From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== C-3PO and R2-D2 are sent to crime lord Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine in a trade bargain made by Luke Skywalker to rescue Han Solo. Disguised as a bounty hunter, Princess Leia infiltrates the palace under the pretense of collecting the bounty on Chewbacca and unfreezes Han, but is caught and enslaved. Luke soon arrives to bargain for his friends' release, but Jabba drops him through a trapdoor to be executed by a rancor. After Luke kills the rancor, Jabba sentences him, Han, and Chewbacca to death by being fed to the Sarlacc, a huge, carnivorous plant-like desert beast. Having hidden his new lightsaber inside , Luke frees himself and battles Jabba's guards while Leia uses her chains to strangle Jabba to death. As the others rendezvous with the Rebel Alliance, Luke returns to Dagobah to complete his training with Yoda, whom he finds is dying. Yoda confirms that Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker, is Luke's father, and becomes one with the Force. The Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi reveals that Leia is Luke's twin sister, and tells Luke that he must face Vader again to finish his training and defeat the Empire. The Rebel Alliance learns that the Empire has been constructing a second Death Star under the supervision of the Emperor himself. As the station is protected by an energy shield, Han leads a strike team to destroy the shield generator on the forest moon of Endor; doing so would allow a squadron of starfighters to destroy the Death Star. Luke and Leia accompany the strike team to Endor in a stolen Imperial shuttle. Luke and his companions encounter a tribe of Ewoks and, after an initial conflict, gain their trust. Later, Luke tells Leia that she is his sister, Vader is their father, and that he must confront him. Surrendering to Imperial troops, he is brought before Vader, and fails to convince his father to reject the dark side of the Force. Vader takes Luke to the Death Star to meet the Emperor, intending to turn him to the dark side. The Emperor reveals that the Imperial forces are prepared for a Rebel assault on the shield generator and that the Rebel Fleet will fall into a trap. On the forest moon of Endor, Han's team is captured by Imperial forces, but a counterattack by the Ewoks allow the Rebels to infiltrate the shield generator. Meanwhile, Lando Calrissian in the Millennium Falcon and Admiral Ackbar lead the rebel assault on the second Death Star only to find that the Death Star's shield is still active, and the Imperial fleet waits for them. The Emperor reveals to Luke that the Death Star is fully operational and orders the firing of its massive superlaser, destroying one of the Rebel starships. The Emperor tempts Luke to give in to his anger. Luke attacks him, but Vader intervenes and the two engage in another lightsaber duel. Vader senses that Luke has a sister and threatens to turn her to the dark side. Enraged, Luke severs Vader's prosthetic hand. The Emperor entreats Luke to kill Vader and take his place, but Luke refuses, declaring himself a Jedi like his father before him. Furious, the Emperor tortures Luke with Force lightning. Unwilling to let his son die, Vader throws the Emperor down a reactor shaft to his death but is mortally electrocuted in the process. At his father's last request, Luke removes Vader's mask, and the redeemed Anakin Skywalker dies in his son's arms. After the strike team destroys the shield generator, Lando leads a group of Rebel fighters into the Death Star's core. While the Rebel fleet destroys the Super Star Destroyer Executor, Lando and X-wing fighter pilot Wedge Antilles destroy the Death Star's main reactor. As the Falcon escapes the Death Star's superstructure and Luke escapes on a shuttle with his father's body, the station explodes. On the Forest Moon of Endor, Leia reveals to Han that Luke is her brother, and she and Han kiss. Luke cremates his father's body on a pyre before reuniting with his friends. As the Rebels and the galaxy celebrate the fall of the Empire, Luke sees the spirits of Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin watching over him. ===== The Babington plot was related to several separate plans: *solicitation of a Spanish invasion of England with the purpose of deposing Protestant Queen Elizabeth and replacing her with Catholic Queen Mary; *a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. At the behest of Mary's French supporters, John Ballard, a Jesuit priest and agent of the Roman Church, went to England on various occasions in 1585 to secure promises of aid from the northern Catholic gentry on behalf of Mary. In March 1586, he met with John Savage, an ex-soldier who was involved in a separate plot against Elizabeth and who had sworn an oath to assassinate the queen. He was resolved in this plot after consulting with three friends: Dr. William Gifford, Christopher Hodgson and Gilbert Gifford. Gilbert Gifford had been arrested by Walsingham and agreed to be a double agent. Gifford was already in Walsingham's employ by the time Savage was going ahead with the plot, according to Conyers Read. Later that same year, Gifford reported to Charles Paget and Don Bernardino de Mendoza, and told them that English Catholics were prepared to mount an insurrection against Elizabeth, provided that they would be assured of foreign support. While it was uncertain whether Ballard's report of the extent of Catholic opposition was accurate, what was certain is that he was able to secure assurances that support would be forthcoming. He then returned to England, where he persuaded a member of the Catholic gentry, Anthony Babington, to lead and organise the English Catholics against Elizabeth. Ballard informed Babington about the plans that had been so far proposed. Babington's later confession made it clear that Ballard was sure of the support of the Catholic League: Despite this assurance of this foreign support, Babington was hesitant, as he thought that no foreign invasion would succeed for as long as Elizabeth remained, to which Ballard answered that the plans of John Savage would take care of that. After a lengthy discussion with friends and soon-to- be fellow conspirators, Babington consented to join and to lead the conspiracy.Pollen, p. 54. Unfortunately for the conspirators, Walsingham was certainly aware of some of the aspects of the plot, based on reports by his spies, most notably Gilbert Gifford, who kept tabs on all the major participants. While he could have shut down some part of the plot and arrested some of those involved within reach, he still lacked any piece of evidence that would prove Queen Mary's active participation in the plot and he feared to commit any mistake which might cost Elizabeth her life. ===== It's the early 1920s and Aleksandr Ivanovich 'Sascha' Luzhin (Turturro), a gifted but tormented chess player, arrives in a Northern Italian city to compete in an international chess competition. Prior to the tournament he meets Natalia Katkov (Watson) and he falls in love with her almost immediately. She in turn finds his manner to be appealing and they begin to see each other in spite of her mother's disapproval. Competing alongside Luzhin in the championship is Dottore Salvatore Turati (Fabio Sartor), who is approached by Leo Valentinov (Stuart Wilson), a Russian, who is Luzhin's former chess tutor from pre-revolutionary Russia. Valentinov tells the Italian that Luzhin cannot handle pressure and he intimates he will make sure that his former prodigy will be unsettled off- table giving Turati a winning chance. The competition starts badly for Luzhin who is unsettled by the presence of his former friend and coach. He struggles through the early rounds but he soon begins to win again as his relationship with Katkov becomes closer and intimate. She then informs her parents that she is going to marry him. Meanwhile, Luzhin goes on to reach the final and face Turati. But in the finals the Russian Émigré loses out to the time clock, forcing the game to adjourn. However, outside the venue, he is whisked away by an accomplice of Valentinov who abandons him in the countryside. His former teacher knows that this will completely unhinge him because of the memory of his parents' abandonment many years ago. Luzhin wanders aimlessly until he collapses and is found by a group of Blackshirts. Luzhin is taken to the hospital suffering from complete mental exhaustion. The doctor informs Katkov that he will die if he keeps playing chess as he is addicted to the game and it's consuming his very being. Nevertheless, even while recuperating Valentinov comes around with a chess board encouraging Luzhin to finish the match with the Italian, Turati. Natalia defends her beloved but urges him to break off with the game. Luzhin seems to agree. Eventually Luzhin leaves the hospital. He and Natalia then agree to marry at the earliest opportunity. However, on the morning of the wedding, Luzhin is put into a car with Valentinov, who tells him that there is the small matter of finishing the competition. In terror, Luzhin leaps from the car. Dazed, cut and mentally confused, he stumbles back to the hotel where he tries to dig up the rest of the glass chess pieces he buried on the grounds years ago, (1:36:39 "I've got the King but I need the whole army...") but he does not find them. Luzhin, who is in his muddied wedding suit, sits in his room as Natalia and the hotel staff try to open the door. But before they can get in, the troubled chess grandmaster throws himself out of his bedroom window and dies. The tragic death is witnessed by Valentinov who has just arrived by car. The film then concludes in the competition hall where Natalia completes the competition using her fiancé's notes. She discovers the papers in his pocket and an experienced chess player explains to her the matter of the notes. In an arranged meeting without public she plays against Turati who does exactly what Luzhin expected and loses. Katkov and Turati then leave acknowledging the Pyrrhic victory and the genius of Luzhin. ===== In 1912, 13-year-old Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr is horseback riding with his Boy Scout troop at Arches National Park in Utah. While scouting caves, Indy discovers a group of grave robbers who have found a golden crucifix belonging to Coronado and steals it from them, hoping to donate it to a museum. The men give chase through a passing circus train, leaving Indy with a bloody cut across his chin from a bullwhip and a new phobia of snakes. Indy escapes, but the local sheriff makes him return the cross to the robbers, who immediately turn it over to a mysterious benefactor wearing a Panama Hat. Impressed with Indy's bravery, the leader of the robbers gives Indy his fedora to encourage him to not give up. In 1938, Indy battles "Panama Hat" and his henchmen on a ship off the storm-blasted coast of Portugal, and escaping overboard just before the ship explodes, he recovers the cross and donates it to Marcus Brody's museum. Later, Indy is introduced to Walter Donovan, who informs him that his father, Henry Jones, Sr., has vanished while searching for the Holy Grail, using an incomplete inscription from a stone tablet as his guide. Indy receives Henry's Grail diary via mail from Venice, Italy, and heads there with Marcus, where they meet Henry's Austrian colleague Dr. Elsa Schneider. Beneath the library where Henry was last seen, Indy and Elsa discover a set of half-flooded catacombs that house the tomb of a First Crusade knight that contains a complete version of the inscription that Henry had used, revealing the location of the Grail. They flee when the petroleum-saturated waters of the catacombs are set aflame by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secret society that protects the Grail from evildoers. Indy and Elsa capture one of the Brotherhood, Kazim, who tells Indy where Henry is being held after Indy explains that his only goal is to find his father, not the Grail. Looking through the diary, Marcus finds a map drawn by Henry of the route to the Grail, which begins in Alexandretta. Indy removes the map from the diary, gives it to Marcus for safekeeping, and sends him to İskenderun, the city built on the ruins of Alexandretta, to rendezvous with their old friend Sallah. Elsa begins a sexual relationship with Indy before they depart to find Henry. Indy and Elsa head to a Nazi- controlled castle in Austria where Henry is being held. Indy finds Henry and frees him only to be quickly captured by SS Colonel Ernst Vogel. He learns that both Elsa and Donovan are actually working with the Nazis and are using the Joneses to find the Grail for them. Elsa kisses Indy goodbye as she departs with Donovan and Vogel. Marcus is captured in Hatay while meeting with Sallah. After their escape from the castle, Henry tells Indy that the Grail is guarded by three booby traps and his diary contains the clues needed to pass them safely. Disguised as an SS officer, Indy recovers the diary from Elsa at a book burning rally in Berlin and comes face to face with Adolf Hitler, who autographs the book without recognizing it or him. Indy and Henry board a Zeppelin to leave Germany, but are forced to escape in its parasite biplane once the Nazis discover them aboard. A dogfight with Luftwaffe fighters ensues; although Indy and Henry are forced to crash-land, they survive and successfully bring down their pursuers. The two meet up with Sallah in Hatay, where they learn of Marcus's abduction. The Nazis have been equipped by the Sultan of Hatay and are already moving toward the Grail's location, using the map possessed by Marcus. Indy, Henry, and Sallah find the Nazi expedition, which is ambushed by the Brotherhood. During the battle, Henry is captured by Vogel while attempting to rescue Marcus from a tank; Kazim and his comrades are killed. Indy pursues the tank on horseback and, with the aid of Sallah, saves Henry and Marcus. He is caught up in a fight with Vogel, but escapes just before the tank goes over a cliff, sending Vogel to his death. Indy, Henry, Marcus, and Sallah catch up with the surviving Nazis, led by Donovan and Elsa, who have found the temple where the Holy Grail is kept but are unable to get past the first of three protective traps. Donovan shoots and mortally wounds Henry in order to force Indy to risk his life in the traps to find the Grail and use its healing power to save his father. Using the information in the diary and followed by Donovan and Elsa, Indy safely overcomes the traps (which include fast-moving saw blades, a word puzzle, and a hidden bridge over a bottomless pit) and reaches the Grail's chamber, which is guarded by a knight. He has been kept alive for 700 years by the power of the Grail, which is hidden among dozens of false grails; only the true Grail grants eternal life, while a false one will kill the drinker. Elsa intentionally selects a wrong cup for Donovan, causing him to rapidly age into dust after drinking from it. Indy drinks from a simple clay cup that proves to be the true Grail, but the knight warns that it cannot be taken out of the temple and that its guardian must stay within in order to remain immortal. Indy fills the Grail with holy water and brings it to Henry, healing him instantly. Elsa disregards the knight's warning and tries to take the Grail with her, causing the temple to collapse around them when she crosses the Great Seal set in the floor at the entrance. When the Grail falls into a chasm in the floor, Elsa plummets to her death trying to recover it, due to her being unable to let go of her obsession with it. Indy nearly suffers the same fate before Henry convinces him to leave it. The Joneses, Marcus, and Sallah escape the temple as the Grail Knight watches them leave, outside the temple Henry reveals to Indy that Elsa never really believed in the grail and they ride off into the sunset. ===== Early one morning, a taxi pulls up in front of Tiffany & Co. and from it emerges elegantly dressed Holly Golightly, carrying a paper bag containing her breakfast. After looking into its windows, she strolls to her apartment and has to fend off her date from the night before. Once inside, Holly cannot find her keys so she buzzes her landlord, Mr. Yunioshi, to let her in. Later, she is awakened by new neighbor Paul Varjak, who rings her doorbell to get into the building. The pair chat as she dresses to leave for her weekly visit to Sally Tomato, a mobster incarcerated at Sing Sing. Tomato's lawyer pays her $100 a week to deliver "the weather report". Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly As she is leaving, Holly is introduced to Paul's "decorator", wealthy older woman Emily Eustace Failenson, whom Paul nicknames "2E". That night, when Holly goes out onto the fire escape to elude an over-eager date, she peeks into Paul's apartment and sees 2E leaving money and kissing him goodbye. Holly visits Paul later and learns he is a writer who has not had anything published since a book of vignettes five years before. Holly, in turn, explains she is trying to save money to support her brother Fred after he completes his Army service. The pair fall asleep but are awakened when Holly has a nightmare about her brother. When Paul questions her about this, Holly chides him for prying. She later buys Paul a typewriter ribbon to apologize and invites him to a wild party at her apartment. There, Paul meets her Hollywood agent, who describes Holly's transformation from a country girl into a Manhattan socialite. He is also introduced to José da Silva Pereira, a wealthy Brazilian politician, and Rusty Trawler, the "ninth richest man in America under 50". The next day, 2E enters Paul's apartment, worried she is being followed. Paul tells her he will investigate and eventually confronts Doc Golightly, Holly's estranged husband. Doc explains that Holly's real name is Lula Mae Barnes and that they were married when she was approaching 14. Now he wants to take her back to rural Texas. After Paul reunites Holly and Doc, she informs Paul that the marriage was annulled. At the Greyhound bus station, she tells Doc she will not return with him, and he leaves broken-hearted. After drinking at a club, Paul and Holly return to her apartment, where she drunkenly tells him that she plans to marry Trawler for his money. A few days later, Paul learns that one of his short stories will be published. On the way to tell Holly, he sees a newspaper headline stating that Trawler has married someone else. Holly and Paul agree to spend the day together, taking turns doing things each has never done before. At Tiffany's, Paul has the ring from Doc Golightly's box of Cracker Jack engraved as a present for Holly. After spending the night together, he awakens to find her gone. When 2E arrives, Paul ends their relationship. She calmly accepts, having earlier concluded that he was in love with someone else. Holly now schemes to marry José for his money, but after she receives a telegram notifying her of her brother's death in a jeep accident she trashes her apartment. Months later, Paul is invited to dinner by Holly, who is leaving the next morning for Brazil to continue her relationship with José. However, Holly and Paul are arrested in connection with Sally Tomato's drug ring, and Holly spends the night in jail. The next morning, Holly is released on bail. Paul is waiting for her in a cab, bringing her cat and a letter from José explaining that he must end their relationship due to her arrest. Holly insists that she will go to Brazil anyway; she asks the cab to pull over and releases the cat into the pouring rain. Paul then storms out of the cab, tossing the engraved ring into her lap and telling her to examine her life. She goes through a decision-making moment, puts on the ring and runs after Paul, who has gone looking for the cat. Finally, Holly finds it sheltering in an alley and, with it tucked into her coat, she and Paul embrace. ===== A U. S. military station in Houston, the United States Decoding Service (U.S.D.S.), NASA Wing, has intercepted a message from outer space. After decoding, the message contains only the cryptic statement: "Mars ... Needs ... Women" Martians have developed a genetic deficiency that now produces only male children. A mission to Earth is launched, consisting of five Martian males, led by Dop (Tommy Kirk). Once here, their team intends to recruit Earth women to come to Mars to mate and produce female offspring, saving their civilization from extinction. Using their sophisticated transponder, Dop attempts to make contact with the U.S. military, which has now tracked the aliens' arrival on Earth. The military eventually views the Martians as invaders, so the team takes on the guise of Earth men, acquiring human clothes, money, maps, and transportation. They finally select their prospective candidates, setting their sights on four American women: a homecoming queen, a stewardess, a stripper, and, most especially, a Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist, Dr. Bolen (Yvonne Craig), an expert in "space genetics". Resorting to hypnosis, the women are captured, but Dop quickly becomes enamored with Dr. Bolen; soon he is ready to sabotage their mission for her. After the military discovers their hideout, the Martians are forced to return home without their female captives. Mars still needs women. ===== The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. When she is four, Nell's older brother Harv gives her a stolen copy of a highly sophisticated interactive book, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion, in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c.;, commissioned by the wealthy Neo- Victorian "Equity Lord" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw for his granddaughter, Elizabeth. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth Finkle- McGraw and Fiona Hackworth, Neo-Victorian girls who receive other copies. The Primer is intended to steer its reader intellectually toward a more interesting life, as defined by Lord Finkle-McGraw, and growing up to be an effective member of society. The most important quality to achieving an interesting life is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The Primer is designed to react to its owner's environment and teach them what they need to know to survive and develop. The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally-developed story lines: the social downfall of the nanotech engineer designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth, who makes an illegal copy of the Primer for his own young daughter, Fiona, and Nell's education through her independent work with the Primer after her brother Harv steals it from Hackworth. Hackworth's crime becomes known to Lord Finkle-McGraw and Dr. X, the black market engineer whose compiler Hackworth used to create the copy of the Primer, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance their opposing goals. A third storyline follows actress ("ractor") Miranda Redpath, who voices most of the Primer characters who interact with Nell and essentially becomes Nell's surrogate mother. Later Miranda's storyline is taken over by her boss, Carl Hollywood, after Miranda disappears in her quest to find Nell. Diamond Age also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. her four toy friends) onto archetypal folk tales stored in the primer's database. Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development, its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values of cultures (which Stephenson explores in his other novels as well) and the shortcomings in communication between them. ===== In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team board the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh to search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing only the necklace dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard Keldysh and tells Lovett of her experiences aboard Titanic. In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth board the luxurious Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage will resolve their family's financial problems and allow them to retain their upper-class status. Distraught over the engagement, Rose climbs over the stern and contemplates suicide; Jack Dawson, a poor artist, intervenes and discourages her. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells a concerned Cal that she was peering over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. Cal becomes indifferent, and it is suggested to him that Jack be rewarded; he invites Jack to dine with them in first-class. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, despite Cal, his valet Spicer Lovejoy, and Ruth, being wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third-class. Aware of Cal and Ruth's disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jack's advances, but later realizes she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her state room; at her request, Jack sketches Rose posing nude wearing Cal's engagement present, the Heart of the Ocean. They evade Lovejoy, and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear its officers and builder discussing its seriousness. Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and an insulting note from her in his safe along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose attempt to inform Cal of the collision, Cal retaliates by having Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack's pocket, accusing him of theft. Jack is arrested and restrained in the master-at-arms' office. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket. With the ship sinking, Rose flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat, and frees Jack. On the boat deck, Cal and Jack encourage her to board a lifeboat. While intending only to save himself, Cal claims he can ensure he and Jack get off safely. As her lifeboat lowers, Rose realizes she cannot leave Jack, and jumps back on board. Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up his ammunition, he relents. Cal realizes he gave his coat, and consequently the necklace, to Rose. He later boards a lifeboat by carrying a lost child. After braving several obstacles, Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. The lifeboats have departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, dropping the stern into the water. Jack and Rose climb onto the back of it, and ride it into the ocean. He helps her onto a wooden panel buoyant enough for only one person. He assures her that she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. Jack dies of hypothermia, but Rose is saved by a returning lifeboat. The RMS Carpathia later rescues the survivors; on board, Rose hides from Cal en route to New York City, where she gives her name as Rose Dawson. Rose says she later read that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Back in the present, Lovett decides to abandon his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes out the Heart of the Ocean, which was in her possession all along, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure. A young Rose reunites with Jack at Titanic Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died on the ship. ===== On July 2, 1996, an enormous mothership orbits around Earth, deploying assault fortress saucers, each with a fifteen- mile radius, that take positions over Earth's major cities. David Levinson, an MIT-trained satellite technician, decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions, realizing it is the aliens' countdown timer for a coordinated attack. With help from his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David and his father Julius gain access to the Oval Office and alert President Thomas Whitmore to the threat. Whitmore orders evacuations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., but it is too late. The saucers fire destructive beams, causing massive explosions that kill millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others narrowly escape aboard Air Force One as the capital is destroyed, along with the other locations over which the city-destroying warships are positioned. On July 3, counterattacks against the alien invaders begin worldwide, but their warships are shielded by force fields. Each saucer launches a swarm of attack fighters with their own shields as well, which decimate the human fighter squadrons and military bases. Captain Steven Hiller, one of the mission's squadron leaders with the United States Marine Corps based out of El Toro, survives by luring his attacker to the enclosed spaces of the Grand Canyon before ejecting from his plane safely, causing the enemy fighter to crash-land. He subdues the downed alien and flags down a convoy of refugees, hitching a ride with former combat pilot Russell Casse. They transport the unconscious alien to Area 51, where Whitmore's group has landed. Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki has revealed that a faction of the government has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947, when one of the invaders' attack fighters crashed in Roswell. Area 51 houses the now-refurbished alien fighter, and three alien corpses recovered from the crash. As scientist Dr. Brackish Okun examines the alien captured by Steven, it regains consciousness and attacks, telepathically invading Okun's mind and killing other personnel. It uses Okun's vocal cords to communicate before launching a psychic attack against Whitmore. After Secret Service agents and military personnel kill the alien, Whitmore reveals what he learned when they were linked: the invaders plan to strip Earth of natural resources. He reluctantly authorizes a nuclear attack against one warship situated above Houston as a trial, but it remains intact. Meanwhile, Steven's fiancée Jasmine Dubrow and her son, having survived the destruction of Los Angeles, rescue other survivors, including the critically injured First Lady, Marilyn. Though they are later found by Steven and taken to Area 51, Marilyn dies shortly after being reunited with her family. On July 4, David writes a computer virus as a means to deactivate the aliens' shields, and devises a plan to do this by uploading it into the mothership from the refurbished alien fighter, which Steven volunteers to pilot. The U.S. military contacts surviving airborne squadrons around the world through Morse code to organize a united counter- offense against the aliens. With military pilots in short supply, Whitmore enlists the help of volunteers with flight experience, including Russell, to fly the remaining jets at Area 51; and leads an attack on a warship bearing down on the base. Entering the mothership, Steven and David upload the virus and deploy a nuclear missile on board, nullifying the aliens' communications system and reinforcements after the ship is destroyed. With the aliens' shields deactivated, Whitmore's squadron is able to combat the enemy fighters, but their ammunition is exhausted before they can destroy the saucer. As it prepares to fire on the base, Russell has one last missile, but is unable to fire due to a launcher malfunction; he sacrifices his own life by crashing his jet with the missile into the saucer's weapon, which destroys the warship completely. Human military forces worldwide are notified of the alien ships' critical point and successfully destroy the others. As humanity is rejoicing in victory, Steven and David return to Area 51 unharmed and reunite with their families. ===== A massive meteor shower destroys the orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis, before entering the atmosphere and bombarding New York City. NASA discovers that the meteors were pushed out of the asteroid belt by a rogue comet that jarred loose a Texas-sized asteroid that will impact Earth in 18 days, causing an extinction level event that will wipe out all life on the planet. NASA scientists plan to drill a deep shaft into the asteroid and plant a nuclear weapon into it that, when detonated, will split the asteroid into two halves that will fly safely past Earth. NASA contacts Harry Stamper, considered the best deep sea oil driller in the world, for assistance. Harry departs for Houston with his daughter Grace, where they are told about the asteroid and Harry agrees to participate in the mission, but explains that he will need his team as well, including Chick, Rockhound, Max, Oscar, Bear, Noonan and Grace's lover A.J. to whom Grace gets engaged shortly before the mission. They also agree to help, but only after their unusual list of demands are met. As NASA puts Harry and his crew through 12 days of rigorous astronaut training at the Johnson Space Center, Harry and his team re-outfit the mobile drillers, named "Armadillos", they will use on the asteroid. When a piece of the asteroid wipes out part of Shanghai, NASA is forced to reveal their plans to the world. Two advanced Space Shuttles, called Freedom and Independence, are launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once in orbit, the shuttles dock with the Russian space station Mir manned by Lev Andropov to refuel. A fire breaks out during the fuel transfer and the station is evacuated before it explodes, with Lev and A.J. making a narrow escape. 60 hours later the shuttles slingshot around the far side of the Moon to land on the rear of the asteroid. As they travel through the asteroid's debris field, Independence's hull is punctured and crashes, with most of its crew killed. Grace, watching from Mission Control, is distraught by A.J.'s apparent death. Freedom lands safely, but misses the target area, meaning the team must now drill through a thicker crust of compressed iron ferrite. When they fall behind schedule and communications threaten to fail, the military initiates "Secondary Protocol"; to remotely detonate the weapon on the asteroid's surface. As this would be ineffective, NASA executive Dan Truman and his team delays the military at Mission Control, while Harry persuades the shuttle commander Colonel Sharp to disarm the bomb so they can complete the drilling. After the mission is resumed, the Freedom Armadillo strikes a methane gas pocket and is blown into space, killing Max. With the mission presumed lost, worldwide panic ensues and martial law is declared in many countries, just before another meteorite destroys Paris. However, A.J., Lev, and Bear, having survived the Independence crash, arrive in Independence's Armadillo in time to complete the drilling. As the asteroid approaches Earth, the surviving crew is struck by a rock storm, which kills Gruber and damages the bomb's remote trigger, meaning someone must stay behind to detonate it manually. After the non-flight crew draw straws, A.J. is selected. As he and Harry exit the airlock, Harry rips off A.J.'s air hose and shoves him back inside, telling him he is the son he never had and would be proud to have him marry Grace. Before preparing to detonate the bomb, Harry contacts Grace to say his last goodbyes. After last-minute difficulties, Freedom moves to a safe distance and Harry successfully pushes the button at the last second, detonating the nuclear weapon and splitting the asteroid in two at the cost of his own life. Both halves safely fly past Earth. Freedom lands, and the surviving crew return as heroes. Sometime later A.J. and Grace are married, with portraits of Harry and the other lost crew members present in memoriam. ===== Most of the novels in the series are action and sexual adventures, with many of the military engagements borrowing liberally from historic ones, such as the trireme battles of ancient Greece and the castle sieges of medieval Europe. Ar, the largest city in known Gor, has resemblances to the ancient city of Rome, and its land empire is opposed by the sea-power of the island of Cos. The series is an overlapping of planetary romance and sword and planet. The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, opens with scenes reminiscent of scenes in the first book of the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs; both feature the protagonist narrating his adventures after being transported to another world. These parallels end after the first few books, when the stories of the books begin to be structured along a loose story arc involving the struggles of the city-state of Ar and the island of Cos to control the Vosk river area, as well as the struggles at a higher level between the non-human Priest-Kings and the Kurii (another alien race) to control Gor and Earth. Personal flag of Bosk of Port Kar (a.k.a. Tarl Cabot of Bristol), the main narrator of the Gor books Most of the books are narrated by transplanted British professor Tarl Cabot, master swordsman, as he engages in adventures involving Priest-Kings, Kurii, and humans. Books 7, 11, 19, 22, 26, 27, 31, 34 and parts of 32 are narrated by abducted Earth women who are made into slaves. Books 14, 15, and 16 are narrated by male abductee Jason Marshall. Book 28 is narrated by an unknown Kur, but features Tarl Cabot. Book 30 and parts of 32 are narrated by three Gorean men: a mariner, a scribe and a merchant/slaver. The series features several sentient alien races. The most important to the books are the insectoid Priest-Kings and the huge, sharp- clawed, predatory Kurii, both spacefarers from foreign star systems. The Priest-Kings rule Gor as disinterested custodians, leaving humans to their own affairs as long as they abide by certain restrictions on technology. The Kurii are an aggressive, invasive race with advanced technology (but less so than that of the Priest-Kings) who wish to colonize both Gor and Earth. The power of the Priest-Kings is diminished after the "Nest War" described in the third book and the Priest-Kings and Kurii struggle against each other via their respective human agents and spies. Early entries in the series were plot- driven space opera adventures, but later entries grew more philosophical and sexual. Many subplots run the course of several books and tie back to the main plot in later books. Some of these plots begin in the first book, but most are underway in the first 10 books. ===== ===== The story of Radiant Silvergun is told non-linearly through animated videos and scripted dialogue between stages. In the year 2520, scientists on Earth have unearthed a giant crystal along with a robot bearing the same serial number as another robot called "Creator" on the Tetra spaceship orbiting around Earth. After the crystal begins summoning enemies to attack Earth, fighter pilots on Tetra board their Silvergun fighters and fly down through the atmosphere to save what they can of the planet. The Silvergun pilots fight through hordes of enemies until they eventually reach the crystal which they destroy. The crystal explodes, engulfing the Earth in a large explosion and killing all humans. 20 years later, the Creator uses DNA from the pilots of the Silverguns to create clones and start humanity anew, bringing the story into a loop. ===== ===== ===== ===== AVALANCHE destroys a Shinra Mako reactor in Midgar; an attack on another reactor goes wrong, and Cloud falls into the city slums. There, he meets Aerith and protects her from Shinra. Meanwhile, Shinra finds AVALANCHE and collapses part of the upper city, killing most of AVALANCHE along with the slum population below. Aerith is also captured; as a Cetra, she can potentially reveal the "Promised Land", which Shinra believes is overflowing with exploitable Lifestream energy. Cloud, Barret, and Tifa rescue Aerith; during their escape from Midgar, they discover that President Shinra was murdered by Sephiroth, who was presumed dead five years earlier. The party pursues Sephiroth across the Planet, with now- President Rufus on their trail. The group begins to encounter Sephiroth during their journey, who continuously appears and disappears after taunting Cloud and sending Jenova-esque monsters after him. Finding him at a Cetra temple, Sephiroth reveals his intentions to use the Black Materia to summon "Meteor", a spell that will hit the Planet with a devastating impact. Sephiroth will absorb the Lifestream as it attempts to heal the wound, becoming a god-like being. The party retrieves the Black Materia, but Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into surrendering it. Aerith departs alone to stop Sephiroth, following him to an abandoned Cetra city. During Aerith's prayer to the Planet for help, Sephiroth attempts to force Cloud to kill her; failing, he kills her himself before fleeing and leaving the Black Materia behind. The party then learns that Jenova is not a Cetra as once thought. Rather, it is a hostile alien lifeform whose remains were unearthed by Shinra scientists decades earlier; at Nibelheim, Jenova's cells were used to create Sephiroth. At the Northern Crater, the party learns that the "Sephiroths" they have encountered are Jenova clones created by the insane Shinra scientist Hojo. Confronting the real Sephiroth as he is killing his clones to reunite Jenova's cells, Cloud is again manipulated into delivering the Black Materia. Sephiroth then taunts Cloud by showing another SOLDIER in Cloud's place in his memories of Nibelheim, suggesting that Cloud is a failed Sephiroth clone. Sephiroth summons Meteor and seals the Crater; Cloud falls into the Lifestream and the party is captured by Rufus. Escaping Shinra, the party discovers Cloud at an island hospital in a catatonic state from Mako poisoning; Tifa stays as his caretaker. When the island is attacked by a planetary defense force called Weapon, the two fall into the Lifestream, where Tifa helps Cloud reconstruct his memories: a shy child during his time in Nibelheim, Cloud was blamed when a young Tifa injured herself trying to cross Mt. Nibel. Resolving to become stronger, Cloud leaves for Midgar to join SOLDIER but was never accepted into the organization; the SOLDIER in his memories was his friend Zack. At Nibelheim, Cloud surprised and wounded Sephiroth after the latter's mental breakdown, but Jenova preserved Sephiroth's life. Hojo experimented on Cloud and Zack for four years, injecting them with Jenova's cells and Mako; they escaped, but Zack was eventually killed. The combined trauma of these events triggered an identity crisis in Cloud; he constructed a false persona around Zack's stories and his own fantasies. Cloud accepts his past and reunites with the party, who learn that Aerith's prayer to the Planet had been successful: the Planet had attempted to summon Holy to prevent Meteor's impact, but Sephiroth blocked Holy. Shinra fails to destroy Meteor but manages to defeat a Weapon and puncture the Northern Crater, costing the lives of Rufus and other personnel. After killing Hojo, who is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father, the party descends to the Planet's core through the opening in the Northern Crater and defeats both Jenova and Sephiroth. The party escapes and Holy is summoned, which destroys Meteor with the help of the Lifestream. Five hundred years later, Red XIII is seen with two cubs looking out over the ruins of Midgar, which are now covered in greenery, showing the planet has healed. ===== Squall and Seifer spar each other while training outside Balamb Garden. Meanwhile, the Republic of Galbadia invades the Dollet Dukedom, forcing Dollet to hire SeeD. The school uses the mission as a final exam for its cadets; with the help of his instructor, Quistis, Squall passes the mission's prerequisite and is grouped with Seifer and Zell. Selphie replaces Seifer mid-mission when the latter disobeys orders and abandons his team. SeeD halts the Galbadian advance; Squall, Zell, and Selphie graduate to SeeD status, but Seifer is disciplined for his disobedience. During the graduation party, Squall meets Rinoa, whose personality is the opposite of his. When assigned with Zell and Selphie to help Rinoa's resistance in Galbadian-occupied Timber, Squall learns that Sorceress Edea is behind Galbadia's recent hostilities. Under orders from Garden, Squall and his comrades—joined by Rinoa, Quistis, and Irvine—attempt to assassinate Edea. During the effort, Squall's party also learns that Seifer has left Garden to become Edea's second-in-command. Edea survives the attempt, stabs Squall in the shoulder with an ice shard, and detains the party. After Squall's party escapes, Edea destroys Trabia Garden in a retaliatory missile strike and prepares to attack Balamb Garden. Selphie delays the launch while Squall's team returns to Balamb Garden and activates its mobile functions to evade the missiles. Garden cannot be controlled, however, and it crashes into the docks at Fishermans' Horizon. While Garden is being repaired, Galbadia invades the town in search of a girl named Ellone, who had been staying at Balamb Garden. Before leaving, Ellone reveals that she has been "sending" Squall and his team into flashbacks set 17 years earlier in a vain effort to alter history. The scenes center on Laguna and his friends as he evolves from Galbadian soldier (where he shared a crush with Rinoa's future mother Julia) to village protector (where he served as caretaker to Ellone alongside a bartender named Raine) to leader of an Estharian resistance against Sorceress Adel. Ellone eventually escapes to Esthar, the world's technological superpower. Meanwhile, Squall confronts his personal anxieties fueled by ongoing developments, such as Headmaster Cid appointing him as SeeD's new leader and his increasing attraction to Rinoa. Squall and his comrades learn that they, along with Seifer and Ellone, were all raised (except for Rinoa) in an orphanage run by Edea; after eventual separation, they later developed amnesia due to their use of Guardian Forces. Cid and Edea had established Garden and SeeD primarily to defeat corrupt sorceresses. After these revelations, the forces of Balamb Garden defeat the Galbadian Army, led by Seifer, aboard Galbadia Garden. Edea is also defeated by SeeD; however, the party learns that Edea is merely an unwilling host for Ultimecia, who planned to use Ellone to help achieve time compression. Ultimecia transfers her powers to Rinoa; Edea survives, but Rinoa enters a coma. Squall travels to Esthar to find Ellone, as he believes that she can help save Rinoa. While Rinoa is being treated on Esthar's space station, Ultimecia uses her to free Adel from an orbital prison. Ultimecia then orders Seifer to activate the Lunatic Pandora facility, inciting a Lunar Cry that sends Adel's containment device to the planet. Having selected Adel as her next host, Ultimecia abandons Rinoa in outer space. Squall rescues her, and they return to the planet on a derelict starship and share a romantic moment; Ellone is captured by Galbadia shortly thereafter. After landing, the party encounters Laguna, now President of Esthar; he reveals Dr. Odine's plan to allow Ultimecia to cast time compression on their terms so that Ellone can send SeeD into Ultimecia's time period. At Lunatic Pandora, Squall's team defeats Seifer, rescues Ellone, and kills Adel; Ultimecia possesses Rinoa and begins casting time compression. Ellone sends Squall's team into Ultimecia's era, where she is defeated in a fierce battle before time compression can be fully achieved. A dying Ultimecia travels back in time to pass her powers to Edea, but Squall inadvertently informs Edea of the concepts of Garden and SeeD that she will create. Squall is lost in the flow of time as he witnesses the origins of the game's story, sporadic apparitions of Rinoa, and a faceless portrait of himself. Rinoa manages to find Squall, but he is unresponsive. In the end, a repentant Seifer reunites with Raijin and Fujin, Laguna and his friends visit his lover's grave who turns out to be Raine, who died giving birth to their child, hinted to be Squall. Laguna thinks about the moment when he proposed to her. The SeeD celebrates at Balamb Garden, and it is revealed that Squall did, in fact, survive the time compression. Squall and Rinoa share a kiss under the moonlight. ===== In Alexandria, Zidane and Tantalus kidnap Princess Garnet by order of Cid. Garnet does not resist, for she was already planning to flee and warn Cid of Queen Brahne's increasingly erratic behavior.Garnet: I am actually ... Princess Garnet til Alexandros, heir to the throne of Alexandria. I have a favour I wish to ask of you ... I wish to be kidnapped ...right away. Vivi and Steiner join the party during the escape. En route to Lindblum, the group discovers that Brahne is using a village to manufacture soulless black mage soldiers that look similar to Vivi. In Lindblum, Cid confirms that he hired the group to protect Garnet from Brahne's newfound aggression. After learning that Alexandria has invaded Burmecia with the black mages, Zidane and Vivi team up with Freya to investigate, while Garnet and Steiner secretly return to Alexandria to reason with Brahne.Dagger: I have to help Mother ... I don't want to see anything happen to her ... / Steiner: Very well. Princess, I will follow you wherever you choose. Zidane's team finds that the Alexandrian forces, headed by Beatrix, the head of Brahne's knights, conquered Burmecia with help from Kuja, and the refugees have fled to Cleyra. Brahne imprisons Garnet and extracts her eidolons;Queen Brahne: Zorn, Thorn! Prepare to extract the eidolons from Garnet. she uses one to destroy Cleyra while Zidane's group is defending the city. The party escapes on Brahne's airship, rendezvous with Steiner, and rescues Garnet. Meanwhile, Brahne cripples Lindblum with another eidolon.Minister Artania: Yes, Princess. The castle was spared. Regent Cid is alive. Cid explains that Kuja is supplying Brahne with the black mages and knowledge to use eidolons. The party befriends Quina and tracks Kuja to the Outer Continent, a land mostly devoid of Mist and thus inaccessible by airship.Regent Cid: I believe Kuja is the only one supplying Brahne with weapons.Minister Artania: That he came from the north suggests he's from the Outer Continent. Brahne hires a pair of bounty hunters, Lani and Amarant, to follow the party and bring Garnet back to Alexandria. On the Outer Continent, the party defeats Lani and meets Eiko, a summoner who lives with a group of moogles in the otherwise empty summoner village of Madain Sari. Eiko leads Zidane and the others to the Iifa Tree. Inside, they learn that Kuja uses Mist to create the black mages, and that Vivi was a prototype.Zidane: What kind of weapons did Kuja make? / Soulcage: Kuja called them black mages, dark spawn of the Mist. The party defeats the source of the Mist within the Tree, and the substance clears from the Mist Continent. While waiting for Kuja's reprisal at Madain Sari, Lani and Amarant attempt to kidnap Eiko but are foiled by Zidane and the moogles. Amarant then challenges Zidane to a duel and loses. He then joins the party, and Garnet learns of her summoner heritage. Kuja arrives at the Tree, but Brahne also appears and attempts to kill Kuja with an eidolon so she can rule unopposed; he takes control of it and destroys her and her army.Queen Brahne: Kuja! So you finally decided to show your girly face here! You're all that stands between me and total domination!Kuja: Excellent, Bahamut! Power, mobility ... You truly are the best! You even hurt me ... a little. And you, Brahne ... Your tragic role in this drama now comes to an end! After Garnet's coronation, Kuja attacks Alexandria castle.Kuja: What an auspicious day for Alexandria. Dagger's accession to the throne has brought hope and peace to this kingdom. The people are overjoyed; they believe a wonderful future is ahead of them ... But the celebration isn't over yet. It's time to really light things up! Your former master is here, Bahamut. Play a requiem for her and all of Alexandria! Garnet and Eiko summon an extremely powerful eidolon in defense; Kuja attempts to steal the eidolon as a means to kill his master, Garland, but the latter arrives and destroys it.Garland: You have gone too far, Kuja. I granted you the freedom to do as you wish in Gaia for one purpose alone. Now that you have lost sight of your mission, I will no longer tolerate your actions.Kuja: I need an eidolon more powerful than Alexander! An eidolon with the power to bury Garland! His powers are so incredible; I cannot even come close. I must destroy him before Terra's plan is activated, or my soul will no longer be my own! Seeking to stop the quarreling villains, the party chases Kuja on an airship from Cid that runs on steam rather than the now-cleared Mist. They eventually unlock a portal to Terra, where the goals of the antagonists are revealed. The Terrans created Garland to merge the dying world with Gaia; Garland, in turn, created self- aware, soulless vessels called Genomes.Garland: I constructed the Genomes to be vessels for the souls of the people of Terra when they awaken. For millennia, Garland has been using the Iifa Tree to replace deceased Gaian souls with the hibernating Terran souls, turning the former into Mist in the process; this will allow the Terrans to be reborn into the Genomes after the planetary merge.Garland: the Iifa Tree blocks the flow of Gaia's souls, while it lets those of Terra flow freely.Garland: The role of the Iifa Tree is that of Soul Divider. The Mist you see comprises the stagnant souls of Gaia ... Kuja and Zidane are Genomes created to accelerate this process by bringing war and chaos to Gaia.Zidane: So ... Kuja is just an angel of death who sends souls to the Tree of Iifa. / Garland: Yes, my angel of death. But only until you came of age. Kuja had betrayed Garland to avoid becoming occupied by a Terran soul. Kuja defeats Garland, who reveals before dying that the former has a limited lifespan anyhow: Zidane was designed to be his replacement.Garland: There's a limit to your life ... You'll be dead soon ... Even as I die, you'll have died without ever leaving your mark on the world ... Enraged, Kuja destroys Terra and escapes to the Iifa Tree. At the Iifa tree, the party enters Memoria and reaches the origin of the universe: the Crystal World. They defeat Kuja, preventing him from destroying the original crystal of life and thus the universe.Kuja: It's the original crystal ... This is where it all began ... The birthplace of all things ... Once I destroy it, everything will be gone. Gaia, Terra, the universe, everything ... After defeating Necron, a force of death,Necron: I exist for one purpose ... To return everything back to the zero world, where there is no life and no crystal to give life. the Tree is destroyed; the party flees, while Zidane stays behind to rescue Kuja.Zidane: ... Kuja's still alive. I can't just leave him. One year later, the cast's fate is revealed: Tantalus arrives in Alexandria to put on a performance; Vivi has implicitly died (as the Black Mages were not designed to live longer than a year), but he has left behind a number of identical "sons"; Freya and Fratley are rebuilding Burmecia; Eiko has been adopted by Cid; Quina works in the castle's kitchen; Amarant and Lani are travelling together; and Garnet presides as queen of Alexandria, with Steiner and Beatrix as her guards. In the climax of Tantalus's performance, the lead actor reveals himself as Zidane in disguise and is reunited with Queen Garnet.Robed performer: I beseech thee, wondrous moonlight, grant me my only wish! [removes robe, revealing himself as - ] Zidane: Bring my beloved Dagger to me! ===== ===== ===== Standing in front of the tower, the hero and party learn that they cannot climb it to paradise without first unsealing its base door. In the base world, three kings named Armor, Sword, and Shield fight for dominance using a piece of legendary equipment corresponding to their names. Visiting King Armor, the party learns that he is in love with a girl who returns his feelings, but cannot marry him, as a bandit holds her village hostage in return for her love. They defeat the bandit, and the king gives them his armor in gratitude. King Sword attacks the heroes, who vanquish him and take the sword. Lastly, King Shield is murdered by his own steward, and after a short fight, the party recovers his shield. Restoring the items to a statue of a great hero, they receive the Black Sphere, but are attacked by Gen-bu, the first of four fiends controlled by Ashura. They defeat him and use the power of the Sphere to enter the tower.Square Co. pp. 47-74. The Final Fantasy Legend, instruction manual, Retrieved on 2009-06-04. They climb the tower and come to another door; inside lies a second world surrounded by large bodies of water. By navigating caves, they find a floating island which allows them to travel around the world by air.Square Co. pp. 75-78. The Final Fantasy Legend, instruction manual, Retrieved on 2009-06-05. They locate an old man, Ryu-O, and solve his riddle to obtain the Airseed, allowing them to breathe underwater and enter the undersea palace. They encounter the second fiend, Sei-ryu; they defeat him and recover half of the second sphere. Upon returning to Ryu-O, he reveals himself to be the guardian of the other half of the sphere, and the two halves form the Blue Sphere. Using the Blue Sphere to continue up the tower, the party comes to a world of clouds, dominated by Byak-ko and an army of thugs. They learn that Byak-ko recently wiped out an underground resistance movement, except for Millie and Jeanne, the two daughters of its leader. The party temporarily joins Byak-ko's gang to find the girls, and attempt to defend them until Millie betrays Jeanne and the party is captured. Breaking free, they confront the fiend, who tries to kill Millie; Jeanne takes the blow and the party engages the fiend. They defeat him, recover the White Sphere, and continue their journey. The fourth world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland; Su-Zaku roams the surface defended by an impenetrable forcefield. The party retreats to an abandoned subway for refuge and meets Sayaka, who directs them to the nearest town. There the party is confronted by the leader of a biker gang, So-Cho, but his sister Sayaka intervenes and the two groups agree to work together to defeat Su-Zaku. As they gather the needed parts for a device to deactivate the forcefield, So-Cho sacrifices his life to guide the party through an atomic power plant. Beasts then ambush the town, and Su-Zaku kidnaps Sayaka. The party defeats Su-Zaku, earns the Red Sphere and travels on. Climbing the tower, the party discovers the remains of a family that attempted to reach Paradise but failed, and a library suggesting Ashura is controlled by someone else. They encounter him at the top, guarding the final door; he offers each of them control of one of the worlds, but they refuse and defeat him. Before they can pass through the door, a trap drops them to the bottom floor. Encountering the allies they made along their journey, they decide to rescale the tower. As they climb stairs that wrap outside of the tower, they engage each of the fiends revived and defeat them. They find the Creator at the summit, and learn that the fiends and the tower itself are actually part of a game created by him to see heroes defeat evil; for succeeding they would be granted a wish as a reward. Angry at his manipulation, they reject the reward and challenge the Creator, who insists that because he created everything he was allowed to use them as he saw fit. They then attack and defeat the Creator in a fierce battle. The heroes then discover a door leading to an unknown location; they consider entering, but decide to return to their own world. ===== The Hero (named by the player, officially called Sumo) is a prisoner of the Dark Lord. One day, the Hero's friend informs him of the Dark Lord's goals, and he urges him to seek a Knight named Bogard. As the Hero escapes imprisonment, he learns that the Dark Lord is seeking a key to the Mana Sanctuary in order to control the Mana Tree, an energy source that sustains life. The Hero is befriended by the Heroine (named by the player, officially called Fuji) who is also seeking Bogard. The two find Bogard, who recommends they seek out a man named Cibba. During their journey to meet him, the Heroine is kidnapped. With the aid of a mysterious man, she is later rescued by the Hero. When they meet Cibba, he plays a message left by the Heroine's mother, who reveals she is a descendant of the guardians of the Mana Tree and her pendant is the key to it. The mysterious man, upon discovering that the heroine holds the pendant, reveals himself to be Julius, the Dark Lord's advisor, and kidnaps her. The Hero then attempts to rescue the Heroine, but he fails and is knocked off of Julius's airship. However, the Heroine gives the Hero the pendant just before he falls. The Hero is then reunited with Amanda, an escapee from his prison, who steals the pendant in order to win her brother Lester's freedom. The mayor of Jadd, Davias, takes the pendant, but he transforms Lester into a parrot. The Hero and Amanda confront a Medusa for its tear, which will break the spell. They kill it, but Amanda is infected by the Medusa's attack, causing her to transform into one herself. The Hero reluctantly kills her, and uses her tears to break Lester's spell. Lester avenges Amanda's death by killing Davias, who reveals that he gave the pendant to the Dark Lord. The Hero confronts and defeats the Dark Lord; however, Hero discovers that the Heroine is under Julius' mind control and has opened the entrance to the Mana Tree. Julius reveals he is the last survivor of the Vandole empire, the empire who attempted to control the Mana Tree years ago, and handily defeats the Hero. Realizing he is powerless to defeat Julius, the Hero learns from Cibba about a powerful sword called Excalibur. Cibba helps him find the Excalibur only to find a rusty Sword instead. He explains that the rusty sword is the Excalibur and would reveal its true strength to whoever it finds worthy. The Hero then raises Dime Tower to reach the Mana Sanctuary and meets a robot known as Marcie. After reaching the top, the tower begins to collapse and Marcie sacrifices himself by throwing the Hero across. After obtaining and passing the sword's trials, the Hero confronts and defeats Julius at the cost of the Mana Tree's life. The Heroine's mother reveals she is the current Mana Tree and before dying, asks the Heroine to succeed her position. The Heroine agrees and bids farewell to the Hero as she becomes the next Mana Tree and the Hero her guardian. ===== ===== The story is set in Paris in 1482 during the reign of Louis XI. The gypsy Esmeralda (born as Agnes) captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, but especially Quasimodo and his guardian Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust for Esmeralda and the rules of Notre Dame Cathedral. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but Quasimodo is captured by Phoebus and his guards, who save Esmeralda. Gringoire, who attempted to help Esmeralda but was knocked out by Quasimodo, is about to be hanged by beggars when Esmeralda saves him by agreeing to marry him for four years. The following day, Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for two hours, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, approaches the public stocks and offers him a drink of water. It saves him, and she captures his heart. Later, Esmeralda is arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him trying to seduce Esmeralda. She is sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre-Dame and carries her off to the cathedral, temporarily protecting her – under the law of sanctuary – from arrest. Frollo later informs Gringoire that the Court of Parlement has voted to remove Esmeralda's right to the sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the cathedral and will be taken away to be killed. Clopin, the leader of the gypsies, hears the news from Gringoire and rallies the citizens of Paris to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. When Quasimodo sees the gypsies, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the king's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged. When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the height of Notre Dame to his death. With nothing left to live for, Quasimodo vanishes and is never seen again. In the original, Quasimodo's skeleton is found many years later in the charnel house, a mass grave into which the bodies of the destitute and of criminals were indiscriminately thrown, implying that Quasimodo had sought Esmeralda among the decaying corpses and lay beside her, himself to die. As the guards attempt to pull the embracing skeletons apart, they both crumble into dust. ===== Set during a war between the 'Starmen (inhabitants of the planet Lilistar) and six-limbed insectoid creatures called the reegs, Now Wait for Last Year is the story of Eric Sweetscent, an organ-transplant doctor who gets wrapped up in Earth-Lilistar politics. At the onset of the story, Sweetscent is the personal org-trans surgeon for Virgil Ackerman, the president of Tijuana Fur & Dye. Using an extraterrestrial amoeba which can imitate the cell-structure of anything it touches, TF&D; had been the largest manufacturer of synthetic furs on the planet. But like all major corporations on Earth, TF&D; has been requisitioned to produce for the war effort. Ackerman invites Sweetscent to "Wash-35", a recreation of his boyhood native Washington DC in a simulated 1935 and his vacation getaway on Mars, where he announces an ulterior motive in the retreat. Waiting for them when they arrive is a guest—Gino Molinari, the elected leader of Earth. Known as "the Mole", he is rumored to have the enigmatic ability to come back from the dead, and he has requested the services of Sweetscent. Ackerman gladly passes Sweetscent on to Molinari. Meanwhile, Sweetscent's wife, Kathy, tries JJ-180, a new hallucinogenic drug which proves to be highly toxic and addictive. The effects of JJ-180 are not clear at first, however, only hours off of it, Kathy finds herself unable to function and violently craving JJ-180 again. She is visited by 'Starmen who claim the reegs invented JJ-180 as a chemical weapon against the 'Starmen and Terrans, also stating that there is no known cure for the drug's addiction and 'That's why we put you on it'. Kathy is now a slave to JJ-180. The 'Starmen inform Kathy of her husband's new position with Molinari and suspect the latter's possible defection to the reegs. Kathy is promised more JJ-180 if she agrees to spy on her husband for Lilistar. Threatened with deportation, Kathy capitulates and agrees to their terms. Eventually, she takes a second dose of the drug as her ability to function becomes nearly impossible due to the effects of the withdrawal. Jumping into a taxi-cab, both she and the cab are plunged back in time to the 1930s. As the effects of the drug wear off, they slowly make their way back to the present time, uncertain as to whether the past they visited was their own or an alternate one. An increasingly paranoid Kathy sets off to visit her husband. Under his new employer Eric Sweetscent is let in on certain State secrets: Molinari seems to have a psychosomatic condition that mirrors any illness or disease of anyone in his vicinity. The effects of this condition appear to be real, yet the Mole pulls through every time, always returning from the brink of death. Molinari, like everyone else, has realized that in siding with the 'Starmen Earth has doomed itself to the wrong side of a losing war. However, there does not seem to be any safe way of defecting to the reegs, and Molinari fears that his deteriorating health will not instill confidence in the Terrans should the 'Starmen retaliate, as they are certain to do. Sweetscent is shown footage of a healthier, younger Molinari in uniform and is led to believe that an android look-alike of the President has been created for public appearances, a notion that does not account for the fact that there is at least one other Molinari on the premises, a bullet-ridden corpse that is being preserved for use in the event of certain possible future developments. Kathy arrives to inform her husband of her addiction, and in an effort to motivate him to find a cure she slips a pill of JJ-180 into his drink. Without enough time to be furious, Eric slips a year into the future of an alternate world where his colleagues inform him that he disappeared the day Kathy came to visit. Sweetscent also witnesses that in the new timeline Earth has sided with the reegs and Lilistar has lost the war. Upon returning to the present of his own timeline, Sweetscent is eager to present this information to Molinari, who reveals that he too has been taking JJ-180, and that the effect is different for each user. Certain users are sent to the past, while others are sent to the future. Each trip is in an alternate universe, and therefore no one can effectively change their own past or future. However, aside from minor details, events in all observed universes seem to be moving in the same direction, and therefore, information obtained from one alternate world's future will most likely be applicable to another. In Molinari's case he slips sideways in time under the drug's influence and is able to pull alternate versions of his present self into his own timeline and then keep them there. Having learned the secret to Molinari's alter-aliases as well as confirming the feasibility of an alliance with the reegs, Eric takes a larger dose of JJ-180 which propels him further into the future. While there, he obtains a cure for JJ-180's addiction, an item of wide accessibility in the future, as well as obtaining more information about the possible future of the war in his own timeline. He also gathers information as to the effects of JJ-180 on the brain as he is increasingly worried about Kathy's mental condition. Taking a fraction of a pill so as to not immediately return to his own time, Eric again ends up one year in his own future where the 'Starmen have occupied Earth after learning of the Terrans' defection to the reegs. He is arrested by a 'Star patrol but saved by his future self, who informs him that Ackerman and the rest of the crew at TF&D; have taken a stand against Lilistar, using Ackerman's getaway on Mars as their hideout. Now knowing the general future history of the next few years, Eric returns to his own time where his wife's mental condition is deteriorating every day. He resolves to check her into a clinic and is sent into deep reflection about the nature of their relationship. Feeling that he would be justified, he attempts to arrange an affair with a younger girl at Molinari's recommendation. However, he backs out of it and begins to slip into a deep depression while reflecting on his life. He goes to Mexico to purchase poison with which to commit suicide. Deciding against it at the last second, Eric watches as the 'Starmen begin their invasion of Earth. Deciding that he is destined to join Ackerman's resistance against the 'Starmen, Eric enters an automated cab bound for TF&D;, asking it what it would do if its wife suffered from brain-damage without possibility of recovery (which Eric had confirmed by contacting his future self). After pointing out that robots do not marry, the cab hypothetically concludes that it would stay with her. Life, argues the cab, is made up of a series of circumstances, different for each person. To leave one's wife would be to say that he requires a uniquely easier set of circumstances than what has been provided. That reasoning, to the cab, was an irrational way of thinking. Eric agrees and decides to stay with his wife despite the challenges presented by her condition, and in the closing paragraph is commended by the cab for being a 'good man'. Category:1966 American novels Category:Novels by Philip K. Dick Category:1966 science fiction novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Doubleday (publisher) books Category:Novels about time travel ===== On Halloween in the seaside town of Wells Harbor, Maine, Rynn Jacobs is celebrating her thirteenth birthday alone in her father Lester's house. Lester was a poet and the two recently moved from England, where he leased the house for three years. Frank Hallet, the adult son of landlady Cora Hallet, visits and makes sexual advances toward Rynn. Cora Hallet later arrives at the house, searching for Rynn's father. Rynn claims he is in New York and taunts the landlady about her son. The situation becomes more tense when Mrs. Hallet insists on retrieving her jelly glasses from the cellar. Rynn steadfastly refuses to let her into the cellar, and Mrs. Hallet leaves. She returns later and ignoring Rynn's warnings, opens the trap door to go into the cellar. Suddenly terrified by something she sees, Mrs. Hallet attempts to flee, but accidentally knocks down the cellar door support, fatally hitting her head on the door. Trying to hide evidence of Mrs. Hallet's visit, Rynn goes outside to move her car. Her inability to start it attracts the attention of Mario, a young magician and the nephew of Officer Miglioriti. Mario helps her move the car, and they have dinner together at Rynn's house. Miglioriti stops by to tell them that Frank Hallet has reported his mother missing, and asks to see Rynn's father, but Mario covers by saying that her father has gone to bed. Later that night, Frank Hallet makes a surprise visit. Suspicious, and looking for answers about the whereabouts of his mother and Rynn's father, he tries to scare Rynn into talking by killing her pet hamster. Mario chases Frank away, and Rynn now trusts him enough to show him her secret. Her terminally ill father and abusive mother divorced long ago. To protect Rynn from being returned to her mother's custody after his death, he moved them to an isolated area and made plans to allow Rynn to live alone, then committed suicide in the ocean so that his body would not be found. He also left Rynn with a jar of potassium cyanide, telling her that it was a sedative, to give to her mother if she ever came for her. Rynn coolly recounts how she put the powder in her mother's tea and watched her die. She learned embalming at the library in order to hide the body in the cellar. The trust between Rynn and Mario blossoms into romance. They bury the corpses in the garden during a heavy rain, and Mario catches a cold. Miglioriti, suspicious of Rynn's excuses for her father's absence, again returns to the house. When he asks to see her father, Mario, disguised as an old man, comes down the stairs and introduces himself as Lester Jacobs. After winter sets in, Rynn learns that Mario's cold has developed into pneumonia and he is in the hospital. Rynn goes to see him, but he is unconscious and she feels lonelier than ever before. That night, as Rynn is going to bed, she is shocked to find Frank coming out of the cellar. Having put the pieces together and knowing the truth about Rynn's parents, he attempts to blackmail her, offering to protect her secrets in exchange for sexual favours. Rynn, seemingly defeated and resigned to Frank's demands, agrees to his suggestion that they have a cup of tea. Rynn places a dose of the potassium cyanide into her own cup and then takes the tea and almond cookies to the living room. Suspicious, Frank switches his cup with hers, and Rynn watches as he begins to succumb to the poison. ===== The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory and Polly, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic, and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He blackmails Digory into taking another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that they both can return. Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. Digory and Polly surmise that the wood is not really a proper world at all but a "Wood between the Worlds", similar to the attic that links their rowhouses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they discover statues of Charn's former kings and queens, which degenerate from the fair and wise to the unhappy and cruel. They find a bell with a hammer and an inscription inviting the finder to strike the bell. Despite protests from Polly, Digory rings the bell. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch queen named Jadis, whoto avoid defeat in battlehad deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking the "Deplorable Word". As the only survivor left in her world, she placed herself in an enchanted sleep that would only be broken by someone ringing the bell. The children recognise Jadis as evil and attempt to flee, but she follows them back to England by clinging to them as they clutch their rings. In England, she discovers that her magical powers do not work, although she retains her superhuman strength. Dismissing Uncle Andrew as a poor magician, she enslaves him and orders him to fetch her a "chariot"a hansom cabso she can set about conquering Earth. They leave, and she attracts attention by robbing a jewellery store in London. The police chase after her cab, until she crashes at the foot of the Kirke house. Jadis breaks off and tears an iron rod from a nearby lamp-post, using it to fight off police and onlookers. Polly and Digory grab her and put on their rings to take her out of their worldalong with Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and Frank's horse, Strawberry, who were all touching each another when the children grabbed their rings. In the Wood between the Worlds, Strawberry, looking to drink from one of the ponds, accidentally brings everyone into another world: a dark, empty void. At first, Digory believes it to be Charn, but Jadis recognises it as a world not yet created. They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings stars, plants, and animals into existence as he sings. Jadis, as terrified by his singing as the others are attracted to it, tries to kill Aslan with the iron rod; but it rebounds harmlessly off him, and in the creative soil of the new world it sprouts into a growing lamp-post. Jadis flees in terror. Aslan gives some animals the power of speech, commanding them to use it for justice and merriment or else risk becoming regular animals once again. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for bringing Jadis into his young world, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect the new land of Narnia from her evil. Aslan transforms the cabbie's horse into a winged horse called Fledge, and Digory and Polly fly on him to a distant garden high in the mountains. Digory's task is to take an apple from a tree in this garden and plant it in Narnia. At the garden Digory finds a sign warning not to steal from the garden. Digory picks one of the apples for his mission, but their overpowering smell tempts him. Jadis appears, having herself eaten an apple to become immortal, leaving her with pale white skin. She tempts Digory either to eat an apple himself and join her in immortality, or steal one to take back to Earth to heal his dying mother. Digory resists, knowing his mother would never condone theft, but hesitates. He sees through the Witch's ploy when she suggests he leave Polly behindnot knowing Polly can get away by her own ring. Foiled, the Witch departs for the North, and taunts Digory for his refusal to eat the apple and gain immortality. Digory returns to Narnia and plants the apple, which grows into a mature tree behind them while the coronation proceeds. Aslan tells Digory how the tree works - anyone who steals the apples gets their heart's desire, but in a form that makes it unlikeable. In the Witch's case, she has achieved immortality, but it only means eternal misery because of her evil heart. Moreover, the magic apples are now a horror to her, such that the apple tree will repel her for centuries to come, but not forever. With Aslan's permission, Digory then takes an apple from the new tree to heal his mother. Aslan returns Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew to England. Frank and his wife, Helen (transported from England by Aslan) stay to rule Narnia as its first King and Queen. The Narnian creatures live in peace and joy, and neither the Witch nor any other enemy came to trouble Narnia for many hundred years. Digory's apple restores his mother's health as his father returns for good after being away on business in India, and he and Polly remain lifelong friends. Uncle Andrew reforms and gives up magic, but still enjoys bragging about his adventures with the Witch. Digory plants the apple's core with Uncle Andrew's rings in the back yard of his aunt's home in London, and it grows into a large tree. Soon afterwards, Digory's family inherits a mansion in the country, and many years later the apple tree blows down in a storm. Digory, now a middle-aged professor, has its wood made into a wardrobe, setting up the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. ===== Several years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor before it happens, but the warnings are disregarded. Jenson believes the events of the dream are real, and each night he travels back to 1941. Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of temporal paradoxes. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again but this time dreams that the Japanese planes shoot and kill him. In Dr. Gillespie's office, the couch Jenson was lying on is now empty. Dr. Gillespie goes to a bar where he finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender tells him that Jenson had tended bar there, but he was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack. William Bendix and Martin Balsam in "The Time Element" ===== Ojo, known as Ojo the Unlucky, lives in poverty with his laconic uncle Unc Nunkie in the woods of the Munchkin Country in Oz. They visit their neighbor, the magician Dr. Pipt who is about to complete the six-year process of preparing the magical Powder of Life, which can bring inanimate objects to life. Pipt's wife has constructed a life-sized stuffed girl out of patchwork, and wishes her husband to animate her to serve as an obedient household servant. They also meet another of Pipt's creations, Bungle, an extremely vain talking cat made of glass. The Powder of Life successfully animates the patchwork girl, but an accident causes both Pipt's wife and Unc Nunkie to be turned to stone. Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that he must obtain five ingredients to make a compound to counteract the petrifaction spell. Ojo and the patchwork girl, who calls herself Scraps, along with Bungle, embark on a journey to obtain the magic ingredients: a six-leaved clover, the wing of a yellow butterfly, water from a dark well, a drop of oil from a live man's body, and three hairs from a Woozy's tail. Scraps exhibits a wild, carefree personality, and is prone to spontaneous recitation of nonsense poetry. After several adventures, they meet a Woozy, a blocky quadruped who agrees to let them have three hairs from its tail. But they are unable to remove the hairs, so they take the Woozy along with them. The party is captured by large animate plants, but they are rescued by the fortuitous arrival of the Shaggy Man. He leads them to the Emerald City to meet Princess Ozma, but warns Ojo that picking a six-leaved clover is forbidden by law in Oz. Along the way they meet the Scarecrow, who is quite smitten with Scraps, as she is with him. Just outside the Emerald City, Ojo sees a six-leaved clover by the road and, believing himself to be unobserved, picks it. When they arrive at the city gates, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers approaches them and announces that Ojo is under arrest. Brought to trial before Ozma, Ojo confesses and Ozma pardons him and allows him to keep the clover. Dorothy and the Scarecrow join Ojo and Scraps as they continue their search for the remaining ingredients. Along the way they meet Jack Pumpkinhead, the playful but annoying Tottenhots, and the man-eating 21-foot- tall giant Mr. Yoop, before reaching the subterranean dwellings of the Hoppers, who each have just one leg, and the neighboring Horners, who each have one horn on their head. The two groups are on the verge of war due to a misunderstanding, but Scraps reconciles them. A grateful Horner leads the group to a well in a dark radium mine, and Ojo collects a flask of water from it. The group continues to the castle of the Tin Woodsman who rules the Winkie Country, since yellow butterflies are most likely to be found in that yellow- dominated quadrant of Oz. While talking to the Tin Woodsman, Ojo notices a drop of oil about to drip from his body, and he catches it in a vial. He explains that he now has all the ingredients except one. But when he describes the last one, the Tin Woodsman is horrified at the idea of killing an innocent butterfly, and forbids them from doing so in his realm. Ojo is devastated, but the Tin Woodsman proposes that they all travel back to the Emerald City to ask Ozma's advice. Ozma tells them that Dr. Pipt has been practicing magic illegally and has therefore been deprived of his powers. But the petrified Unc Nunkie and Pipt's wife have been brought to the Emerald City and as they all watch, the Wizard of Oz restores them to life. Ojo and Unc Nunkie are given a new house to live in near the Emerald City and the Tin Woodsman calls Ojo "Ojo the Lucky". ===== The book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother, lover, and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while held in prison alongside Pixel, the eponymous character of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in backcountry Missouri, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families (whose backstory is revealed in Methuselah's Children), marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that group, and her life—largely in Kansas City—until her apparent death in 1982. In addition, Maureen lives through, and gives her (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by "Ted Bronson" (Lazarus Long), told from Long's point of view in Time Enough for Love, D. D. Harriman's space program from The Man Who Sold the Moon, and the rolling roads from The Roads Must Roll. Maureen's adventures include a series of sexual encounters, beginning in childhood wherein, having just had her first sexual intercourse, she is examined by her father, a doctor, and finds herself desiring him sexually. Her story then encompasses various boys, her husband, ministers, other women's husbands, boyfriends, swinging sessions, and the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister's reluctance to share the brother with other women.The Heinlein Society All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered. She is eventually rescued from prison by Lazarus Long and other characters of various novels in the ship Gay Deceiver (from The Number of the Beast), and after rescuing her father from certain death in the Battle of Britain, is united with her descendants in a massive group marriage in the settlement of Boondock, on the planet Tertius. Maureen ends her memoir and the Lazarus Long saga with the phrase "And we all lived happily ever after". ===== The novel is set in the future, when the Moon, Mars, Venus and Jupiter's satellites have been colonized and the solar system is governed by a parliamentary democracy from a capitol city on the Moon. The indigenous alien race inhabiting Mars has recently been admitted to citizenship in the human-dominated solar system government. The story, which is told in the first person, centers on down-and- out actor Lawrence Smith (stage name Lorenzo Smythe, also known as "The Great Lorenzo"). A brilliant actor and mimic, he is down to his last coin when a spaceman hires him to double for an unspecified public figure. It is only when he is on his way to Mars that he finds out he will have to impersonate one of the most prominent politicians in the Solar System (and one with whose views Smith deeply disagrees): John Joseph Bonforte. Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist coalition, currently out of office but with a good chance of changing that at the next general election. Bonforte has been kidnapped by his political opponents, and his aides want Smith to impersonate Bonforte while they try to find him. Bonforte is rescued, but he is in poor health due to the treatment inflicted on him during his imprisonment. This forces Smith to extend his performance, even to becoming temporary Prime Minister and running in an election. (This is made plausible through Bonforte's extensive Farley files.) The central political issue in the election is the granting of the vote to Martians in the human-dominated Solar System. Lorenzo shares the anti- Martian prejudice prevalent among large parts of Earth's population, but he is called upon to assume the persona of the most prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement. Smith takes on not only Bonforte's appearance, but some aspects of his personality. Cover of Astounding Science Fiction that carried the first segment of the serialized novel in February 1956 At the moment of electoral victory, Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of his kidnapping, and Smith assumes the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, Smith reveals that he wrote the first-person narrative as therapy. Smith has become Bonforte, suppressing his own identity permanently. He has been generally successful and has carried forward Bonforte's ideals to the best of his ability. Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary and now Smith's wife) says, "she never loved anyone else." ===== The Long Range Foundation (LRF) is a non-profit organization that funds expensive, long-term projects for the benefit of mankind. It has built a dozen exploratory torchships to search for habitable planets to colonize. The vessels can continually accelerate, but cannot exceed the speed of light, so the voyages will last many years. Each starship has a much larger crew than necessary to maintain a more stable, long-term shipboard society, as well as provide replacements for the inevitable deaths. It is found that some twins and triplets can communicate with each other telepathically. The process seems to be instantaneous and unaffected by distance, making it the only practical means of communication for ships traveling many light years away from Earth. Before announcing the discovery, the foundation first recruits as many of these people as it can. Testing shows that teenagers Tom and Pat Bartlett have this talent and both sign up. Pat, the dominant twin, manipulates things so that he gets selected as the crew member, much to Tom's annoyance. However, Pat does not really want to leave and his subconscious engineers a convenient accident so that Tom has to take his place at the last minute. On board, Tom is pleased to find that his uncle Steve, a military man, has arranged to get assigned to the same ship. The trip is fraught with problems as trivial as an annoying roommate and as serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems, including Beta Hydri. Due to the nature of relativistic travel (see Twin paradox), the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them is weakened to the point that they can no longer communicate easily. Some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with descendants of the Earthbound twins. Tom works first with his niece, then his grandniece, and finally his great-grandniece. The last planet scouted proves to be particularly deadly. Unexpectedly intelligent and hostile natives capture and kill a large portion of the remaining crew, including the captain and Tom's uncle. The reserve captain takes charge, but is unable to restore the morale of the devastated survivors. When he insists on continuing the mission rather than returning to Earth, members of the crew begin to consider mutiny. Shortly after he notifies Earth of the dire situation, they are surprised to hear a spaceship will rendezvous with them in less than a month and surmise it must be a more advanced LRF spaceship. Scientists on Earth have discovered faster-than-light travel, in part due to research into the nature of telepathy, and are collecting the surviving crews of the LRF torchships. The explorers return to an Earth they no longer recognize, and in most cases, no longer fit in. Tom, however, returns to marry his latest telepathic partner, his own great-grandniece, who has been reading his mind since she was a child. ===== The novel is set in the future when the human race has developed interstellar spaceflight and is engaged in trade with a number of alien races. However human slavery has reappeared on some planets. The Hegemonic Guard, the space military force of the human government, enforces the law and fights the slave trade on frontier planets. Thorby is a young, defiant boy who is purchased at a slave auction on the planet Jubbul by an old beggar, Baslim the Cripple, for a trivial sum and taken to the beggar's surprisingly well-furnished underground home. Thereafter, Baslim treats the boy as a son, teaching him not only the trade of begging, but also mathematics, history, and several languages, while sending Thorby on errands all over the city. Thorby slowly realizes that his foster father is not a simple beggar, but is gathering intelligence, particularly on the slave trade. In addition, Baslim has Thorby memorize a contingency plan and a message to deliver to one of five starship captains in the event of Baslim's arrest or death. When Baslim commits suicide to avoid being captured alive by the local authorities, Thorby delivers the message to Captain Krausa of the starship Sisu. Because the "Free Traders", to whom Krausa belongs, owe a debt to Baslim for the rescue of one of their crews from a slaver, the captain takes Thorby aboard at great risk to himself and his clan. The Free Traders are an insular, clannish, matriarchal culture who live their lives in space, traveling from world to world trading. Thorby is adopted by the captain (thereby gaining considerable shipboard social status) and adjusts to the culture of the traders, learning their language and intricate social rules. The advanced education provided by Baslim and the fast reflexes of youth make him an ideal fire controlman; Thorby saves Sisu, destroying a pirate craft. His immediate superior, a young woman named Mata, begins to view him as husband material, tabu by Free Trader custom, so she is transferred to another ship. The captain's wife, who is also the executive officer and the head of the clan, wants to use Thorby's connection to Baslim to enhance Sisu's prestige by marrying him off. Captain Krausa, however, obeys Baslim's last wish by delivering the boy to a military cruiser of the Hegemonic Guard of the Terran Hegemony, the dominant military power in the galaxy. The captain, who was one of Baslim's couriers, passes along Baslim's request that the Guard help reunite Thorby with his family, if possible. Thorby discovers that Baslim was actually a colonel in the Hegemonic Guard who volunteered to spy on Jubbul to fight slavery. In order to avoid paying for a costly background search, Thorby agrees to enlist in the Hegemonic Guard. Thorby is ultimately identified as Thor Bradley Rudbek, the long-lost primary heir of a very powerful, extremely wealthy family, which controls Rudbek and Associates, a large, sprawling interstellar conglomerate. In his absence, the business has been run by a relative by marriage, "Uncle" John Weemsby, who encourages his stepdaughter Leda to help Thorby adjust to his new situation while secretly scheming to block Thorby's growing interest and interference in the company. Thorby, investigating his parents' disappearance and his capture and sale by slavers, comes to suspect that his parents were eliminated to prevent the discovery that some subsidiaries of Rudbek and Associates were secretly supporting (and profiting from) the slave trade. When Weemsby quashes further investigation, Thorby seeks legal help and launches a proxy fight, which he unexpectedly wins when Leda votes her shares in his favor. He fires Weemsby and assumes full control of the firm. When Thorby realizes that extricating Rudbek and Associates from the slave trade is a monumental task, he reluctantly abandons his dream of following in Baslim's footsteps and joining the elite anti-slaver "X" Corps of the Hegemonic Guard. Knowing that "a person can't run out on his responsibilities", he resolves to fight the slave trade as the head of Rudbek and Associates. ===== The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post-Third World War United States, where organized religions are politically powerful. There is a World Federation of Free Nations, including the demilitarized US, with a world government supported by Special Service troops. Prior to WWIII the manned spacecraft Envoy is launched towards Mars, but all contact is lost shortly before landing. Twenty-five years later, the spacecraft Champion makes contact with the inhabitants of Mars and finds a single survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Born on the Envoy, he was raised entirely by the Martians. He is ordered by them to accompany the returning expedition. Because Smith is unaccustomed to the conditions on Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital, where, having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff only. Seeing that restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman eludes the guards and goes in to see Smith. By sharing a glass of water with him, she inadvertently becomes his first "water brother", which is considered to be a profound relationship by the Martians as water on Mars is extremely scarce. Gillian tells her lover, reporter Ben Caxton, about her experience with Smith. Ben explains that as heir to the entire exploration party, Smith is extremely wealthy, and following a legal precedent set during the colonisation of the Moon, he could be considered owner of Mars itself. His arrival on Earth has prompted a political power struggle that puts his life in danger. Ben persuades her to bug Smith's room and publishes stories to bait the government into releasing him. Ben is seized by the government, and Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her. When government agents catch up with them, Smith makes the agents vanish and then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's earlier suggestion, conveys Smith to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer. Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence, coupled with a childlike naïveté. When Harshaw tries to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as "one who groks", which includes every extant organism. That leads him to express the Martian concept of life as the phrase "Thou art God" although he knows that to be a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, and the idea of an afterlife is a fact that he takes for granted because Martian society is directed by "Old Ones", the spirits of Martians who have "discorporated". It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead in a rite similar to Holy Communion. Eventually, Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet that is already inhabited by intelligent life. Still inexhaustibly wealthy and now free to travel, Smith becomes a celebrity and is feted by the Earth's elite. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch in which sexuality, gambling, alcohol consumption, and similar activities are allowed and even encouraged and considered "sinning" only when they are not under church auspices. The Church of the New Revelation is organized in a complexity of initiatory levels: an outer circle, open to the public; a middle circle of ordinary members, who support the church financially; and an inner circle of the "eternally saved", attractive, highly sexed men and women, who serve as clergy and recruit new members. The Church owns many politicians and uses violence against those who oppose it. Smith also has a brief career as a magician in a carnival (performing actual miracles), in which he and Gillian befriend the show's tattooed lady, an "eternally saved" Fosterite named Patricia Paiwonski. Eventually, Smith starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All Worlds", combining elements of the Fosterite cult (especially the sexual aspects) with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and thus acquire the ability to truly "grok" the nature of reality, granting them psychokinesis. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy", and the church building is destroyed, but unknown to the public, Smith's followers teleport to safety. Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has been bequeathed to the Church. With that wealth and their new abilities, Church members will be able to reorganize human societies and cultures. Eventually, those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die out, leaving Homo Superior. That incidentally may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who were responsible for the destruction of the fifth planet eons ago (resulting in the asteroid belt). Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites. From the afterlife, he speaks briefly to grief-stricken Jubal to dissuade him from suicide. Having consumed a small portion of Smith's remains in keeping with Martian custom, Jubal and some of the Church members return to Jubal's home to regroup and prepare for their new evangelical role founding congregations. Meanwhile, Smith reappears in the afterlife to replace the Fosterites' eponymous founder, amid hints that Smith was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael. ===== Evelyn Cyril "E.C." Gordon (also known as "Easy" and "Flash") has been recently discharged from an unnamed war in Southeast Asia. He is pondering what to do with his future and considers spending a year traveling in France. He is presented with a dilemma: follow up on a possible winning entry in the Irish Sweepstakes or respond to a newspaper ad that asks "Are you a coward?". He settles on the latter, discovering it has been placed by Star, a stunningly gorgeous woman he has previously met on Île du Levant. Star informs him that he is the one to embark on a perilous quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. When she asks what to call him, he wants to suggest Scarface, referring to the scar on his face, but she stops him as he is saying "Oh, Scar..." and repeats this as "Oscar", and thus gives him his new name. Along with Rufo, her assistant, who appears to be a man in his fifties, they tread the "Glory Road" in swashbuckling style, slaying dragons and other exotic creatures. Shortly before the final Quest for the Egg itself, Oscar and Star marry. The team then proceeds to enter the tower in which the Egg has been hidden, navigating a maze of illusions and optical tricks. Oscar scouts ahead and encounters a fearsome foe who, though unnamed, is clearly the legendary 17th-century swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac, the final guardian of the Egg. After a long fight, the party escapes with the Egg. When they arrive in the home universe of Star and Rufo, Rufo informs Oscar that Star is actually the Empress of many worlds—and Rufo's grandmother. The Egg is a cybernetic device that contains the knowledge and experiences of most of her predecessors. Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children (by egg donation) and has undergone special medical treatments that extend her life much longer than usual. She has Oscar unknowingly receive the same treatments. Initially, Oscar enjoys his new-found prestige and luxurious life as the husband of the Empress of the Twenty Universes. However, as time goes on, he grows bored and feels out of place and useless. When he demands Star's professional judgment, she tells him that he must leave; her world has no place or need for a hero of his stature. It will be decades before she can complete the transfer of the knowledge held in the Egg, so he must go alone. He returns to Earth but has difficulty readjusting to his own world, despite having brought great wealth along with him. He begins to doubt his own sanity and whether the adventure even happened. The story ends as he is contacted by Rufo to set up another trip along the Glory Road. ===== In 2075, the Moon (Luna) is used as a penal colony by Earth's government, with three million inhabitants (called "Loonies") living in underground cities. Most Loonies are criminals, political exiles, or their descendants, and men outnumber women two to one, so that polyandry and many forms of polygamy are the norm. Due to the low surface gravity of the Moon, people who stay longer than six months undergo "irreversible physiological changes" and can never again live comfortably under normal gravity, making escape back to Earth impractical. Although the Earth-appointed "Warden" holds power through the Lunar Authority, his only real responsibility is to ensure the delivery of vital wheat shipments to Earth. In practice he seldom intervenes among the prisoners, allowing a virtually anarchist or self- regulated society. Lunar infrastructure and machinery is largely managed by HOLMES IV ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV"), the Lunar Authority's master computer, which is connected for central control on the grounds that a single computer is cheaper than (though not as safe as) multiple independent systems. The story is narrated by Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness and developed a sense of humor. Mannie names it "Mike" after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, and they become friends. ===== As in Stranger in a Strange Land, a band of social revolutionaries forms a secretive and hierarchical organization. In this respect, the revolution is more reminiscent of the Bolshevik October revolution than of the American, and this similarity is reinforced by the Russian flavor of the dialect, and the Russian place names such as "Novy Leningrad". Continuing Heinlein's speculation about unorthodox social and family structures, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress introduces the idea of a "line marriage". Mannie is part of a century-old line marriage, wherein new spouses are introduced by mutual consent at regular intervals so that the marriage never comes to an end. Divorce is rare, since divorcing a husband requires a unanimous decision on the part of all of his wives. Senior wives teach junior wives how to operate the family, granting financial security and ensuring that the children will never be orphaned. Children usually marry outside the line marriage, though this is not an ironclad rule. Mannie's youngest wife sports the last name "Davis-Davis", showing she was both born and married into the line. The social structure of the Lunar society features complete racial integration, which becomes a vehicle for social commentary when Mannie, visiting the Southeastern United States, is arrested for polygamy after he innocently shows a picture of his multiracial family to reporters, and learns that the "range of color in Davis family was what got [the] judge angry enough" to have him arrested. It is later revealed that this arrest was anticipated and provoked by his fellow conspirators to gain emotional support from Loonies when the arrest is announced. The novel is notable stylistically for its use of an invented Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of standard English and Australian colloquial words, but strongly influenced by Russian grammar, especially omission of the article "the", which does not exist in most Slavic languages (cf. Nadsat slang from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess). This aspect of the Lunar dialect is explained by the fact that many of the deportees on Luna are Russian. ===== The story takes place in the early 21st century against a background of an overpopulated Earth with a violent, dysfunctional society. Elderly billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is being kept alive through medical support and decides to have his brain transplanted into a new body. He advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Smith omits to place any restriction on the sex of the donor, so when his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is murdered, her body is used. He changes his name to Joan Eunice Smith, with the first name given "the two-syllable pronunciation" Jo-Ann to mimic the sound of his original name. After Smith awakens after the transplant, he discovers he can communicate with Eunice's personality. They agree not to reveal her existence, fearing that they would be judged insane and locked up. Smith's identity is unsuccessfully challenged by his descendants, who hope to inherit his fortune. Smith and Eunice decide to have a baby together and so they (Joan and Eunice) are artificially inseminated using Smith's sperm from the sperm bank. Joan explores her new sexuality at length. She goes to visit Eunice's widower, Joe Branca, to help reconcile him to what has happened. Joan marries her lawyer, Jake Salomon, and moves her household and friends onto a boat. Jake has a massive rupture of a large blood vessel in his brain and dies, but his personality is saved and joins Smith and Eunice in Joan's head. She (Joan, Eunice and Jake) emigrate to the Moon to find a better future for her child. Once there, her body starts to reject her (Smith's) transplanted brain. She dies during childbirth. ===== A writer seated at the best restaurant of the space habitat "Golden Rule" is approached by a man who urges him that "Tolliver must die" and is himself shot before the writer's eyes. The writer—Colonel Colin Campbell, living under a number of aliases including his pen name "Richard Ames"—is joined by a beautiful and sophisticated lady, Gwendolyn Novak, who helps him flee to Luna with a bonsai maple and a would-be murderer ("Bill"). After escaping to the Moon, Gwen claims to have been present during the revolt described in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Still pursued by assassins, Campbell and Novak are rescued by an organization known as the Time Corps under the leadership of Lazarus Long. After giving Campbell a new foot to replace one lost in combat years before, the Time Corps attempts to recruit Campbell for a special mission. Accepting only on Gwen's account, Campbell agrees to assist a team to retrieve the decommissioned Mike, a sentient computer introduced in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Engaged in frequent time- travel, the Time Corps has been responsible for changing various events in the past, creating an alternate universe with every time-line they disrupt. Mike's assistance is needed in order to accurately predict the conditions and following events in each of the new universes created. Campbell's frequent would-be assassins are revealed to be members of contemporary agencies also engaged in time manipulation who, for unknown reasons, do not want to see Mike rescued by the Time Corps. During the mission, Gwen is grievously wounded and Campbell loses his foot again, though the Time Corps succeed in retrieving Mike. The story ends with Campbell talking into a recorder (presumably the source of the first-person narrative) reflecting on the mission and his relationship with Gwen. ===== Starting off a grocer, Ira Howard became rich as a sutler wholesaler during the American War of the Secession but died of old age at 48 or 49 years old. The trustees of his will carried out his wishes to prolong human life by financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to marry each other and have children. By the 22nd century, the "Howard families" have a life expectancy exceeding 150 years and keep their existence secret with the "Masquerade" in which the members fake their deaths and obtain new identities. The Masquerade helped the Families survive the dictatorship of Nehemiah Scudder, but as an experiment, some Howard members reveal themselves to The Covenant, hoping that the free society established after Scudder's defeat will be friendly. They are mistaken since others refuse to believe that the Families obtained their lifespan by selective breeding but insist that they have developed a secret method to extend life. Administrator Slayton Ford, leader of Earth, believes that the Families are telling the truth, but cannot prevent efforts to force Howard members to reveal their alleged rejuvenation abilities. Lazarus Long, the eldest member of the Families, proposes that the Families hijack the colony starship New Frontiers to escape Earth. Using an inertialess drive invented by Howard member Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby, the Families leave the Solar System with the deposed Ford. The first planet they discover has humanoid inhabitants domesticated by indescribable godlike natives. When Earthly humans prove incapable of similar domestication, they are expelled from the planet. The second planet is a lush environment with no predators and mild weather. Its inhabitants are part of a group mind, with the mental ability to manipulate the environment on the genetic and molecular level but do not distinguish between individuals. That becomes evident when Mary Sperling, the second oldest of the Families, joins the group mind to become immortal. The Families are further horrified when the group mind genetically modifies the first baby born on the planet into a new, alien form. A majority of the Families returns to Earth to demand their freedom; Libby, with the help of the group mind, builds a new faster-than-light drive to take them home in months instead of years. The Families, returning to the Solar System 74 years after their original departure because of time dilation, discover that Earth's scientists have artificially extended human lifespan indefinitely by replicating what they believe is the Families' secret. The Howard members are now welcomed for their discovery of travel faster than light. Libby and Long decide to recruit other members of the Families and explore space with the new drive. ===== Production photograph of Florence Farr portraying Louka in Arms and the Man, 1894 Actors of the Smith College Club of St. Louis are sketched rehearsing for an all-woman amateur benefit performance of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" in December 1908. No men were allowed in the rehearsals or at the performance. The illustration is by Marguerite Martyn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.Marguerite Martyn, "College Girls Swear Real Swears in "Arms and Man," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 13, 1908,, Part 6, Page 1 The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina Petkoff, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, one of the heroes of that war, whom she idolizes. On the night after the Battle of Slivnitza, a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army, Captain Bluntschli, climbs in through her bedroom balcony window and threatens to shoot Raina if she gives the alarm. When Russian and Bulgarian troops burst in to search the house for him, Raina hides him so that he won't be killed. He asks her to remember that "nine soldiers out of ten are born fools." In a conversation after the soldiers have left, Bluntschli's pragmatic and cynical attitude towards war and soldiering shocks the idealistic Raina, especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol. When the search dies down, Raina and her mother Catherine sneak Bluntschli out of the house, disguised in one of Raina's father's old coats. The war ends, and the Bulgarians and Serbians sign a peace treaty. Raina's father (Major Paul Petkoff) and Sergius both return home. Raina begins to find Sergius both foolhardy and tiresome, but she hides it. Sergius also finds Raina's romantic ideals tiresome, and flirts with Raina's insolent servant girl Louka (a soubrette role), who is engaged to Nicola, the Petkoffs' manservant. Bluntschli unexpectedly returns so that he can give back the old coat, but also so that he can see Raina. Raina and Catherine are shocked, especially when Major Petkoff and Sergius reveal that they have met Bluntschli before and invite him to stay for lunch (and to help them figure out how to send the troops home). Left alone with Bluntschli, Raina realizes that he sees through her romantic posturing, but that he respects her as a woman, as Sergius does not. She reveals that she left a photograph of herself in the pocket of the coat, inscribed "To my chocolate- cream soldier", but Bluntschli says that he didn't find it and that it must still be in the coat pocket. Bluntschli gets a telegram informing him of his father's death: he must now take over the family business, several luxury hotels in Switzerland. Louka tells Sergius that Raina protected Bluntschli when he burst into her room and that Raina is really in love with him. Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but Bluntschli avoids fighting and Sergius and Raina break off their engagement, with some relief on both sides. Major Petkoff discovers the photograph in the pocket of his old coat; Raina and Bluntschli try to remove it before he finds it again, but Petkoff is determined to learn the truth and claims that the "chocolate-cream soldier" is Sergius. After Bluntschli reveals the whole story to Major Petkoff, Sergius proposes marriage to Louka (to Major Petkoff and Catherine's horror); Nicola quietly and gallantly lets Sergius have her, and Bluntschli, recognising Nicola's dedication and ability, offers him a job as hotel manager. While Raina is now unattached, Bluntschli protests that—being 34 and believing she is 17—he is too old for her. On learning that she is actually 23, he immediately proposes marriage and proves his wealth and position by listing his inheritance from the telegram. Raina, realizing the hollowness of her romantic ideals, protests that she would prefer her poor "chocolate-cream soldier" to this wealthy businessman. Bluntschli says that he is still the same person, and the play ends with Raina proclaiming her love for him and Bluntschli, with Swiss precision, both clearing up the major's troop movement problems and informing everyone that he will return to be married to Raina exactly two weeks from that day. ===== ===== Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, has set up a new base on the ice planet Hoth. The Imperial fleet, led by a merciless Darth Vader, hunts for the new Rebel base by dispatching probe droids across the galaxy. Luke Skywalker is captured by a wampa while investigating one such probe and dragged into the creature's cave, but manages to escape using the Force to retrieve his lightsaber. Before Luke succumbs to hypothermia, the Force spirit of his deceased mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, instructs him to go to the swamp planet Dagobah to train under Jedi Master Yoda. Han Solo discovers Luke and manages to keep him alive by placing him inside the body of his dead Tauntaun mount, and the two are rescued by a search party the following morning. The probe alerts the Imperial fleet to the Rebels' location. The Empire launches a large-scale attack using AT-AT walkers to capture the base, forcing the Rebels to evacuate. Han and Leia escape with and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon, but the ship's hyperdrive malfunctions. They hide in an asteroid field, where Han and Leia grow closer amidst the tensions. Several bounty hunters, summoned by Vader, assist in searching for the Falcon. Meanwhile, Luke travels with in his X-wing fighter to Dagobah, where he crash-lands. He meets a diminutive creature who reveals himself to be Yoda and reluctantly accepts Luke as his apprentice after conferring with Obi-Wan's spirit. Luke learns more about the Force from Yoda, who lifts his X-wing out of the swamp using the Force. After evading the Imperial fleet, Han's group travels to the floating Cloud City on the planet Bespin, which is governed by Han's old friend Lando Calrissian. Bounty hunter Boba Fett tracks the Falcon and, with Vader, forces Lando to hand the group over to the Empire. Vader plans to use the group as bait to lure Luke, intending to capture him and turn him to the dark side of the Force. Luke experiences a premonition of Han and Leia in pain and, against the wishes of Yoda and Obi-Wan, abandons his training to rescue them. Vader intends to hold Luke in suspended animation by imprisoning him in carbonite, selecting Han to be frozen as an experiment. Han survives the process and is given to Fett, who plans to collect a bounty on him from Jabba the Hutt. Lando, still loyal to Han, frees Leia and Chewbacca, but they are too late to stop Fett from departing with Solo. Under attack from stormtroopers, they fight their way back to the Falcon and flee the city. Meanwhile, Luke arrives and engages Vader in a lightsaber duel that leads them over the city's central air shaft. Vader severs Luke's right hand, disarming him, and tempts him to embrace his anger and join the dark side. Luke accuses Vader of murdering his father, but Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. Horrified, Luke drops into the air shaft and is ejected beneath the floating city, where he hangs from an antenna. He reaches out telepathically to Leia, who senses him and persuades Lando and Chewie to turn back. After Luke is brought aboard, they are chased by TIE fighters towards Vader on his Star Destroyer and find that the Falcons hyperdrive has been sabotaged, but reactivates it, allowing them to escape. Luke rejoins the Rebel fleet and his severed hand is replaced with a robotic prosthesis. Lando and Chewbacca begin their quest to save Han, as the other rebels watch the Falcon depart. ===== David Aames, the owner of a large publishing company he inherited from his father, is in prison. Wearing a prosthetic mask, David tells his life story to court psychologist Dr. Curtis McCabe. In flashbacks, David leaves the duties of the publisher to his father's trusted associates while living as a playboy in Manhattan. He is introduced to Sofia Serrano by his best friend, Brian Shelby, during a party. David and Sofia spend the night together at Sofia's apartment and fall in love, unaware that David's current lover, Julie Gianni, has followed them there. As David leaves, Julie offers him a ride, and soon reveals her jealousy of Sofia. She purposely crashes the car, killing herself and drastically disfiguring David. Doctors cannot completely repair David's face using plastic surgery, leaving it scarred and misshapen. David wears a prosthetic mask around others, but the mental and physical scarring from the accident causes him to become withdrawn and depressed. Brian convinces David to join him and Sofia at a club, but David ends up drunk and insults the two. They leave him to wallow in the street outside the club. The next morning, Sofia returns to David, asleep on the street, and apologizes to him. She takes him home, and over time, helps David emotionally recover. Doctors find a way to surgically repair David's face despite their prior prognosis. While David's life seems perfect, he notices strange oddities, such as brief visions of his distorted face, and a man at a bar who tells David that he could control the world and everyone in it. One day, while at Sofia's, David wakes up to find himself facing Julie, with all the photos of Sofia's face replaced by Julie's. Out of confusion and shock, he suffocates Julie. David is arrested and imprisoned, and finds his face no longer reconstructed and he's once again wearing the mask. Dr. McCabe conducts several more interviews, which serve to help David to recall the name "Life Extension". Seeing a company with that name nearby, McCabe arranges to take David there under guard. The company representative Rebecca explains how Life Extension uses cryonic suspension to save those with terminal illnesses until a cure can be found, keeping them in a lucid dream state to otherwise exercise their mind. David realizes that he is in his own lucid dream, escapes McCabe and the guards while calling for "tech support", and rushes for the building's lobby, which is suddenly empty. An elevator opens, revealing the strange man from the bar, who invites him in. As the elevator climbs to the top of an impossibly tall building, the man explains to David he is tech support, and that David has been in suspension for 150 years, starting shortly after the night at the club where Sofia broke up with him. David opted for Life Extension to be woken when technology could repair his face, and left the publishing company in the hands of his father's associates. As part of the program, David had opted for a lucid dream based on the "vanilla sky" from a Claude Monet painting The Seine at Argenteuil, starting the morning after Sofia's breakup. However, the equipment had merged elements of his subconscious, such as Julie, or McCabe as his father figure, within his dream, forcing them to pull him out of the lucid dream state. They emerge on the rooftop, high above the clouds. Tech support tells David that while they have fixed his lucid dream, he has a choice of either being put back into the dream, or to be woken up in reality, requiring a literal leap of faith off the roof that will wake him from his sleep. David opts to wake up, despite a vision of McCabe warning him against it. Before jumping, David envisions Brian and Sofia to say his goodbyes. David jumps and his life flashes before his eyes before hitting the ground. A female voice commands him to "open your eyes", and David opens his eyes. ===== Tony Manero is a 19-year-old Italian American from the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He lives with his parents, grandmother, and younger sister, and works at a dead-end job in a small hardware store. To escape his day-to-day life, Tony goes to 2001 Odyssey, a local disco club, where he is king of the dance floor and receives the admiration and respect he longs for. Tony has four close Italian American friends: Joey, Double J, Gus, and Bobby C. A fringe member of his group of friends is Annette, a neighborhood girl who is infatuated with Tony; however, he is not attracted to her. Tony and his friends ritually stop on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to clown around. The bridge has special significance for Tony as a symbol of escape to a better life. Tony agrees to be Annette's partner in an upcoming dance contest, but her happiness is short-lived when Tony is mesmerized by another woman at the club, Stephanie Mangano, whose dancing skills exceed Annette's. Although Stephanie rejects Tony's advances, she eventually agrees to be his partner in the dance competition, provided that their partnership remains professional. Tony's older brother, Frank Jr., who was the pride of the family since he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, brings despair to their parents and grandmother when he tells them he quit the priesthood. Tony shares a warm relationship with Frank Jr., but feels pleased that he, Tony, is no longer the black sheep of the family. Frank Jr. tells Tony that he never wanted to be a priest and only did it to make their parents happy. Frank Jr. encourages Tony to do something with his dancing. While on his way home from the grocery store, Gus is attacked by a gang and hospitalized. He tells Tony and his friends that his attackers were the Barracudas, a Puerto Rican gang. Meanwhile, Bobby C. has been trying to get out of his relationship with his devout Catholic girlfriend, Pauline, who is pregnant with his child. Facing pressure from his family and others to marry her, Bobby asks Frank Jr. if the Pope would grant him dispensation for an abortion. When Frank tells him such a thing would be highly unlikely, Bobby's feelings of desperation increase. Eventually, the group gets their revenge on the Barracudas, and crash Bobby C's car into their hangout. Tony, Double J, and Joey get out of the car to fight, but Bobby C. runs away when a gang member tries to attack him in the car. When the group visits Gus in the hospital, they are angry when he tells them that he may have identified the wrong gang. Later, Tony and Stephanie dance at the competition and end up winning first prize. However, Tony believes that a Puerto Rican couple performed better, and that the judges' decision was racially motivated. He gives the Puerto Rican couple his trophy and award money, and leaves with Stephanie. Once outside in Bobby's car, Tony tries to rape Stephanie, but she resists and runs from him. Tony's friends come to the car along with an intoxicated Annette. Joey says she has agreed to have sex with everyone. Tony tries to lead her away, but is subdued by Double J and Joey, and sullenly leaves with the group in the car. Joey has sex with Annette in the back seat of the car. After Joey finishes with Annette, he switches places with Double J who then proceeds to rape Annette despite her loud protests with Tony clearly uncomfortable with the situation in the front seat. Bobby C. pulls the car over on the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge for their usual cable-climbing antics. Instead of abstaining as usual, Bobby performs stunts more recklessly than the rest of the gang. Realizing that he is acting recklessly, Tony tries to get him to come down. Bobby's strong sense of despair, the situation with Pauline, and Tony's broken promise to call him earlier that day all lead to a suicidal tirade about Tony's lack of caring before Bobby slips and falls to his death in the water below. Disgusted and disillusioned by his friends, his family, and his life, Tony spends the rest of the night riding the graffiti riddled subway into Manhattan. Morning has dawned by the time he appears at Stephanie's apartment. He apologizes for his bad behavior, telling her that he plans to relocate from Brooklyn to Manhattan to try and start a new life. Tony and Stephanie salvage their relationship and agree to be friends. ===== Blake was a professional stage magician who used his skills to solve crimes and help the helpless. Years earlier, Blake had been in prison on a trumped-up espionage charge in an unnamed country in South America. He discovered a way to escape with his cellmate, which began his interest in escapology. The cellmate died and left him a fortune. The escape, apparently followed by exoneration of the false charges that had led to it, led to Blake's pursuit of a career in stage magic, which made him famous. He never forgot his unjust imprisonment, and it motivated him to seek justice for others. Initially, Blake used his Boeing 720 jetliner (named "The Spirit") as a base of operations; it was outfitted as a mobile residence ("It's like any other mobile home, only faster.") with live-in pilot Jerry Anderson (Jim Watkins). Blake drove a white Chevrolet Corvette with custom license plates ("SPIRIT") and, for its time, an exotic feature: a car phone. Blake frequently received assistance from acerbic columnist Max Pomeroy (Keene Curtis), and Max's brilliant son Dennis (Todd Crespi), who uses a wheelchair. Midway through the program's run, the idea of the airplane was dropped and Blake took up residence in a posh apartment at The Magic Castle, a real club devoted to magic acts. At the same time, the supporting cast of the show was replaced with a new, single character, Dominick (Joseph Sirola), a somewhat comical sidekick. No explanation for the changes was given in the series. Jerry continued to make occasional minor appearances (and Watkins and Curtis retained places in the opening credits) and Tony recruited Jerry and Max together for one further case in the new format. The Magician finished in the Nielsen ratings for the 1973-1974 TV Season with a 16.9 Average Audience. It was rated #52 out of #81 shows for that season. Some episodes featured Larry Anderson (who later hosted Truth or Consequences and created the JawDroppers video magic course) as Blake's assistant. ===== Dorothy is a young girl who lives with her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and dog, Toto, on a farm on the Kansas prairie. One day, she and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits them and the farmhouse into Munchkin Country in the magical Land of Oz. The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the magical silver shoes that once belonged to the Wicked Witch. The Good Witch tells Dorothy that the only way she can return home is to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her. As Dorothy embarks on her journey, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from harm. On her way down the yellow brick road, Dorothy attends a banquet held by a Munchkin named Boq. The next day, she frees a Scarecrow from the pole on which he is hanging, applies oil from a can to the rusted joints of a Tin Woodman, and meets a Cowardly Lion. The Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Woodman wants a heart, and the Lion wants courage, so Dorothy encourages them to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City to ask for help from the Wizard. After several adventures, the travelers arrive at the Emerald City and meet the Guardian of the Gates, who asks them to wear green tinted spectacles to keep their eyes from being blinded by the city's brilliance. Each one is called to see the Wizard. He appears to Dorothy as a giant head, to the Scarecrow as a lovely lady, to the Tin Woodman as a terrible beast, and to the Lion as a ball of fire. He agrees to help them all if they kill the Wicked Witch of the West, who rules over Winkie Country. The Guardian warns them that no one has ever managed to defeat the witch. The Wicked Witch of the West sees the travelers approaching with her one telescopic eye. She sends a pack of wolves to tear them to pieces, but the Tin Woodman kills them with his axe. She sends a flock of wild crows to peck their eyes out, but the Scarecrow kills them by twisting their necks. She summons a swarm of black bees to sting them, but they are killed while trying to sting the Tin Woodman while the Scarecrow's straw hides the others. She sends a dozen of her Winkie slaves to attack them, but the Lion stands firm to repel them. Finally, she uses the power of her Golden Cap to send the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion, unstuff the Scarecrow, and dent the Tin Woodman. Dorothy is forced to become the witch's personal slave, while the witch schemes to steal her silver shoes. The Wicked Witch melts, from the W.W. Denslow illustration of the first edition (1900) The witch successfully tricks Dorothy out of one of her silver shoes. Angered, she throws a bucket of water at the witch and is shocked to see her melt away. The Winkies rejoice at being freed from her tyranny and help restuff the Scarecrow and mend the Tin Woodman. They ask the Tin Woodman to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy finds the witch's Golden Cap and summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her friends back to the Emerald City. The King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and his band are bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette from the North, and that Dorothy may use it to summon them two more times. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard again, Toto tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room that reveals the Wizard, who sadly explains he is a humbug—an ordinary old man who, by a hot air balloon, came to Oz long ago from Omaha. He provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Lion a potion of "courage". Their faith in his power gives these items a focus for their desires. He decides to take Dorothy and Toto home and then go back to Omaha in his balloon. At the send-off, he appoints the Scarecrow to rule in his stead, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Toto chases a kitten in the crowd and Dorothy goes after him, but the ropes holding the balloon break and the Wizard floats away. Dorothy summons the Winged Monkeys and tells them to carry her and Toto home, but they explain they can't cross the desert surrounding Oz. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers informs Dorothy that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South may be able to help her return home, so the travelers begin their journey to see Glinda's castle in Quadling Country. On the way, the Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest. They ask him to become their king, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy summons the Winged Monkeys a third time to fly them over a hill to Glinda's castle. Glinda greets them and reveals that Dorothy's silver shoes can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned to their new kingdoms through Glinda's three uses of the Golden Cap: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to Winkie Country, and the Lion to the forest; after which the cap will be given to the King of the Winged Monkeys, freeing him and his band. Dorothy takes Toto in her arms, knocks her heels together three times, and wishes to return home. Instantly, she begins whirling through the air and rolling on the grass of the Kansas prairie, up to the farmhouse, though the silver shoes fall off her feet en route and are lost in the Deadly Desert. She runs to Aunt Em, saying "I'm so glad to be home again!" ===== In the wealthy African nation of Zamunda, crown prince Akeem Joffer grows weary of his pampered lifestyle on his 21st birthday and wishes to do more for himself. When his parents, King Jaffe and Queen Aoleon, present him with an arranged bride-to-be, Akeem takes action. Seeking an independent woman who loves him for himself and not his social status, Akeem and his best friend/personal aide, Semmi, travel to the New York City borough of Queens and rent a squalid tenement in the neighborhood of Long Island City under the guise of poor foreign students. Beginning their search for Akeem's bride, they end up being invited by some locals to a rally that is raising money for the inner city. During the rally, Akeem encounters Lisa McDowell, who possesses all the qualities he is looking for and, upon his insistence, he and Semmi get entry-level jobs working at the local fast-food restaurant called McDowell's, a McDonald's knockoff owned by widower Cleo McDowell, Lisa's father. Akeem's attempts to win Lisa's love are complicated by Lisa's lazy and obnoxious boyfriend, Darryl Jenks (Eriq La Salle), whose father owns Soul Glo (a Jheri curl–like hairstyling aid). After Darryl announces their engagement -— without Lisa's consent -— to their families, she starts dating Akeem, who claims that he comes from a family of poor goat herders. Meanwhile, although Akeem thrives on hard work and learning how commoners live, Semmi is not comfortable with living in such meager conditions. After a dinner date with Lisa is thwarted when Semmi furnishes their apartment with a hot tub and other luxuries, Akeem confiscates his money and donates it to two homeless men. Semmi wires a telegraph to King Jaffe for more money, prompting the Joffers to travel to Queens and expose his identity as a prince. Cleo, initially disapproving of Akeem as he did not want to see his daughter with a poor man, becomes ecstatic when he discovers that Akeem is actually an extremely wealthy prince after being introduced to the Joffers. When Akeem discovers that his parents have arrived in the United States, he and Lisa take shelter at the McDowell residence where Cleo welcomes them. After Cleo's bond with Akeem is ruined by Darryl's unexpected arrival, Lisa later becomes angry and confused that Akeem lied to her about his identity. Akeem explains that he wanted her to love him for who, not what, he is, even offering to renounce his throne; but Lisa, still hurt and angry, refuses to marry him. Despondent, Akeem resigns himself to the arranged marriage, but as they leave, Jaffe is reprimanded by Aoleon for clinging to outdated traditions instead of thinking of his son's happiness. At the wedding procession, a still-heartbroken Akeem becomes surprised when his veiled bride-to-be is Lisa herself. Following the ceremony, they ride happily in a carriage to the cheers of Zamundans. Witnessing such splendor, Lisa is both surprised and touched by the fact that Akeem would have given it up just for her. Akeem offers again to abdicate if she does not want this life, but Lisa playfully declines. =====