise that the judges appointed will be favorable to Harlis's lawsuits. He pushes through a number of disastrous amendments and ill-considered appointments (such as the appointment of Pedar as Foreign Minister). The resistance his politics meet drive him to even more extreme measures. The worst, possibly, is Hobart's conviction that the mentally damaged NCOs were not suffering because of bad drugs manufactured by the Morrellines but rather that the research demonstrating that was all fabricated by Ageists (those opposed to rejuvenation) and that the real culprit was inbreeding in various Fleet clans like the Serranos. Pursuant to this conviction, he orders the vast majority of flag rank personnel to be relieved of their duties and remanded to Medical. One of the admirals so retired is Admiral Vida Serrano, who returns home. Killing time, she browses through the old family libraries, and discovers a very old book, purporting to be a children's book, which records exactly how the Family which had been the Serranos' patron came to be extinguished, root and branch: they had been betrayed by their ground soldiers on Altiplano. Esmay Suiza's ancestors, in other words. This has obvious repercussions on the prospective marriage between Barin and Esmay. Not all is going poorly for Barin, however; he has gone broke paying for the refugees from Our Texas who had attached themselves to him, and is deeply relieved when the professor specializing in Texan history suggests that they be sent to Excet-24 where their skills and handicrafts are deeply needed by the colony and especially Ron and Raffaela. The new commander of Three Stacks on Copper Mountain has not been idle during these events. Methlin Meharry's little brother was stationed there when Bacarion was appointed; Gelan Meharry realizes after a little research turns up Bacarion's connections to Lepescu that a mutiny is imminent (as Bacarion could have no other reason to seek appointment to a maximum-security prison) and that as Methlin Meharry's little brother, his days are numbered. The mutiny begins with a communications technician bribed to disable the satellite surveillance for a time. It is immediately followed with the attack on Gelan: a prisoner is reported missing and he is attacked while he examines the bottoms of the cliffs. Wearing a protective suit against the fierce elements, he survives the fall but is believed dead. He had stored a life raft and supplies against just such an eventuality in a lava tube--where he is met by Bacarion, who had correctly suspected that Gelan would fake his death. In the ensuing scuffle, Gelan uses the grapples and claws of his suit to kill Bacarion and escape with her corpse (to sow confusion if the lava tube is examined by the other mutineers). Gelan is eventually rescued by a SAR air vehicle, but not before the RSS Bonar Tighe drops several LACs onto the prison and load up with mutineers and the convert prisoners; those prisoners who declined to join the mutiny are massacred. The LACs return to the Bonar Tighe and begin to take it over. The mutiny is successful, and the unsuspecting space-station is taken over. The vital weapons research laboratories and the entire system are now in danger. Gelan, a young lieutenant and a high-ranked scientist hurry over to the weapons labs and neutralize its commander who had been instructed by his fellow mutineers to preserve the installation and its contents intact. They cobble together an old-fashioned radio system, and luck out when an arriving Fleet vessel receives the message, takes it seriously, and manages to jump back out of the Copper Mountain system before being destroyed; it soon warns the rest of the Familias. Back on Sirialis, Miranda has defeated Harlis for control of the family assets. One last enemy remains: Pedar, who had revealed to Cecelia his complicity or spearheading of Bunny's assassination, and who is foolishly attempting to woo Miranda. Pedar insists in fencing with the old and authentic weapons an armor. Unbeknownst to Pedar, Miranda had weakened the armor she predicted Pedar would use. When they start, Miranda feigns slowness and weakness, and deliberately breaks the tip of her sword; revealing her full skill, she thrusts her blade into Pedar's brain, killing him just before Cecelia arrives. Everything arranged to look like a horrible accident, Miranda gets off scot-free, satisfied with her revenge. Cecelia is horrified by Miranda's casual killing. For his actions and policies, the chairman of the Benignity orders Hobart Conselline assassinated. To have needed to resort to such a tactic against one over whom he has no authority means that the Chairman has failed in his duty to his extended family of the Benignity, and even as Hobart is beheaded by the appointed Swordmaster (who replaced his usual Swordmaster), so too does the Chairman perish--another change of command. Esmay and Barin disregard their respective families' opposition to their engagement, and marry even as the mutiny begins raging beyond Copper Mountain and all is thrown into turmoil. ===== The opening steps back to near the ending of Change of Command; the loyalists in the weapons lab on Copper Mountain (which planet has just been taken over by mutineers) have finished sending out their radio transmission, which unbeknownst to them will indeed be picked by an escaping loyalist Fleet warship, and are wondering what to do next. Their transportation is ruined, so they decide to steal one from the mutineers. They stage a series of movements and radio transmissions intended to convince the mutineers that the weapons labs are being progressively taken over by their own. Disabled, the Bonar Tighe is easy prey. The loyalists are rescued. For her services to Fleet past and present, Cecelia jokingly demands to be made an Admiral - a nod to a running joke in the series where various Fleet underlings become convinced (by how they keep showing up in the thick of things) that either Cecelia or Heris is really a special operations undercover admiral ferreting out traitors for Fleet. Finally at Rockhouse, Esmay meets up with Brun and her own father General Casimir Suiza, who had brought along with him all the necessary apparatus to transfer Esmay's status as LandBride to her cousin Luci. Admiral Arash Livadhi this entire time has been growing increasingly uneasy. He had unfortunately been close to Lepescu when he was a younger officer, and fears every day that the investigation into the Lepescu- inspired mutineers will damn him as well; he is further compromised by the fact that his closest friend Jules had been a Benignity deep agent, who had solely manipulated him into breaking rules and then through blackmail into becoming a Benignity agent. Livadhi takes off. His ship begins bouncing around the Familias, attempting to throw off followers. Suiza follows in her Rascal, and is hidden by Koutsoudas foxing the scans aboard Livadhi's cruiser. In the last system before the Benignity proper, Suiza powers up her weapons when she sees what is suspected to be a Benignity vessel entering the system. Category:2000 novels Category:Novels by Elizabeth Moon Category:2000 science fiction novels ===== In 2021, radio astronomy on the Moon reveals the presence of life by a nearby red dwarf, on a tide-locked planet.The star is apparently Lalande 21185, also known as BD +36 2147\. Warner 2004 mass-market paperback ed., p. 15. To investigate, Earth's governments convert a space colony into Lancer, a Bussard ramjet-powered interstellar ship based on the design of a crashed alien ship discovered in the Mare Marginis. In 2061, the Lancer arrives and discovers a primitive race of nomads, broadcasting using organs adapted to emit and receive electromagnetic radiation (hence "EM"s). A curious satellite is discovered in orbit, at least a million years old, roughly when a meteor shower destroyed the EMs' civilization. On Earth, international commerce is brought to a standstill when mysterious spaceships drop sea creatures dubbed Swarmers and Skimmers (for their behaviour: Swarmers swarm ships and head-butt them until they sink, and Skimmers simply jump and skim around like dolphins). They begin multiplying and the Swarmers begin attacking humans and all their works on the seas. The expedition's first contacts go poorly: The attempt to enter one of the two satellites prompts a massive retaliation that kills most of the crew. Meanwhile, their attempt to contact the EMs in person confuses them; the aliens had expected a reply directly from Earth. The EMs' attempt to communicate with the messenger via radar accidentally cooks him alive. The standby team misinterprets the accident as a deliberate attack and massacres the EMs. Nigel works with mathematicians and other experts to interpret the EMs' transmission. His analysis reveals that their technologically advanced civilization had attracted the attention of machines, who attacked with orbital bombardments that levelled the EMs' cities and cracked open the crust of the planet, permanently altering the ecosphere. The EMs used genetic engineering to adapt their bodies to use silicon and transistors for a nervous system. As the satellite is programmed to react only to high technology, not inbuilt features of organisms, the EMs are able to broadcast their message to other biological races unmolested. No sooner has two-way communication been established than new orders come from Earth to move on to Ross 128, where they think the Skimmers and Swarmers may have originated. En route, the crew analyze reports from space probes. Walmsley hypothesizes that a machine-based race is systematically destroying or guarding planets supporting organic life, and is responsible for the anomalies; the Swarmers represent a first strike at Earth, which had eluded the machines' attempts to kill it, since the assigned Watcher (as Nigel calls the satellites) was destroyed by the Mare Marginis wreck. His ideas are regarded as being too speculative; the consensus is that Watchers are simply a form of weaponry left over from the suicide of biological races, and the Swarmer invasion is a grab for a new world. At Ross 128, a Ganymede-like moon is found with a Watcher in orbit. Initially it is taken as a disproof of Walmsley's idea that Watchers will appear around any depopulated world that had once harboured technologically advanced biological life. The de facto leader Ted, who has always disliked Walmsley, attempts to covertly force Walmsley into hibernation until they return to Earth. Walmsley breaks out part-way through the medical preparations and escapes to the moon. There he discovers a much-reduced sapient civilization that had links to the EMs before the Watcher came. The Watcher prevented the moon's inhabitants from reaching the surface and developing technology, but cannot destroy the civilization as it is protected by ten kilometres of ice. News comes from Earth (delayed nine years by the speed of light) that the Swarmers have begun land invasions; the tense superpowers each suspect the other, and escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. The machines, who had attempted to engineer just such a conflict, send their flotilla against the weakened Earth. The grim news galvanizes the crew to reactivate the fusion drive and turn the plume on the Watcher. This tactic cripples the Watcher, but its retaliation damages the Lancer’s drive system. ===== On the Franco-Austrian Frontier during World War I, an Oriental priest, chaplain of a French colonial regiment, is condemned to life imprisonment because he possesses the power to turn men into zombies. In his prison cell, the priest prepares to burn a parchment containing the location of the secret formula. Gen. Mazovia (Roy D'Arcy) kills the priest and takes the partially burned parchment. After the war, an expedition of representatives from the Allied countries with colonial interests are sent to Cambodia to find and destroy forever the so-called "Secret of the Zombies". The group includes General Mazovia; a student of dead languages, Armand Louque (Dean Jagger); Englishman Clifford Grayson (Robert Noland); General Duval (George Cleveland); and his daughter Claire (Dorothy Stone). Armand falls in love with Claire, who accepts his proposal of marriage to spite Clifford, whom she really loves. Later, when Claire runs to Cliff for comfort following an accident, Armand breaks the engagement, leaving her free to marry Cliff. Further accidents caused by Mazovia result in the natives refusing to work, forcing the expedition to return to Phnom Penh. Armand finds a clue which he had overlooked before and returns to Angkor against orders. After viewing an ancient ceremony at a temple, Armand follows one of the servants of a high priest out of the temple, through a swamp, to a mysterious bronze doorway. When the servant leaves, Armand goes through the door to a room paneled in bronze, with an idol holding a gong. He accidentally strikes the gong, and a panel in the wall opens, revealing a small metal tablet. He translates the inscription and realizes that it is the secret for which they have all been looking. He alone now has the power to make zombies out of people, and begins with a practice run on his servant before using his zombie powers in an attempt to coerce the fickle Claire in the movie's climax. ===== Roger Marsh and Frank Stewart own a successful motorcycle dealership in San Antonio, Texas. Together with their wives Kelly and Alice, and Kelly's small dog, they leave San Antonio in a recreational vehicle (RV) for a much anticipated ski vacation in Aspen, Colorado. Along the way, they set up camp in a desolate meadow in central Texas, where Roger and Frank race their motorcycles together. Later that night, after their wives retire to the RV, the men witness what turns out to be a Satanic ritual human sacrifice a short distance from their campsite, across a river. After being chased by the Satanists and barely escaping with their lives, they arrive in a small town and report the incident to Sheriff Taylor, who investigates but attempts to convince them that they probably only saw hippies killing an animal. Unbeknownst to the sheriff, Roger steals a sample of dirt stained with the murder victim's blood, intent on delivering it to the authorities in Amarillo, as he became suspicious of being driven to the crime scene without having had to offer any directions. At the same time, while cleaning, the wives find a cryptic rune pinned to the broken rear window of the RV, and they steal books about occultism from the local library to further research the incident, unaware they're being watched by a man in a red truck. One of the books reveals that the ritual is what Satanists often perform to gain magical powers. As the foursome leaves town, the sheriff notices the red truck that begins to follow the RV, making it clear that he is either aware or part of the Satanic cult. When the couples arrive at an RV park, Kelly feels she is being stared at by its residents while in a swimming pool and wants to return home. Nonetheless, she accepts a dinner invitation from another couple at the park. While at the restaurant/nightclub, Kelly again feels she is being stared at menacingly, this time by one of the musicians. When they return from dinner, the group discovers that Kelly's dog has been killed and hanged, causing them to immediately leave the park. Shortly afterward, they are forced to fight off two rattlesnakes planted in the RV by the cultists. The frightened Kelly and Alice scream and panic, causing Frank to accidentally drive into a tree and break the RV motor's fan before the snakes are killed. The next day, Kelly's dog is buried, after which Roger and Frank repair the motor and find their motorbikes' tires, wheels and gas tanks cut. They purchase a shotgun and head towards Amarillo while being spied on by a steadily increasing number of cultists who seem to be networked throughout numerous small Texas towns. When Roger tries to place a long- distance call to the highway patrol, he finds one dead payphone and another with a "bad connection", and is told that long-distance service is down by a "big wind from up north". The couples leave for Amarillo and are chased by the Satanists in various trucks, which the couples escape. Later, they encounter a staged school bus "accident" that Frank sees through, since it occurs on a Sunday, and none of the children appear hurt. The couples flee the scene and have a showdown with the cult members during another high-speed chase that pits their RV against numerous trucks and cars. Roger and Frank kill or injure most of the attackers, and the couples escape. The RV's headlights were damaged during the chase, which forces the foursome to stop in a field at nightfall. They begin to celebrate when they pick up a radio signal coming from Amarillo. In the middle of their celebration, they hear chanting outside the RV and find themselves surrounded by cult members wearing black robes with hoods, including Sheriff Taylor and the couple with whom they had dinner. The film ends as the cultists light a ring of fire around the RV, trapping the couples inside while the chanting continues. ===== A child named Luis prepares, cooks and shares some of his favorite dishes, including scrambled eggs, tortillas, dumplings and Guatemalan cheesecake. ===== In 1965, Andrea travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina with her husband, Gregorio, his 2 sisters and a group of family friends. During the trip, one in their group, Martha, is murdered in her hotel room, and Andrea is discovered at the crime scene holding the gun with which Martha was killed. As all evidence initially points to Andrea as the killer, she is tried and sentenced to prison for Martha's murder. Her husband and friends believe she is guilty and abandon her in Argentina, returning to Mexico City vowing never to mention Andrea's name again. Gregorio decides to lie to his children when they grow up. He makes them adore the portrait of a woman that doesn't exist and makes them believe that woman is their dead mother. He does this in order to erase Andrea from all of their lives as he is convinced she will never return - finishing her days in that prison where he abandoned her. ===== The body of policeman Dan Grady is rescued in the San Francisco Bay lifeless and with clear indications of an execution. His good friend Captain Street, very touched by the tragedy, asks for the help of Mr. Wong and the journalist Bobbie Logan to solve the mystery. Dan was carrying out an investigation into gemstone smuggling, and the investigation leads to suspicion of jeweler Frank Belden's shop. A witness appears who saw Dan at 8.30 pm the night before at the Neptune club, a disreputable place run by Harry Lockett, a well-known cheater, con man and smuggler. The investigations will lead to the discovery of a ring of precious stone trafficking that revolved around the Neptune, in which both the owner and Frank Belden himself, and the vamp Tanya Serova were involved. Slowly, however, all the members of the gang end up killed, and the blame seems to fall on the young Frank Belden jr. son of the jeweler and boyfriend of Serova. It will be Wong himself who will discover the cunning ploy devised by the real culprit to frame the young man, so the head of the gang, the lawyer John T. Forbes, is arrested by Captain Street thanks to the decisive collaboration of Miss Logan. ===== Vic Hammond and his wife Mary go to a cocktail party hosted by their friends Jerry and Samantha Rainbow. Vic lusts after the difficult-to-seduce Samantha as she is faithful to her husband, so he devises a plan that would allow Vic and Jerry to switch wives for a night without the women knowing it. He puts the suggestion to Jerry in the form of a story and finally manages to lure Jerry into proposing that they should try out the plan. Many meetings are subsequently held between the two men in which they plan every detail of the scheme. At one point, in order to ensure that the deception is as complete as possible, they even agree to describe the sexual routines they adopt when making love to their wives. Both men regard the other's approach with disdain. Vic, who is very proud of his own approach and sexual technique with his wife, is particularly outraged when Jerry criticizes his routine. On the fateful night, the men are able to sneak into each other's bedrooms without incident. But in the middle of having sex with Samantha (in total darkness), Vic realizes that in the heat of things he has forgotten to copy Jerry's technique. Samantha at first tenses up, but then responds with gusto. The men return home, full of glee at their own cleverness. Vic gets quite a shock the next morning, though, when his wife Mary admits that she's never really enjoyed sex with him… before last night (implying that Jerry similarly forgot or ignored Vic's particular routine). ===== On a fog-bound moonlight night, a wolf howls in a swamp. In his nearby laboratory, Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco) draws blood from a caged wolf. Secured to a table is Dr. Cameron's simpleminded but strong gardener, Petro (Glenn Strange), who is to be the subject of the doctor's experiment. Cameron injects a serum made from a wolf's blood into the cooperative Petro, who loses consciousness, grows fur and fangs, and awakens after he has transformed into a wolfman. Cameron turns to an empty table, visualizing his former colleagues sitting there: The four professors dismissed his theory that wolf blood transfusions could be used to give a human being wolf-like traits. He recalls how the scientific community, the press, and the public joined in a resounding chorus of ridicule that finally cost him his position at the university. Addressing the four spectral professors, Cameron declares, "Right now, we're at war, at war with an enemy that produces a horde that strikes with a ferocious fanaticism". Cameron proposes giving wolfman traits to our soldiers in order to help win the war. When the professors scoff, Cameron says to them that his proposal doesn't really matter; he is going to have his wolfman kill them one-by-one. For the time being, however, he administers an antidote that transforms Petro back to normal; Petro remembers nothing. The following night, Cameron injects Petro again and sends him into the swamp. As a wolfman, he enters a nearby home and kills a little girl. Hearing about the child's death, Cameron knows his formulation works. Now he can proceed to eliminate his former colleagues. He begins by setting up elaborate encounters in which Petro, left alone with each scientist, makes his wolfman transformation. The more times this happens, however, the more unpredictable Petro becomes while killing them. Cameron's daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel) is romantically involved with Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs), a newspaper reporter investigating the death of the little girl. As the professors are killed, Gregory begins to suspect that Cameron is behind the murders. The principals arrive at the Cameron home as a large thunderstorm begins. A bolt of lightning suddenly strikes, setting Cameron's laboratory on fire. Lenora and Tom are able escape from the spreading fire after first encountering an agitated Petro, now in his wolfman form. The transformed Petro suddenly turns on Cameron and kills him, as the raging fire brings down the house on both of them. ===== When Jim Craig and his father Henry are discussing their finances, a herd of wild horses called the Brumby mob passes by, and Henry wants to shoot the black stallion leader, but Jim convinces his father to capture and sell them. The next morning the mob reappears and Henry is accidentally killed. Before Jim can inherit the station, a group of mountain men tell him that he must first earn the right – and to do so he must go to the lowlands and work. Jim meets an old friend called Spur, a one-legged miner. Jim then gets a job on a station owned by Harrison, Spur's brother, on a recommendation by Harrison's friend. Meanwhile, Clancy appears at Spur's mine and the two discuss their pasts and futures. Clancy goes to Harrison's station to lead a cattle muster. At dinner, Harrison tells Clancy that "he has no brother" when referring to Spur. Harrison organises a round-up of his cattle, but Jim is not allowed to go. While the others are gone, Harrison's daughter Jessica asks Jim to help her break in a prize colt. The mob appears again, and Jim unsuccessfully gives chase to the valuable horse. When Harrison returns, he sends Jim to bring back 20 strays. Later, Harrison learns of Jim's actions and tells Jessica that Jim will be fired and that she will be sent to a women's college. Impulsively, she rides off into the mountains where she is caught in a storm. Spur, meanwhile, finally strikes a large gold deposit. Jim finds Jessica's horse and rescues her. She tells him that he's going to be fired, but he still leaves to return the cattle. Jessica is surprised at meeting Spur, her uncle, whom she had never been told about. She is also confused when Spur mistakes her for her dead mother and refuses to tell her anything about his past. After returning, Jessica learns that Spur and Harrison both fell in love with her mother, Matilda. Matilda declared that the first to make his fortune would be her husband. Spur went looking for gold, while Harrison bet his life savings on a horse race. Harrison became rich overnight when the horse he bet on won. Having made his fortune, Harrison wed Matilda, but she died while delivering Jessica. Harrison is grateful to Jim for returning his daughter, but he becomes angry when Jim says he loves her. As Jim leaves, a prized colt is let loose by a farmhand named Curly in the hope that Jim will be blamed. Later, while camping out, Spur tells Jim that he will inherit his father's share of the mine. Clancy joins them and informs them of the colt, but Jim refuses to retrieve the animal. Meanwhile, Harrison offers a reward of £100, attracting riders and fortune-hunters from every station in the area. Clancy does eventually show, accompanied by Jim, whom Harrison finally allows to join the hunt. Several riders have accidents in pursuit and even Clancy is unable to contain the Brumby mob. The riders give up when the mob descends a seemingly impassable grade. However, Jim goes forward and returns the horses to Harrison's farm. Harrison offers him the reward but he refuses. Having cleared his name, Jim would like to return some day for the horses and, looking at Jessica, "anything else that's mine." He rides back up to the mountain country, knowing that he has earned his right to live there. ===== The events depicted in Web are written from the viewpoint of Arnold Delgrange, a man whose wife and daughter were recently killed in a motor collision. They revolve around a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on the fictional island Tanakuatua in the Pacific Ocean, far from civilisation. After a slow start setting the scene with the mysterious "Project" being financed by the wealthy and eccentric Lord Foxfield, the island is purchased and a team of volunteers sets out by steamer for the island. A summarised back-story provides commentary on the colonising powers' impact on the native population during the 19th and 20th centuries. Tanakuatua is now uninhabited by humans, as its native inhabitants were evacuated from the island due to British nuclear testing and were relocated. However a small group of natives refused the evacuation order and placed a curse on any people who returned to the island. When Delgrange and his fellow pioneers reach the island they are irritated and frustrated by a bizarre ceremony that their native porters conduct before proceeding with the unloading of their supplies from the steamer which brought them. As the steamer departs and disappears over the horizon, due to return in six months, a sense of their solitude descends. They compose messages to their friends and family to be transmitted by radio, but the radio operator returns looking agitated. When Delgrange follows him to investigate, they find that the transmitter has been crushed beneath a heavy packing case. Clearly they are not alone on the island after all, and from this point on the sense of brooding menace steadily intensifies. Eventually they discover that the island has been overrun by spiders that hunt in packs. ===== In this film's version of the story, four of the Reno Brothers are corrupt robbers and killers while a fifth, Clint (Denver Pyle) is a respected Indiana farmer. A sister, Laura (Mala Powers), who has inherited the family home, serves as a housekeeper and cook to the brothers. Some of them served in the Civil War, which has given them a hardened attitude toward violence. One brother is killed when they go after a bank in a nearby town, leading them to draw the conclusion that someone that they know is an informant, as the men of the town appeared to have been waiting for them. They soon learn that it was Murphy, a local bartender, whom they then murder by knocking him out, and tying him up in his barn, which they then set ablaze. The bartender was in fact an agent employed by the Peterson (in real life, Pinkerton) Detective Agency sent to investigate and provide information about the Reno Brothers' crimes. His replacement is Scott's character, James Barlow, a former secret agent for the Confederacy, who determines to join the gang by posing as a train robber, a ploy which is aided by his being allowed to pull off a staged train robbery (with the full cooperation of the train crew) in the area. (He also begins courting the sister.) Grudgingly accepted by the brothers (led by Tucker's character, Frank Reno), he soon learns that they have corrupted local officials, including a judge (played by veteran character actor Edgar Buchanan), allowing them to operate in that part of the state with near- impunity. The brothers plan a train robbery with Barlow, but this proves to be a setup in which they are captured following a shootout and taken to an area jail outside the jurisdiction of the corrupted officials. (In the shootout, Barlow's fellow Peterson agent, Monk Claxton, is killed.) Townspeople are incited to mob violence and break into the jail and lynch the brothers before they can be brought to trial despite Barlow's best efforts to stop this. (Apparently the sister accepts his efforts as genuine; in the film's final scene she is still with Barlow.) ===== Lamont Granston assumes his secret identity as "The Shadow", to break up an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. When the police search the scene, Granston must assume the identity of the attorney. Before he can leave, a phone call summons the attorney to the home of Delthiern, a wealthy client who wants a new will drawn up. As Granston meets with him, Delthiern is suddenly shot, and Granston is quickly caught up in a new mystery. ===== His life changes when a wealthy man walks into his office and asks him to find his missing daughter. After a short investigation, the Walker finds her on Library - a world full of ancient ruins. Before he can bring her back, however, she dies in a freak accident. A clue leads him to another alien planet where he finds her alive and well. Soon he discovers that the same woman exists on several other worlds, each is connected to the other. One by one, they are killed in seemingly random, totally unrelated events. It is to the Walker's great surprise when he finds himself becoming attracted to his client's daughter. It's a race against time, as the Walker desperately tries to save the identical copies of the woman, only to have them die in his arms. Can he save the last one before she perishes and, in the process, uncover a massive conspiracy going back thousands of years with the Keymasters in the middle? ===== Walter Matern and Eduard Amsel are friends. Eduard is half Jewish and at the young age of five is a genius at making scarecrows. The narrator in Book One, the mine owner Brauxel, tells of the friendship of Walter and Eduard when they are children in the Vistula estuary, which is a German-Polish borderland (the interwar Free City of Danzig) peopled by Mennonites, Catholics and Protestants. Eduard keeps a diary which he fills with drawings of ideas for scarecrows. The history of this country is told with cruel images of horror and violence from that past that echoes into the present, which becomes Hitler's Germany. The story in the second part of the book is narrated by Harry Liebenau, and consists of letters from him addressed to his cousin Tulla. This part of the story occurs during the war period, when Amsel collects vast numbers of S.A. uniforms, and dresses his scarecrows in them. He also persuades his childhood friend Walter to become a member of the S.A., in order to help him obtain the uniforms. But since the confusion in this country has reached its maximum at this point in time, it is inevitable that the two friends end up on a collision course. At one point Walter denounces Amsel as a Jew, hits him in the face and knocks out all of his teeth. The last part of the novel is narrated by Walter and takes place after he has found his new friend Prinz. They leave on a journey in the postwar West Germany, where they systematically attack former Nazis who are now posing as respectable officials throughout the country. ===== In the year 1750, England is rife with crime and highway robbers. To stop the wave of chaos, King George sets up the first professional police force named the Bow Street Runners, under the command of the bellowing Sir Roger Daley (Bernard Bresslaw), and seconded by Captain Desmond Fancey (Kenneth Williams) and Sergeant Jock Strapp (Jack Douglas). The Runners are apparently successful in wiping out crime and lawlessness – using all manner of traps and tricks to round the criminals up. However their main target is the notorious Richard "Big Dick" Turpin (Sid James), a highwayman who has evaded capture and succeeded in even robbing Sir Roger and his prim wife (Margaret Nolan) of their money and clothing. After this humiliation, Turpin becomes the Bow Street Runners' most wanted man, and thus Captain Fancey is assigned to go undercover and catch the famous Dick Turpin and bring him to justice. The Bow Street Runners nearly succeed in apprehending Turpin and his two partners in crime, Harriet (Barbara Windsor) and Tom (Peter Butterworth), one evening as they hold up a coach carrying faux-French show woman Madame Desiree (Joan Sims), and her unladylike daughters, "The Birds of Paradise." However, Turpin manages to outsmart the Runners, sending them away in Madam Desiree's coach. Outraged by Strapp's incompetence, Captain Fancey travels with the sergeant to the village of Upper Dencher near to where the majority of Turpin's hold-ups are carried out. There they encounter the mild-mannered Reverend Flasher, who is really Turpin in disguise, with Tom as his church assistant and Harriet as his maidservant. They confide in the rector their true identities and their scheme to apprehend Turpin. They agree to meet at the seedy Old Cock Inn, a notorious hang-out for criminals and sleazy types, and where Desiree and her showgirls are performing. Fancey and Strapp pose as two on the run crooks – and Strapp dubs his superior "Dandy Desmond" – and they hear from the greasy old hag, Maggie (Marianne Stone), a midwife who removed buckshot from Turpin's buttock, that Turpin has a curious birthmark on his manhood. Strapp wastes no time in carrying out an inspection in the public convenience of the Old Cock Inn. When the rector arrives, he discovers their knowledge of the birthmark, and sweet talks Desiree into assisting him with the capture of "Turpin", whom the rector has told Desiree is actually Fancey, who is sitting downstairs in the bar. She lures him to her room and attempts to undress him, with the help of her wild daughters. The girls pull down his breeches but fail to find an incriminating birthmark, and Desmond staggers half-undressed into the bar. Strapp is also dumped into a horse trough for peeping at the men in the toilets. Strapp and Fancey send a message to Sir Roger about the birthmark, and are accosted by Harriet in disguise who tells them to meet Turpin that night at ten o'clock. Meanwhile, Tom tells the local constable that he knows where Turpin will be that night – at the location Harriet told Strapp and Fancey to wait. Thus, they are imprisoned as Turpin and his mate, and Sir Roger is yet again robbed on his way to see the prisoners. However things fall apart when the rector's housekeeper, Martha Hoggett (Hattie Jacques) begins to put two and two together when Mrs Giles (Patsy Rowlands), apparently sick and used for a cover-up story for Dick's raids, is seen fit and well at the church jumble sale. Later that day, Harriet is caught at the Old Cock Inn where Fancey, Strapp and Daley are meeting and Fancey recognises her as the "man" who conned them into being caught. She is chased into Desiree's room and is told to undress to show the infamous birthmark. However, they soon realise she is a woman and are prepared to let her go, but lock her up after Lady Daley recognises a bracelet that Harriet is wearing as one Turpin stole from her. With the net tightening, the Reverend Flasher gives an elongated sermon before outwitting his would-be captors and making a speedy getaway, with Harriett and Tom, across the border. ===== Major Kira is shocked to find out that Dukat will be captaining the freighter transporting her to a conference regarding the Klingon Empire. Dukat was recently demoted when it became publicly known that he has a half-Bajoran daughter, Ziyal, and he now works in a dreary job flying an unremarkable trading ship. When they arrive they find the conference site obliterated, and a Klingon Bird of Prey leaving the area, not even bothering to attack what it considers a lowly freighter. Kira suggests that they adapt the planet's defences for use on the freighter, turning it into a Q-ship, and then they head after the Bird of Prey. They soon find it, and after tricking the Bird of Prey into thinking they are carrying valuable cargo, use its new weaponry to cripple the Klingon vessel. After commandeering the Bird of Prey and transporting the Klingons to the freighter, Dukat mercilessly destroys the freighter. Dukat notifies his superiors of his capture of the Klingon ship, hoping to regain some respect and spur the Cardassians into fighting the Klingons; they offer him his old job back, but order him to take no further offensive actions against the Klingons. Disgusted, Dukat vows to fight the whole Klingon Empire himself if he has to. He offers Kira a place on his crew, saying her experience as a resistance fighter would be valuable. She declines, taking Ziyal back to Deep Space Nine with her until Dukat's personal war is over. ===== Ankush Ramdev scrapes a living by acting as a witness in Delhi's marriage registrar bureau. Megha has run away from her home in Nainital, to marry her love Dheeraj. On the day of their marriage, Dheeraj does not show up. However, Ankush helps Megha by getting her a job at a local old age home so that she has the security of a roof over her head. As time passes Megha begins to realize her potential as an educated girl who had earlier dedicated her life to her boyfriend and that relationship, thinking that there was nothing more to her. She tells Ankush that she is glad Dheeraj stood her up at the Marriage Bureau, so that she could discover herself. Ankush realizes that the meager amount he earns each day is not enough for him. He still has to repay the loan he had taken for Megha. He starts working as a bank's representative who opens bank accounts for a commission. He is later able to repay the loan. On learning this, Megha reprimands him for doing so much for a girl who was a stranger to him. However, Ankush believes he has changed for the better because of Megha and her faith in him. Life progresses well for Ankush. Soon he gets an offer to join the same bank as an Area Supervisor, at a handsome salary. Ankush hesitates, as fluent English is a pre-requisite. Megha gives him the confidence to realize that all he needed was an opportunity in life to succeed. A relationship develops between Megha and Ankush. However, Dheeraj then returns, looking for Megha. Ankush tries to force Dheeraj to return to Nainital. He unsuccessfully tries everything that he can. He even shows Dheeraj a fake death certificate of Megha, but Dheeraj refuses to believe it. One day Ankush's friend informs Dheeraj of Megha's whereabouts on the same day Megha and Ankush have planned to get married. On seeing Dheeraj, she gets upset at him and asks him to leave. Dheeraj agrees, but he also insists her to listen to what had happened to him when he was coming to Delhi from Nainital. He was then the victim of a plan to bomb the train but somehow escaped. Megha realizes that what Dheeraj did was not intentional. Megha talks to Ankush and tells him that she cannot live without Dheeraj and finally Ankush realizes that he is just a friend to her. Ankush then becomes the witness for the marriage of Dheeraj and Megha but asks for his regular fees, severing all connections with them. ===== The film revolves around the lives of three sisters - played by Fay Ripley, Claire Rushbrook, and Lindsey Coulson - who live in Stretford, Greater Manchester, England. ===== In what would later become the last 48 hours of his life, Jesus of Nazareth (Jean-Claude La Marre), a Black man, leads a group of 12 disciples to the biblical city of Arimathea to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. The city of Arimathea is governed by the elite Jewish Sanhedrin under the administrative jurisdiction of the Roman Empire who persecute and discriminate against the Jewish population. Growing weary of the popular influence displayed by Jesus, a Jew claiming to be a messiah, the Sanhedrin wish to call an emergency meeting to discuss his growing power and clout. From the Sanhedrin, some of the members find it hard to believe a black man although Jewish, could in fact be the messiah. The members attempt to formulate a plan to capture and interrogate Jesus over his alleged blasphemy. Meanwhile, Jesus with the help of his disciple John (Akiva David), discovers a safe dwelling in Arimathea to consume the Passover meal away from the watchful patrol of Roman soldiers who are also attempting to subdue him over his reputation. Accordingly, Mary (Debbi Morgan), the mother of Jesus, comes to believe her son is being individually singled out on motivations based on race. In addition to persecuting Jews in general, the Romans also view Jews who are black in skin color as a more troublesome ramification than just ordinary white Jews. After a trek through the wilderness in the province of Judea, Jesus and his followers arrive in Arimathea. During the passover meal at a secret location within a Jewish guest home, Jesus reveals a vision which he experienced from God; depicting one of his disciples will betray him and hand him over to the Romans as a blasphemous criminal against the Empire. After hearing of the so-called miracles which Jesus performed, such as the healing of a blind man, and the restoring of life to a dead person, Caiphas (Elya Baskin), the leader of the Sanhedrin remains unconvinced of Jesus' prowess. The Sanhedrin believe that Jesus may in fact be a prophet like other Jews in the past, but do not believe he is a messiah. Later, Judas Iscariot (Johann John Jean), one of Jesus' followers, betrays him for a payment of 30 pieces of silver by revealing his hiding place from the Romans to Caiphas. Against the wishes of his fellow members in not involving the Romans into the matter, Caiphas recruits a group of Roman soldiers led by Horatius (David Gianopoulos), to capture Jesus. Earlier, Jesus along with his disciples left the Jewish guest home to seek refuge in the Garden of Gethsemane within the mountains of Judea. Following his capture with the aid of Judas, Horatius leads Jesus away to a presumed trial before the Romans. Jesus is later condemned to death and crucified. ===== In 1917, France is embroiled in World War I. Dubois, head of the French spy bureau, offers to spare the life of a captured agent (an uncredited Mischa Auer) if he will reveal who he is protecting. Dubois suspects it is Mata Hari, a celebrated exotic dancer, but the prisoner chooses execution by firing squad. Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff of the Imperial Russian Air Force lands in Paris after a dangerous flight over enemy territory, bringing important dispatches from Russia. He persuades his superior, General Serge Shubin, to take him to see Mata Hari perform that night. Rosanoff is instantly smitten by her (as are most of the men of Paris). By youthful exuberance and good looks, he persuades her to spend the night with him. However, the next morning, she makes it clear to him that it was a one-time dalliance. Carlotta secretly instructs Mata Hari to report to Andriani, their spymaster. Andriani orders her to find out from General Shubin the contents of the dispatches Rosanoff brought. Meanwhile, when Dubois discloses his suspicions about Mata Hari to Shubin, the general laughs them off as ridiculous. However, Shubin has himself passed secret information to his lover Mata Hari, whom he is expecting for a private dinner. Rosanoff arrives unexpectedly, in case Shubin has further instructions before the pilot returns to Russia with more important dispatches. Upon learning of Rosanoff's mission, Mata Hari arranges for a confederate to steal the dispatches, photograph them and then return them undetected, while she keeps a puzzled, but delighted Rosanoff occupied. This is the opportunity for which Dubois has been waiting. He informs Shubin of Mata Hari's recent activities, inciting his jealousy. She comes to see the general, but is unable to persuade him she was only doing her job. In fact, she has fallen in love with the younger man. Furious, Shubin telephones Dubois and confirms that Mata Hari is a spy. She shoots him dead before he can carry through on his threat to implicate Rosanoff. Mata Hari goes into hiding, but when Andriani informs her that Rosanoff crashed and was seriously injured on his way back to Russia, she defies him and resigns to go to her love. Rosanoff has been blinded, but may recover his sight. After a joyful reunion (in which she does not reveal her desperate predicament), she is arrested by Dubois. At her trial, her lawyer, Major Caron, points out that Dubois' case is weak; all his testimony is second-hand. However, when Dubois threatens to have Rosanoff brought in to testify that he met her outside Shubin's office just after the murder, Mata Hari gives up. She is sentenced to death. She writes to Rosanoff, telling him that she cannot see him for a while, as she has to go to a sanatorium for her health. Shortly before her execution, Rosanoff is brought to her. The jailor and the attending nuns all maintain the pretense that they are in a sanatorium. Rosanoff tells the prisoner that he will likely see again and he looks forward to their future life together once she has recovered her health. Finally, Mata Hari is taken away to face the firing squad, with Rosanoff under the impression that she is going into surgery for a routine operation. ===== The story concerns an elderly potter named Cipriano Algor, his daughter Marta, and his son-in-law Marçal. One day, the Center, literally the center of commerce in the story, cancels its order for Cipriano's pottery, leaving the elderly potter's future in doubt. He and Marta decide to try their hand at making clay figurines and astonishingly the Center places an order for hundreds. But just as quickly, the order is cancelled and Cipriano, his daughter, and his son-in- law have no choice but to move to the Center where Marçal works as a security guard. Before long, the mysterious sound of digging can be heard beneath the Center, and what the family discovers will change their lives forever. ===== The film stars Laurence Fishburne as aging ex-con Socrates Fortlow, who after a long incarceration, is trying hard to make a new life and to accept the regrets of his past. Meanwhile, he meets a young boy named Darryl, who witnessed a boy murdered by a friend of his. He also has to deal with his best friend's deteriorating health and finding work. ===== The story begins with Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money bin, speaking his now-famous line, "I love to dive around in it like a porpoise, and burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit me on the head!" He is watched by his nephew Donald, and they discuss the relative merits of having so much money. While looking through the window, Scrooge is alarmed to see that the Beagle Boys have bought the lot next to his money bin. Scrooge understands that they plan to build a house on it, so they can secretly drain Scrooge's money out of the bin. Scrooge immediately faints. His three grandnephews ask Scrooge why he is so attached to his money, and he explains that to him it's not just money: his fortune is the result of a long life of hard work and canny action. Every coin is a memento of an adventure. "You'd love your money, too, if you got it the way I did – by thinking a little harder than the other guy, by jumping a little quicker –" Scrooge also repeats another of his now-famous mantras: he made his fortune by being "tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!" After calming down, Scrooge forms a plan: with his nephews' help, he installs a chute that allows him to empty the bin slowly. They observe the trucks the Beagle Boys are using, which end up dumping the extra dirt at the lake. Scrooge buys the lake, then empties a load of money every time a truck drives by. When the Beagles finish their building, they eagerly begin their robbery, only to be appalled to find an empty money bin. However, Scrooge is not at peace. Worrying that the mud at the bottom of the lake will ruin the banknotes, he has the money brought up loads at a time and the banknotes placed in glass jars before being re-sunk, which was a lesson he learned when exploring a sunken Spanish galleon that had documents which were still readable. Still, with his money on the bottom of the lake, Scrooge begins to miss his daily swim in the coins. To make up for it, he decides to create a temporary money island. But once he is indulged in swimming around in his money, one of the Beagle Boys coincidentally observes him from afar. Realizing that the Beagle Boys have found out where he hid his money, Scrooge immediately calls his nephews to help him guard the lake. The Beagle Boys buy the land in the valley downstream from the lake, showing that their plan is to destroy a dam at the end, causing the water and the money to flow down onto their property. Scrooge and his nephews defend against the Beagle Boys' varied assaults on the dam: first, they use a giant magnifying glass suspended from a weather balloon to focus sunlight on the dam, hoping to burn it. Donald shatters the glass with a shot from an old-fashioned cannon. Next, they force a bomb down the gullet of a fish and send it swimming toward the dam. Luckily, Dewey is fishing, and manages to pull out the bomb and throw it away before it explodes. Scrooge tells him to chase all the other fish downstream and then string a net across. Third, the Beagle Boys use trained cormorants who first steal beakfuls of change from the lake, then carry napalm bombs toward the dam. Scrooge, who learned cormorant language while trading pearls in Asia, orders the cormorants to turn around and drop their bombs on the Beagle Boys. Fourth, the Beagle Boys seed the clouds, causing a thunderstorm, hoping a lighting bolt will be drawn to the metal in the lake, and set the dam ablaze. Scrooge installs a large lightning rod atop the dam, wired to a cannonball which fires into the Beagle Boys' backyard. The Beagle Boys turn to Plan Five: breeding super-termites. One of them tricks Scrooge into buying them, thinking they are a termite-eating insects, and they chew through the dam. They are unable to repair the dam quickly enough, and it breaks, sending all the money flowing down onto the Beagle Boys' land. Scrooge, to his nephews' surprise, decides to admit defeat, and invites them to come along while he congratulates the winners. The Beagle Boys crow over him, and as he gazes nostalgically at his money, he confesses that what he will miss most is swimming around in it. The Beagle Boys are intrigued, more so when Scrooge demonstrates. They decide to take a dive in themselves – and end up bashing their heads on the hard, unyielding surface of the coins. They will be unconscious for months, more than enough time for Scrooge to transport the money back onto his land. When his nephews ask how he can dive through the money while the Beagle Boys couldn't, he admits, "it's a trick." Scrooge pays his nephews their wages and, as they leave, Donald remarks that Scrooge's money is nothing but trouble, for all the work it takes to guard and preserve. Scrooge dismisses this advice, declaring "No man is poor who can do what he likes to do once in a while!" He then goes back to gleefully swimming through his money. ===== 140px The author Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian was born in the city of Çemişgezek, near Harput (Kharpert), (present-day Turkish province of Elâzığ), Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of a wealthy Armenian financier in the city. The story starts in 1915 when Arshaluys was 14 years old. She personally witnessed the murder of her father, mother, brothers and sisters. She was taken to the harem of a number of Turkish pashas, but had remained attached to her Christian Armenian faith despite being tortured repeatedly at the hands of her captors. She found refuge with Frederick W. MacCallum, a Canadian doctor and missionary stationed with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), who safely returned her to Erzurum, which had come under Russian control. She later moved to Tbilisi (Tiflis) in the Caucasus and, through the mediation of General Andranik Ozanian and orders of the Russian military leadership in the Caucasus, was sent to the United States for recovery and to bear witness to the sufferings of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide of 1915–1923, recalled sixteen young Armenian girls being "crucified" by their Ottoman tormentors. The film Auction of Souls (1919), which was based on her book Ravished Armenia, showed the victims nailed to crosses. However, almost 70 years later Mardiganian revealed to film historian Anthony Slide that the scene was inaccurate. She described what was actually an impalement. She stated that "The Turks didn't make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down, and after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That's the way they killed – the Turks. Americans have made it a more civilized way. They can't show such terrible things." (reprinting the original book along with the script of the film and including commentary on the film, its distribution and impact, and Aurora Mardiganian's comments to editor Anthony Slide.) The book was written by journalist Henry Leyford Gates, whose novelist-wife Eleanor Brown Gates became Mardiganian's legal guardian in America. ===== The 1997 general election has Tony Blair elected as the prime minister from the Labour Party on a manifesto of reform and modernisation. Less than four months later, Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car crash at the Alma Bridge tunnel in Paris. Immediately, her death presents problems for her ex-husband, Prince Charles, and Blair, to accord the mother of a future king that is no longer a member of the royal family. Queen Elizabeth II wonders if Blair will turn his modernisation pledge on to the royal family since he attempts to have her reconsider her views on the funeral plans. Diana's family, the Spencers, called for the funeral to be private. In the press, Diana is dubbed the "People's Princess"; this begins an outpouring of grief by the general public in broadcasts, and displays of floral tributes so numerous at Buckingham and Kensington Palaces that the main entrances onto the complexes have to be rerouted. The senior members of the royal family make no effort to acknowledge Diana's significance to society and remain on holiday at Balmoral. The royal family's popularity plummets, while Blair's approval rises as he responds to the public outcry of inaction by the royal family. Blair's attempts to guide the royal family through the controversy are met with resistance, the Queen describing them as a surrender to public hysteria. He is encouraged by the private secretaries of the Prince of Wales and the Queen, albeit through veiled advice, to continue with his attempts to change the attitude of the royal family. The Queen comes to realise that the world has changed during her reign, and Blair begins to understand that Diana had rejected everything the Queen still holds most dear. The Queen decides to end discussion about the issue. The royal family returns to London to review the floral tributes to Diana. The Queen pays public tribute on live television to Diana's significance to the nation and society. The royal family attend the public funeral for Diana at Westminster Abbey. At Blair's next meeting with the Queen, they exchange views about what has happened since their last meeting including the controversy surrounding Diana's death and the actions that followed. Then she cautions the prime minister that, just as public opinion has changed about how the royal family should react to a new Britain, so must he as he may very well find himself in the same position of changing public opinion. ===== En route to California to prospect for gold, ex-sheriff Hooker (Gary Cooper), professional gambler Fiske (Richard Widmark) and bounty hunter Luke Daly (Cameron Mitchell) are forced to stop over in a tiny Mexican village by engine trouble on the ship they are taking. A desperate Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward) hires the three men and local Vicente Madariaga, to rescue her husband, John (Hugh Marlowe), who is pinned under debris from a gold mine cave-in in hostile Apache territory. During the harrowing journey, Daly tries to force himself on Leah late one night, forcing Hooker to intervene. Leah tells Hooker that where her husband is trapped, was once a boom town, but a volcanic eruption wiped it out, leaving only a church steeple and the mine uncovered by lava. The resident priest called it the "garden of evil". The Indians now consider the volcano sacred. The group then arrives at the mine. Finding John unconscious, they free him. Before John wakes up, Hooker sets the man's broken leg. When John regains consciousness, he accuses Leah of using him to get gold. Hooker talks to Leah later, about what her husband said; after he tells her that he has spotted signs of Apaches nearby, she offers him and the others all the gold they have dug up to take her husband away that night, while she remains behind to make it look like they are all still there. The cynical Fiske unexpectedly offers to stay with her, but when he asks her what he is to her, she tells him, "you're nothing at all, just nothing." When they are ready to leave, Leah is true to her word, but Hooker knocks her out and takes her along. When they stop to rest, realizing he is fatally slowing them down, John talks Luke into helping him onto a horse; he then rides off. When Hooker shows up, Daly draws his pistol, but is killed by an arrow in the back. At a burnt- out mission, they find John dead and hung upside down on a cross. Vicente is the next to fall. At a choke point in the cliff-hugging path, which is the only way out, the two remaining men draw cards to see who will stay behind to hold off the Indians while the other rides with Leah to safety. Fiske "wins" and succeeds in killing or driving off most of their pursuers. After seeing that Leah is safe, Hooker shoots a few more Apaches and returns to talk with a dying Fiske, who admits he cheated on the card draw to guarantee he would stay behind. Fiske urges Hooker to settle down with Leah. Hooker catches up with Leah, and they ride off into the sunset together. ===== In a village stricken by drought, people are praying for rain and a Kurdish girl is trying to escape from an arranged marriage when she runs into a stranger. ===== It is the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The Prague police commissar Ledvina asked the famous New York detective Nick Carter to travel to Prague, for assistance to solve the strange case of a missing dog. Mysterious murder cases happen during the investigations, done by the malicious botanist Baron von Kratzmar and his carnivorous plant Adela. Von Kratzmar kidnapped his victims, bound them and whenever he played a gramophone with the melody "Schlafe, mein Prinzchen" (a lullaby by Bernhard Flies but previously associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) it is the time for Adela to awaken and eat her victims for dinner. Baron von Kratzmar considered himself a misjudged genius and wanted to take revenge on one of his former professors. He called himself "the Gardener" a notorious criminal, who Nick Carter thought had died in the swamps years ago. With the help of bizarre inventions, Ledvina and Carter succeed in catching von Kratzmar and delivering him to the legal authorities. ===== Advertising for the 11 November 2005 national premier of the Kazakh version in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Nomad is an historical epic set in 18th- century Kazakhstan. The film is a fictionalized account of the youth and coming-of-age of Ablai Khan, a Khan of the Kazakh Horde, as he grows and fights to defend the fortress at Hazrat-e Turkestan from Dzungar invaders during the Kazakh-Dzungar Wars. ===== Mirza, a famous Kurdish musician, hears that his (ex-)wife, Hanareh, is in trouble. Accompanied by his two sons, he embarks on an adventurous journey across the Iran-Iraq border to find her. ===== "Zerophilia" is a fictional condition that affects an unknown number of people with an extra "Z" chromosome. Following their first full sexual experience, zerophiliacs begin to change sex after experiencing an orgasm. Luke (Taylor Handley), a young man somewhat insecure about his masculinity, begins to exhibit zerophilia following an encounter with a woman (Kelly LeBrock). He meets Michelle (Rebecca Mozo) and experiences partial transformations when they go out together. He confides with his best friend Keenan (Dustin Seavey) about his partial transformations, who in turn contacts Dr. Sydney Catchadourian (Gina Bellman). Dr. Catchadourian persuades Luke to go through a full transformation. Luke does this by masturbating, becoming female, and subsequently calling herself "Luca". Luca has difficulty achieving an orgasm to change back, even with coaching from Keenan's girlfriend Janine (Alison Folland). However, a visit by Michelle's attractive brother, Max (Kyle Schmid), who flirts with "Luke's cousin", enables her to get sufficiently aroused to complete the transformation back to Luke. Luke is threatened by his sex transformation, his arousal by an attractive male, and the questions of sexual identity it raises; he seeks help from Sydney. She tells him that a zerophiliac can become "a-morphic" and stop changing sex only by having sex with another zerophiliac... such as herself. He reluctantly agrees to do it, but discovers afterward that she was not telling him the full truth: an a-morphic zerophiliac can still change by having sex with another zerophiliac, and Dr. Catchadourian was using Luke to change herself one last time (into a man), leaving Luca as a woman in the process. Comic tensions arise from Luke's efforts to keep Michelle at a distance, Max's defensiveness about his sister, Luca's half-hearted resistance to Max's affections, and Luke's confused aggression toward Max. When Michelle discovers that Luke had sex with Dr. Catchadourian, she feels betrayed. Hoping to find Michelle, Luca seeks out Max to profess deep affection for Michelle and remorse for betraying her. Max is touched by the apology, and reveals that he is actually Michelle, also a zerophiliac. They make love repeatedly, changing sex mostly in sync with each other, but occasionally finding themselves the same sex. It ends with the happy couple apparently resolved to their 'condition' and past any questions of their gender and sexual identity. ===== FBI Agent Alex Cross is on vacation in Los Angeles with his family and his girlfriend Jamilla Hughes (from Violets Are Blue) when he receives word that a Hollywood actress has been murdered. The actress was shot and her face violently slashed with a knife. An email describing the killer's mindset before and during the murder as well as allusions to the killer's motivation was sent to an entertainment reporter named Arnold Grinner at the Los Angeles Times. The emails are signed "Mary Smith". The actress happens to be friends with the wife of the President of the United States who has asked FBI Director Ron Burns to look into the matter. Burns then gives the case to Cross, who goes to the scene, despite protests from Nana and Jamilla. He does not return until very late in the afternoon, by which time Jamilla has left to return to San Francisco, which doesn't surprise Alex, and Alex Jr. "Ali" has been taken away by Christine, who had come down to spend time with Ali and Alex. During a trial to determine who takes custody over Ali, Christine's attorney uses evidence of a picture of Ali and Cross' family being evacuated from the house for safety (in the Big Bad Wolf). Her attorney also points out that a "stranger" is carrying Ali from the house. However, Alex notices that the so-called "stranger" is John Sampson, his best friend, who works for the DCPD (the D.C. Police Department), angering Alex. Christine eventually wins custody with Alex getting over 40 days of time with Ali only. Meanwhile, Alex later meets up on another date with Jamilla, who reveals that she has been seeing another man (an unknown lawyer) since the beginning of his new case. Alex realizes that he has lost Jamilla, largely because Alex has been focusing more on his job. They both decide to end their relationship and remain friends. Alex and Jamilla say an emotional goodbye and go their separate ways. Alex constantly goes and comes from Los Angeles for the Mary Smith case, which is assigned to LAPD cop Jeanne Galleta. Additional victims, including a movie producer and a local TV anchorwoman, turn up. Galleta and he get several leads and also go out to eat and share a kiss. After several murders, a final crime scene shows Arnold Grinner being killed. However, actions supposedly caused by Alex send Galleta off the case and she is on the case of a blue Chevrolet Suburban speeding away from one of the murder scenes, which may be a lead. Further investigation reveals the owner of one such Suburban whose owner lives near the Internet café where many of the Mary Smith emails were sent. A variety of other evidence also corroborates the conclusion that the Suburban's owner is, in fact, the Mary Smith killer. Sampson, and his wife, Billie, meet up for a welcome back party for Alex, while Alex says that he wants Sampson to work for the FBI with him while Sampson asks him to work for the DC Police Department. Cross interviews the Suburban's owner, Mary Wagner. In doing so, he discovers that she suffers from some sort of psychological disorder that either led or caused her to kill her three children 20 years ago and has thus tried to live on by pretending they are still alive. The police show up and arrest her because of this. Alex goes to speak with her while she is in custody, and she tries to get his gun, but he eventually takes it back from her. To investigate the killings further, Cross travels to the Suburban owner's small hometown in Vermont and discovers that after her children were killed, she was institutionalized at a state mental hospital from which she later escaped. Another clue that supports she is the killer is that her children's names are Adam, Ashley, and Brendan. At each crime scene, stickers with two As and one B often show up – similar to her children's names. Other clues include her job as a maid – in one of the murders, a maid was killed and the bed in which two guests were having sex in was cleaned up and done – and that she was late to or missed work on the times of the murders. At the mental hospital, Cross examines the log of visitors who had come to see the Suburban owner and discovers a familiar name. Upon contacting LAPD he informs them of a possible suspect and it is told that the suspect's house is being watched. He gets a taxi, which has a dead reporter named Truscott, and the actual Mary Smith killer: Michael Bell, who calls himself "the Storyteller". Bell killed his wife and others, and framed Mary Wagner. After a car crash, leading up to a fight, Cross overpowers Bell and kills him. In the hospital, he is told by Jeanne Galleta that Mary (the original suspect) killed herself. At home, Christine decides to give Ali back to Cross permanently, giving him full custody. Later on, Alex, after being told by Nana to not make his children "orphans" like Alex was, ponders if he should stay in the FBI. He refuses Samspon's offer to return to the department and decides that "something in his life needs to change". ===== It's the biggest trial of the decade - big time mobster Dominic Cavello has finally been put in the dock, and there's enough evidence to make a conviction. Heavy security surrounds the courtroom, and Nick Pellisante, the FBI agent who helped to nail Cavello, keeps a close eye on the proceedings. But things swiftly begin to go wrong. Faced with anonymous threats, the jury is sequestered. Then the bus escorting them to their hotel is bombed on the day of Andie's young son's birthday - Jarrod, who is on the bus with the rest of the jury. Andie DeGrasse is the only person who survives, her loss strengthens her resolve to see justice done, to Cavello as well as to whoever planted that bomb. She and Pellisante both know that this will be difficult, but they can't foresee just how difficult. Category:2006 American novels Category:Novels by James Patterson Category:Courtroom novels Category:Little, Brown and Company books ===== Nazi German bombers are failing to make it to Moscow in World War II; infuriated by his soldiers' constant failure, Adolf Hitler announces his decision via a radio broadcast at a "New Odor" rally that he will personally fly a heavy bomber to attack the Russians. On the way to Moscow, Soviet gremlins sneak onto the plane in flight and without Hitler's being aware of what's going on, begin to dismantle it while singing "We Are Gremlins from the Kremlin" to the tunes of “Ochi Chyornye” (“Dark Eyes”) and “Eh, ukhnem” (“Song of the Volga Boatmen”), and the sabotage includes a "termiteski" busily devouring the plane's wing (with loud burps) and a microscopic gremlin smashing the control panel dials with an enormous wooden mallet and announcing "I'm only three and a half years old!" Hitler eventually discovers the gremlins after he's been stabbed in the buttocks and tries to retaliate. He fails, being severely frightened by several gremlins holding a mask of Joseph Stalin. The gremlins succeed in ejecting him from the bomber by cutting a hole in the fuselage beneath him. As he falls, Hitler comes to and realizes the plane is right behind him in a power dive. He tries to outrun the plane and to hide behind a small sapling upon landing, but the plane alters course as seen by its shadow. Both Hitler and the plane are driven into the ground. The plane's tail with its swastika insignia erupts from the ground as a headstone. The cartoon ends with the gremlins celebrating in victory as Hitler pops out of the ground, with his face grimacing into the one of comedian Lew Lehr, and paraphrasing his famous catchphrase: "Monkeys is the cwaziest [craziest] peoples!" (only changing the word "monkeys" into "Nutzies," referring to Nazis). A gremlin pounds Hitler back into the ground with a sledgehammer, ending the film under Clampett's signature ‘‘bee-woop’’ vocalization. ===== Destination Earth begins with the emperor Ogg (reminiscent of Stalin) sending a bumbling subordinate Martian on a mission to Earth to find a better power source for his royal limousine. The Martian sets off and lands in the United States. He ventures into a nearby city and becomes awestruck when he sees average citizens with "powerful and reliable automobiles" that make their daily lives easier. The Martian then enters a library and researches the "secrets" the remarkable power source. The Martian triumphantly returns to Mars with stolen library books on the oil industry. After reading from them the population of Mars deserts Ogg and sets up their own oil companies. The short ends with the slogan "destination unlimited" written across the screen. ===== Everest '82 tells the true story of the first Canadians to climb Mount Everest. The film begins with Laurie Skreslet just having lost his best friend in a climbing accident, that happened near Banff. He believes the accident was his fault. The movie then switches to an Everest expedition making its way through the dramatic Nepalese countryside approaching the mountain. The expedition leaders are already fighting, which does little to reassure the conflicted doubts Laurie has about climbing and the guilt he feels over his friend's death. Once they are on the mountain a huge avalanche kills three of them. Two days later, a collapse of ice crushes another. Everything goes wrong, the media turns against them, the sponsors cut off supplies and tell them to come home, the mountain is too unstable. Because of this half of the climbers leave. As the rest of the climbers are about to go, Laurie reflects on the situation, digging deep within himself to find inspiration and becomes convinced he must go on. He talks a couple of them into continuing up the mountain, inspired by the ghosts of past climbers, their deaths and triumphs. ===== Hercule Poirot meets former actress Mabelle Sainsbury Seale while leaving his appointment with dentist Henry Morley. In this meeting, he retrieves a shiny buckle for her that had fallen from her shoe. Later that day, his friend Inspector Japp informs him that Morley has been found dead, having been shot in the head. Between Poirot's appointment and Morley's death, the dentist had three patients - along with Mabelle, he also dealt with Alistair Blunt, a prominent banker, and a Greek spy known only as Amberiotis. A fourth person was present at the surgery, Howard Raikes, an American left- wing activist who disliked Blunt but is enamored with his niece, Jane Olivera. Amberiotis is later found dead from an overdose of anesthetic, leading to the belief that Morley accidentally killed him and committed suicide upon realizing his mistake. Poirot disagrees with this belief. He learns that prior to Morley's death, his secretary Gladys Nevill had been called away by a fake telegram and that her boyfriend Frank Carter was disliked by the dentist. Mabelle soon goes missing. A search turns up a body - the face smashed in - within a sealed chest in the apartment of Mrs. Albert Chapman, a woman who also has disappeared. Poirot makes a note of the dull buckled shoes on the body. Dental records soon reveal the body to be that of Mrs. Chapman. Poirot soon finds himself drawn into the life of the Blunt family, where two attempts are made on Blunt himself; the second is thwarted by Raikes. The culprit is found to be Carter - he had obtained a job as a gardener at the house under a false identity and is found with a gun in his possession, identical to the one that killed Morley. Agnes Fletcher, Morley's maid, later admits to Poirot that she saw Carter on the stairs to the dentist's office before Morley's death. Poirot soon presses him for the truth, knowing he will be convicted of murder and attempted murder. Carter admits that while waiting to speak to Morley, he saw two people leave his surgery; when he entered, Morley was already dead. With this information, Poirot meets with Blunt and denounces him and his Scottish second cousin, Helen Montressor, as the killers. Montressor is actually Blunt's first wife Gerda, whom he had met alongside Mabelle in India. He had never divorced her when he returned to Britain and married his now- deceased second wife, Rebecca Arnholt; if his bigamy was exposed, he would be shamed and disgraced, and lose the fortune he inherited from her. Blunt had not expected to come across Mabelle when he was leaving Morley's surgery after an appointment; although she recognized him, she didn't know about his new life. Amberiotis later learned of this chance encounter and Blunt's past when he meets Mabelle, and used this knowledge to blackmail Blunt. Blunt learned by chance that Amberiotis had become a new patient of Morley's, so he and Gerda decided to take advantage of his dental appointment to murder him. The morning of the murder, Gerda invited Mabelle to an apartment she secured under the alias of Mrs. Chapman and killed her to steal her identity. She then went to attend Mabelle's dental appointment, due to take place after Blunt's. Her husband killed Morley when his appointment was over, rang for the next patient, and then pretended to leave. Once Gerda was in the surgery, she let her husband back in. While he hid Morley's body in a side office, Gerda changed Mabelle's records to become those of Mrs. Chapman - both this and Mabelle's face being disfigured after her murder, were to mislead the police on who the body in Chapman's apartment was. After his wife left, Blunt posed as Morley, knowing Amberiotis had never seen the dentist before. After summoning him into the surgery, Blunt injected him with a fatal dose of anesthetic. Once Amberiotis had left, Blunt moved Morley's body back into the surgery, set it up to appear as a scene of suicide, and then left. Poirot reveals the plan was exposed by a few facts - Carter had seen Blunt leave the surgery after Amberiotis' appointment, while he was waiting to see Morley; the telegram to Nevill was made by the pair, to ensure she would not be there when Blunt posed as the dentist; Gerda wore new shoes when impersonating Mabelle, as she couldn't fit into Mabelle's shoes after killing her. Although forced to admit that Blunt stands for the important things in public life, Poirot states that Blunt's claims to be needed in the world doesn't justify his crimes, stating: "I am not concerned with the fate of nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them." Blunt and his wife are handed over to the police. Later, Poirot meets with Raikes and Olivera and tells them to enjoy the life that they desire together, asking that they allow freedom and pity within it. ===== When the villagers of Kleinschloss start dying of blood loss, the town fathers suspect a resurgence of vampirism, but police inspector Karl Breettschneider remains skeptical. Scientist Dr. Otto von Niemann, who cares for the victims, visits a patient who was attacked by a bat, Martha Mueller. Martha is visited by a mentally challenged man named Herman Glieb, who claims he likes bats because they are "soft like cat" and "nice". On the doctor's journey home, he meets Kringen, one of the townsfolk, who claims to have been attacked by the vampire in the form of a bat, but withheld his story from the town in order to not spread fear. Dr. von Niemann encourages Kringen to tell the townsfolk of his story. Kringen becomes suspicious that Glieb may be the vampire due to his obsession with bats. Glieb lives with bats and collects them off the street. Dr. von Niemann returns to his home, which also houses Breettschneider's love Ruth Bertin, Ruth's hypochondriac aunt Gussie Schnappmann, and servants Emil Borst and Gorgiana. Fear of the vampire and suspicion of Glieb quickly spread around the town and people start fearing him. Ms. Mueller is killed that night. The analyses of Dr. von Niemann and another doctor, Dr. Haupt, conclude that the death is the same as all of the previous deaths – blood loss, with two punctures in the neck caused by needle- sharp teeth. Gleib enters the examination, and upon seeing the dead body, runs away screaming. Next morning, Glieb enters Dr. von Niemann's garden, where Dr. von Niemann, Breettschneider and Bertin are discussing vampires inside the house. The town fathers enter the house and announce that Kringen is dead and Gleib is missing. An angry mob hunts down Gleib and chases him through the countryside and into a cave, where he falls to his death. That night, Dr. von Niemann is seen telepathically controlling Emil Borst, as he picks up sleeping Gorgiana and takes her down to Dr. von Niemann's laboratory, where a strange organism is seen. They then drain her blood from her neck. Schnappmann then discovers Gorgiana's body in her bed. Dr. von Niemann and Breettschneider investigate and find Ms Mueller's crucifix, which Glieb handled the night Dr. von Niemann visited her. Breettschneider is becoming more convinced of the presence of vampires in the village as no other plausible explanations for the deaths can be found. As Glieb was seen in the garden that morning, the two conclude he is guilty. Upon hearing of Glieb's death, however, Breettschneider's conviction is erased. Dr. von Niemann tells Breettschneider to go home and take sleeping pills, but gives him poison instead, intent on draining his blood. Bertin discovers Dr. von Niemann telepathically controlling Borst, who is at Breettschneider's house. It is revealed that Dr. von Niemann has created an artificial lifeform and is using the blood to feed his organism. He ties Bertin up and gags her in his lab. Borst supposedly enters with Breettschneider's body on a trolley. Dr. von Niemann walks over to Borst, who is revealed to be Breettschneider (who did not take the pills) in costume, with the real Borst on the trolley. Breettschneider pulls a gun on Dr. von Niemann and walks over to untie Bertin. Dr. von Niemann then wrestles Breettschneider, who drops the gun. As the two fight, Borst picks up the gun and shoots Dr. von Niemann. ===== When Wilbur leaves the hospital after having tried once more to kill himself, the staff ask his brother Harbour to let Wilbur move in with him. The brothers thus share their childhood flat, which is adjacent to the bookshop their father left them. Uninterested in the family business, Wilbur works in a nursery. Harbour manages the shop and meets Alice, who sells him books she finds when working as a hospital cleaner. When she is sacked for always being late, she visits Harbour to explain why she will not be coming again. Following his brother's advice on "grabbing" women, Harbour asks Alice to marry him. The wedding meal is held at an Asian restaurant and allows Wilbur to get acquainted with Sophie, Alice's ex-colleague from the hospital. The two start flirting, but Wilbur pushes Sophie away after she licks his ear. After the meal, Wilbur goes back home and slits his wrists in the bath. Harbour finds his brother just in time and Alice saves Wilbur by using towels to stop the bleeding. While discussing Wilbur with Alice, Harbour tells her his brother feels responsible for their mother's death. As he is about to leave the hospital, Wilbur gets a nurse named Moira, infatuated with him, to lick his ear. Instead of reciprocating the favour, he wipes his ear and leaves the room. At the same time, a few doors along, Harbour is told by a doctor that he needs to stay in the hospital for some tests. Harbour refuses because he wants to be at home with his new family. Wilbur, Harbour, Alice and Mary live together, allowing them to get acquainted. Before Mary's birthday party, Alice asks Harbour buy some whipped cream at the supermarket, where he has a fit. He wakes up at the hospital, where Dr Horst, a psychologist he has met often through Wilbur, tries to convince him to get treatment for pancreatic cancer. The two men share a bottle of whisky, Dr Horst believing that such is the condition of Harbour's liver that a little alcohol will be insignificant. Wilbur goes back to the bookshop to bring Alice the whipped cream for Mary's party. When a little girl asks him to stand on his head, he throws up on her dress. Harbour is put to bed; as Wilbur and Alice tidy up after the party, they kiss briefly until she says she cannot continue. The next day, Wilbur tries to jump off a building, only to realise he does not want to. He goes home to apologise to Alice for kissing her, but they do so again. Dr Horst tells Harbour he must explain his very serious situation to his family, but he does not know how to. To fight the mutual attraction Wilbur has with Alice, Wilbur decides to make nurse Moira his girlfriend. One evening, as they are all out for a meal, Moira tells the family they should change their eating habits to help Harbour during his chemotherapy. Furious at Harbour for not getting treatment, Alice takes him to hospital and spends the night there with him despite Harbour being scared that Wilbur might try to kill himself. The latter, having stayed at home to take care of Mary, decides not to commit suicide when he realises the little girl needs him. Wilbur resigns from his job to replace his brother at the bookshop. Harbour's condition does not improve, so his doctor allows him to spend his last Christmas at the bookshop. After dinner, as Harbour tucks Mary into bed, she asks him if he is going to spend the night in Wilbur's room, implying that Wilbur will be in Alice's. As he is about to take a taxi back to the hospital, Harbour asks his brother to take care of Alice and Mary. In his hospital room, Harbour takes an overdose of pills and trims his fingernails before lying in bed fully clothed. The film ends with Wilbur, Alice, and Mary visiting Harbour's grave. ===== Asim Noyan (Yılmaz Erdoğan) and his gang make up a rambling collective, which concerns itself with a range of criminal activities, running from car theft to fraud. An inveterate womaniser, Asim meets the failed comedian Superman impersonator Samet (Tolga Cevik) while fleeing from an angry husband. Desperate Samet finds himself unwittingly implicated in the life of the gang. Meanwhile, Umut (Özgü Namal), the daughter of Mr and Mrs Ocak, a highly literate but hard-up couple, leads an altogether different life. The paths of Samet, Umut and Asim's gang cross because of a stolen car. ===== In order to study journalism at Istanbul University, Sadık leaves his village on the Aegean coast. This angers his father, Hüseyin, who wants him to study Agricultural Engineering so he can manage the family farm. During his years at university Sadık becomes a militant in left wing politics. Upon learning about Sadık's behavior, Hüseyin disowns him. However worse days are ahead for Sadık. In the early hours of the morning on 12 September 1980 Sadık's pregnant wife starts having contractions. The couple runs outside, but they can't find anyone to take them to the hospital, due to a curfew. The country has been taken over in a military coup. Sadık's wife gives birth in a park and dies, but their son, Deniz, possibly named after leftist youth icon Deniz Gezmiş, survives. Because of his political activities, Sadık is arrested, tortured, and imprisoned for three years during which time he loses his health. A few years after being released, he finds out that he will die. Having no other choice, he takes Deniz back to his family farm on the Aegean into the care of his mother and his father, who still does not speak to him. For Deniz, who is absorbed in the magical world of comic books, meeting his relatives on the farm is a new experience. There is his grandmother (Hümeyra Akbay) who drives a tractor and speaks on a short wave radio, his aunt Hanife (Binnur Kaya) who wears bracelets from her wrist all the way to her shoulder, and his uncle (Yetkin Dikinciler) who is a little naive. There is trouble in store, however, for Sadık and Hüseyin who must come to terms with their past and each other. Sadık also needs to face his first love, now married with two children, and the question of old friends. However his sickness takes over and Sadık passes away. His parents take over the responsibility of Deniz who comes into term with his father's loss. ===== 27-year-old Howard the Duck lives on Duckworld, a planet similar to Earth, but inhabited by anthropomorphic ducks and orbited by twin moons. As he is reading PlayDuck in his livingroom, his armchair suddenly propels him out of his apartment building and into outer space; Howard eventually lands on Earth, in Cleveland, Ohio. Upon arriving, Howard encounters a woman being attacked by thugs, whom he defeats using a unique style of martial arts. The woman introduces herself as Beverly Switzler, and decides to take Howard to her apartment and let him spend the night. The following day, Beverly takes Howard to Phil Blumburtt, a scientist who Beverly hopes can help Howard return to his world. After Phil is revealed to be only a janitor, Howard resigns himself to life on Earth and rejects Beverly's aid. He soon applies for a job as a janitor at a local romance spa, but eventually quits and rejoins Beverly, who plays in a band called Cherry Bomb. At the club where Cherry Bomb is performing, Howard comes across their manager, and confronts him when he insults the band. A fight breaks out, in which Howard is victorious. Howard rejoins Beverly backstage after the band's performance and accompanies her back to her apartment, where Beverly persuades him to be the band's new manager. The two begin to flirt, but they are interrupted by Blumburtt and two of his colleagues, who reveal that a laser spectroscope they were inventing was aimed at Howard's planet and transported him to Earth when it was activated. They theorize that Howard can be sent back to his world through a reversal of this same process. Upon their arrival at the laboratory, the laser spectroscope malfunctions when it is activated, raising the possibility of something else being transported to Earth. At this point, Dr. Walter Jenning is possessed by a life form from a distant region of space. When they visit a diner, the creature introduces itself as a "Dark Overlord of the Universe" and demonstrates its developing mental powers by destroying table utensils and condiments. A fight ensues when a group of truckers in the diner begins to insult Howard. Howard is captured and is almost killed by the diner chef, but the Dark Overlord destroys the diner and escapes with Beverly. Howard locates Phil, who is arrested for his presence at the laboratory with no security clearance. After they escape, they discover an ultralight aircraft, which they use to search for the Dark Overlord and Beverly. At the laboratory, the Dark Overlord plans to transfer another one of his kind into Beverly's body with the dimension machine. Howard and Phil arrive and apparently destroy the Dark Overlord with an experimental neutron disintegrator; but the creature is merely forced out of Jenning's body and now attacks them in his true form. Howard fires the neutron disintegrator at the hideous beast, obliterating him. He then destroys the laser spectroscope, preventing more Dark Overlords from arriving on Earth, but also ruining his only chance of returning to his planet. Howard then becomes Beverly's manager, hires Phil as an employee on her tour, and performs with Beverly on stage. ===== Dr. Bernard Adrian is a kindly scientist who seeks to cure a young woman's polio. All he needs is spinal fluid from a human to complete the formula for his experimental serum. Meanwhile, a vicious circus ape has broken out of its cage and is terrorizing the townspeople. The Ape eventually breaks into Dr. Adrian's lab. The Doctor manages to kill it before any harm can come to himself. However, the spinal fluids he requires to perform his experiments have all been destroyed during the struggle between him and the Ape. Doctor Adrian then concocts an idea: he will tear off the ape's flesh and use its skin to disguise himself as the escaped circus animal and murder townspeople in order to extract their spinal fluid. Thus the murders will be blamed on the Ape and he, himself, will manage to avoid any suspicion. However, one of his attacks towards the film's ending is unsuccessful; he is fatally knifed and the Ape's "true identity" is revealed. ===== Dr. Markoff (J. Carrol Naish) has concocted a formula that spreads a hideous disease named acromegaly - which extends bones and distorts facial features. Markoff has no moral dilemma in experimenting on unsuspecting human subjects. His amoral behavior assumes monstrous dimensions when famed concert pianist Lawrence (Ralph Morgan) is injected with the doctor's disease-inducing serum. In return for an antidote, Markoff intends to exact more than his pound of flesh by extorting a fortune from Lawrence and demanding the hand of the musician's pretty daughter Patricia (Wanda McKay). ===== Captain Thorne Sherman (James Best) and first mate Rook Griswold ("Judge" Henry Dupree) deliver supplies by boat to a group on a remote island. The group, consisting of scientist Marlowe Cragis (Baruch Lumet), his research assistant Radford Baines (Gordon McLendon), the scientist's daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude), her former fiancée Jerry Farrel (Ken Curtis), and a servant Mario (Alfred DeSoto), welcome the captain and his first mate. Before the two visitors can get too comfortable though the islanders, to their surprise, begin to insist that the ship leave immediately and take Anna with them, even though a hurricane is fast approaching the island. Thorne however insists that the storm will be too severe for them to leave that night and so instead goes with the researchers to their compound, while Griswold stays with the boat, saying that he will come ashore later. Over cocktails at the compound, Thorne soon becomes aware of a menace threatening all their lives and the reason for why the Doctor and company were so eager for the ship to leave quickly: Marlowe Cragis as it turns out has been performing well-meaning genetic research and has been using shrews as test animals due to their short life spans allowing him to track his research's progress over multiple generations. The Doctor's purpose in these experiments is to isolate and manipulate the genes responsible for growth and metabolism in order to eventually shrink humans to half their size so as to reduce world hunger because (he reasons) being smaller, the modified humans will consume less food in a world with a limited food supply. Unfortunately, the Doctor's experiments have instead created a batch of mutant giant shrews that have escaped due to Farrel's drunken negligence and which are now reproducing in the wild, growing larger and more voracious by the day. Due to this, the group must now barricade themselves inside their compound every evening before the sun sets due to the creature's nocturnal feeding habits, with the hope being that the shrews will inevitably kill and cannibalize each other once they have eaten every other living animal on the island. Gradually as they talk Thorne and Ann become more and more attracted to each other, causing Jerry to become jealous. Meanwhile, the giant shrews having run out of smaller animals to hunt and devour become ravenous and begin to venture out during the day in a desperate attempt to find food. As a result when Griswold comes ashore, the mutants attack and kill him. Shortly afterward the storm makes landfall and the shrews dig through the floor of the compound's barn and begin attacking the livestock. Hearing the sound and mistaking it for Rook, Thorne nearly opens the door to let him in but is stopped from doing so by Jerry and Marlowe who make him realize the truth of the matter. Marlowe then attempts to reassure Thorne that they are safe in the building from the shrews but his attempts quickly falter when Thorne points out a fact the Doctor has overlooked. As Thorne explains, while the main building's floor is indeed too hard for the shrews to dig through, the walls of the building are adobe and at the current rate, the storm will soon turn it to soft mud making the Doctor's plan to simply wait out the shrews impossible. Recognizing the truth of his statement the group makes a plan to leave the moment the storm is over. Later that night though one of the mutant shrews takes advantage of a broken window and makes its way into the basement. Mario and Thorne hearing the noise and realizing one of the creatures must have forced its way inside follow it downstairs. Mario discovers the mutant and shoots at it, but not before it bites him. The giant shrew is subsequently finished off by Thorne who then attempts to treat Mario's wound only for him to die regardless. Radford later discovers Mario's death was due to a highly toxic venom in the dead shrew's saliva, the result of the creatures adapting to the poisoned bait the researchers had placed in the wild in a previous attempt to kill them off. As day breaks and the storm fades, Thorne and Jerry attempt to scout the path out of the compound so the whole group of survivors can hopefully make a break for the boat. During this mission, the two of them discover Rook has been eaten by the creatures and Jerry's jealousy over Anna's attraction to Thorne leads him to try and shoot his rival only for Thorne to disarm Jerry. The shrews then suddenly attack the two and Thorne and Jerry race back to the compound. Jerry reaches it first and tries to leave Thorne locked outside to die but Thorne just barely manages to scale the compound's fence in time. Enraged by the multiple attempts to kill him Thorne beats Jerry senseless and nearly throws him to the shrews but thinks better of it and spares him instead. After dragging Jerry back into the main building the survivors regroup to try and come up with another plan. Before they can do so though, another mutant shrew is able to get in and bites Radford before they can kill it. As he dies, Radford, ever the dutiful researcher, records the symptoms of the venom on his typewriter, right up to the moment of his death. As more and more of the giant shrews begin to chew through the now soft adobe walls, Thorne hits upon the idea to fashion impromptu armor by lashing together empty 50-gallon chemical drums and then duckwalking to the beach. Due to his claustrophobia though, Jerry refuses to get into the makeshift armor and remains behind, isolating himself on the roof and watching the mutants chase after the lashed-together drums. When the coast seems clear Jerry attempts to flee but is cut off and killed by another group of shrews. Thorne, Ann, and Marlowe meanwhile manage to reach the shoreline and after ditching the armor they swim out to the boat. Safely aboard and confident that the giant shrews will eventually die out from consuming one another, Thorne and Ann share a long kiss. ===== All Paris is frightened by the murders attributed to "Bluebeard". Modiste Lucille (Jean Parker) is introduced to Gaston Morrell (John Carradine), a puppeteer and painter, by her friend. They are attracted to each other, and she accepts a commission to design some costumes for his puppets. At home, Morrell is confronted by a jealous Renee (Sonia Sorel), who performs in Morrell's puppet show and is his lover. When she wonders what became of the models who had posed for him, he strangles her, then dumps her body in the Seine River. Art dealer Jean Lamarte (Ludwig Stössel) is aware of Morrell's homicidal tendencies, but keeps his secret, as Morrell's paintings fetch high prices. However, the normally discreet Lamarte makes a mistake in selling Morrell's last work to a duke. When the duke exhibits his collection, a policeman on guard recognizes the portrait as being that of one of Bluebeard's victims. Inspector Lefevre (Nils Asther) of the Sûreté calls in one of his best undercover agents, Francine (Teala Loring), who happens to be Lucille's sister. She and her "father" go to Lamarte to have her portrait done. Lamarte is on his guard, but her father is willing to pay a very large commission to find the man responsible for the duke's painting, and Lamarte's greed overcomes his caution. Morrell has decided to give up painting (which triggers his murderous compulsion) out of love for Lucille, but Lamarte pressures him into one last picture to make him financially independent. However, Francine recognizes him, having met him briefly earlier at her sister's apartment, and Morrell has no choice but to dispose of her. Certain that Francine and her father were working for the police, Lamarte tries to flee, but Morrell catches him and kills him too, before escaping. The only clue he leaves behind is the cravat he used to strangle Francine. At Francine's funeral, Inspector Lefevre shows Lucille the cravat. She knows it belongs to Morrell, as she had mended it for him. When she confronts Morrell, he tells her the story behind his crimes. As a starving art student, he had nursed back to health a woman who had fainted, fallen in love with her, and painted her portrait. She left without warning. When his painting was chosen to hang in the Louvre, he searched for her to tell her the news, only to discover that she was a prostitute. Enraged by her contemptuous response, he strangled her. But ever since then, every model he painted turned into her in his mind, and he was compelled to kill her again and again. When Lucille tells him she is going to the authorities, he starts strangling her too, but the police break in. Lefevre saw that Lucille recognized the cravat and had her followed. After a chase across the rooftops, Morrell falls to his death into the Seine. ===== 15-year-old girl Darlene Joyce (D.J.) Schwenk lives on a farm in Red Bend, Wisconsin, where she and her family own a dairy farm. When D.J.'s father hurts his hip, leaving him unable to work, D.J. reluctantly leaves her high school's volleyball and basketball teams to fill in for him on the farm. In the process she gives up her chance at a college scholarship, and her grades begins to slide. Meanwhile, D.J. is pressured into training Brian Nelson, a stubborn football player who plays for the rival Hawley High School team. Over time the two become friends, and D.J. develops romantic feelings for Brian. Over the summer, D.J. begins training to join her high school's football team, driven in part by a fight with Brian, and in part by the legacy of her two estranged older brothers, Win and Bill, who are famous in Red Bend for playing college football. D.J. makes the team but is unsure of how to tell Brian, which later results in a falling-out between the two. D.J. is also alienated from her best friend, Amber, when she realizes too late that Amber is in love with her. Throughout the summer, many of D.J.'s problems stem from an inability to discuss important issues with her family and friends, as Brian eventually points out to her. It is through their friendship that she finds she has a lot to talk about, and begins to put her life back together. ===== A Grim Reaper (Mackenzie Gray) appears in a spooky classroom, then tells a tale about a student named Jesse Hackett, who hates his teacher, Mrs. Fink, and is soon doomed to be trapped in the Shadow Zone. After all, to enter the Shadow Zone, one merely needs a touch of evil.... Jesse Hackett finds a doll at a store resembling his teacher. Things start to take a turn for the worse when the doll comes to life. Jesse and his friends destroy the evil doll. Then Jesse Hackett and Mrs. Fink reconcile. Jesse never becomes an eternal guest at the Shadow Zone. The movie ends with the Grim Reaper telling the audience he hopes to see them doomed, and that he'll have a room waiting for them in the Shadow Zone. Then with a chilling laugh, he walks down the school's hall to the entrance and disappears. ===== During a time in the near future, Gothenburg has been invaded by zombies. The police are powerless and a team of German zombie hunters are called in to solve the problem and clean up the city and find out what is causing the zombie epidemic. On their way through the streets of Gothenburg, they run into several obstacles. For example, they come across an Italian assassin and some Swedish reporters on the wrong side of the barricades. ===== ===== In 1867, a gang led by James "Stretch" Dawson (Gregory Peck) robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws come upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman called "Mike" (Anne Baxter) and her prospector grandfather (played by James Barton). Stretch is attracted to Mike. While the men recover from their ordeal, Dude (Richard Widmark) snoops around. Dude tells the others that the old man is mining gold, but Stretch is unimpressed. The next day, Mike and Grandpa take to the hills. A confrontation between Stretch and Dude over the leadership of the gang is interrupted by Mike shooting at them. However, when Grandpa is hit in the leg by a ricochet, Mike surrenders. Back in the house, Grandpa offers to split his gold, worth roughly $50,000 by his estimate. Later, Lengthy (John Russell) grabs Mike, and youngster Bull Run (Robert Arthur) tries unsuccessfully to intervene. Stretch rescues him and holds Lengthy's head underwater until he nearly drowns. That night, Stretch assures Mike and Grandpa that he will keep to the bargain, with Dude eavesdropping. The next day, a large band of Apaches appear while the gang is at the mine digging up the gold. Stretch sneaks into town. Grandpa tells him that he convinced his friends to return to the reservation. In gratitude for the old man not sending the Indians to wipe out his gang, Stretch tells his men that they will share the gold, but Dude draws his gun and fires. The rest of the outlaws follow his example. Mike shows up and helps a slightly wounded Stretch back to her home. Not wanting to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders for Stretch, the gang surrounds the house. In the ensuing gunfight, they think that Stretch has been killed. Dude takes the opportunity to shoot at Lengthy, but misses. He then runs off to try to take all the gold for himself, with his would-be victim in pursuit. Bull Run is fatally wounded, and Walrus (Charles Kemper) and Half Pint (Harry Morgan) decide to switch sides. Stretch then goes after Dude and Lengthy. A deadly three-sided shootout in the unlit saloon follows. Afterwards, a frantic Mike finds Dude and Lengthy dead and Stretch wounded. After Stretch recovers, he, Walrus and Half Pint, who is now wearing Dude's clothes, return to the bank they robbed and give back the stolen money. Then, they ride off with Mike and Grandpa. ===== The film, considered a screwball comedy, centers on a reporter, Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson (Pat O'Brien) and his editor (Adolphe Menjou), who hope to cash in on a big story involving an escaped accused murderer, Earl Williams (Stone), and hide him in a rolltop desk while everybody else tries to find him. ===== Emmannuelle Prévert (Suzanne Danielle) relieves the boredom of a flight on Concorde by seducing timid Theodore Valentine (Larry Dann). She returns home to London to surprise her husband, the French ambassador, Émile Prevert (Kenneth Williams) but first surprises the butler, Lyons (Jack Douglas). He removes her coat, only to find that she has left her dress on the aircraft. The chauffeur, Leyland (Kenneth Connor), housekeeper, Mrs Dangle (Joan Sims), and aged boot-boy, Richmond (Peter Butterworth), sense saucy times ahead… and they are right! Émile is dedicated to his bodybuilding, leaving a sexually frustrated Emmannuelle to find pleasure with everyone from the Lord Chief Justice (Llewellyn Rees) to chat show host, Harold Hump (Henry McGee). Theodore is spurned by Emmannuelle, who has genuinely forgotten their airborne encounter, and, despite reassurances from his mother (Beryl Reid), exacts revenge by revealing Emmannuelle's antics to the press. However, after a visit to her doctor (Albert Moses), she discovers that she is pregnant and decides to settle down to a faithful marriage with Émile… and dozens of children. ===== After a tutorial fight with an Otamamon, Marcus Damon and Agumon take on Tylomon who is sinking ships in the area of Walter Island. After Tylomon is defeated, Creepymon appears and defeats GeoGreymon. When Creepymon tries to take down Marcus and Agumon, Creepymon notices Marcus' Digivice iC and flees. Yoshino arrives to recall Marcus and Agumon to DATS HQ. Meanwhile, a girl named Yuma ends up kidnapped by two DemiDevimon and her Renamon arrives late. At DATS HQ, Commander Sampson and Kudamon report that 5 children have gone missing throughout the world. He sends Marcus and Yoshino to Sneyato Forest to rendezvous with Thomas and take down Bakemon who is tampering with Earth's electricity. When they catch up with Thomas, a fight ensues with Bakemon. During battle, Bakemon Digivolves into Myotismon and a mysterious transmission tells them how to defeat Myotismon. After that is done, the DATS members return to DATS HQ and discover that Thomas' old friend Tsukasa Kagura has transferred here and was the one who gave them the tactics to defeat Myotismon. He also tells them that his sister Yuma has gone missing. Arriving at Rage Caverns, Kagura warns the DATS members that their Digimon may not Digivolve into the same Digimon due to the activity in the Dark Area. The three arrive at Rage Caverns to find another Digimon target. After a series of earthquakes, the DATS members find the source to be Belphemon. After Belphemon has been defeated, a boy named Wyiu is rescued with the Code Key of Sloth in his possession, which a private investigator, Kosaburo Katsura steals with help of his Biyomon. When he escapes, Kagura prepares an immediate evac for the DATS members to bring the boy back. Creepymon is then seen at the door to the Dark Area as a mysterious person approaches him. Sampson tells the DATS members about Misaki Nitta, who left DATS due to harming a criminal with his Digimon partner. Yoshino reveals that Kosaburo interfered with her past missions when it came to the info of the Code Key of Sloth. After Keenan Crier joins the team, another huge Digimon signature is detected at Mirage Museum. The four see an unknown footage that shows what might be Yuma who is replaced with Lilithmon on an island. The Mao Digimon Barbamon appears and fights the team. He is defeated and a girl named Florida is rescued. After a confusing conversation with the girl, the Code Key of Greed is spotted. Kosaburo and Biyomon appear again and steal it. He disappears as Kagura prepares an immediate evac for the DATS members and the girl's safety. Back at DATS HQ, Kagura tells the team that his sister Yuma was nicknamed "monster girl" cause she can talk to "monsters." Kagura identifies the footage from the Mirage Museum to be an SOS from Livilus Island. The team is dispatched there to answer an SOS which turned out to be from Renamon who collapsed near them. After recovering, Renamon tells the DATS members that Yuma has become part of the material that comprises the Mao Digimon Lilithmon. They encounter Lilithmon who insults Yoshino and a battle begins. After Lilithmon is defeated, Yuma returns to normal. Gaomon manages to attack Biyomon before Kosaburo can claim the Lust Code Key. When Kosaburo Digivolves Biyomon into Birdramon, Renamon uses what she has left to heal the other Digimon. The DATS team defeats Kosaburo and Birdramon, but they escape. Kagura arrives since he lost contact with the DATS members and tells Yuma that they will treat Renamon at DATS' facilities. At the Sea Precipice Jerapilus, Kosaburo makes contact with his client, and tells him that DATS has the Code Key of Lust. Despite this, he transfers the two Code Keys, Sloth and Greed, to his client. The mysterious person gives the 'investigator' the money agreed for the cards, and leaves with the fact that the event "ends their relationship." When Kosaburo and Biyomon talk about what to do with their pay, Creepymon arrives and attacks the two. The DATS team arrives at the Digital Dungeon and ensue in a battle with Beelzemon. When they defeat Beelzemon, a Western Boy named Yèhèrta is freed. The teams finds the Code Key of Gluttony in his possession. When the DATS team arrives at the Sea Precipice Jerapilus, they ensue in a battle with Leviamon and defeat him. They also find a silent cool girl named Yigua who had the Code Key of Envy. Kagura arrives to claim the Code Key. An injured Kosaburo arrives to tell them that Kagura was the unknown client, since he planted a tracking device in Kagura's pocket. As the tracking device goes off, Thomas finds the Code Keys in Kagura's pockets. Kagura then tells Thomas that his henchmen, DemiDevimon and Devimon had kidnapped Yuma and her friends, the other missing children, because he wanted them to become the confused sins of the Mao Digimon. Two DemiDevimon snatch the Code Keys from Yoshi. After that, they battle two DemiDevimon and two Devimon and win. After the battle, Kagura disappears with all Five Code Keys. Commander Sampson calls and the DATS team tells him everything, much to their surprise. After Kosaburo joins the team, they find that Kagura is using the Code Keys to unlock the seal to the Cho-Mao Digimon, Lucemon. The team is sent to a forest where the Digital World begins to fall apart. In a re-match against Creepymon, the DATS team emerges as the victor. A gate to the Real World appears, which Creepymon flies through. He drops a Digivice iC, which the team identifies. Yoshino asks what he means by "going home." Yuma then joins the five. In the Real World, after defeating some Digimon that were attacking the Real World, they find Creepymon again for a final battle against him. After he was finally defeated, it is revealed that Nitta was missing because he was used as part of the material to create Creepymon. Nitta regained awareness and accepted the fact that he had become a Digimon. The Digivice (which Yoshi had picked up), however, did not belong to him, but to his daughter. He wanted a way to see his daughter again, making the Digivice appear. He was to become her Digimon. Because the device locked on to his Digital signature, he could never go back to being a human even if he was defeated. Before Nitta vanishes, he tells Yoshino to tell his daughter that he loves her. He also reveals that Kagura has the Code Key of Wrath, thus he has all the Code Keys (Wrath, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy and Lust) to unseal Lucemon. Kagura summons Lucemon. Yuma tells her brother that what he's doing isn't right. After Lucemon is defeated, he absorbs Kagura (revealing Kagura himself as the final Code Key of Pride, the first six were to free him from his physical imprisonment in the Dark Area itself and the Code Key of Pride was necessary for Lucemon to leave the boundaries of the Dark Area as well as send his power out beyond) and retreats. After a group of Mega Digimon are defeated, the DATS team confront Lucemon. After beating him, he changes into his Shadow Lord Mode. When the six emerge the victor, Kagura is freed from Lucemon and lies on the ground, asking for forgiveness. ===== Various events involve a dating agency run by Sid Bliss (Sid James) and his longtime girlfriend Sophie Plummett (Hattie Jacques). Their "Wedded Bliss" agency purports to bring together lonely hearts using computer-matching technology, but couples are actually paired up by Sophie. Bliss consistently avoids marrying Sophie, enthusiastically pursuing Esme Crowfoot (Joan Sims), a seamstress and client who consistently rejects his advances. Percival Snooper (Kenneth Williams) becomes a client to find a wife for business reasons: as a confirmed bachelor, he is inept at his job as a marriage counsellor due to lack of personal experience. James Bedsop (Charles Hawtrey) is a private detective whom Sophie hires to spy on Sid's after-hours activities when he supposedly "vets" the female clients, including Esme. Timid Bertram Muffet (Richard O'Callaghan) winds up with model Sally Martin (Jacki Piper) after the agency muddles his directions to a blind date. Client Terry Philpott (Terry Scott) suffers several failures in his dealings with the agency including a disastrous meeting with prim, sheltered Jenny Grubb (Imogen Hassall). Jenny moves in with Sally, undergoes a makeover, and becomes a model. Terry later finds romance with the "new" Jenny. Percival's association with Sophie provokes his jealous housekeeper, dowdy Miss Dempsey (Patsy Rowlands), to reveal her seductive side. Esme's estranged lover, volatile wrestler Gripper Burke (Bernard Bresslaw), returns to cause havoc over an instance of mistaken identity. Peter Butterworth appears in a one- minute cameo as a Bluebeard-esque character jokingly referred to as Dr. Crippen. He approaches Sid Bliss to find his third wife. His first wife died eating poisoned mushrooms, the second suffered a fractured skull because she "wouldn't eat the mushrooms." ===== Sid Carter (Sid James) is the cunning head of a criminal gang that includes the longhaired drip Ernie Bragg (Bernard Bresslaw), the cheeky Freddy (Bill Maynard) and Sid's honest son, Cyril (Kenneth Cope). Cyril does not want a life of crime, but is emotionally blackmailed by his father into going along with his scheme to rob Finisham Maternity Hospital for its stock of contraceptive pills and sell them abroad. Cyril reluctantly disguises himself as a new female nurse to case the hospital. Assumed to be one of the new student nurses who have just arrived, he is assigned to share a room with the shapely blonde nurse, Susan Ball (Barbara Windsor). Unfortunately for Cyril, he also catches the eye of the hospital lothario, Dr Prodd (Terry Scott). Sir Bernard Cutting (Kenneth Williams), the hypochondriac registrar of the hospital, is convinced he's undergoing a sex change. When he consults the nutty Dr F.A. Goode (Charles Hawtrey), Goode dishes out psychiatric mumbo jumbo, stating that Cutting merely wants to prove his manhood, and Cutting decides he is in love with Matron (Hattie Jacques). Matron, on the other hand, has more than enough to contend with on the wards, with the gluttonous patient Mrs Tidey (Joan Sims) who seems more interested in eating than producing a baby, and her long-suffering British Rail worker husband (Kenneth Connor) who continually hangs around the waiting room. When Cyril goes back to Prodd's room to get a map of the hospital, Prodd attempts to get intimate, only to be knocked across the room. Prodd and Cyril are called out on an emergency when lovely film star Jane Darling (Valerie Leon) goes into labour, but as Cyril knocks Prodd out in the ambulance, he is forced to deal with the actress's triplets being born. Jane Darling is delighted with Cyril and hails "the nurse" a heroine for her efforts, bringing fame to the hospital. Susan uncovers Cyril's disguise, but as she is in love with him, does not reveal the truth. The much put-upon Sister (Jacki Piper) desperately tries to keep the ward in order, while Cutting's secretary, Miss Banks (Patsy Rowlands) keeps her employer in check, but nothing can cool his pent-up desire to prove himself as a man, and it's Matron who's in his sights. The criminal gang don disguises—Sid dresses as the foreign "Dr Zhivago" and Ernie as a heavily expectant mum—but the crime is thwarted by the mothers-to-be. The medical hierarchy's threat to call the police is halted when Sid reveals the heroine of the day is a man, and the hospital realise they would suffer nationwide humiliation if anyone found out. Cyril weds his shapely nurse Susan, and Matron finally gets her doctor. ===== The story begins with Garnet Cameron, an 18-year-old young woman from upper-class New York society. Garnet has just graduated from her finishing school and is trying to find a direction for her life now that her schooling is done. That summer, a young man by the name of Oliver Hale comes to New York. He is in town to buy supplies from the estate of Mr. Selkirk, a wealthy murdered man, to bring west with him. Oliver Hale is a frontier trader from California and Garnet is immediately drawn to him. He treats her as an equal and talks to her as "a human being", telling her about the journey to the unknown territory of California. Garnet is riveted by Oliver's tales of adventure and excitement and longs to see the things he tells her about. Promising to take her west with him, Oliver proposes marriage and Garnet happily accepts. They are quickly married and begin their journey that March. The plan is that Garnet will travel to California with Oliver while he closes up his business out west and they both will return to New York the following year. Oliver and Garnet travel first to New Orleans. Garnet is fascinated by the grandeur of the city. Oliver takes her to a dance hall called the Flower Garden, something Garnet would never have been allowed to do back in New York. In the Flower Garden, a blonde actress named Juliette La Tour stops the show with her talent for stage presence and performance. That evening, as the couple eats dinner, Garnet has a meeting with Juliette when two drunk men try to make a move on Garnet and the actress sends them away. Juliette tells Garnet that her real name is Florinda Grove. The next day, Garnet spots Florinda hiding in the hallways of her hotel. Florinda tells Garnet that a man from New York wants to arrest Florinda for the murder of Mr. Selkirk. Garnet and Oliver decide to help Florinda escape arrest by disguising her as a widow and sending her to St. Louis. Florinda is very grateful and she and Garnet become fast friends. Shortly after Florinda leaves, Garnet and Oliver leave New Orleans for St. Louis, themselves. Beyond St. Louis, Garnet and Oliver set out to cross the Great Plains. The trail is hard-going, but Garnet enjoys it with wide-eyed wonder. She questions Oliver about his brother Charles, whom they will be staying with in California, but Oliver is reluctant to talk on the subject of his brother and Garnet lets it drop. They arrive in Santa Fe several months after leaving St. Louis and Garnet is reunited with Florinda, who was traveling "in sin" with a deacon from St. Louis. She and Garnet rekindle their friendship. Shortly after their arrival in Santa Fe, the traders from California arrive in the city, too. Garnet is introduced to several of Oliver's friends: John Ives, Oliver's standoff-ish business partner, and fellow traders of the Jubilee Trail (the name of the trail from Santa Fe to California) Silky van Dorn, Elijah Penrose, and Texas. Florinda drops the deacon and makes the decision to travel to California with the traders. On the trail to California, Garnet and Florinda endure harsh temperatures, lack of water, and other such hardships with stoicism and bravery. Both women build friendships with the men of the trail, most notable of which is John's gradual warming to Garnet. They share a mutual appreciation of the scenery and he grows to respect both Garnet and Florinda for their sheer will and determination. The train finally arrives in California with much rejoicing, although Florinda quickly succumbs to exhaustion brought on by the trail. Garnet also finally meets Oliver's brother, Charles, who makes no secret of the fact that he hates her. Garnet convinces John to take care of Florinda, as she herself must leave for Charles' rancho to the north. Garnet finds out quickly that Charles is basically controlling Oliver. Oliver, who once was a strong and outgoing man, is reduced to the attitude of a child when he is around Charles. During an earthquake at Charles' rancho, Garnet discovers a letter from Charles to Oliver. The letter reveals that before leaving California last year, Oliver had a tryst with the daughter of a wealthy native Californian and the girl gave birth to a son. Charles was delighted at the opportunity to gain control of the property and expected Oliver to marry the girl on his return. He was shocked to discover he had gotten married in New York. Garnet's respect for Oliver continues to falter as she realizes that he is not the man she thought she was marrying. Shortly after this revelation, Garnet also realizes that she herself is pregnant and will be due sometime while she and Oliver are out on the prairie for the return trip east. In the midst of all this emotional turmoil, the young Californio woman kills herself and her baby. In a grief-stricken rage, her father storms into Charles' rancho and kills Oliver. After Oliver's death, Garnet nearly dies, but is rescued by John Ives and Florinda and taken to Florinda's Los Angeles saloon where she lives among new friends, including the magnificent Russian friend of John Ives. Her son is born amid the drama of California's joining the United States and the reality that Charles Hale wants to take her son from her. By the end of the story gold has been discovered on Sutter's Mill and John and Garnet fall in love and are married. Category:1950 American novels Category:American historical novels ===== Don Anderson is the Mickey's hamburger chain marketing director who helped develop the "Big One", its most popular menu item. When he learns that independent research has discovered a considerable presence of fecal matter in the meat, he travels to the fictitious town of Cody, Colorado to determine if the local Uni-Globe meatpacking processing plant, Mickey's main meat supplier, is guilty of sloppy production. Don's tour shows him only the pristine work areas and most efficient procedures, assuring him that everything the company produces is immaculate. Suspicious of the façade he's been shown, Don meets rancher Rudy Martin, who used to supply cattle to the Uni-Globe plant. Rudy and his Chicana housekeeper both assure him that because of the plant's production level, several safety regulations are ignored or worked against; workers have no time to make sure that the manure coming from the intestines stays away from the meat. Don later meets with Harry Rydell, executive VP of Mickey's, who admits being aware of the issue, but is not concerned. Amber is a young, upbeat employee of Mickey's, studying for college and living with her mother Cindy. While her life seems to be set, she continually faces the contrast between her current career and her own ambition, emphasized by her two lazy co-workers, Brian and Andrew, who, having heard of armed robberies at fast food restaurants in the area, start planning their own. Amber and Cindy are visited by Cindy's brother Pete, who encourages Amber to leave town and start a real career. Amber eventually meets a group of young activists, Andrew, Alice, and Paco, who plan to liberate cattle from Uni-Globe as their first act of rebellion. They proceed to sneak up to a holding pen at the plant, but after breaking down the fence, they are shocked that the cattle make no attempt to leave. Upon hearing the police, they retreat and contemplate why the cattle decided to stay in confinement. Raul, his love interest Sylvia, and Sylvia's sister Coco are illegal immigrants from Mexico, trying to make it in Colorado. They all go to Uni-Globe in hopes of finding a job – Raul becomes a cleaner, while Coco works on a meat processing conveyor belt. Sylvia, however, cannot take the environment, and instead finds a job as a hotel maid. Coco develops a drug habit, and begins an affair with her exploitative superior, Mike. In a work accident, a friend of Raul's falls in a machine, and his leg is mangled. Raul, attempting to save him, falls and is injured. At the hospital, Sylvia is told that Raul was on amphetamines at work. Because Raul is now unable to work, Sylvia has sex with Mike in order to find a job at Uni-Globe. She ends up working on the "kill floor." ===== Witch Week is set in an alternative modern-day Great Britain, identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death by burning, policed by a modern-day Inquisition. At Larwood House, a boarding school where many of the children of executed witches are sent, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by a teacher. This launches an internal investigation of the more unpopular students at the school (Nan Pilgrim and Charles Morgan), who are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they are witches. Mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and other pranks. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, leaving notes that blame the witch for controlling him. The headmistress of the school calls in an Inquisitor to find the missing student and locate the source of the trouble. Four more of the students flee the school and two seek help from an "underground railroad" system that is known to save witches by sending them to a world where they are not persecuted. Instead they are given a spell to summon unknown help and all five students converge where they are able to use it, summoning the enchanter Chrestomanci. He and the children conclude that their world diverged from 12B (ours) by a particular historical accident. They work to outwit the local inquisition and to merge their history, thus their world, with ours. It turns out that most of the schoolchildren are witches and all must lose any such powers by revising history in that way. ===== Sonia Sehgal and Naina Sehgal (both played by Kajol) are twins. The two are completely different from each other, Sonia being the outgoing twin and Naina being the shy one. Meanwhile, the police are hunting for a cold-blooded, sadistic killer and rapist, Gokul Pandit (Ashutosh Rana). However, tragedy strikes when Gokul rapes and brutally kills Sonia. After Police investigation, Gokul is caught but is declared innocent as Sunanda, one of the main witnesses and Gokul's fiancé gives a false statement in court. Naina is distraught and vows to hunt down Gokul. Gokul soon goes after Naina and she realizes she needs help to overcome her fear of Gokul. With revenge in her mind, she meets Suraj Singh Rathod (Sanjay Dutt), a blind military veteran and he helps her physically and mentally to defeat her fear of Gokul. While Suraj trains Naina they develop feelings for each other. After an argument, Suraj refuses to meet Naina and she decides to go after Gokul all by herself. One day Gokul kidnaps Naina's younger sister Dia from school in order to scare and warn Naina with what risk she is playing. That day Naina's mother decides to leave for Naintal immediately as her daughter's life is at risk. However, Naina cannot control her hatred and wanted to avenge her sister at any cost. Naina lays a trap for Gokul and tries to kill him but Gokul ties her up and tries to rape her like her sister. Suraj arrives at her house and fights Gokul but ends up being stabbed. Naina gets free and manages to fatally shoot Gokul. Suraj recovers from his injuries and decides to go away from Naina, but she realizes that she loves him and cannot live without Suraj. The film ends on a good note as Suraj and Naina get together and move on with their lives. ===== Castle in the Air follows the adventures of Abdullah, a handsome young carpet salesman from Zanzib, who daydreams constantly about being a stolen prince. One day a strange traveler comes to his stand to sell a magic carpet. During the night, Abdullah goes to sleep on the carpet but wakes up to find himself in a beautiful garden with a young woman. He tells the woman, Flower-in-the- Night, that he is the stolen prince of his daydreams, believing that he is in fact dreaming. Flower-in-the-Night, who has never seen a man other than her father, first believes that Abdullah is a woman, so Abdullah agrees to return the next night with portraits of many men so that she can make a proper comparison. He does so, and Abdullah and Flower-in-the-Night decide to get married. Abdullah returns the next night, but he arrives just as Flower-in- the-Night is snatched away by a huge flying djinn. Soon after, the Sultan of Zanzib captures Abdullah who then discovers that Flower is actually the Sultan's daughter. Enraged that his daughter is missing, the Sultan blames Abdullah and throws him in jail, threatening to impale him on a 40-foot pole if his daughter is not found. Fortunately, Abdullah is saved by his magic carpet and escapes from Zanzib. Abdullah ends up in the desert and stumbles upon a group of bandits, who have in their possession a particularly cranky genie who grants only one wish a day. In the night, Abdullah steals the genie and flees. After a wish, Abdullah is transported to Ingary and ends up traveling with a bitter Strangian soldier whose country was recently taken in a war with Ingary. While traveling to Kingsbury in search of a wizard, the two stumble upon a cat and her kitten, whom the soldier names Midnight and Whippersnapper, respectively. As they travel, Abdullah wishes for the return of his flying carpet, who brings with it the very Djinn that kidnapped Flower- in-the-Night. It is revealed that the Djinn, Hasruel, is being forced to kidnap princesses from all over the world by his brother, Dalzel. The two proceed on the carpet to Kingsbury, which is where they find Wizard Suliman, who, upon realizing that Midnight is actually a person in cat form, returns her to being a human. As the spell is lifted from the woman, who turns out to be Sophie Pendragon, her baby, Morgan is returned to his normal self as well. However, when they go to collect the baby, he is no longer in the inn, where he was left with the soldier. Abdullah and Sophie then order the carpet to take them to Morgan. The carpet does so, taking them far into the sky, to the castle in the air, which is merely Wizard Howl's castle, having been greatly enlarged. There they meet the abducted princesses and plot with them to escape the flying moving castle. Led by Abdullah, they overpower the two Djinn, freeing Hasruel who banishes his brother. Flower-of-the-Night had by then wished the Genie free, who turned out to be Sophie's husband, the top-level sorcerer Howl. ===== Phillip Sauvage (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an American soldier recovering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by his time in Iraq and Afghanistan in a VA hospital. The release of notorious rap mogul Terrell Singletery (Viv Leacock) from prison has caused Wayne Barclay's (Raz Adoti) worried sister and manager Tamara (Vivica A. Fox) to hire increased security. Wayne, a retired heavyweight champion turned businessman and community leader, is apparently a target of Terrell's who's known to issue hits on his enemies. A member of Wayne's staff named Mullins served with Clarence Bowden (Julian D. Christopher) in the Army and brings him in on the security detail; he, in turn, brings Sauvage whom he mentored in the Army as well. During their first gig doing security outside a club, Terrell sends a hit squad for Wayne. Clarence is killed and Sauvage arrested for possession of an automatic weapon. After bailing him out, Tamara moves him into Wayne's guest house and hires him as head of security. Sauvage insists on bringing in his own colleagues for the security team, but Wayne forces him to train members of his boxing gym. Sauvage brings on fellow veteran Sergeant Casey Bledsoe (Mark Griffin) to train the recruits. Tamara is apparently smitten by Sauvage, who shows little interest, but her advances worry Wayne, who is informed by Detective Teague that Sauvage is actually an unstable killer who massacred children in Iraq. Terrell sends another hit squad to stake out Wayne's girlfriend's place (Lydia) to try to hit him again; Wayne tries to sneak out to see her because Tamara does not approve. Sauvage catches him and insists on going with him. While Sauvage inspects an alley, Kujo (another bodyguard with them) sees the hit squad. After a struggle, Wayne's men manage to subdue the hit squad and leave them for the police. The next day, Sauvage tries to dissuade Wayne from giving a speech at a sports complex opening, but he becomes angry with Sauvage's restrictions. When they see a suspicious man in the crowd, Sauvage orders the new guards to take him down, causing a riot. The man was only reaching for his cell phone and Wayne is embarrassed by the bad press. Sauvage quits and insists on fighting Wayne to prove his methods are sound. Tamara storms off and Sauvage sends Jesse, a female guard, with her. After a vicious fight between Wayne and Sauvage, they hear that Jesse was attacked and Tamara taken. Detective Teague suspiciously asks if they heard anything about Tamara, which they did not mention. In the car, Sauvage and Wayne discuss the true Iraq incident and Terrell and Wayne's history. Lydia calls and insists Wayne come see her alone (unbeknownst to them with a gun to her head) and Sauvage hatches a plan. Wayne discovers Detective Teague inside, who has been working for Terrell, and Sauvage cuts the power. He and the guards break in and apprehend the thugs and learn that Tamara is at Terrell's house. Wayne and his guards pose as Terrell's thugs to get inside his gate and confront him. Sauvage and Bledsoe secure Tamara and Wayne and Mullins take on Terrell's boys. The fight culminates in Wayne killing Terrell and Sauvage being shot but saved by his vest. In the aftermath, Wayne comes to terms with Tamara and Sauvage's relationship, and they kiss. ===== Joe/Narcissus (Jack Bittner) is an ordinary man who has recently signed a complicated lease on a room. As he wonders how to pay the rent, he discovers that he can see the contents of his mind unfolding whilst looking into his eyes in the mirror. He realises that he can apply his gift to others ("If you can look inside yourself, you can look inside anyone!"), and sets up a business in his room, selling tailor-made dreams to a variety of frustrated and neurotic clients. Each of the seven surreal dream sequences in the diegesis is in fact the creation of a contemporary avant-garde and/or surrealist artist, as follows: :Desire Max Ernst (Director/Writer) :The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart Fernand Léger (Director/Writer) Song Lyrics John Latouche Sung by Libby Holman and Josh White, accompanied by Norma Cazanjian and Doris Okerson :Ruth, Roses and Revolvers Man Ray (Director/Writer) Music By Darius Milhaud :Discs Marcel Duchamp (Writer) Music By John Cage :Circus Alexander Calder (Writer) Music By David Diamond :Ballet Alexander Calder (Director/Writer) Music By Paul Bowles :Narcissus Hans Richter (Director/Writer) Music By Louis Applebaum Dialogue by Richard Holback and Hans Richter Joe's waiting room is full within minutes of his first day of operation, "the first installment on the 2 billion clients" according to the male narrator in voiceover. Case number one is Mr and Mrs A. Mr A is a "methodical, exact" bank clerk. His wife "complains [he] has a mind like a double entry column; no virtues, no vices". She wants a dream for him "with practical values to widen his horizons, heighten ambitions, maybe a raise in salary". Joe asks Mrs A to leave the room during Mr A's consultation. Mr A reveals that within his ledger he has a collection of art images cut from magazines, including drawings of a woman reclining in bed; another on an old man's lap; another being shot by an animal-headed man; a filmic image of red liquid passing through water, and another of a melting wax figure of a woman. Joe "finds a dream" for Mr A based on these interests. In the dream ("Desire") leaves fall to the ground beside a red curtain. A woman in white reclines in a red-curtained four-poster bed. A small golden ball rises and falls from her mouth as she breathes. She swallows the ball, smiles and falls asleep. Jail bars appear by her bed, and a voyeuristic man watches from behind them as the woman dreams of nightingales with calves' hooves. It appears the man is part of her dream, and telephones her to ask in voiceover for details. She tells him in voiceover "they talked about love and pleasure". The telephone by her bedside falls to the floor, breaks open and exudes a misty smoke, which envelops her bed. Two young men tumble over each other in what seems like a war scene of shipwrecked sailors. One of the young men and a woman are pulled from underneath the bed by a man dressed as a formal authority figure (Max Ernst). The voyeur man watching breaks through the jail bars and enters the bedroom, raising the woman from her bed, and they embrace. They exit the room, and awkwardly tumble down through a basement corridor wreathed in steam. The authority figure impassively watches them. The voyeur plays dice in the leaves of a dark brick-lined corridor, The narrating woman's voice says "who wants to come with me under my warm white gown," repeating the last three words several times and closes with the woman tossing the small golden ball into the air and catching it. Case number two ("The Girl With the Prefabricated Heart") begins as Joe accepts payment from Mr. A and ends his session, as a young woman wearing a suit, glasses, and a beret enters the room carrying a briefcase, and Mrs. A returns and glares. The A's leave. The young woman tries to "sign Joe up" for various causes. In voiceover, she tries to convince Joe while we hear a man's voice telling Joe to resist her. She flirts, cries, almost leaves, comes back. The music features a repeated wolf whistle over a light jazz tune. Joe signs. He removes her glasses and they almost kiss. Smoke fills the screen, and clears with a closeup on a dismembered mannequin. The music is a light tune sung by Holman with the refrain of "untouched by human hands." It segues into a sequence in which wigged and costumed mannequins seem to dance and pose. Holman and White sing. Whirling wheel graphics punctuate the scenes as jewellery is offered to "a healthy girl", Julie, as the male singer/mannequin woos her. She cries "this is ridiculous! Sisters, come to my aid!" and "so from his ardent arms she fled." The male mannequin is beheaded as Julie rides on an exercise cycle dressed in a bridal gown. "for there's no man alive who could ever survive a girl with a prefabricated heart." We transition back to Joe's office as the young woman leaves, then suddenly returns and kisses him, then leaves again. As she leaves, Mrs. A returns with a garbled, speeded up voiceover expressing her stream of consciousness. Case number three begins. "You'll find out nothing here – this man is obviously a fake of some kind." But she wants a treatment...Joe shows the lady a photo of a young smiling couple. The young woman in the photo reminds Mrs A of herself when she was a carefree girl. Mrs. A realizes she wants to break the shell around her and has a dream of the same young couple with the man reading a declaration from a book titled “Ruth, Roses and Revolvers.” The young man is apparently trying to woo the woman “those who have insured themselves against all risks are bound to lose all.” The couple joins others at a film screening were the group watches a man on the screen who goes through various poses and gestures. The audience imitates the man in the film by repeating his gestures. After the screening the couple sees the book leaning against a tree. One woman jokes “all we need now is a revolver.” The man turns the book around. On the back cover is a photo of Man Ray, the author, and we see superimposed a procession of wounded soldiers. Mrs. A pays in cash and leaves with the photo. Outside the room there is a chaotic riot and an impotent policeman doing nothing but holding a pose. In the ensuing commotion a gangster (case number four) has made his way into Joe’s office. He wants a dream that might help him win the horse races. The dream consists of spinning disc illusions (by Marcel Duchamp) and a prism distorted version of “Nude Descending a Staircase.” The gangster is unimpressed and robs Joe at gunpoint. A policeman enters and asks the gangster for a gun license. The gangster produces it and the cop lets him go. Joe is knocked unconscious by the gangster who flees the room. Case number five and six – A blind old man and a little girl enter the empty office. The girl plays with a ball that becomes a collection of Alexander Calder’s mobiles. A sombre mask watches the playful movements of the mobiles. Joe regains consciousness and re-enters his office to find the two new inhabitants. The blind man actually wants to sell a dream rather than buy one. He makes circus figures out of wire and the figures come to life and perform. Joe buys the dream. Case number seven: The next customer doesn’t answer the desk buzzer. Joe goes to the door and sees that the next customer is himself, standing frozen, surrounded by blocks of ice. Joe finds a blue poker chip that the little girl left on the floor and he enters his own autobiographical dream. He is playing poker with his friends around a table being watched over by a classical bust of a bearded man (Morpheus?). As Joe reaches for a liquor glass, it explodes. In the spilt fluid on the table, he sees his own reflection. Joe’s skin suddenly turns blue, causing his friends to reject him (“would you want to sit at a table with a blue man?”). They leave Joe alone in the room where his furniture becomes alive and closes in on him. He finds a blue cord and follows it (“the blue thread of hope will lead me out of the labyrinth”). The cord leads outdoors where he is accosted by the public who block his progress (“the right of being in everybody’s way is the right of everybody.”) The people turn into ladders leading up in four directions. Joe chooses a ladder and starts to climb. He remembers the jubilance at the end of World War II and the prospect of peace and optimism. Streamers fall from the sky. Suddenly Joe realizes the rungs are disappearing from his ladder. He desperately grabs a window sill and pulls himself inside a room. Dangling colorful circles surround a woman reclining in a hammock. She offers Joe a drink, a bowl of cherries and a knife. He kisses the woman and makes a move to slice open her throat but instead cuts the blue cord he’s been following. The cord bleeds red. Joe exits the room and re-enters the poker room. The bearded bust bursts into flames. He again sees his friends around the poker table but now they’ve become flaming bird cages. He takes the bearded bust and attempts to escape out his window – hanging by a rope. The woman he abandoned uses the knife to cut his escape rope. Joe and the statue fall but become balls of colored ink in water that rains down upon the broken classical bust on the pavement below that appears to be staring upward into the colored patterns. ===== After a dangerous tour of a nuclear power plant which was struck by an earthquake, Frank, Joe, and Chet travel to Washington, DC. This is after they receive a strange, cryptic letter from their father commanding them to go there and to be aware of Infinity. After they arrive in Washington, DC, they are threatened by a ruthless terrorist who seems to have a hobby with explosives. The Infinity clue seems to turn up everywhere and a supposedly cursed diamond is stolen. The Hardy Boys are suspect of stealing the diamond and take on this new case to try to clear their name. After failure after failure, the Hardy Boys go to a strange drilling site and find the Infinity clue there too. While staying at camp, they witness a boat disguised as carrying oysters passing by. The Hardy Boys witness strange flashes and go to the source to investigate. They find a strange island where the people seem to be living in the 18th century. They then find a supposedly dead man who is the owner of the stolen diamond. Later, they travel to a strange chain of islands and learn of a sinister plot to sabotage nuclear power plants with artificial earthquakes created by miniature nuclear bombs to harm the nuclear power industry and to make oil more popular. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1981 American novels Category:1981 children's books Category:Novels set in Washington, D.C. ===== At Loch Ness, Scotland, scientist Dr. Abernathy is killed by slipping off some rocks, after seeing something in the loch and taking a single photograph of it. Months later, American zoologist and freshman college tutor, Dr. John Dempsey, is asked to replace Abernathy and dispel the myth of the Loch Ness Monster. Dempsey is reluctant to do so, having ruined his career by trying to prove the existence of the Sasquatch. He agrees to go for the money, which would allow him to pay alimony to his ex-wife, naming a newly discovered species of wasp after her. Arriving in Scotland, Dempsey meets Dr. Abernathy's assistant Adrian Foote, who fanatically believes in the monster. Dempsey rents a room at a local inn run by Laura McFetridge and her young daughter, Isabel, who grows close to him. He soon meets the other locals, fisherman Andy McLean, who aggressively comes to see Dempsey as a rival for Laura's affections; eccentric Gordon Shoals, who claims the monster is his property; and the Water Bailiff, who is highly protective of the legend, and tries to repeatedly sabotage Dempsey's efforts. Using state-of-the-art technology, Dempsey scans the whole loch, and is unable to find any trace of the monster. When he declares the end of the myth, Adrian angrily berates him, but Dempsey admits he wants to find the dinosaur to rebuild his career, left cynical by his failure to find the Sasquatch. Dempsey later receives Dr. Abernathy's camera, discovering the photo he took on the night he died – revealing it shows a dinosaur's flipper. He and Adrian venture out to search the loch again. After tracking a 40-foot-long object, it collides with and sinks the boat. Dempsey nearly drowns, but is rescued by an unseen creature, and the Water Bailiff. A thrilled Dempsey claims to have seen the monster. Andy assaults Dempsey for his relationship with Laura, but she defends him. Isabel gives him a get well card, with a drawing of what she calls a “water kelpie” on it. Realising she, too, has seen the monster, Dempsey convinces Isabel to show him where it lives, and he will buy her a red bicycle she has always wanted. Isabel leads him to a cavern beneath Urquhart Castle, where they encounter a family of a plesiosaur and elasmosaur hybrids. Isabel can communicate with them through a series of whistles. In astonished euphoria, Dempsey takes photographs of the monsters, frightening them, and knocking Isabel into the water. He saves her, but is confronted by the Water Bailiff. Dempsey is kicked out of the inn by a furious Laura, and Isabel is deeply hurt by his betrayal. Dempsey and Adrian travel to London to publicly reveal the dinosaurs’ existence. Dempsey meets the Water Bailiff on the train, imploring him to not reveal the truth. Dempsey reasons that exposure and science would help the creatures, but the Water Bailiff points out how it was Isabel and her faith, not science, that led him to the dinosaurs. At a conference at the Natural History Museum, Dempsey is unable to go through with the presentation, replacing his photographs with Isabel's kelpie drawing. On the way out, Dempsey informs Adrian that he fabricated his photographs before coming to Scotland, but Adrian, knowing the truth, understands. The Water Bailiff returns to Loch Ness, discovering Dempsey slipped his photographs into his bag during their conversation on the train. Dempsey returns to the inn, reuniting with Laura and Isabel, bringing the new bicycle with him. The plesiosaurs swim through the loch, accompanied by an infant. ===== Frank Falenczyk is a hit man for his Polish mob family in Buffalo, New York. He has a drinking problem, and when he messes up a critical assignment that puts the family business in peril, his uncle Roman Krzeminski, head of the family, sends him to San Francisco to clean up his act. Falenczyk is forced to accept a job at a mortuary, and go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where he confesses his job, explaining that he wants to be free of his drinking problem because it's affecting his ability to kill effectively. He falls in love with Laurel Pearson, a quirky client he meets at the funeral home. Meanwhile, an upstart Irish gang threatens the family snow-plowing business. When violence erupts, Frank returns home to face the rivals. With assistance from Laurel, he manages to suppress the Irish gang. ===== The film's plot follows a traditional theme, with Zatoichi (a blind swordsman) coming to the defense of townspeople caught up in a local yakuza gang war and being forced to pay excessive amounts of protection money. Meanwhile, Zatoichi befriends a local farmer and her gambler nephew and eventually offers his assistance to two geisha siblings (one of whom is actually a man) who are seeking revenge for the murder of their parents. The siblings are the only survivors of a robbery and massacre that was carried out on their family estate ten years ago. They soon discover the people responsible for the murders are the same yakuza wreaking havoc on the small town. After slicing his way through an army of henchmen with his sword, Zatoichi defeats the yakuza's bodyguard, a powerful rōnin, in a duel. Zatoichi later wanders into town and confronts the yakuza bosses, killing the second-in-command and blinding the elderly yakuza boss (who had been masquerading as a bumbling old waiter up until this point) after surprising him by opening his eyes. The film ends with a dance number led by noted Japanese tap dance troupe The Stripes, and Zatoichi walking down a trail and tripping over a rock, saying "Even with my eyes wide open, I can't see anything." ===== Susan Mayer is trying to jog Mike’s memory. In his room, she is playing "their" song, "Car Wash," which they danced to some time ago. Mike doesn't remember at all. The next day, Susan brings her infamous macaroni and cheese dish to the hospital. The usual nurse, Marcie, is vacationing in Honolulu, Hawaii. When Edie comes into the hospital, Nurse Parker, Marcie's replacement, tells her that Edie has been visiting Mike every single day since he woke up. Edie has been passing herself off as Mike's girlfriend. When Susan and Edie both tell Nurse Parker that they're the real girlfriend of Mike, she sides with Edie, and orders security to take Susan out of the building. Marcie is the only nurse that knows the truth about Susan and Mike's relationship. The next day, Susan tricks the nurse to tell Edie she has a phone call. While Edie is on the phone, (when no one is there) Susan takes Mike out of the hospital, and back to Wisteria Lane. She tells him about accidentally locking herself outside naked, their first kiss in his pick-up truck, and meeting each other at Mary Alice's wake, but Mike remembers none of these stories. When Susan trips on the curb, Mike remembers her being a klutz. Susan is very happy, that is, until the hospital security guard finds them. Susan and Edie both try to convince each other that Mike will end up with them. Bree orders Gus, a motel manager, to open the room Robert Falati and Danielle are in. He does, and Mr. Falati and Danielle are embarrassed to have their private sex interrupted. Bree makes the two break up, and Danielle is devastated. Danielle attempts a half-hearted suicide by smashing a beer bottle on her own head, taking pills, and slashing her wrist with a spoon. After this, Orson, Bree, Andrew, and Danielle all meet with a therapist. At the session, Danielle threatens Bree that if she tries to break up the relationship with Mr. Falati (who is getting a divorce) or tries to get him fired, she will run away for good. This backfires as Bree tells Mr. Falati that Danielle is moving in with him. Mr. Falati says no, and Bree, pretending to be angry, says Danielle would be devastated and he should break up with her. She threatens that if he tells Danielle she was behind this, she will tell his wife. So he breaks up with Danielle. She gets her revenge by telling his wife about their relationship, resulting in him not getting any money in the divorce. Gabrielle comes home to find Carlos in her bedroom with candles on. She thinks he wants to seduce her, when really, he is about to sleep with a woman named Trishelle. Carlos was doing this in order to make Gabrielle jealous, but she isn't. Gabrielle tries to make him jealous by having Phil Lopez, the man who beat him twice for Latino Businessman of the Year, over. This plan is working. Gabrielle is not interested in Phil, so in order to infuriate Carlos, she pretends to have sex with him, making sex noises in her bedroom. The plan is working, as Carlos is extremely jealous. Phil is trying to have sex with her, but Gabrielle shoos him away. Phil goes out and tells Carlos what a monster his soon to be ex-wife is. When Phil finds out that Gabrielle's car is blocking his, Carlos goes inside to get Gabrielle to move it. He finds Gabrielle in bed, still making the sex noises, taps her on the shoulder, and asks her to move her car. She does, and Carlos laughs at her for pretending to have sex. Gabrielle promises to make him jealous and devastate him permanently, but Carlos says it's not possible. Carlos, who is still in love with her, begs her to re-consider getting a divorce. She says she will as long as he brings her breakfast in bed the next morning. He does, only to find her in bed with Jason, a man she picked up from the bar. This devastated Carlos and made him jealous. Tom tells Lynette his plans of opening a pizzeria, but Lynette isn't happy, because she knows that if he opens up a new business, he will spend too much money and they’d go in debt. She shares with her friends about Tom's plans, but neither one thinks it's a good idea. Nora, being the blunt woman she is, tells Lynette she thinks Tom made a crappy decision. Lynette tells Tom that in order to make the pizzeria work, he should open up a catering restaurant first, and then go to a pizzeria, because then they can save money for the pizzeria. Tom says that's not his dream, so he wants to go straight to the pizzeria. Lynette tells him that no matter what he decides to do, she will support him. Nora tells Tom that Lynette is pushing him to do what she wants him to do, and that she is a bully. As Nora is tucking her daughter Kayla into bed, Kayla tells her that she wishes Tom could tuck her in every night, and Nora assures her that she is working on it. While Julie is talking with her friend Sarah, Austin comes by and asks for help on his homework. Julie, who is still being coy about her crush on him and giving him the cold shoulder, says that she'll do it for $15 an hour. Sarah falls for his bad boy image and thinks he is hot. While Julie is helping Austin with his homework, he tells her that he got sent to juvenile detention center because he fought his mom's boyfriend to protect his mom, and the boyfriend said to her that if she didn't press charges, he would break up with her, and the mom didn't want to be alone, so she sent him away. Julie feels sorry for him and does his whole assignment. Later, she catches him and Sarah making out in a car, and she and Sarah had plans to see a movie that night, but Sarah cancelled. She shows Austin her anger by re- typing the assignment, resulting in him getting a D minus. Austin confronts her and says that he knows Othello was motivated by jealousy and winks at Julie before walking away. Detective Ridley’s work partner tells him that he found what he believes to be ink on Monique’s hand. Sure enough, it’s a phone number. Detective Ridley and his partner call the number, and it is revealed to be Mike Delfino’s number. ===== The story centers on an American-born Muslim teenager named Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, although Ahmad’s high school life guidance counselor, Jack Levy, also plays a central role. The novel seeks to explore the worldview and motivations of religious fundamentalists (specifically within Islam), while at the same time dissecting the morals and lifeways of residents of the fictional decaying New Jersey Rust Belt suburb of "New Prospect" (which Updike has identified with Paterson, New Jersey, also the setting of his novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies"An Interview With John Updike: In 'Terrorist,' a Cautious Novelist Takes On a New Fear", by Charles McGrath, New York Times, May 31, 2006 (retrieved February 12, 2009)). ===== The Hardy boys track a criminal who plans to use an invention designed as a peaceful aid to the secret Four-Headed Dragon organization behind the Iron Curtain to harm the free world instead. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1981 American novels Category:1981 children's books ===== The story begins with the Hardy Boys rescuing a boy from a road hog who looks suspiciously like a zombie wearing a Hessian uniform. The boy turns out to be Rolf Allen, who wants the Hardys to investigate a string of forest fires in Vermont, and the number one suspect is the zombie in the Hessian uniform. Shortly later, the Hardys are approached by a circus owner named Tariski, who needs their help in finding out the culprit who is sabotaging his circus. The Hardys accept both cases. They are met with Lonnie Mindo, a friend of Rolf's who is in the play Julius Caesar and playing Caesar himself. The Hardys find a crypt with a coffin of the Hessian soldiers and find the zombie has been there. Suddenly, in a bizarre forest fire, the Hardys spot the zombie and give chase, but are held back. They volunteer on playing guitar for a concert held by a chap named Pollard. Very soon, they find he is in league with the party. They nearly get caught investigating, and escape by a hair's breadth. Some days later, the Hardys go for a circus hosted by Tariski himself. Things, however, go wrong when Biff Hooper, the Hardys' pal, manages to rattle the audience with a particularly dangerous act. However, Joe Hardy saves the show and makes the audience stay. Tariski was immensely thankful to him. As though that weren't enough, someone let a circus lion out, but Chet Morton, another chum of the Hardy brothers, manages to save the day by taming the lion with a chair. Soon after, the gang is rounded up, with the zombie turning out to be Lonnie Mindo, and Pollard and Tariski being into the gang. Very soon, they were arrested too, thus putting the string of forest fires in Vermont to an end. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1982 American novels Category:1982 children's books Category:Novels set in Vermont ===== The Hardy boys help out when a magicians' tournament 'Bold text'is threatened by mysterious happenings. Frank and Joe naturally catch the magician who kidnapped the President and all culprits by slowly closing in on their position and taking control. Category:1982 American novels Category:The Hardy Boys books ===== This book opens with Frank, Joe & Chet being involved in a traffic accident with a Mack truck. As the car is damaged, the drivers of the Mack truck offer the boys a lift to the next town. Unfortunately the truck gets hijacked by a gang and the drivers locked up in the trailer. Later Mr. Hardy tells the boys that there have been a number of hijackings against that firm, the Ortiz Trucking Company, and that he's going to Washington the following day to help the FBI investigate the hijackings. Initially, Frank, Joe and Chet work undercover as drivers at the Ortiz Trucking Company before Joe finds himself hijacked by one of the gang. Tracking the gang down, Frank, Joe & Chet stow away on a ship named the Mary Malone and find themselves facing the gang, a group of corrupt officials who plan to use nuclear weapons on every major city on Earth to take over the world. ===== Frank and Joe Hardy are drawn into a tangled web of danger when they are called in to investigate mysterious accidents plaguing a star college football quarterback. Category:The Hardy Boys books Category:1982 American novels Category:1982 children's books Category:American football books ===== The plot begins with Frank and Joe witnessing a westerner being attacked by a notorious jewel thief Oscar Tamm. The westerner reveals himself as Alfred McVay and as an avid jewel collector. Due to suspicious happenings at his ranch house in Arizona, he hires the Hardys for protection. Upon reaching there the Hardys start to investigate the strange happenings and develop an immediate dislike of the foreman, Wat Perkins. They are also intrigued by a "mysterious rider" who seems to be sending messages to someone in the ranch house. They also grow suspicious of the butler Wilbur. When a tornado strikes the ranch, the Crimson Flame, a priceless ruby gets stolen. McVay becomes morose and the Hardys, with a couple of clues, pursue the jewel thieves to Thailand. The rest of the plot follows how the boys help capture the crooks and eventually, how the lost ruby is found. ===== Five people spend the night in an abandoned haunted house in Amityville, New York and soon find themselves terrorized by assorted ghosts, venomous insects and ghostly spirits. Marvin and Debbie buy the house. They renovate with the help of three friends: Frank, Bill and Abigail. The former housekeeper, Mrs Moriarty, is murdered. A priest had been murdered at the house twelve years earlier when the house was a rectory. At the end, Frank is possessed by the curse, causing him to murder Mrs. Moriarty (by pushing her from the top of a flight of stairs), Marvin and Bill. He tried to kill Debbie but he failed and eventually, with the help of Abigail, Debbie kills Frank and the two women are saved. ===== Newlyweds Bill and Claire Martin move their new family into a new house constructed by Bill himself. Shortly after moving in Bill finds a doll house (modeled after 112 Ocean Avenue) in the shed. He brings it in the house and puts it in the garage. Later that night, Bill notices the fireplace in the house turns on by itself, heating the entire home. He has a hallucination of his daughter Jessica burning to death in the fireplace. The following morning, Claire finds the dollhouse in the garage and suggests giving it to Jessica for her birthday. At her birthday party, Jessica's aunt Marla and uncle Tobias arrive. Jessica is elated over the dollhouse and finds a chest of miniature dolls inside it: her aunt and uncle, however, seem inexplicably nervous regarding the toys. In the ensuing days, numerous strange incidents occur: Jimmy, Claire's eldest son, loses his pet mouse, which finds its way into the dollhouse; simultaneously, Jessica is confronted by an enormous white mouse hiding under her bed. Claire also begins to have unexpected sexual urges toward Todd, Bill's eldest son, and fantasizes about him while having sex with Bill. Bill is also plagued by nightmares about voodoo dolls, demons, and his family being murdered. In conversation with Marla, Bill reveals he suffered from similar dreams as a child, including a premonitory dream of his parents dying in a fire, which came true. Jimmy also experiences supernatural visitations from his deceased father, who appears to him as a decaying zombie, urging him to murder Bill. One afternoon, Todd brings his girlfriend Dana to the home. While in an exterior shed on the property, the two find newspaper clippings about the foundation on which Bill built their new home: they surmise that the new house was built around the fireplace from the original home. The two go in the house and begin to have sex, but are attacked by a giant fly. The following evening, Bill and Claire go out for dinner, leaving Todd to babysit his younger siblings, Jimmy and Jessica. Todd invites Dana over and sends the children to bed. While Todd makes cocktails in the kitchen, Dana's hair inexplicably catches fire, leaving her with disfiguring burns. Todd blames his father for the accident, believing it was caused by a faulty coil in the fireplace's gas line. Meanwhile, Marla and Tobias, both of whom apparently practice magic, have taken one of the dolls from Jessica's dollhouse. They perform a ritual on the doll and watch it come to life. Objects begin to fly around their home and Tobias stabs the doll with a knife, after which a large fly escapes. Later, Claire finds an unexplained bruise on Jimmy's face and believes Bill hit him. She shuts him out of the house, only to be confronted by the zombie of her deceased husband, who ties both her and Jimmy up and forces them to sit in front of the fireplace. Bill attempts to enter the house through the garage, but is knocked unconscious by carbon monoxide fumes from his car, which begins running by itself. Tobias arrives at the home and is able to save Bill. The two enter the home: with him, Tobias has the voodoo doll he had taken from the dollhouse. Tobias and Bill fight with the zombie, and Jimmy throws the voodoo doll into the fireplace, causing the zombie to disappear. Todd is then visited by an apparition of Dana, who is in the hospital: she attempts to kill him, but Claire intercedes. The family attempts to flee the house, but cannot find Jessica. Scrawled on a piece of paper, they find a list of observations Jessica has made about the dollhouse, one of which reads: "My hand disappears in the fireplace." Bill realizes the fireplace is a portal to somewhere else. Bill and Tobias enter the fireplace and realize they have in fact entered the dollhouse. They find Jessica on the floor, surrounded by bloodied remnants of the voodoo dolls. Tobias casts a protective spell, allowing Bill and Jessica to flee: Tobias, however, is dragged away by the demons that have escaped from the dolls. Bill destroys the dollhouse by tossing it into the fireplace. As they flee in their car, the house explodes behind them. ===== The main character, a man named Gen (short for Eugenides), is released from prison by the magus of the King of Sounis. Gen had been imprisoned for stealing the King's seal. The magus, whose name is not revealed, finds Gen to be filthy, uncouth, and insolent, but he values Gen's skills as a thief. Without telling Gen where they are going, he takes him out of the city. They are joined by the magus's two apprentices, Sophos and Ambiades, and by a soldier, Pol. The travelers are strained by personal conflict, as well as the dangers present due to the political and secret nature of their mission. The magus reveals that the object he wants Gen to steal is a precious stone called Hamiathes's Gift in the country of Attolia. The magus' plan is to use the long lost tradition embedded within the stone in order to claim the country of Eddis for his king. In exchange, the magus offers Gen fame and threatens him with a bounty on his head if he tries to escape. Agreeing, Gen risks death in a daring attempt to steal the stone from an almost inaccessible temple, while the entire party is pursued by the Guard of Attolia. After Gen steals the stone, the temple is washed away by a river. While traveling back, the party is captured by the Attolian guard. Ambiades turns out to be a traitor, but is later killed by Pol, who pushes him off a cliff and then jumps after him holding two Attolian soldiers, killing them, but dying himself. After being questioned by the queen of Attolia, Gen, Sophos and the Magus escape and go to Eddis. There they are taken to the palace and Gen gives the stone to the queen. It is revealed that Gen is Eugenides, the Queen's Thief, and Sophos is the heir to the kingdom of Sounis. ===== From the first world war, Sergei, a Red Army soldier returns to his village on the Dnieper and finds he is no-longer in love with Natasha his betrothed. Instead, he falls in love with Olga. Olga's parents intend for her to marry another man whom she does not love. Sergei and Olga's friends fight. Sergei falls, but the lovers are saved by the compassionate Natasha who helps the couple to escape the village. The ballet contains 12 numbers, lasting around 40 minutes: #Prelude #Scene 1: The Meeting #Scene 1: Mime Scene #Scene 1: Pas de deux #Scene 1: Variation of the First Dancer #Scene 2: Betrothal #Scene 2: Bridegroom's Dance #Scene 2: Bride's Dance #Scene 2: Men's Dance #Scene 2: The Quarrel #Scene 2: Mime Scene #Epilogue ===== Cyborg is the story of an astronaut and test pilot, Steve Austin, who experiences a catastrophic crash during a flight, leaving him with all but one limb destroyed, blind in one eye, and with other major injuries. At the same time, a secret part of the American government, the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO) has taken an interest in the work of Dr. Rudy Wells concerning bionics - the replacement of human body parts with mechanical prosthetics that (in the context of this novel) are more powerful than the original limbs. Wells also happens to be a good friend of Austin's, so when OSO chief Oscar Goldman "invites" (or rather, orders) Wells to rebuild Austin with bionics limbs, Wells agrees. Steve Austin is outfitted with two new legs capable of propelling him at great speed, and a bionic left arm with almost human dexterity and the strength of a battering ram. One of the fingers of the hand incorporates a poison dart gun. His left eye is replaced with a false, removable eye that is used (in this first novel) to house a miniature camera. Other physical alterations include the installation of a steel skull plate to replace bone smashed by the crash, and a radio transmitter built into a rib. This mixture of man and machine is known as a cyborg, from which the novel gets its title. The first half of the novel details Austin's operation and both his reaction to his original injuries—he attempts to commit suicide—and his initially resentful reaction to being rebuilt with bionic prosthetic hardware. The operation has a price: Austin is committed to working for the OSO as a reluctant agent. The second half of the novel describes Austin being teamed with an already experienced female operative, and his mission to the Middle East as both spy and weapon. Austin, already coming to appreciate his bionic implants, relies heavily on his augmentation during the mission and by the end accepts his role. ===== Hallam Foe follows the life of 17-year-old boy who has a very unusual and seemingly destructive hobby. He lives most of his life up in a tree house with state-of-the-art binoculars, a telescope, and plenty of logbooks in hand, watching as the people around him live their life. Hallam keeps himself separated and lives in solitude up in the trees, away from his father, Julius Foe, stepmother, Verity, his sister, Lucy and his best friend Alex Thirtle. He had fallen into these depths when his mother, Anne Sarah Foe, committed suicide and the relentless relatives turned their attention and pity towards the boy. Category:2001 British novels Category:British novels adapted into films Category:2001 debut novels ===== The miniseries presented a dramatization of the sequence of events leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States, starting from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and up to the minutes after its collapse in 2001. The movie takes the point of view of two main protagonists: John P. O'Neill, and a composite Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent, "Kirk". O'Neill was the real-life Special Agent in charge of Al Qaeda investigations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation; he died in the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11 shortly after retiring from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and taking the position of Director of Security for the World Trade Center. The composite CIA agent "Kirk" is shown dealing with various American allies, especially Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, in Afghanistan. In addition, "Patricia", a CIA headquarters analyst, represents the views of the rank and file at CIA headquarters. The miniseries features dramatizations of various incidents summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report and represented in high-level discussions held in the Clinton and Bush administrations. The final hour of the movie dramatizes the events of 9/11, including a recreation of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, Tom Burnett's calls to his wife, and John Miller's reporting near the scene of the attacks. The film concludes with information about the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, as well as the performance evaluation the Commission gave the government when it reconvened in 2005. ===== Hester Street tells the story of Jewish immigrants who come to the Lower East Side of New York City in 1896 from Eastern Europe, and who live on Hester Street in Manhattan. When Yankle first comes to the U.S., he quickly assimilates into American culture, and becomes Jake. He also begins to have an affair with Mamie, a dancer. His wife, Gitl, who arrives later with their son, Yossele, has difficulty assimilating. Tension arises in their marriage as Jake continually upbraids and abuses Gitl. Additionally, Jake continues to see Mamie, which Gitl later discovers through Mrs. Kavarsky, a neighbor. Jake and Gitl ultimately divorce, whereby Gitl takes all of Mamie's money and marries Bernstein, a faithful traditionalist. By the end of the film, she is sartorially and lingually assimilated — walking down the street with Bernstein and Yossele (now known as Joey), speaking English, and showing her hair. But she is now liberated from Jake, who in turn has married Mamie. The film is noteworthy for its detailed reconstruction of Jewish immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century - much of the dialogue is delivered in Yiddish with English subtitles - and was part of the wave of films released in the late 1960s and through the 1970s which began explicitly to deal with the complexities of American Jewish identity. In addition, Carol Kane's lead character posed a still-provocative synthesis as she discovers her own self- assertion on behalf of her right to maintain a traditional identity in an aggressively modern setting. ===== Donna Peyton (Donna Butterworth) is a ten-year-old girl who inherits a $30,000,000 fortune from her millionaire industrialist father. Per terms of his will, Donna must choose one of her six uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) to become her new "father". Lewis also plays Willard Woodward, the family chauffeur who takes Donna to all of her uncles to stay with them for two weeks. Donna's uncles are: *James Peyton, a ferryboat captain, her father's oldest brother who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. *Everett Peyton, a famous circus clown who hates kids and has moved to Switzerland to avoid U. S. taxes. *Julius Peyton, a professional photographer who photographs female models. *Captain Edward "Eddie" Peyton, a pilot based in Los Angeles, California who owns his own airline ("Eddie's Airways, the Airline for the Birds") consisting of one plane, a Ford Trimotor. *Skylock Peyton, a Holmesian detective who loves tea and lived in England until he lost his passport and moved back to the United States. He is accompanied by his faithful companion, Dr. Matson (Sebastian Cabot) but Skylock pays more attention to a pool game in Robert Strauss's pool parlour than to Donna. *Bugsy Peyton, a gangster who everyone believed killed by the mob. Only interested in Donna's inheritance, he kidnaps her. Willard rescues her by tricking the gangsters into believing they are surrounded by armed soldiers. The more time she spends with her uncles, the more Donna realizes that Willard should be her father: he was always a father to her even when her real father was still alive, because her father was too busy to spend time with her. Unfortunately the family lawyers will not allow her to choose Willard, insisting that she must choose one of her uncles. At the last minute, Uncle Everett shows up unexpectedly, asking Donna to choose him. To everyone's surprise, Donna agrees, and the two leave together. As they walk down the hallway, Donna reveals that she knows the truth: "Uncle Everett" is actually Willard in disguise. She recognized him because, as always, his shoes were on the wrong feet. ===== In October 1941 Stan Graham, a Westland smallholder, develops a persecution complex and starts to threaten his neighbours, in which he is encouraged by his wife. He then refuses to conform to a government order for all citizens to surrender their firearms for the duration of the war. Eventually a party of four policemen arrive to confiscate his firearms, which causes a flashpoint for Graham. With the help of his wife who shoots and injures one of them, Graham shoots and kills all the policemen and, in the ensuing altercations, three locals also. Shot and injured himself, Graham then heads into the surrounding forest. A manhunt is organised, involving police, army and local home guard members, and finally they track him down. ===== Over six one- hour episodes, it tells the story of Gerhard Schulz, a German fraudster and petty criminal who is forced against his will to serve in the SS. In a story based on the real, though unrealised, plot by the Germans known as Operation Bernhard, he persuades his superiors to authorise a project to print counterfeit British five pound notes for the purpose of destroying the British economy.Screenonline – Private Schulz Schulz has little interest in the defeat of Britain, and simply wants to steal the forged notes, although he is also strongly motivated to help a former criminal colleague, a Jewish master forger imprisoned in a concentration camp. Other elements of the story based on the history of the period, include the Venlo incident, when two British intelligence officers were abducted from the Netherlands at the start of the war. Salon Kitty was a Berlin brothel, secretly run by the Sicherheitsdienst (the intelligence agency of the SS) to spy on its clientele, who were often prominent German government officials or military officers. ===== Note on sources.The identical synopses currently displayed on AfI.com and TCM.com contain a great many significant errors. Dramatic departures from what is said and done on screen run throughout. The supposed arrival of police helicopters and the murderer's madness at the end (she is, in fact, serene) are among the more bewildering. Beautiful courtesan Jenny Wren intends to “retire” to Europe, sailing first class and “alone, for once.” She gathers four rich and powerful former lovers—Priam Andes, William Jones, Eddie Mack and Herbert Walcott—along with Walcott's wife and Jones' fiancée, for an impromptu weekend party at Andes' ranch on the California coast. She blackmails Andes into hosting the event and informs him that his nephew and heir, Frank, is engaged to her young sister, Esther. Esther and Frank arrive at Jenny's apartment and decide to go to the ranch, too. A man named Farnsbarns has been following Jenny. At La Casa de Andes (1804) near Crestwood, the guests are playing darts. Jenny's surprise entrance stuns the three men. Andes introduces a Mr. Vayne. Andes' sister, Faith, arrives unexpectedly, obsessed with the family's old California bloodline and worried about her nephew's engagement. The thunderstorms begin after dinner. Alone in the library with her victims, Jenny observes that they have all been “gamboling on the same green,” unaware. She demands money from each man according to his means—$50,000 from Jones, $100,000 from Andes, $25,000 from Mack and $250,000 from Walcott. Andes reveals that Vayne wants her as his mistress: “I'm through with that,” she replies. Her maid, Carter, interrupts to give Jenny a small box, delivered to the apartment. It contains a fraternity pin. Disturbed, Jenny tells the four another reason why she is through: Flashback: Three weeks before, in the Adirondack Mountains, an unnamed young man, scion of a wealthy family, gives Jenny his fraternity pin, and tells her that he will get no money from his father if he marries before he is 25. She returns the pin and warns him to “stay away from hungry Mama bears.” He says “Goodbye” and steps off the cliff... Walcott scoffs—the pin was delivered “from the grave, I suppose.” Jenny goes to her room and throws the pin out into the storm. She sees the boy's face gleaming in the trees outside. At 3 a.m., Farnsbarns is prowling downstairs. Jenny screams and staggers from her room, a dart in her neck. He catches her; she murmurs “That face.”Some closed-captioning has her saying, “Have faith,” but later in the movie Curtis clearly tells Harris that she said, “That face,” meaning the mask of the dead boy worn by his father. He puts her body on the sofa and leaves, but a landslide blocks the road. The house is roused. Faith phones the Crestwood police but is stopped by Farnsbarns, who introduces himself as Gary Curtis, a New York City private detective. He has teamed up with gangster Pete Harris (a childhood friend) and Pete's henchmen to retrieve a client's love letters to Jenny. Curtis starts his own investigation, knowing the police are coming; they will pin the crime on him unless he finds the killer first. Curtis and Frank find Esther unconscious in Jenny's room. She remembers talking to Faith and going to Jenny. She was clubbed with a candlestick. Curtis interviews suspects, including Vayne, who confesses—that his name is really Henry T. Herrick. The lights go out; a white face appears and disappears. A distraught Vayne/Herrick cries out: It is the death mask of his son, Tom (the unnamed youth in Jenny's story). He wore it when he knocked out Esther and tried to kill Jenny. Herrick dies of a heart attack. “Wait, I remember now!” Esther calls. The lights go out; she is stabbed with a dart that misses her neck. At 5 a.m., she is asleep, locked in her room. Faith is looking after her. Curtis is frustrated: If Esther had been killed, Faith would be the obvious suspect. Carter has disappeared. Exploring outside, Curtis and Harris discover a tunnel door at the cliff. Inside, they find Carter's body and the death mask. Back in the house, Curtis stands where Jenny's murderer stood and mimes the dart throw, knocking the wall with his hand. In the wall, he finds a chip from a ruby ring. Curtis realizes that Faith Andes mistook Jenny for Esther. Using the tunnel, Faith has taken Esther out to the cliff edge. Forestalled, she calmly confesses before Esther, Frank, Curtis and Harris. As the police plane flies overhead, Curtis, face to face with Faith, pushes a stone over the edge with his toe. “Thank you,” she says, and follows it. Esther and Frank cling to each other as Curtis and Harris walk away. ===== This book tells the story of Alexander Hale and Raphaella Phillips. Hale, a recently divorced man, takes a walk down his street, when he sees Phillips, a beautiful woman, crying on the steps. We later learn that the woman's name is Raphaella Phillips and that she is married to an eighty-year-old man who is very sick. Hale falls in love with Phillips, who is already married. Raphaella is young, while her husband is old and bedridden. Raphaella does not want to leave her husband but she does not want to stay closed away from the world with nothing to live for either. She has no children and feels like the house doesn't belong to her. In the end Raphaella's husband dies and Raphaella and Alexander can be together. Category:1982 American novels Category:Novels by Danielle Steel Category:American romance novels ===== Two young girls, Anupama (Samvrutha Sunil) and Rahael (Sherin), rent an old palace and are disturbed by the presence of a strange lady who moves around their place. They are adamant on finding out the truth about her. The palace's manager (Mala Aravindan), also a witchcraft practitioner, is keen to help them. As the girls find it difficult to move forward in their enquiry, the second story begins. The second story follows when Jeeva (played by Jayaram), a police officer, falls in love with Bala (Jyothirmayi), who is a budding writer. Their professions intervene with their personal lives, preventing them from any serious romancing prior to marriage. Soon after their marriage, Jeeva receives a job transfer to the high ranges of Idukki. Bala is excited at the prospect, as she feels the salubrious mountain atmosphere will help nurture her writing skills. Jeeva is also looking forward to it, as a perfect opportunity to rekindle their lost romance. However, despite the positive atmosphere, life at the bungalow soon takes an unexpected twist. Life for the couple turns uneasy, as Bala senses someone, apart from the two of them, inhabiting the bungalow. Haunted by a perpetual paranoia, she wakes up most nights to nightmares. Jeeva, concerned with how their marriage is turning out, finally agrees to investigate. The investigation leads him into the unknown realms of the bungalow's shady past, unravelling a forgotten history, thus leading to a startling realisation of who the "third someone" is. ===== Emily, the play's protagonist and a nurse, decides to leave her fiancé, Dr. Heidkliff, after falling in love with another woman, Carmilla. Unbeknownst to her fiancé, Emily meets Carmilla, who is pregnant, through her gynecological practice. Carmilla is married to Dr. Benno Hundekoffer. During childbirth, Carmilla dies, but is turned into a vampire by Emily. When Dr. Heidkliff discovers Emily's transformation and decision to leave him for Carmilla, he and Benno decide to track down both women in order to kill them for "mock[ing] creation." ===== In Quark's, Odo meets a beautiful woman named Arissa and is impressed by her powers of observation. Later, he is surprised when the same woman is arrested for trying to break into the station's computer. Odo questions her about the man she was waiting for in Quark's — an Idanian named Tauvid Rem. Arissa tells Odo Tauvid has information about the daughter she gave up fifteen years before. Odo takes her to Tauvid's quarters, where they discover he has been killed. Soon afterward, Odo catches Arissa retrieving a datacrystal Tauvid hid. She admits to Odo that she doesn't really have a daughter, and tells him that she came to meet Tauvid because she wants to escape working for the Orion Syndicate — a notorious criminal organization. Her boss, a man named Draim, probably had Tauvid killed to keep her from getting the unknown information contained in the crystal. Odo hides Arissa in his quarters as he begins an investigation, while Dax and O'Brien attempt to access the heavily protected datacrystal. Arissa tells Odo how she began to work for Draim, only to want out when she learned the deadly consequences her assignments meant for others. Odo encourages her to testify against Draim and take back her life. That night, he returns to his quarters, where the two of them give in to their growing attraction to each other. After spending a passionate night with Odo, Arissa sends a message to Draim proposing an exchange — the crystal for her life. Draim agrees, but instructs his hit men, Traidy and Sorm, to kill her after the crystal is retrieved. Meanwhile, an Idanian official arrives, informing Odo that Arissa is not who she appears to be, but actually an Idanian agent given a new identity in order to infiltrate Draim's organization. Even Arissa does not know this, since her memory has been erased. The crystal contains all of her real memories. The Idanian asks to be taken to Arissa, and Odo quickly complies — only to find both the woman and the crystal missing. Arissa prepares to give Traidy the crystal in exchange for her life. But just as he and Sorm are to kill her, Odo and the Idanian save Arissa. Later, her memories and true appearance are restored. She and Odo then meet one last, painful time, after which Arissa returns to her married life — and Odo is left broken-hearted. ===== After his release from prison, an inventor develops an eerie purple light that renders him invisible, enabling him to seek revenge on his unfaithful wife and his crooked business partner. ===== On a stormy night, a theatrical producer, his secretary, and playwright Prescott Ames are stranded when their car skids off the road and gets stuck. The three take refuge in the nearby home of Dr. Kent, a friend of Ames's. One of Kent's patients, who is staying at the house, is acting strangely, and the others in the house tell the newcomers that she is behaving this way because it is the anniversary of her husband's murder. At dinner, the group begins exchanging accusations about the murder, when suddenly the lights go out, and soon afterwards comes the first in a series of mysterious and fearful events. The producer thinks all the strange occurrences are part of a ploy to get him to produce a play for Ames. In a great line, one of the other characters exclaims, "These fools think we are putting on a play for their benefit!" ===== While discussing heredity, a man recalls the story of two orphan girls to a pair of cohorts at a ball. Angel (Carmen) is adopted by crooks who teach her to steal, while Evelyn (Valli) is the criminally inclined girl adopted by a wealthy family. When Angel steals a watch from a passenger on the train, the man refuses to press charges and enlists her help in his confidence scheme in Havana. Evelyn is engaged to marry the promising author Robert Ellington (Austin), but after a quarrel, the writer goes to Havana and meets and falls for Angel. Ellington is scheduled to leave on a ship but gives his ticket to Johnson (Albertson), the secret agent and con man. Angel watches tearfully as the boat pulls away before Ellington reveals he loves her, and the two are left in happiness. The film ends as the story teller turning and pointing out the couple dancing at the ball.The film is summarized in ===== ===== The film was directed by Stephen Frears and stars Ian McKellen as Walter, a man with a learning disability. The story focuses initially on his youth in which his parents attempt, with little success, to have him adapt into the conditions of a "normal" life. Walter's father dies, followed soon after by his mother. The social services bureaucracy then place him in a psychiatric institution. Walter is molested by another patient, witnesses the murder of a patient by another patient having a breakdown, and remains in the institution for the rest of the film. ===== Sitting in deckchairs and touring churches is not the holiday 17-year-old Richard wants, but his parents insist on taking him. They are staying at the Tregarron guesthouse in the (fictional) seaside town of Easton in Suffolk. This traditional English boarding house is owned and run by the formidable Miss Wilbraham. On arrival, Richard befriends Edwin, who is girl- crazy and takes Richard under his wing. In search of girls, Richard and Edwin attend a beach service organized by the local church youth group. After the type of evening one might expect at such a gathering, they enjoy a brief tryst with the twin daughters of the minister. The following evening another visitor, Julia, agrees to a date with Edwin but only on condition that Anna, her Dutch foreign exchange student friend, can join them. Edwin persuades Richard to join them to make up a foursome. Escaping from his parents on the pretence that the quartet is heading to the youth group's Sausage Sizzle, Richard and his friends visit a local jazz club instead. Anna attempts to sneak away with some local bikers and Richard gives chase. As Anna rides away on the back of one biker's machine, Richard jumps on the other. The bikes race off into the sand dunes; where Richard and Anna fall off the pillions and into each other's arms. Richard is annoyed but Anna finds the whole affair amusing. Reaching for a handkerchief to clean a cut on his head, Richard also pulls out a condom that he has taken from Edwin's room. Julia and Edwin, meanwhile, have been to fetch help. Julia's father, Richard's parents and the minister from the youth group set off to rescue Richard and Anna. A lady walking her dog along the beach stumbles across Richard and Anna as it becomes clear that Richard has experienced sexual initiation. The parents and the minister round the corner just in time to catch the teenagers in flagrante delicto. Both families make excuses to end their holidays early and head for home. ===== As the game begins, school is over for the player character (who is never named) and his friend Louis. Summer vacation has begun, and Louis hears about an upcoming tournament involving modelers and is excited about his chances. He is dismayed, however, when he remembers that the player's allowance cannot cover the cost of a model. He has been saving for quite some time and only has enough for one part. The duo then return to the player's house, whose Mother has a surprise for him. He has won the grand prize in the model contest that he entered. The grand prize is one model of his choosing. Filled with confidence from his new model, the two decide to enter the tournament. Since the tournament will not be starting for quite some time, the two decide to warm up on the other modelers around town. After several victories, the two hear rumors about a no good group called "The Hyena Gang" who use cheap and under-handed tricks to win and steal people's money. Several Hyena Gang members eventually meet up with the player and are bested at his remote control. The last gang member that is defeated warns the main character that their boss will not be bested so easily. Heading to the playground the leaders of The Hyena Gang are found. The first member that is fought at the playground is the Colonel, a high leveled member of the gang (perhaps General's right-hand man). The leader of the gang, General, then steps forward to challenge the player and punish him for harassing his boys. First, however, he has the Scientist turn on a suspicious machine. General the defeats the player who leaves and goes to the local shop. Surprisingly, the shop owner knows how to defeat The Hyena Gang. He reveals that they use radio waves to disrupt a persons communications with their robots, making it impossible to beat them. However, he knows of a way to block these radio waves, by painting the player's robot with a special paint. The player then returns to the playground and defeats General, thus forcing The Hyena Gang to retreat from the town. After more bouts with the local modelers, the player and Louis are approached by a girl named Ann who challenges them. Louis loses quickly and runs away. Ann muses that men are just as fragile, if not more than women. After Ann leaves, another girl approaches the player and mentions that Ann has never lost to a boy in a robot fight. Later the Spring Tournament is held, and the player enters. The player defeats both Scientist and General again, and faces Ann in the finals. He defeats her, making the player the first boy Ann lost to, much to her own amazement. After the tournament, the player is summoned to a Japanese castle. The owner has heard of the player's exploits, and wishes to challenge him. After fighting through two overzealous bodyguards, the player meets the owner of the castle. The owner apologizes for what his underlings tried to do to the player, then challenged the player to a fight. Upon his defeat, the owner is excited, since he has not been defeated in such a long time. The player then returns to his home and discovers that Louis left him a message that says to meet him on the school rooftop. Upon arriving there, Louis reveals that he is moving and won't be able to compete in the upcoming tournament. He also reveals that he will not be able to see the player ever again, so he wants to challenge the player to a battle, model to model. Here Louis is shown to be the only character in the game to use Borot, the game's weakest robot. Upon his defeat Louis gives the player an item allowing the player to use special attacks. He then runs away crying because he will never be able to see the player again. After all of the events thus far the player is ready for the National Tournament. The player arrives at the National Tournament and is greeted by three past competitors waiting to take him down before the finals. He is greeted first by General who is still sporting his Gong model. After the player quickly defeats General he says 'Hello' to Ann and her Speed model. They fight a slightly harder battle than General but the player defeats her in the end. The player is feeling pretty confident by now since there is only one opponent left to go. Next up is Won from the Japanese castle and his Lon model. They prove to be a tougher opponent for the player, but are bested nonetheless. Everything is going great and then there is one final opponent. A rather large man by the name of Don Quixote. Scientist and General are seen trying to rig the players model to fail. Don Quixote interferes and gives a speech to The Hyena Gang. After that, it's game on between the player and Don Quixote and his model, which is the same as the player's model. After the player beats him in a true contest of strength the game is over. The player is National Champion and their journey to the top is over. ===== In 1961, an unpopular boy named Harold leaves a Valentine's Day card at the home of the beauty Susan Jeremy. Susan and her friend David mock and crumple up the card, prompting an enraged Harold to break into the house and kill David by hanging him from a hatstand. Nineteen years later, Susan is divorced, has a daughter, and a new boyfriend named Jack. On Valentine's Day, Susan has Jack take her to a hospital to pick up the results of a standard physical exam, which her new health insurance plan has requested. On the way into the building, she is observed from a window by a man in surgical garb. The man strokes a photograph of a young Susan, and sabotages the elevator Susan boards in order to delay her while he kills the doctor who has her paperwork, which the murderer tampers with. A janitor finds the doctor's body, and has his face dunked into a sink full of acid by the killer. While looking for the doctor, Susan coerces a friendly intern named Harry into getting her results, which Harry notices are abnormal, prompting him to bring them and Susan to Doctor Saxon. The peculiarities of Susan's paperwork (which the murderer further sabotages after killing a pair of laboratory workers) cause Doctors Saxon and Beam to order that she be detained for observation. Harry uncovers evidence suggesting that someone is pulling a "con job" on Susan, but he disappears after promising Susan he will straighten things out. Jack, who had fallen asleep in his car while waiting for Susan, enters the hospital to look for her, and is lured to an empty hospital room by the killer, who beckons him. Behind a curtain, Jack finds the corpse of one of the nurses before the killer decapitates him with an electric orthopedic saw. The killer places a large box next to Susan's bed, which she opens to find Jack's severed head. Susan flees in terror to get help, eventually being found by Saxon and a nurse, who return her to her room. When she attempts to show them the contents of the box, it contains only a cake. After Susan tells Saxon about Harry's findings, Saxon goes to look over the copies of her paperwork in the archives, where he is murdered with a hatchet, an act witnessed by Susan. Susan's claims of there being a killer on the loose are disbelieved, and she is strapped to a gurney after being deemed delirious. The staff prepare to perform emergency surgery on Susan, but are killed in rapid succession by the murderer, who takes Susan to a vacant operating room. Susan pulls off the killer's mask to reveal he is Harry, who is really Harold. When Susan asks what he wants, Harold responds, "What I've always wanted. Your heart". Before Harold can cut her open, Susan stabs him, and escapes. Susan is pursued to the roof by the wounded Harold, who she sets on fire, and sends plummeting onto the street below. The next day, Susan is released, and reunites with her daughter and ex-husband outside of the hospital. ===== Ganesh (Pawan Kalyan), a college graduate has been following a college girl, Sandhya (Devayani), for the past four years; trying to express his love. Though Sandhya had often warned Ganesh not to follow her, he still does. Ganesh's friend Peter (Karan) introduces him to Sandhya's friend (Sadhika), who tries to help him with his love, but fails. Ganesh, on his birthday, tries to express his love to Sandhya, but was caught by her father, (Prakash Raj), who is a police officer, who puts him away for harassing his daughter. Later, Ganesh's father (Raghuvaran) bails him out. Ganesh's father goes to Sandhya's father with a marriage proposal for their children. But Sandhya's father rejects the proposal and tries take his daughter to Hyderabad, to his sister's house, but changes his mind. But Ganesh thinks Sandhya is in Hyderabad and goes to search for her. Meanwhile, Ganesh's father dies in road mishap disturbed after he witnesses a boy committing suicide because his girlfriend left him. His friends desperately try to trace his whereabouts, but they cannot trace him. Peter ends up performing the last rites for Ganesh's father. Ganesh arrives and gets heartbroken that he could not even perform the cremation for his father. At last, Sandhya realizes her love for Ganesh. She reveals her feelings for him and tells him that she loves him and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. But Ganesh rejects her love and tells her that he lost four years of his life and his father for her love and realizes it is not worth it. The next day, Sandhya is found to be standing at the bus stop, waiting for him to come. Meanwhile, Ganesh goes to attend his first interview suggested by his father. ===== After leaving his lover Angel McGinnis behind in London, rich playboy Barney Lincoln breaks into a playing card manufacturer in Geneva to mark the cards, and then proceeds to break the bank at major European casinos. Barney meets up with Angel again in Monte Carlo, where he wins a great deal of money, but her suspicions after he left England caused her to consult her father, a detective from Scotland Yard. He blackmails Barney into helping him catch a drug smuggler named Harry Dominion, who owns a casino and also has a weakness for high stakes poker. ===== DeepStar Six is an experimental deep sea US Naval facility, crewed by a mix of 11 military and civilians, now in the final week of their tour. The project is headed by John Van Gelder (Marius Weyers), in order to test underwater colonization methods, while overseeing the installation of a new nuclear missile storage platform. Already nearing his deadline, Van Gelder's plans are threatened when geologist Burciaga (Elya Baskin) discovers a massive cavern system under the site. Van Gelder orders the use of depth charges to collapse the cavern, to the dismay of Dr. Scarpelli (Nia Peeples), who wants to study the potentially primordial ecosystem inside. The ensuing detonation collapses part of the seabed, forming a massive fissure in the ocean floor. Submarine pilots Osborne (Ronn Carroll) and Hodges (Thom Bray) send an unmanned probe to explore, but lose contact and venture in after it. Upon finding the probe, they detect a large sonar contact moments before being attacked and killed by an unseen force. The unseen aggressor then attacks the observation pod, leaving Joyce Collins (Nancy Everhard) and a dying Burciaga trapped inside as it teeters on the edge of the ravine. Captain Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque) and submarine pilot McBride (Greg Evigan) - who is also Collins' lover - attempt a rescue. They dock with the pod and rescue Collins, but the unstable hatch door closes on Laidlaw. Mortally wounded, he floods the compartment, forcing McBride and Collins to return and leave without him. The remaining crew now prepare to abandon the base, but the missile platform must first be secured. Without Laidlaw, facility technician Snyder (Miguel Ferrer) is forced to interpret the unfamiliar protocol. When prompted by the computer to explain the reason, Snyder reports "aggression" (due to the creature), which the computer interprets as an enemy military force and advises to detonate the missile warheads. He complies and the resulting nuclear explosion creates a shockwave that damages DeepStar Six and the cooling system for the base's nuclear reactor. With failed life support, they begin repairs to restore power and pressure for the decompression procedure. Engineer Jim Richardson (Matt McCoy) ventures outside in a JIM suit to effect repairs, but the creature comes after him, leading Scarpelli to conclude it's attracted to light. The crew retrieves his suit and haul him through the airlock, but the creature (resembling a mutant Eurypterus) forces its way inside and bites him in half. The team retreats as the creature consumes the panic-stricken Scarpelli. Arming themselves with shotguns and harpoons with explosive carbon-dioxide cartridges, they venture back in to finish repairs. They succeed, but the creature attacks and Van Gelder dies when he accidentally backs into Snyder's harpoon, before they escape to the medlab. Already badly stressed, Snyder quickly begins to unravel with guilt and fear. After a hallucination of Van Gelder, Snyder jumps into the escape pod and launches. Because he has not undergone decompression, the pressure changes from the ascent cause him to burst. McBride swims through the flooded base to the mini-sub, to use it as their means of escape. While he's gone, the creature bursts into the medlab and Diane Norris (Cindy Pickett) attacks it with an overcharged defibrillator. Norris electrocutes herself and the creature as it attacks her, allowing Collins and McBride to escape, fleeing before the reactor goes critical. The sub breaches the surface, where they deploy a raft, only for the creature to emerge. McBride discharges the mini-sub's fuel, then fires a flare, killing the creature as the sub explodes. McBride soon resurfaces and joins Collins, as they wait for a Navy rescue team to arrive. ===== The movie is about Ganesh (Vishal), who comes from Madurai to continue his medical course in Chennai. A group of baddies is in pursuit. Meanwhile, Srimathy (Reema Sen), Ganesh's professor's daughter, wants to meet Ganesh and thank him for helping her escape from the clutches of some vile elements. When Ganesh and Srimathy meet, they are surprised, for they know each other. The gangsters, on spotting both, vow to kill them. The film goes into a flashback. Eswari (Sriya Reddy) is a shrewish, arrogant 'kattapanchayata' woman. She lends money at usurious rates and goes after families who fail to repay. Srimathy's family falls afoul of Eswari. Ganesh helps Srimathy's folks. Eswari falls for Ganesh's bravery and boldness and wants him to marry her, but he does not. She ends up kidnapping Ganesh's parents and threatening Ganesh to come to them and marry her. However, Ganesh thwarts all her plans. Eventually, in a freak mishap, Eswari meets her fate. Mistaking Ganesh to be the reason for their sister's death, Eswari's brothers Periya Karuppu (Manoj K. Jayan) and Chinna Karuppu (I. M. Vijayan) resolve to kill him. Ganesh, who reaches Chennai for safety, is eventually forced to go back to his old ways to fight the baddies and restore order. ===== Max Cash is a down-on-his luck fisherman and charter boat captain living in the Bahamas when his life takes a turn when he meets Sarah Livingstone, a tourist who is seeking to find the treasure of accursed shipwreck, 'The El Diablo' which has been rumored to have sunk on an offshore reef near one of the many islands. Max and Sarah then team up to locate the wreck while dodging a local crime boss as well as a mysterious businessman who claims that the wreck is guarded by supernatural forces in form of a sea monster that no one claims to have ever seen and survived. ===== Set on board an undersea laboratory in a near future ocean where the Earth's ozone layer has been depleted and new means of habitation and survival are being explored, biologist Claire is working on an unknown specimen when she experiences psychic visions. Meanwhile, a routine crew replacement is inbound in a mini-submarine when an undersea quake occurs. Contact is lost with the sub and a search sub is sent out to investigate the silence while one of the labs crew works on exterior repairs in a diving suit. The search sub discovers the relief sub is now derelict and the hatch blown with no sign of the crew and is promptly attacked by large stingray-like creatures. After repelling one creature with an electrical discharge the second sub is overpowered by more of the rays and contact is lost again. The crewman working outside the lab is then attacked and the crew find him half out of the lab's moon pool. When his mask is removed it is revealed he has been totally transformed into a gelatinous mass. Commander Dobler orders the mass quarantined, but Claire and Barbara the medical officer over-ride him and the mass is moved to the lab where it is discovered to be both identical in composition to the substance Claire was studying, and also to be mutating into a man-sized stingray-like creature. The creature escapes its tank and proceeds to move about the station while crew attempt to find it. Claire experiences more visions and is called too. A crew-member is discovered dead after finding himself unable to get out of a room and the commander denies autopsy. Quakes continue periodically and a sub sent out to salvage one of the lost subs is also taken by the creatures outside. Claire and her lover O'Neil must work to uncover the mystery of her visions and the contradictions of the creatures behavior when crew are vanishing or being killed. ===== Balu (Vishal) visits his friend Karthik's (Raja) home in Chidambaram after completion of engineering. He meets Hema (Meera Jasmine), Karthik's sister, and they develop an affection which transforms into love. Kasi (Lal) is the local gangster in Chidambaram who is feared by the entire town. Balu, on his way back to his place, sees Kasi chasing a man with a sickle. When Kasi was about to kill the man he was chasing, Balu interferes and stops Kasi. An angered Kasi immediately tries to attack Balu, and to save himself, Balu retaliates by hitting Kasi. Only then, Balu comes to know that the person he hit is Kasi. To everyone's surprise, Balu smashes Kasi in front of everyone and leaves. Kasi is furious and wants to take revenge on Balu. Kasi's men trap Karthik's father and get to know about Balu's native place. Kasi sets goons to kill Balu but gets shocked when he knows that Balu's father is Durai (Rajkiran), a powerful man in Madurai, and it will be very difficult to attack them. Kasi leaves to Madurai and waits for the right moment to kill Balu and his family. Meanwhile, Balu meets Hema and her family at a temple. Hema's father initially gets angry seeing Balu as he was responsible to bring trouble by hitting Kasi, but later, Balu convinces him. Both the families decide to get Balu and Hema married to each other. One day, Kasi tries to kill Balu but instead attacks Durai. Durai understands that Balu is being targeted and decides to protect him. A localite in Madurai (Thalaivasal Vijay) hates Durai and his family and decides to help Kasi so Durai can get killed. Kasi decides to bring in violence during a temple festival day and utilize that opportunity to kill Balu and Durai. But Balu saves Durai and fights Kasi. In the end, Balu hits Kasi and leaves, challenging him to return if he still has guts to take revenge. ===== Thirukumaran (Dhanush) is a carefree, laid-back guy who has a great time with his friends (Tiger Kumar (Karunas), Sukumar and others). He falls in love with Priya (Shriya Saran), who is the sister of Guru (Prakash Raj), a rich business tycoon. The story is about a cat-and-mouse game between Thiru and Guru, who is against Thiru and Priya's love. Thiru wins the game at the end. ===== NYPD detective Buddy Manucci has been getting flak from the higher-ups in the New York City police force because his team of renegade policemen, known as the "seven-ups" (so called because most criminals they arrest receive sentences from seven years and up) has been using unorthodox methods to capture criminals; this is illustrated as the team ransacks an antiques store that is a front for the running of counterfeit money. There has also been a rash of kidnappings of mafia figures and white- collar criminals, such as when Max Kalish is kidnapped and a ransom is paid at a car wash. Manucci and the squad learn of the kidnappings when crooked bail bondsman Festa is grabbed in public by two men claiming to be from the district attorney's office. Buddy gets information from his regular snitch, informant Vito Lucia, who turns out to be untrustworthy. When they stake out a funeral meeting of Kalish and his people, disaster follows, and it leads to the death of one of the seven-up officers. A violent car chase ensues. Buddy chases after the killers, Moon and Bo, and other officers try to by block the two, but Moon and Bo escape when Buddy's car violently collides into a truck, shearing off the roof. Miraculously, he survives the almost fatal accident. Manucci figures out the puzzle after the squad and he rough up Kalish and his wife. The squad and he then must stake out the house of a garage worker who knows too much, to smoke out the killers. ===== The Addams Family are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests and supernatural abilities, though no explanation for their powers is explicitly given in the series. The wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams (John Astin) is madly in love with his refined wife, Morticia (Carolyn Jones). Along with their daughter Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their son Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), and Grandmama (Blossom Rock), they reside at 0001 Cemetery Lane in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire-style mansion, which is portrayed by the house at 21 Chester Place in Los Angeles Myers, James, "21 Chester Place," 2011. Online at https://21chesterplace.com/. The theme song contains the lyric, "Their house is a museum" which is borne out by the variety of objects in the interior scenes, some of which are collector's items and others which are only bizarre (such as the mounted swordfish head with a human leg protruding from the mouth).The Addams Family Set as You've Never Seen it Before Somebody stole these props after the show was canceled. https://hookedonhouses.net/2010/10/31/the-addams-family-house-where-every- night-is-halloween/ The family is attended by their servants: towering butler Lurch (Ted Cassidy); and Thing (also Cassidy), a disembodied hand that appears from within wooden boxes and other places. Other relatives who made recurring appearances included Cousin Itt (Felix Silla), Morticia's older sister Ophelia (also portrayed by Jones), and Morticia's mother Grandma Frump (Margaret Hamilton). Many guest stars who were mainly famous during the era came in the show playing a cameo part as the script permitted (for example, truant officer, insurance salesman, etc.) Much of the humor derives from the Addamses' culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even when the guests express confusion, fear and dismay at the decor of the house and the sight of Lurch and Thing. Some visitors have bad intentions, which the family generally ignore and suffer no harm. The Addamses are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their own good-natured and (to them) normal behavior. Accordingly, they view "conventional" tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. Almost invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, a visitor only wants to leave and never come back. ===== In the 1950s, a husband and wife check into the Sunset Motel in Anaheim, California where affairs and other sexual crimes soon erupt. ===== Based partially on the life of Genghis Khan, the plot involves an unidentified character (the player) who has appeared in the Stevenson Museum where ancient Mongolian artifacts are being displayed. The protagonist must find out who they and who the other people in the museum are and solve the mysteries of unusual events occurring at the museum. Along the way the player is aided by a ghost girl, Mei, who is freed after the first mission. ===== Cynthia (Hobel), Marc (Lucas) and Robert (Williams) are young friends in New York City and recent New York University graduates. Marc is a struggling actor, Robert is an actor/songwriter and Cynthia is desperately trying to attract the attention of Tina Brown to break into magazine publishing. Cynthia and Marc find an apartment together in Greenwich Village. Robert is secretly in love with Marc, who's oblivious. Marc falls into a relationship with David (Panaro), an aspiring musician who lives with his boyfriend across the alley from Marc's apartment. David's boyfriend throws him out and David moves in with Marc. Robert, trying to get over Marc, becomes interested in a man who works in a local card and gift shop (Marc and Robert refer to him as "Zola"). Taking Marc's advice to "make the grand gesture," he sends Cynthia in with a gift from him as a secret admirer. "Zola" turns down the gesture, and Robert is humiliated. Marc and Robert discover that David supports himself as a hustler and Marc breaks up with him and throws him out. Robert makes "the grand gesture" for Marc by singing a song he's written for him. Before Marc can respond, Cynthia, whose attempts to get through to Tina Brown have become increasingly bizarre, has a nervous breakdown. She returns to her parents' home on Long Island. In the end, Marc and Robert visit Cynthia on Long Island. Free from the drama of his relationship with David, Marc realizes that he has feelings for Robert. Cynthia gets a call from Tina Brown's assistant, setting up a meeting for the following day. ===== The L & R Railroad is in competition with an airline for lucrative transport contracts. When the "Hurricane Express" is sabotaged and involved in a train wreck, one of his victims is Larry Baker's father, Jim (J. Farrell MacDonald). A mysterious figure, known as "the Wrecker" is responsible for the train crashes. Air Transport Company pilot Baker (John Wayne), wants to find the Wrecker, but, among a host of suspects, it will be difficult since the murderer can disguise himself to look like almost anyone. One of the main suspects in the train crashes is Walter Gray (Lloyd Whitlock), the airline manager and Larry's boss, who stands to gain if the L & R Railroad loose contracts. Suspicion is also cast on Tom Jordan (Matthew Betz), a recently discharged and disgruntled railroad engineer. Another possibility is that Frank Stratton (Edmund Breese), an escaped convict who had wrongfully been convicted, may be the Wrecker. Complicating matters is that Gloria Stratton (Shirley Grey) is Frank Stratton's daughter, and Larry is in love with her. Gloria tries to help Larry find the villains behind the train crashes, and when the "Hurricane Express" is again ready to go back into service, the pair are in air, flying as an escort to the speeding train. With a full load of gold, the train is a tempting target for the Wrecker. The continuing attacks on the L & R Railroad put Gloria and Larry in danger, but they are determined to bring the Wrecker and his gang to justice. Finally, the young pilot is able to capture the murderers and with Gloria, is able to look forward to a happy future together. ===== Clara and Don Justo struggle with their children as they have modern ideas against the conservative ideas of their parents. Don Justo works in the government as the Minister to Victoriano Huerta, president of Mexico at the time. Carlos is influenced by his more left-wing friends and disagrees with his parents' ideology. Laura's parents want her to marry Milito Carral, but she loves Octavio Galvez, a well-educated lawyer and revolutionary. Luisito, the youngest son, tries to run away from home because he is "afraid of Don Justo." Clara and Don Justo send him off to boarding school because of his reckless habits. Don Justo, the Minister to Victoriano Huerta, starts to throw the revolutionaries into jail after they have a manifestation in the Casa de Obrero Mundial. Many of these revolutionaries are friends of Carlos's, such as Jorge, Diana, and Horacio. Don Justo demands that his accomplice Paez torture the prisoners to discover the leaders of the manifestation. In the end, Don Justo orders their execution. Carlos is angry with his father because he agrees with the people that his father killed. Diana was Carlos' girlfriend and Carlos at one time says that he "wanted to marry her." When Venustiano Carranza overthrows Huerta, Don Justo is forced into hiding. Octavio becomes "Subsecretario de Justicia" or "Secretary of Justice" in the government. After Don Justo leaves, Laura and Octavio get married and Laura soon becomes pregnant. Clara is upset because her husband is gone, but she continues to keep the children together. Luisito, who has come back from boarding school, is still scared that he is going to get sent back. After 3 months, Don Justo returns to his family and house. Before any of the family members have seen him, Don Justo goes around the house and sees the changes that have occurred. He sees a picture of Carranza along with a picture of Octavio and Laura's wedding. It makes Don Justo upset for not being there. While Don Justo looks at these pictures, Octavio and Carlos are visited by Captain Aguirre, a member of Carranza's army and friend of Carlos. Captain Aguirre has come to the house with a search warrant. The government believes that Don Justo is hiding in the house, and that he is storing weapons for the counterrevolution. The Captain is friends with Carlos and Octavio and will not search the house. Later that night, Don Justo spawns near Carlos and the rest of the family. They debate what to do with Don Justo, and consider that Octavio could write him a pass to safety (salvoconducto) to leave Mexico. Octavio says that it is his "obligation as a man" to save Don Justo but his "responsibility as a revolutionary" to turn him in. Carlos is angry and threatens to turn in Don Justo on the spot, and runs out of the room. Clara begs Octavio to write him the pass, but Octavio is reluctant because he could be killed if the government were to find out. Laura wants Octavio to do it because she thinks that if Octavio doesn't love her father that he can't love their child. Eventually, Octavio agrees to write the pass. Carlos is still gone and Clara thinks Carlos turned in Don Justo, but when Carlos returns the police are not with him. Carlos and Don Justo talk and Carlos tells him how upset he has been with him after Diana was killed. He fills Don Justo in on what he missed while he was gone and informs him of Laura's pregnancy. Carlos eventually changes his mind and asks Don Justo to accept the pass. Octavio's only condition is that Don Justo leaves Mexico and never comes back. Don Justo refuses this proposition and says he "cannot betray those who trust in him" and that it is "too late to change his life." The story ends with Don Justo anonymously calling Captain Aguirre and telling him "It would be useless to tell you my name. The lawyer Don Justo del Prado, enemy of the public, will be detained for 10 minutes in the entrance of his old house. Be careful with him. He is armed." Don Justo speaks with each member of his family, telling them he loves them and complimenting them on their strengths. He gives Clara a letter to present to Octavio saying that he "died so the new Mexico, strong and free, could be born", speaking of both Laura's child and Mexico itself. As he walks out of the building, shots ring out and he dies. Following Don Justo's death, Octavio discovers the letter and reads it to the family, and the curtain closes. ===== Nancy and her friends Bess and George stumble across a Persian cat on the road. They return the cat to Annie Carter, an elderly woman who keeps twenty-five cats in her house. The girls befriend the kindly Miss Carter, but while at her house, they are disrupted by neighbors who are annoyed with the cats. It is here that Nancy uncovers her next mystery. Fred Bunce, one of the neighbors, had taken care of a boy named Gus Woonton, who was reportedly mentally and physically challenged. Miss Carter took a liking to the boy while he was with Fred Bunce and his wife, so she paid for him to live at the Riverside Institution, in hopes of Gus receiving proper care for his ailments. Miss Carter receives a telegram that Gus Woonton has died, and Fred Bunce seems quite eager to pay for funeral expenses, which makes Nancy suspicious. Once the neighbors leave, Nancy meets a man in front of Miss Carter's home asking for a Lady Violette. Nancy informs him that there is no such person at this address, only to be informed that Miss Carter, a former actress, played a character named Lady Violette in one of her past plays. Nancy quickly tracks down the man, Horace St. Will, and he and Miss Carter are happily reunited. Mr. St. Will tells Nancy that he used to know a Ralph Woonton, which was the name of Gus's father. Mr. St. Will gives Nancy and her father some old letters from Ralph Woonton, however he tells them that Ralph Woonton and his wife never had a son. Nancy believes that Gus Woonton received an inheritance in trust from his parents, which was stolen by Fred Bunce. Her suspicions grow stronger when she trails Bunce into a stock market firm, where she sees the considerable amount of money he has lost in faulty stocks. But soon after the episode, the Bunces mysteriously leave their apartment. Nancy, Bess and George investigate the vacated apartment, where they find two of Miss Carter's Persian kittens, and returns them to her. Miss Carter has very little money, as she sends regular checks to a young actress named Beverly Barrett in New York City. Miss Carter injured her leg when she first met Nancy, so the girl detective engages Mrs. Bealing, a cousin of Hannah Gruen's, to take care of her and her cats. The action soon takes Nancy to New York and a cruise ship, where she meets further peril in her attempt to restore the child's funds, and help restore Miss Carter's financial position. Nancy's tapping becomes the means by which she is rescued after being kidnapped, and leads to finding the missing child. ===== Around the turn of the century, Carrie Meeber (Jennifer Jones) leaves her family in a small rural town and heads to Chicago. On the train to Chicago, Charles Drouet (Eddie Albert) approaches her. Although Carrie is reluctant to speak to him, the salesman persists and the two chat until they reach Chicago. Carrie gets off in South Chicago, the slums as Charles Drouet points out, after taking Drouet's business card. In South Chicago, Carrie stays with her sister and her husband Sven who have one child. Carrie loses her sweatshop sewing job after injuring her hand. After an exhausting and fruitless day of job hunting, Carrie looks up Charles Drouet. He not only talks her into having dinner with him at Fitzgerald's, an upscale restaurant, but also gives her $10. Carrie heads to Fitzgerald's to return the money to Drouet. While there she meets George Hurstwood (Laurence Olivier), the manager of the restaurant, who is immediately smitten with her. Carrie ends up moving in with Drouet. He is a big talker but basically harmless. She pressures Drouet to marry her because the neighbors are talking about them. He tries to distract her and invites Hurstwood, whom he had run into by sheer coincidence, into their home. With Drouet's permission, Hurstwood takes Carrie to the theater while Drouet is on one of his many business trips. Hurstwood and Carrie end up spending every free minute together, and the two fall in love. Just before she is about to run off with Hurstwood, she finds out that he is married. She is distraught and confronts Hurstwood, who admits that he is married although terribly unhappy. At the restaurant, Hurstwood cashes up for the night and, by accidentally locking a timed safe, finds himself stuck with $10,000 of his boss's money. He goes home with the money and is initially pleased to find his boss there. He tries to give the money to his boss, but when he learns that his boss intends to give his salary directly to Hurstwood's wife because of his relationship with Carrie, he decides to take the money to run away with Carrie. He leaves an I-O-U intent on paying his boss back as soon as he made it on his own feet. Set photo with camera and sound technicians. He coaxes Carrie, who initially refuses to see him, out of the house by telling her that Drouet had injured himself and that he would take her to see him. On the train to Drouet, Hurstwood tells her that he loves her and that he wants to be with her, asking her to leave Drouet. Carrie is torn, but does love Hurstwood, so she decides to stay with him. The first few days are blissful, but then reality catches up with them. Hurstwood's boss sends an officer from the bond company after Hurstwood to collect the money Hurstwood took. Hurstwood, who has already been looking for work, finds out quickly that word of him stealing the money has gotten around. Unable to find a job, Hurstwood and Carrie soon find themselves living in poverty. When Carrie finds out that she is pregnant, the two think that things might take a turn for the better. But Hurstwood's wife shows up, wanting his signature and his agreement to sell the house they own jointly. Hurstwood wants his share of the proceeds but she says she will press charges against him for bigamy if he insists. Carrie is devastated. Hurstwood's wife refused to consent to a divorce and Hurstwood didn't know how to tell Carrie. Hurstwood tells his wife he will sign and will not ask for money if she'll grant him a divorce. She does, but it is too late. Carrie loses the baby and decides to try her luck at acting. Hurstwood reads in the newspaper that his son is due in New York after his honeymoon and decides to see him at the docks. While he is there, Carrie leaves him (even though she still loves him) because she thinks he will use this opportunity to re-enter his family's life. While Hurstwood drifts further and further into poverty and ends up living on the streets, Carrie's star in the theatre rises until she is a well-regarded actress on the cusp of fame. Hurstwood, entirely starved, visits her at the theatre stage door, and she wants to take him back. She had found out from Drouet that Hurstwood had taken the money to start a life with her and blames herself for his predicament. She wants to make it up to Hurstwood but he won't take more than a quarter and disappears after toying with the gas burner in her dressing room. ===== Sonosuke Asai (Benkai Shiganoya) is the owner of the Asai Drug Company. He is unhappily married to Sumiko (Yoko Umemura), and they are mutually unkind to one other. Mr Asai tries to get one of his employees, telephone operator Ayako Murai (Isuzu Yamada), to meet him for dinner. She discusses this after work with a male colleague (and apparently boyfriend), Mr Nishimura, revealing that her father is in serious difficulties: unemployed and threatened with arrest after embezzling 300 yen. After an argument at home she decides to take up Mr Asai's offer and become his mistress. She quits her job and lives alone in a modern apartment block, bored and waiting for Mr Asai. When they attend a Bunraku puppet show, Dr Yoko calls them out. His wife greets them, furious that they are having an affair. However, Mr Fujino, a business acquaintance of Asai intervenes, lying that Ayako was his date, not Asai's. Ayako accidentally meets Mr Nishimura and explains her geisha-like attire as being due to now working in a beauty salon. She is told that her father is now working at her old company for Mr Asai. Mr Nishimura asks to marry her and she runs off in embarrassment. Due to a misunderstanding, the doctor goes to Mr Asai's house when he is told Asai is ill and the wife guesses that he is with Ayako and tracks him down in his sick-bed with Ayako tending him. Mrs Asai demands that the affair ends and it does, but Ayako has paid her father's debt and keeps her apartment. Ayako learns that her brother needs 200 yen for his tuition fees and sends the money, acquiring it from her new admirer, Mr Fujino. She leaves Fujino once she has the necessary 200 yen and contacts her old love, Nishimura, confessing everything to him and hoping they can still marry. Mr Fujino comes to her door, demanding she returns the 200 yen, but Ayako responds with disrespect and he leaves, saying there will be trouble. The police then interview Ayako and Nishimura. Ayako hears Nishimura say that he never wanted to marry her and was dragged into the affair, and he is released. As it is her first offence, she is also released without charge, but into the care of her father. At their home, Hiroshi is there and Ayako joins them and tries to make conversation. Her sister says she can no longer go to school due to the story being in all the papers. Her brother calls her a delinquent and says she should leave. Ayako leaves into the night and stops at a bridge. The doctor passes and she asks if there is a cure for delinquency. He answers in the negative and walks off, leaving her alone and homeless in the dark night. ===== On Halloween 1962, 9-year-old Frankie Scarlatti is tricked and locked inside his classroom coatroom by schoolmates Donald and Louie at the end of the day. Trapped well after dark, he witnesses the apparition of a young girl being murdered in the coatroom, though her assailant is invisible. Moments later, a man enters the coatroom and attempts to open a vent grate on the floor, but notices Frankie. He strangles him to unconsciousness. In a near-death vision, Frankie again sees the girl, who asks for his help to find her mother. Frankie is revived by his father, Angelo, and rushed to the hospital. Frankie was unable to see his attacker's face, so the police arrest an African American janitor, Harold "Willy" Williams, believing him to be the attacker. As Frankie recovers at home, Frankie's brother, Geno, shows him a newspaper article about the attack. He learns it is linked to the deaths of eleven other children, all apparently by a child serial killer. The ghostly girl is Melissa Ann Montgomery, and she continues to appear to Frankie. They form a tenuous friendship. Striving to help her, he returns to the cloakroom and removes the cover of the net to discover several dust-laden objects, including toys, a hair clip, and a high school class ring. Later, Frankie overhears the chief of police telling his father that the case against the janitor is crumbling and that the coatroom is also the scene of Melissa's murder. After considering this new information, Frankie confides in Phil Terragarossa, a family friend, that the class ring likely belongs to the killer and that he thinks the killer returned to the cloakroom to retrieve it as the school's heating system was being replaced. Unbeknownst to Frankie, the ring, which had accidentally fallen out of his pocket earlier, was found by Geno and hidden away again. Later, Donald and Louie lure Frankie out to the nearby cliffs where they encounter a ghostly lady dressed in white. All three boys take off running and Frankie collides into Geno within the surrounding woods. Frankie tries to explain the link between Melissa, the attacker and the lady in white, but is unsuccessful. One evening, Melissa appears to both Geno and Frankie. The town clock begins to chime and Frankie realizes that her nightly death re-enactment is about to commence. They follow her ghost to the school then wait until her lifeless body reappears, which is carried by an invisible figure from the school and onto the cliffs. At the last minute, she awakes and begins screaming as she is thrown over the cliffs. A pale, blond woman dressed in white then comes out of the cottage. Upon seeing Melissa's lifeless body on the rocks below, she flings herself off the cliff and also plunges to her death. The ghostly scene ends and the brothers head home. Finally, Frankie understands the source of Melissa's anguish. He vows to help her bring her killer to justice. A grand jury fails to indict Willy due to insufficient evidence. Outside the courthouse, the distraught mother of one of the murdered children shoots him to death. Geno researches the class ring he found. Using one of his father's old yearbooks and class ring, he realizes that their father and the killer wore the same type of class rings. Angelo's yearbook reveals that the initials on the ring, "MPT", belong to Michael P. Terragarossa. Geno quickly deduces that the "P" stands for Phillip—as in their family friend Phil—and he rushes to tell his father. Frankie happens to be with Phil at that same time, and Frankie realizes Phil is the killer after he begins whistling "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?", Melissa's song. Phil realizes that Frankie has deduced his secret and attacks him, but Frankie escapes and runs to the cliffs. Phil catches him and confesses to the murders just before he starts to strangle Frankie again. Suddenly, Phil is struck from behind and they both collapse to the ground. Regaining consciousness, Frankie finds himself in Melissa's old cottage with Amanda Harper, and learns that she was the one who saved him from Phil, and that she was the lady in white Frankie saw earlier when he was with Donald and Louie. Amanda reveals that she is Melissa's aunt and has been living in the cottage since the deaths of her sister and niece. Without warning, Phil attacks and kills Amanda, setting the building ablaze in the process. Pulling Frankie from the burning cottage, Phil attempts to throw him over the cliff. However, Frankie drops safely to the ground when the ghostly lady in white suddenly appears and frightens Phil, causing him to tumble over the cliff's edge. Melissa emerges from the burning cottage and the two ghosts happily reunite, ascending into the sky in a cascade of light. As Frankie crawls away from the ledge, Phil grabs his ankle. Angelo, Geno, and the police arrive and save Frankie. Angelo also tries to save Phil, but overcome with shame, Phil lets go and falls to his death, despite Angelo's pleas. Everyone watches the cottage burn to the ground as the snow begins to fall. ===== As in the Gulliverian prototype, the premise is a shipwreck with a solitary survivor, who finds himself in an unknown land, namely that of the Hins, which contains a minority group, the Behins. Accordingly, this work by a Hungarian writer relates not so much to Swift's work, but more precisely to Brave New World by the British writer Aldous Huxley. As in that work, there coexist two dissimilar, segregated societies, one developed and the other backward. The Hins are a people who have solved all economic problems: Production and usage of goods is based on need instead of money, and the standard of living is impeccable. The Hins live without any kind of government or administrative body, as their belief is that such would only hinder production. They lead their lives according to the "pure reality of existence," which they call kazo. They experience no emotions, love, beauty or spiritual life. There are two primary interpretations of the author's intentions: * Although the theme can be seen as a criticism of developed society, where highly progressive invention goes hand in hand with the loss of human feelings, Dezső Keresztury, the writer of the epilogue of the Hungarian editionPOSTSCRIPT of Szatmary's Kazohinia stated that this is not what Szathmári intended. Rather, he created the Hins as the ideal society that occupies itself with the "real" stuff of life instead of phantasms such as nations, religion, and money, that, regardless of intentions, cause people considerable misery. * Another interpretation is that the author satirizes both human society and communist utopias – which, in his assessment, lead equally to such disastrous consequences as massacres.Kazo, documentary movie, 1997, directed by: Zsigmond Gábor Papp (about the director) The protagonist, bored with the inhuman life of the Hins, chooses to live among the insane Behins, who reportedly conform better to his outlook on life. He hopes that, living in a walled-off area among the Behins, he will meet others with human feelings. The Behins, however, occupy an irrational society in which living conditions are supported by the ruling Hins while they themselves are preoccupied with what to the protagonist seem to be senseless ceremonies and all too frequent violent brawls. The Behins deliberately arrange their lives in such a way as to turn reality and logic on their heads, while among the Hins everything is arranged according to reality. While living among them, the protagonist suffers hunger, extreme misery, and even danger of death. This part of the novel is in fact satire, with each insanity of the Behins translating to facets of the Western, Christian society of the protagonist such as war, religion, etiquette, art, and philosophy. To further emphasize the satire, the protagonist does not see the obvious parallels between his homeland and the Behin world. Later, however, the writer underscores this irony by having a Behin leader and a British admiral articulating the same irrational philosophy. The Behins are indeed "real" humans, but as their symbols and customs are superficially different from his own, the protagonist regards them as mere savage madmen. ===== As the game begins, the player is stationed on the United Nations moon base, Lunicus, to defend against the threat of the alien attack, led by the Hive Queen. The aliens are present as an archeological dig in 2023 unearths several alien artifacts, one of which is mistakenly activated and alerts the alien force. ===== Parton stars as a somewhat-selfish country singer, Ruby Diamond, whose untimely death while driving at night results in her gaining an audience with Saint Peter (Roddy McDowall). He offers her a rather unusual arrangement: she will return to Earth on a mission to reunite the suburban Bartilson family (a family that's been torn apart ever since the mother died). If she succeeds by midnight on Christmas Eve, then she will be granted her wings as an angel. If not, she will receive a fate much worse. Masquerading as an out-of-sorts governess, Ruby slowly but surely starts to knit father/widower Ben Bartilson (Brian Kerwin) together with his rebellious yet conflicted daughter Sarah (Allison Mack) and lonely son Matthew (Eli Marienthal). But when Christmas Eve rolls around and Matthew runs away from home, St. Peter arrives to remind Ruby of the deal's terms, to which she replies, "I don't care; I'm fixing this family whether I get into Heaven or not." Upon the successful completion of her mission, St. Peter urges her to leave, despite her protests (she's become very fond of the family). But he reminds her that they will no longer remember her, so she reluctantly accepts. As she is awarded her wings, we see the family celebrating their first Christmas together in years. ===== Amelia is a domestic novel taking place largely in London during 1733. It describes the hardships suffered by a young couple newly married. Against her mother's wishes, Amelia marries Captain William Booth, a dashing young army officer. The couple run away to London. In Book II, William is unjustly imprisoned in Newgate, and is subsequently seduced by Miss Matthews. During this time, it is revealed that Amelia was in a carriage accident and that her nose was ruined. Although this brings about jokes at Amelia's behalf, Booth refuses to regard her as anything but beautiful. Amelia, by contrast, resists the attentions paid to her by several men in William's absence and stays faithful to him. She forgives his transgression, but William soon draws them into trouble again as he accrues gambling debts trying to lift the couple out of poverty. He soon finds himself in debtors' prison. Amelia then discovers that she is her mother's heiress and, the debt being settled, William is released and the couple retires to the country. The second edition contains many changes to the text. A whole chapter on a dispute between doctors was completely removed, along with various sections of dialogue and praise of the Glastonbury Waters. The edition also contains many new passages, such as an addition of a scene in which a doctor repairs Amelia's nose and Booth remarking on the surgery (in Book II, Chapter 1, where Booth is talking to Miss Matthews).Sabor 2007 pp. 98–99 ===== Max and Antonio are stepbrothers. Max loathes his stepbrother Antonio because his father, the husband of Max's mother Victoria, left all his fortune and the business to his son Antonio. Max hatches a plan to take all of Antonio's money by marrying Raquel, a girl of humble origins that lives in the city of Guadalajara with her sister & father. Max marries Raquel under the name of Antonio and on their wedding night he is called away. Max leaves Raquel informing her that he has to go away on business. Max returns home to see his brother Antonio off on a business trip. The plane that Antonio boards was sabotaged by Max and when the plane goes down it is presumed that Antonio perished. Max plants the marriage license in Antonio's room, and their mother contacts Raquel informing her of Antonio's death and that she should come right away to the funeral. When Raquel arrives at the mansion she is in disbelief that Antonio lived there since she thought she had married a middle class man. During her stay Max presents himself to her she is stunned but he explains to her that he had to create this whole story to regain what was rightfully his and paints Antonio as a despicable man. At first Raquel figures out that Max had his brother killed but Max convinces her otherwise that he did not do it, it was just luck. Max tries to have her go along with the story. But Raquel being of good will and not wanting to be a delinquent rebukes his plan. Max tells her they only have to live out the lie until things calm down then he will marry her to then in turn have access to the fortune. Raquel declines to go along with the ruse at first, but is then blackmailed since Max knows that Raquel's father is into some shady business and if she does not go along with his plan he will send her dad and sister to jail and blame the death of Antonio on her. As days go by she comes to realize what an evil person Max is and no longer loves him. Antonio then resurfaces alive. When he is told that he will go home to his wife Antonio is a bit perplexed as he is pretty sure he would remember a wife however, doctors have convinced him that he has amnesia. Antonio remains still unsettled. When Raquel and the real Antonio first see each other they are a bit surprised but yet enthralled. Eventually with time they began to fall for each at Max's dismay since he actually loves Raquel. ===== Tagline: "Which one is your depravation?" Eight stories ranging from the story of a woman who awakes at an unknown person's apartment to the rejoining of two underground lovers. From the warm flirtings of two women to a girl captive in an elevator. Other stories are tied among these: a female teacher who is flirted by one of her students; a teenager's deception that joins again with her best friend from secondary school: the adventure of two porn actors who find love, and the amusing plans of a single man who just wishes to be kind with his old mother... From the producer and director of Todo el poder, and Cero y van cuatro, Fernando Sariñana. ===== Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov (the narrative is conducted on his behalf) is the only surviving child of a retired army officer. When Pyotr turns 17, his father sends him into military service in Orenburg. En route Pyotr gets lost in a blizzard, but is rescued by a mysterious man. As a token of his gratitude, Pyotr gives the guide his hareskin coat. Arriving in Orenburg, Pyotr reports to his commanding officer and is assigned to serve at Fort Belogorsky under captain Ivan Mironov. The fort is little more than a fence around a village, and the captain's wife Vasilisa is really in charge. Pyotr befriends his fellow officer Shvabrin, who has been banished here after a duel resulted in the death of his opponent. When Pyotr dines with the Mironov family, he meets their daughter Masha and falls in love with her. This causes a rift between Pyotr and Shvabrin, who has been turned down by Masha. When Shvabrin insults Masha's honor, Pyotr and Shvabrin duel and Pyotr is injured. Pyotr asks his father's consent to marry Masha, but is refused. Not much later, the fortress is besieged by the insurgent Yemelyan Pugachev, who claims to be the emperor Peter III. The cossacks stationed at the fortress defect to the forces of Pugachev, and he takes the fortress easily. He demands that Captain Mironov swear an oath of allegiance to him, and when refused, hangs the Captain and kills his wife. When it is Pyotr's turn, Shvabrin suddenly appears to have defected as well, and upon his advice Pugachev orders Pyotr to be hanged. However, his life is suddenly spared as Pugachev turns out to be the guide who rescued Pyotr from the blizzard, and he recognizes Pyotr whom he remembers with affection. The next evening, Pyotr and Pugachev talk in private. Pyotr impresses Pugachev with the sincerity of his insistence that he cannot serve him. Pugachev decides to let Pyotr go to Orenburg. He is to relay a message to the Governor that Pugachev will be marching on his city. The fort is to be left under the command of Shvabrin, who takes advantage of the situation to try to compel Masha to marry him. Pyotr rushes off to prevent this marriage, but is captured by Pugachev's troops. After explaining the situation to Pugachev, they both ride off to the fortress. Pavel Sokolov After Masha has been freed, she and Pyotr take off to his father's estate, but they are intercepted by the army. Pyotr decides to stay with the army and sends Masha to his father. The war with Pugachev goes on and Pyotr rejoins the army. But at the moment of Pugachev's defeat, Pyotr is arrested for having friendly relations with Pugachev. During his interrogation, Shvabrin testifies that Pyotr is a traitor. Not willing to drag Masha into court, Pyotr is unable to repudiate this accusation and receives the death penalty. Although Empress Catherine the Great spares his life, Pyotr remains a prisoner. Masha understands why Pyotr wasn't able to defend himself and decides to go to St. Petersburg, to present a petition to the empress. In Tsarskoye Selo, she meets a lady of the court and details her plan to see the Empress on Pyotr's behalf. The lady refuses at first, saying that Pyotr is a traitor, but Masha is able to explain all the circumstances. Soon, Masha receives an invitation to see the Empress, and is shocked to recognize her as the lady she had talked to earlier. The Empress has become convinced of Pyotr's innocence and has ordered his release. Pyotr witnesses the beheading of Pugachev. He and Masha are married. ===== The series is based around the efforts of humanity to quarantine and eradicate the diclonius, a species of mutant humans with horns. It focuses on "Lucy", who escapes her holding facility and is believed to be the first diclonius, and on two teenagers, Kohta and Yuka, whom Lucy encounters in the Japanese city of Kamakura. ===== In Athens, Azad (Jean-Paul Belmondo), Ralph (Robert Hossein) and 2 other accomplices, Renzi and Helen, steal a suitcase of emeralds from a rich Greek citizen, M.Tasco, when the latter is away on vacation. The thieves break into the house, manage to open the safe, and escape with the jewels. A police detective, Abel Zacharia (Omar Sharif), spots the burglars’ car in front of the house. Azad chats with the detective telling a cover story of being a salesman with engine trouble. Zacharia leaves and Azad thinks he has gotten away with it. The thieves plan to leave the country immediately on a merchant ship. However when they arrive at the dock they discover the ship is undergoing repairs and will not be ready for five days. They hide the money, split up, and agree to wait out the delay. Zacharia reappears, having decided to find and keep the emeralds himself. Azad falls in love with Lena. Zacharia identifies the thieves and kills Renzi, seeing to it that Ralph seems guilty of the crime. Azad narrowly escapes the police with Lena, but he soon discovers that she is conspiring with Zacharia. Ralph is arrested by police. Azad and Zacharia have a confrontation which results in Zacharia being buried under wheat. ===== Former IAS officer and Professor Dr. Elango (Raghuvaran) returns to his native village near Theni with his college-going daughter Charulatha (Mamta Mohandas). He has taken voluntary retirement from a College in Chennai and has come to live in his ancestral house. He plans to do research on folk songs and release the collection as a book. His former student Sathyamoorthy (Vishal) visits to assist him in this venture. Charu falls head over heels for Sathya, on keenly observing his intellect, humaneness, and social awareness. Meanwhile, General elections are announced to the State Legislature, and the parties start finalizing the candidates for the constituencies. When the candidates start filing nominations, dreadful things happen. Some candidates from both major parties are murdered, and all the candidates get jittery. A lot of candidates withdraw from the fray fearing death. The parties are in a fix on what to do. The police is on the hunt for the killer. The Election Commission postpones the elections. When the police tightens their noose and ties loose ends, the killer is traced. The trail leads to Sathya, and it is found that he is aided in this bloodshed by Elango. The police arrest Elango. At the same time, Charu reveals her mind to Sathya during their travel to Hyderabad. Sathya reveals his undercover deeds. 3 years ago, Satya was a final year management student in Elango's class. Satya's widowed father also worked in the same college's canteen. When by-elections are announced for Chennai-Central constituency, Satya and his mates, under Elango's guidance, conduct a opinion-poll of the candidates as a field project. They announce the opinion results 2 days before polling, which said that the opposition's candidate will win. The election give the same result and The Ruling party's candidate is angry at losing such a easy chance, and he plans to take revenge with help of home minister. On the day of Satya's convocation, the Police raid the college on fake reason of drugs. During the fight, Satya's dad and around 30 students hide in the canteen. the ruling party candidate leaks cooking gas into the closed room and sets it on fire. All 31 die, and the management reports it as a freak accident. These events force Satyamoorthy and Elango to resort to the task of cleansing the society of the current breed of dangerous, inhuman and selfish politicians during Elections. later, Sathya escapes from the police's net and makes another attempt at the Home minister in Madurai. Whether he succeeds in his attempts and was able to send out the message correctly to the people forms the rest of the story. ===== Growing up in Hastings, Minnesota, young David Leary was bullied by Roscoe Bigger, nicknamed "Fang" because of a pointed tooth. David is ecstatic when his parents announce they are moving to Oakland. David informs teachers about Fang stealing a moon rock and Fang is arrested. Twenty-six years later, David is divorced and raising his troubled son Ben as a single parent. Not having much success as a writer, David's old school offers him a job teaching creative writing for the semester. He meets his neighbors Art and Betty Lundstrum and begins rekindling a relationship with his old flame Victoria. He also encounters the school librarian Mrs. Rumpert who is still waiting for David to return Green Eggs and Ham to the library. After Ben begins picking on a kid named Kirby, David meets the boy's father Ross Bigger when both are called to the office of Principal Kokelar. Following a fire drill, David meets with his old friend Ulf, a firefighter. When meeting with Ulf, Alan and Gerry at a bar, David learns that after Ross got out of juvenile hall, Ross' parents skipped town which led to him growing up in an orphanage. When Ross learns who David is, he reembarks on his old routine of bullying him to make himself feel better. Ross drops his mild-mannered and pushover attitude and begins taking charge in his classroom and home. David's son begins bullying Ross' son, but after a discussion, they become friends. Ross begins to intimidate until David becomes paranoid, and begins freaking out another teacher, Clark, who thinks he is on crack. When David brings Ross' actions to Principal Kokelar after a recent pranking, David is told by Principal Kokelar that Ross has been a teacher longer than David has and even states that he had gotten some complaints from Clark about David and that if David can't straighten up his act, he will get another teacher to cover for him for the remainder of the school semester. Later that night, they meet at the old see-saw where Ross reaffirms that David has never stood up for himself at which point David admits snitching to get Ross put in Juvenile hall. After a game of cat-and- mouse in the school after hours, David flees to his hiding place he used when he was a child, a cave. Ross chases him onto a waterfall and tells David that he always thought of him as a friend, before an enraged Ross attacks him. David hits him with a piece of driftwood causing Ross to fall into the river. Fearing that he has killed his enemy, David tries to turn himself over to the police only to find that the cops are out. Ulf drives David to his home while he tries to find Ross' body. After a talk with Art, David attempts to go to sleep only to discover Ross alive and well. The two men fight once again until Kirby and Ben come in and reveal that they've made up and encourage their fathers do the same. Ross reveals he stole the moon rock because he wanted to be an astronaut. It was also shown that during their recent fight, Ross' "fang" was chipped. They finally patch things up. With nothing left for him in Hastings, David's semester teaching job was over. David begins to pack up and move to New York. He has Victoria return Green Eggs and Ham to the school library for him. Ross arrives and has a goodbye present for David, Ross gives him an Evel Knievel action figure identical to the one David had as a child before Ross threw it into a river. David tells them to visit whenever, and the changed family leaves. Ross hooks up his mobile home to his truck, and follows David telling his family that they have been "invited" to come to New York. ===== The story is set in the backdrop of Thoothukudi. Saravanaperumal is a rich businessman, and Subbiah and his daughter Sakunthaladevi are his business rivals. Bharaniputhiran is Saravanan's nephew. Bhanumathi is a college student who falls for Bharani and keeps following him. Bharani comes to know that Bhanu is Sakunthaladevi's only daughter and suspects her behavior and hence does not reciprocate love. One day, Bhanu goes to meet Bharani in an island, and everyone gets arrested by the coastal guards mistaking for prostitution, and they later get released by the local police as Bharani is highly influential. But a press reporter writes about this event as he has a vengeance against Sakunthaladevi. This angers Subbiah and he misunderstands that Saravanan was the master brain behind trapping Bhanu in prostitution case. Subbiah and his son Velladurai plan to kill Saravanan, but he escapes. Bharani gets angry knowing this and goes to kill Velladurai, but he accidentally chops off the hand of Velladurai's kindhearted younger brother Selvam . Bharani feels bad about his action. Saravanan tells the truth to Bharani that Sakunthaladevi is none other than his wife, and Bhanu is his only daughter. A flashback is shown where Sakunthaladevi does not like Saravanan's widowed sister, and her son Bharani staying along with him, wants him to lead a nuclear family. This brings up fight between Saravanan and Sakunthaladevi and she leaves to her father's place. Bharani understands that Bhanu intentionally tried marrying him so that there is a chance for the family getting united again. Bharani meets Bhanu and apologizes to her and both get closer. Bharani plans to get Sakunthaladevi and Saravanan united. Meanwhile, Karmegam, who works for Velladurai, expresses his interest to marry Sakunthaladevi with the plan of owning all her wealth. Velladurai agrees to this without informing to her and plans for a wedding. Bharani gets to know about this and he rushes to stop the wedding. Sakunthaladevi gets shocked knowing her brother's intention to get her married to Karmegam and scolds him. Quarrel erupts and Karmegam seemingly gets killed by Bharani following which Bharani is sent to jail. Sakunthaladevi realises her mistake and unites with Saravanan. Bharani gets released from jail after 4 years and returns home. He sees the wedding arrangements made between him and Bhanu. Bharani refuses to marry Bhanu and says that Subbiah and Velladurai are still angry at him for chopping off Selvam's hand, and Bharani insists that Bhanu marry Selvam. Finally Sakunthaladevi reveals the truth that it was she who killed Karmegam, and Bharani took the blame and was jailed so that she is saved. Subbiah and Velladurai overhear the conversation and understand Bharani's good nature. Finally, Bharani and Bhanu get married, and the family reunites again. ===== "Karate master and anti-drug vigilante Chiba returns to his home in Japan, where he holds a press conference announcing his intention to wipe out the nation's drug industry. He also offers his services as a bodyguard to anyone who is willing to come forward and provide information about the drug lords' activities. He is soon approached by a mysterious woman claiming to have important information and asking for Chiba's protection. She seems to be legitimate, but is she really what she appears to be?" ===== Angelina (Emily Hampshire) is a shy and whimsical waitress forced to leave her home in Italy to be married to a man she is not in love with in order to fulfill a family vow. After Angelina moves into a new neighborhood in Little Italy, Toronto, she is torn with the idea of marrying a man she is not in love with. However, in the days leading up to Valentine's Day, Angelina encounters Mike (Sean Astin) and the two seemingly are shot with Cupid's arrows. Angelina and Mike's searches for love come to an end after realizing how connected they truly are to each other. ===== Set in an underground car-park, this sitcom mainly focuses around the banter between the two car-park attendants, Sydney and Danny. Sydney spends much of his time talking about past times with his wife, Maureen (who is never seen), while Danny goes on about the opposite sex. Their boss, Miss Cummings, is a no-nonsense woman. Adolf, the traffic warden, also regularly pops in, and thinks of himself as a political activist. ===== Adam, a successful cartoonist with a strip in a national newspaper, and Jessica Savage, who works at a travel agents, are a modern young couple. They work too hard, they argue occasionally, they bicker a lot, and they are stressed out, but their relationship is kept together by affection. Their hyperactive young children, six-year-old Nicola and three-year-old Luke, are both destructive. Adam's retired and vague father, Donald, lives nearby on his own, after his wife walked out on him. Adam also has a brother called Mark. ===== The city of Chennai is rife with the nefarious activities of land mafia. There are two rival gangs: one under Ali Bhai (Prakash Raj), who resides in Dubai and controls his India operations through his brothers Guru (Vincent Asokan) and Korattur Logu (Subbaraju) as well as his girlfriend Mona (Brinda Parekh); and another operated by a local goon named Narasimhan (Anandaraj). They threaten builders and landowners into giving them protection money or property through force, extortion, or murder. Mohammed Mohideen Khan IPS (Napoleon) takes charge as the new Police Commissioner of Chennai and starts cracking down on crime. Tamizh (Vijay), a thug, is abducted by Logu and his henchmen. Tamizh has taken a contract from Narasimhan to beat up Logu, which he does. However, Guru and Mona invite Tamizh to join their gang. Tamizh declines stating that he does not work for any gang, but is ready to do anything for money. Meanwhile, Tamizh falls in love with Shruthi (Asin), when he visits his friend Saravanan's (Sriman) aerobics class, but she mistakes him for a pervert. Shruthi, a college student, lives with her widowed mother Lakshmi (Sriranjani) and younger brother Pappu (Master Bharath). Body Soda (Vadivelu), a bogus kung fu master, lives above Shruthi's house and frequently, albeit comically and unsuccessfully, tries to convince her to marry him. Inspector Govindan (Mukesh Tiwari) is a corrupt police inspector in the colony where Tamizh and Shruthi live and is on Ali Bhai's payroll. He lusts for Shruthi and decides to make her his mistress, even after she rejects him multiple times. Tamizh's first assignment with Ali Bhai's gang is to kill a member of Narasimhan's gang. However, police show up at the spot where Tamizh and the other gangsters are waiting. Tamizh engages the cops long enough for the others to finish the task and flee. He also helps Shruthi escape from Govindan. She is impressed by his kindness, and a friendship soon blossoms between the two, leading to the development of unspoken romantic feelings for each other. When Shruthi tries to express her feelings to Tamizh, they are attacked by members of Narasimhan's gang, whom Tamizh finishes off. Shruthi is shocked to learn that Tamizh is a gangster with no qualms about killing people. Later, Govindan arranges for some thugs to pretend to rape Shruthi so that no decent family will want to take her as their daughter-in-law, as a result of which with no other option, Shruthi and Lakshmi will accept his demands. Tamizh learns of this and thrashes Govindan incognito. After much ado and mental anguish, Shruthi accepts Tamizh's love. Soon, Guru is found dead, presumably killed by Narasimhan in retaliation against the death of his gang members at the hands of Tamizh earlier, which forces Ali Bhai to come to Chennai from Dubai and kill Narasimhan. He also meets Tamizh to discuss the killing of a minister by blowing up a school. Tamizh disagrees with Ali Bhai's method as it would involve killing innocents including women and children. In the middle of their argument, the police raids the club and arrests Ali Bhai. His gang members retaliate by kidnapping Mohammed's daughter, drugging her, and creating a lewd video of her which they threaten to release to the media if Ali Bhai is not released, forcing the embattled commissioner to release Ali Bhai. However, in her drugged state, Mohammed's daughter reveals that her father had placed an undercover officer as a mole in Ali Bhai's gang. The gang members find out that an IPS police officer by the name of Satyamoorthy, the son of a retired police inspector Shanmugavel (Nassar), has gone undercover to finish off the underworld mafia gangs and is now a part of their gang. Ali Bhai kills Satyamoorthy in front of Shanmugavel. However, it is revealed that the person who died was actually Saravanan, who was Shanmugavel's adopted son. Ali Bhai then kills Shanmugavel, hoping that the real Satyamoorthy would come to see his father's body and avenge his death. When the real Satyamoorthy actually turns up, everyone, especially Shruthi and Govindan, are shocked to see that he is none other than Tamizh. Satyamoorthy had gone undercover by posing himself as a criminal. It is further revealed that Satyamoorthy was the one who killed Guru and not Narasimhan. He killed Guru under the Commissioner's direction. After Shanmugavel and Saravanan's funerals, Satyamoorthy forces Govindan to call Ali Bhai to find out his location, which is Binny Mills. He goes there and starts to eliminate Ali Bhai's gang members one by one, rescuing the commissioner's daughter in the process. In a final confrontation, Satyamoorthy kills Ali Bhai by slashing his throat with a broken glass window, following which he kills Govindan as well. ===== Saya is a young maiden who was adopted by an elderly couple who found her in the forest when she was an infant and raised to worship and revere the God of Light and his two immortal children, the passionate and fierce Princess Teruhi and the subdued and melancholic Prince Tsukishiro. As she comes of age, she catches the eye of Prince Tsukishiro and the people of Darkness, those who continue to reincarnate and do not fear death. Tsukishiro, enchanted by Saya's beauty, invites her to become one of his handmaidens at the Palace of Light where he and his sister reside. Before she leaves, she discovers from the People of Darkness that she is latest reincarnation of the Water Maiden, the Princess of the People of Darkness and a priestess capable of stilling the Dragon Sword, a weapon that contains the rage of the Fire God when he was killed by his father, the God of Light, for burning his mother, the Goddess of Darkness, to death. The Dragon Sword and the Water Maiden are linked and the sword is the only weapon which can slay a Child of Light. It is this aspect, Saya discovers, of her that intrigues and attracts Tsukishiro and infuriates and causes Teruhi to despise her since she resembles her previous reincarnation, the Princess Sayura. Saya, despite having worshiped the Light all her life and looked down on the People of Darkness, finds that she cannot escape her destiny as the Water Maiden, symbolized the magatama shaped jewel that was clutched in her hand when she was born. She ends up escaping the Palace of Light with the third Child of Light, Chihaya, the effeminate younger brother of Teruhi and Tsukishiro who was stilled by Teruhi to act as a surrogate Water Maiden for the stolen Dragon Sword and revealed to be the Wind Child, the only entity capable of wielding the Dragon Sword. Together, they join the People of Darkness to stop the fanatical and merciless Teruhi and the indifferent Tsukishiro from destroying the gods of nature and the People of Darkness. ===== The main plot of the series revolves around the consequences of a female singer, Davina Roberts (Shân Cothi), taking the conducting role of the male voice choir, "Côr Meibion Gwili". The ghost of the previous male conductor, Walford, continuously haunts choir member Brian throughout series one and the final episode of series two. ===== Pompous paleontologist Rick Marshall has a low-level job at the La Brea Tar Pits, three years after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer of Today became a viral video and ruined his career. Doctoral candidate Holly Cantrell tells him that his controversial theories combining time warps and paleontology inspired her. She shows him a fossil with an imprint of a cigarette lighter that he recognizes as his own along with a crystal made into a necklace that gives off strong tachyon energy. She convinces him to finish his tachyon amplifier and come help her on a seemingly routine expedition to the cave where Holly found the fossil, which is in the middle of nowhere. With cave gift shop owner Will Stanton they raft into the cave, where Marshall has detected high levels of tachyons. He activates the tachyon amplifier, triggering an earthquake that opens a time warp into which the raft falls. The group finds themselves in a desert, filled with various items from many eras, and without the amplifier. They rescue a primate-like creature, Cha-Ka of the Pakuni tribe, who becomes their friend and guide. The gang spends a night in a cave after surviving a meeting with a fast, intelligent Tyrannosaurus they nickname "Grumpy", who stalks Marshall for calling him stupid. Marshall receives a telepathic message begging for help and finds himself in ancient ruins. The group encounters a race of lizard men called Sleestaks before meeting the one who sent Marshall the telepathic message, Enik the Altrusian. He explains that he was exiled by the evil Zarn who is attempting to take over Earth with his Sleestak minions, but Enik can prevent this if Marshall retrieves the tachyon amplifier. The group stumble upon a desert where many things from across time end up and they encounter many Compsognathus, Dromaeosaurs, Grumpy, and a female Allosaurus. The Allosaurus and Grumpy battle it out over a previously killed ice-cream seller until they sense Marshall and chase him. Marshall kills the Allosaurus with liquid nitrogen and finds that the amplifier was eaten by the Allosaurus. The amplifier is then stolen by a Pteranodon and taken to its nest. The group arrives at the nest and Marshall lightly steps through the Pteranodon eggs to retrieve the amplifier, but when he reaches it, it stops broadcasting the soundtrack to Marshall's favorite musical A Chorus Line. When the eggs begin to hatch, Holly realizes that the music was acting as a sort of lullaby keeping the baby Pteranodons asleep. Marshall, Will and Holly belt out "I Hope I Get It", with Cha-ka inexplicably joining in, displaying an impressive singing voice. Marshall, Will and Cha-ka celebrate their good fortune. Meanwhile, Holly pockets a dinosaur egg and learns from a recording left by the long-deceased Zarn that Enik deceived them and he is actually the one planning to invade Earth. But she is captured by the Sleestaks to be brought to the Library of Skulls for judgment. The others saved her from being executed for helping Enik, but the villainnow possessing the amplifier, and mind-controlling the Sleestaksleaves them to open a portal to Earth. Marshall pole vaults into Grumpy's mouth and after removing an intestinal blockage, befriends him. He joins the others to defeat the Sleestak army and confront Enik. After the crystal link between the Land of the Lost and Earth is shattered, Enik reveals the portal will close forever. Thinking fast, Marshall grabs Holly's crystal and inserts it into the port, knowing that the substitute crystal won't hold for long. Will chooses to stay behind to live a better life and to prevent Enik from following Marshall and Holly back to Earth, learning later that female Pakuni are very attractive. A triumphant Marshall again appears on Today with the dinosaur egg Holly brought back to promote his new book Matt Lauer Can Suck It. The egg left behind on the Today set hatches a baby Sleestak, which hisses as the screen goes black. ===== One Friday night Richie and Eddie return home from a disappointing night on the pull - Richie's bird lies to him, claiming to be a lesbian and Eddie's been kicked in the testicles. In a desperate attempt to get a girlfriend, the two write a "lonely hearts" advert for Richie to put in the local paper. After trying several ideas including "Ugly Virgin Desperately Seeks Sex Of Any Description", "Hot Young Buck", "Foxy Stoat Seeks Pig", "Foxy Stoat On The Prowl", "Musky Sly Old Foxy Stoat" and finally "Minky Musky Sly Old Stoaty Stoaty Stoat" the two give up. Richie then spots an advert for a revolutionary new sex spray. The next day the pair visit the local sex-shop in order to buy a can each. That night the pair prepare to go out. Richie uses up his biros drawing on chest hair; however, he has to use a green pen, as he has used all the black pens ink on his legs; while in the bathroom, Eddie shaves his tongue. Eddie attempts to remove Richie's nasal hair (at Richie's request) using a pair of pliers. However he ends up throwing Richie around the room, this in turn leads to a fight between the two, until Richie stops it by saying they should take it out on the 'birds' later. Both apply the sex spray liberally and Richie fantasises about finally "doing it". Eddie slowly becomes inebriated on the spray, after spraying it into his mouth. The pair then venture to their local pub, "The Lamb and Flag", where Richie attempts to pick up the wife (Harriet Thorpe) of a large man (Clive Mantle). He and Eddie pretend to be insane in order to prevent him from beating them up, but not before Richie has his testicles crushed by the man. They then pursue two young women (Cindy Shelley and Carla Mendonça) sat nearby, who are eager for them to leave. They leave them - in a less than subtle fashion - in order to buy condoms. In the toilet, Richie is punched by the large man. When the duo return from the toilet, the girls have moved tables in the hope of avoiding them. When Richie confronts them, they claim to be lesbians and leave. Richie is disappointed, but this subsides when he realises a drunken Eddie is now attempting to seduce him, as he has become completely 'drunk' off the sex spray. The episode ends with Richie punching Eddie in the face. ===== Castle Greyhawk is a large multipart scenario consisting of eleven dungeon levels below Greyhawk Castle, including "Where the Random Monsters Roam" and "The Temple of Really Bad Dead Things". ===== Al McCord is hanging out at his favourite restaurant when he meets an attractive young woman, Ellie, who is looking for a ride from the city into the Mojave Desert, where her mother Julie lives. Al discovers romance with the free-spirited Julie despite the nearby presence of her boyfriend Boyd, who seems likely to go berserk at any moment. Strange events follow and it's up to Al to find an explanation. In the desert, Al's car develops a flat tire. He opens the trunk and discovers an apparent dead body (Ellie's boyfriend Kaiser, whom Al had not yet been aware of). Al heads to a gas station for repairs, following a near run-in with a highway patrolman, when he is interrupted by an attempted robbery. The confusion created by the gun-happy gas station worker allows Al to escape unhurt. Back home, Al is visited by Ellie, followed by Julie. Unknown to him at this point, his car is being stolen. Outside they notice Boyd and flee to a nearby motel. Just after Al leaves to search for his car, Boyd arrives at the motel, taking the women back to Mojave and locking them in a shed. Al and actor buddy Sal mount a rescue mission but are themselves knocked out by Boyd. Kaiser, still alive, arrives at Mojave unseen as Boyd drives off with Al, Sal, Julie and Ellie in the car atop his truck, intending on tipping the car and passengers over the edge of a quarry. They eventually escape uninjured while Boyd plummets to his doom, signaled by an ostentatious explosion. Ellie returns to Los Angeles with Sal, while Al remains for the night, at least, with Julie. ===== The series was based around Sheila Sabatini, a senior surgeon at the Gillies Hospital, whose verbal skills have most people running for cover. She dominated the operating theatre, while at home she was divorcing her Italian husband, Remo, with whom she had a son, Daniel. Sheila was also a gossip, often gossiping with her best friend, theatre administrator Joyce Watson. One of the major themes in the programme was her developing relationship with Jonathan Haslam, the anaesthetist. At the end of the sixth series, they married and she had become director of surgery, while her son had become a medical student at the hospital, much to her annoyance. ===== The episode begins with Eddie and Richie playing cards in their flat with all their gas appliances turned on at full blast. During the game, it is revealed that their gas pipe is not attached to their meter, but instead to next door's. There is a knock at the door, which Richie answers. He is distressed to reveal that it is the gas man (Mark Lambert), who is there to read their meter. Richie distracts the gas man by pretending to be insane, whilst Eddie switches off the gas. The gas man comes in and reads the meter, despite Eddie and Richie's attempts to stop him. He informs them that one of the residents has complained about a very high gas bill and he is checking all the meters on the street. He reads the meter and is puzzled as to why it reads zero. Eddie and Richie attempt to convince him it is because they do not use gas as they do not know what it is. They attempt to stall him by making "the best tea in London" with cold water and forcing him to drink it in order to clock off before he has a chance to inspect next door's meter. When their stalling tactics fail, Richie repeatedly punches the gas man and Eddie beats him with a frying pan, knocking him unconscious. Believing that they killed him, they attempt to dispose of the body by hiding it under the carpet, trying to eat it and trying to throw it on top of a passing bus (writing in his log that he was pursuing his hobby of "bus surfing"). Before they have a chance to throw him out of the window, the gas man regains consciousness and Richie and Eddie send him on his way whilst very disorientated. Eddie and Richie try to get into their neighbour's flat, but Mr Rottweiler (Brian Glover) is an angry, hostile man who loathes them. To make matters worse, Rottweiler's girlfriend (Gabi Valenti) is staying with him and he does not want to be disturbed. Unable to simply walk in Rottweiler's flat, Eddie and Richie break through the connecting wall with a sledgehammer. Aiming for the kitchen, they fail and instead break into Rottweiler's bedroom, where he and his girlfriend are sleeping. Eddie goes to the kitchen to remove the gas pipe, while Richie stays in the bedroom attempting to clean up the rubble and later lecherously staring at Rottweiler's girlfriend. Meanwhile, Eddie becomes distracted while eating most of Rottweiler's food. Having eaten much of the contents of the fridge, Eddie sets about his work, but botches the job and causes a huge gas leak in the kitchen. Richie finishes up and goes to get Eddie, but is nearly knocked over by an enormous, fiery explosion in the corridor. Richie runs into the destroyed kitchen, where a badly-burnt Eddie claims that he had simply attempted to "burn off" the excess gas. Eddie and Richie try to escape out of the front door, but are confronted by the confused gas man. They successfully escape through the hole in the bedroom wall and congratulate themselves on escaping Rottweiler's flat. Having discovered his kitchen on fire, Rottweiler is informed by the gas man that Eddie and Richie had been in his flat moments earlier. The episode ends with Rottweiler breaking through the hole in the wall and strangling Eddie and Richie for their actions. =====