From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== ===== After World War II, three teenage boy rocket experimenters are recruited by one boy's uncle, Dr. Cargraves, a renowned physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, to refit a conventionally powered surplus "mail rocket". It is to be converted to run on a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, despite prying and sabotage attempts by unknown agents. Upon completion of the modifications, they stock the rocket, which they name the Galileo, and take off for the Moon, taking approximately three days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the Moon on behalf of the United Nations. As they set up a radio to communicate with the Earth they pick up a local transmission, the sender of which promises to meet them. Instead, their ship is bombed. However, they are able to hole up undetected in their hut and succeed in ambushing the other ship when it lands, capturing the pilot. They discover that there is a Nazi base on the Moon. They bomb it from their captured ship and land. One survivor is found, revived, and questioned. The boys also find evidence of an ancient lunar civilization, and postulate that the craters of the Moon were formed not by impacts from space, but by nuclear bombs that destroyed the alien race. When the base's Nazi leader shoots the pilot in order to silence him, Cargraves convenes a trial and finds him guilty of murder. Cargraves prepares to execute the prisoner by ejecting him into vacuum, mostly as a bluff for information on how to fly the base's spaceship. The Nazi capitulates in the airlock and teaches them how to fly the ship back to Earth. The boys radio the location of the hidden Nazi base on Earth to the authorities, leading to its destruction; they return as heroes. ===== In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Space Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethical tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William 'Tex' Jarman, Venus-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting school ship PRS James Randolph for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the Aes Triplex. Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the Pathfinder, in the Asteroid Belt. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving asteroid that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the Pathfinder had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the Aes Triplex transfers half the crew to the repaired Pathfinder so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he plots a slower, fuel efficient, elliptical voyage back to earth. Then, he receives an urgent message to investigate an incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet's surface. The lander touches down on a sinkhole, giving the crew barely enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient usually-friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before, until old classmate Burke showed up in a prospecting ship. He had taken the matriarch of the local clan hostage when she refused to give him permission to exploit a rich deposit of radioactive ores. The locals promptly attacked the ship and killed his crew; Burke managed to send a message for help before being taken prisoner. Jensen skillfully gains the matriarch's trust and convinces her that they are honorable and civilized, unlike Burke, and the Patrolmen are released. Unfortunately, neither the lander nor Burke's ship is flightworthy. To their amazement, the matriarch takes the stranded humans to the carefully preserved Astarte, the legendary first ship to set out for Venus over a century before and thought to have been lost en route. According to the log, the crew perished from disease. With the help of the natives, the cadets recommission the ship and fly it back to Venus's South Pole colony. Dodson is initially disappointed when they are not treated as heroes, but then realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen. ===== The scientist parents of Don Harvey withdraw him from his high school in New Mexico in the middle of the term so that he can travel to their current residence on Mars. The headmaster suggests that they want him out of a potential war-zone, where he might be viewed suspiciously because of doubts about his where his loyalties may lie. At his parents' behest, he visits an old family friend who asks him to deliver a ring to his father; security forces later arrest both the donor and the recipient of the ring. Harvey is released and given his ring back, after it has been examined; he is told that his friend has died of "heart failure". (Only later does he realize that one can classify all deaths that way.) Harvey boards a shuttle to a space station orbiting Earth. The station doubles as a transshipment terminus and a military base, armed with missiles to keep restive nations in check. On the trip up, he befriends one of his fellow-passengers, a Venerian "dragon" calling himself "Sir Isaac Newton". Sir Isaac, a renowned physicist, can vocalize English using a portable device. Harvey gets caught up in the Venerian war of independence when Venerian colonial forces capture the station in a surprise raid. Most of the other travelers are sent back to Earth, while a few decide to join the rebels. Harvey is in a quandary. The spaceship to Mars has been confiscated, but he remains determined to get there, by way of Venus if necessary. Because he was born in space, with one parent from Venus and the other from Earth, he claims Venerian citizenship; more importantly, Sir Isaac vouches for him. He is allowed to tag along, which turns out to be very fortunate for Harvey. The rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard. On his arrival on Venus, Harvey finds that his Earth-backed money is now worthless. A banker lends him money, telling him to pay it forward. He gets a job washing dishes for his keep for Charlie, a Chinese immigrant who runs a small restaurant. He befriends a young woman, Isobel, when he tries to send a message to his parents. However, communication with Mars has been cut due to the hostilities. Harvey settles in to wait out the war, but the war comes to him. Earth sends a force to put down the rebellion on Venus. The Venerian ships are destroyed in orbit and the ground forces are routed. Charlie is killed resisting the occupying soldiers. Harvey is rounded up and questioned by a senior security- officer, who is very eager to get his hands on Harvey's ring. Luckily, Harvey had given it to Isobel for safekeeping; he does not know where she is or whether she is even alive. Before he can be interrogated with drugs, he escapes and joins the Venerian guerrilla forces. Harvey becomes an effective commando. In time, he is tracked down by the leaders of the resistance, who turn out to also be looking for the ring. Isobel and her father (an important member of the rebels) are safe at the very base where Harvey is taken. The seemingly valueless ring turns out to contain the secret of scientific breakthroughs resulting from archaeological studies of an extinct alien civilization on Mars. With Sir Isaac's assistance, the rebels use the information to build an advanced spaceship that is much faster than any other vessel in existence, with revolutionary weapons and defenses also derived from the new technology. As a combat veteran, Harvey is recruited for the maiden voyage of Little David, manning a dead man's switch, with strict orders to blow up the ship if it is in danger of capture. Little David intercepts and defeats a task force of warships on their way to Mars to crush the revolt there. ===== Max Jones works the family farm in the Ozark Mountains. With his father dead and his stepmother marrying again to a man he detests, Max runs away from home, taking his late uncle's astrogation manuals. Most occupations are tightly controlled by guilds with hereditary memberships. Since his uncle had been a member of the Astrogators' Guild and had had no children, Max hopes that before he died, his uncle had named him his heir. He begins hitchhiking towards Earthport to find out. Along the way, he finds a friendly face in hobo Sam Anderson, who later alludes to being a deserter from the Imperial Marines. Sam feeds Max and offers advice, though he later steals Max's valuable manuals. At the guild's headquarters, Max is disappointed to find that he had not been named as an heir, but he receives his uncle's substantial security deposit for his manuals. Max learns that Sam had returned the manuals and tried to claim the deposit for himself. By chance, he runs into an apologetic Sam. With Max's money, Sam is able to finagle them jobs aboard a starship using forged records of their service as crewmen aboard other starships. Max signs on as a steward's mate third class, and then he absorbs the contents of the Stewards' Guild manual using his eidetic memory. Among his duties is caring for several animals, including passengers' pets. When Eldreth "Ellie" Coburn visits her pet, an alien, semi-intelligent "spider puppy" that Max has befriended, she learns that he can play three-dimensional chess, and challenges him to a game. A champion player, she diplomatically lets him win. Meanwhile, Sam rises to the position of master-at-arms. When, through Ellie's machinations, the ship's officers discover that Max had learned astrogation from his uncle, Max is promoted to the command deck. Under the tutelage of Chief Astrogator Hendrix and Chief Computerman Kelly, he becomes a probationary apprentice chartsman, then a probationary astrogator. In a meeting with Hendrix, Max reluctantly admits to faking his record to get into space. Hendrix defers the matter until their return to Earth. The Asgard then departs for Halcyon, a colony planet orbiting Nu Pegasi. When Hendrix dies, the astrogation department is left dangerously shorthanded. The aging captain tries to take his place, but is not up to the task. When Max detects an error in his real-time calculations leading up to a transition, neither the captain nor Assistant Astrogator Simes believe him, and the ship becomes lost. They locate a habitable world, which Ellie names Charity, and the passengers become colonists. Meanwhile, the crew continues to try to figure out where they are and whether they can return to Earth. Unfortunately, it turns out the planet is already inhabited by hostile centaur-like sapients. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie's pet is able to guide Sam to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to take command illegally and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly outnumbered by the natives, the humans are forced to attempt a perilous return to known space by reversing the erroneous transition. Max must pilot the ship; he must also supply the missing astrogation tables from memory. To add to his burdens, the remaining officers inform Max that he must take command, as only an astrogator can be the captain. The pressure is immense, but Max succeeds and the ship returns to known space. Max pays heavy fines, but is allowed to join the Astrogators' Guild, and is assigned as an assistant astrogator aboard another starship. However, he loses any chance for a romantic relationship with Eldreth; she returns home to marry her boyfriend. Max accepts this with mixed feelings, but looks forward to his new career. ===== The book is a first-person narrative consisting of the diary of Podkayne Fries, a 15-year-old (Earth years) girl living on Mars with her parents and 11-year-old brother Clark. Due to the unscheduled "uncorking" (birth) of their three test-tube babies, Podkayne's parents cancel a much-anticipated trip to Earth. Disappointed, Podkayne confesses her misery to her uncle, Senator Tom Fries, an elder statesman of the Mars government. Tom arranges for Clark and Podkayne, escorted by himself, to get upgraded passage on a luxury liner to Earth. During boarding, Clark is asked by a customs official "Anything to declare?" and facetiously answers "Two kilos of happy dust!" As he anticipated, his seemingly flippant remark gets him taken away and searched. This ploy serves to divert attention away from Podkayne's luggage, where he has hidden a package he was paid to smuggle aboard. Podkayne suspects the reason behind her brother's behavior, but cannot prove it. Clark was told it was a present for the captain, but is far too cynical to be taken in. He later carefully opens the package and finds a nuclear bomb, which he disarms and keeps. Much of the description of the voyage is based on Heinlein's own experiences as a naval officer and world traveler. Clark's ploy is taken from a real-life incident, related in Heinlein's Tramp Royale, in which his wife answers the same question with "heroin" substituted for the fictitious, but equally illegal, happy dust. Once aboard, they are befriended by "Girdie", an attractive, capable, experienced woman left impoverished by her late husband. Much to Podkayne's surprise, the normally very self-centered Clark contracts a severe case of puppy love. Podkayne overhears fellow passengers calling the Frieses "criminals" (Mars had been a convict colony) and "savages" (the Frieses have Māori ancestry). The liner makes a stop at Venus, which is depicted as a latter-day Las Vegas gone ultra-capitalistic. The planet is controlled by a single corporation; the dream of most of the frantically enterprising residents is to earn enough to buy a single share in it, which guarantees lifelong financial security. Just about anything goes, as long as one can pay for it. The penalty for murder is a fine paid to the corporation for the victim's estimated value plus his projected future earnings. On a less serious level, Heinlein anticipated, by over forty years, television ads in taxicabs (in the book, holographic), which have since been implemented in taxicabs in major cities worldwide. The Frieses are given VIP treatment by the Venus Corporation and Podkayne is escorted by Dexter Cunha, the Chairman's dashing son. She begins to realize that Tom is much more than just her pinochle- playing uncle. When Clark vanishes and even the corporation is unable to find him, Tom reveals that he is on a secret diplomatic mission, as the accredited representative of the Martian government to a vital conference on Luna (the Moon). The children have been his protective coloration—Tom appearing to be a doddering uncle escorting two young people on a tour of the solar system. Clark has been kidnapped by members of a political faction opposed to Tom. Podkayne makes an ill-judged attempt to rescue Clark by herself and falls into the kidnappers' clutches as well—only to find her uncle caught too. The captors' scheme is to use the children to blackmail the uncle into doing their bidding at the Luna conference. They return Uncle Tom to Venusberg after showing him that they have the children. Clark realizes that once Uncle Tom is released, no matter what happens, their kidnappers will have little reason to keep their prisoners alive. He is prepared, however: he engineers an escape, kills his captors, but forgets to disable the nuclear bomb he had intended to go off only if they failed in their escape. ===== ===== The novel is set in the future. Earth has had interstellar spaceflight for centuries and has contact with numerous extraterrestrial species, which is handled by a department of the Earth government. John Thomas Stuart XI, the teenage protagonist, lives in a small Rocky Mountain town, Westville, caring for Lummox, an extraterrestrial beast which he inherited from his great-grandfather who brought it home from an interstellar voyage. The pet has learned how to speak, and has gradually grown from the size of a collie pup to a ridable behemoth—especially after consuming a used car. The childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the city of Westville. John's widowed mother wants him to get rid of it, and brings an action in the local court to have it destroyed. Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas considers selling Lummox to a zoo. He rapidly changes his mind and runs away from home, riding into the nearby wilderness on Lummox's back. His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbor's greenhouse. However, it is not easy to conceal such a large creature. Eventually, the court orders Lummox destroyed. In an amusing scene Westville's officials try several methods to kill Lummox but fail, as his alien physiology appears to be virtually invulnerable to ordinary weapons or poisons, and Lummox does not even realize they are attempting to execute him. Meanwhile, at the Earth government Department of Spacial Affairs, Mr. Kiku, an experienced diplomat, is dealing with the Hroshii, a previously unknown alien race, advanced and powerful, which appear in the solar system and demand the return of their lost child, or they will destroy Earth. A friendly alien diplomat of a third species intimates that the threat is not an empty one. Initially, no one associates Lummox with the newcomers, in part due to the size difference (Lummox was overfed). Lummox is finally identified as important royalty of the Hroshii, as well as approximately female (the Hroshii have six sexes). It turns out that the relationship between John Thomas and Lummox is the only thing that saves Earth from destruction. From her viewpoint, during her centuries on Earth the young but extremely long-lived Lummox has been pursuing a hobby: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear to the other Hroshii that she intends to continue doing so. This gives Mr. Kiku, the chief negotiator, the leverage he needs to establish diplomatic relations with the aliens, who normally do not hold regular relations with other species. At the insistence of Lummox, the newly married John and Betty accompany her back to the Hroshii homeworld as part of the human diplomatic mission. ===== Ex-fighter pilot Ted Striker is a traumatized war veteran turned taxi driver. Because of his pathological fear of flying and "drinking problem" (being unable to take a drink without splashing it on his face), he has been unable to hold a responsible job. His wartime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson, now a flight attendant, leaves him before boarding her assigned flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Ted abandons his taxi and buys a ticket on the same flight to try to win her back. However, she still continues to reject him during the flight. After the in-flight meal is served, several of the passengers and the flight crew fall ill, including Captain Oveur. Passenger Dr. Rumack discovers that the fish served onboard caused food poisoning. With the flight crew incapacitated, Elaine contacts the Chicago control tower for help, and is instructed by tower supervisor Steve McCroskey to activate the plane's autopilot, a large inflatable pilot doll named "Otto", which will get them to Chicago, but will not be able to land the plane. Elaine and Dr. Rumack convince Ted to take the controls. When Steve learns that Ted is piloting, he contacts Ted's former commanding officer, Rex Kramer, now serving as a commercial pilot, so that he can help talk Ted through landing the plane. Ted becomes troubled when Rex starts giving instructions, and briefly stresses out from flashbacks to the war. Both Elaine and Dr. Rumack bolster Ted's confidence and he takes the controls under Rex's guidance. As the plane nears Chicago, the weather worsens, making landing difficult. With Elaine's help as co-pilot and Rex's guidance, Ted is able to land the plane safely with the passengers suffering only minor injuries, despite the landing gear being sheared off. Rescue vehicles arrive to help unload the plane. Impressed by Ted's display of courage, Elaine embraces and kisses him, rekindling their relationship. The two watch as "Otto" takes control of the plane, inflates a female companion, and takes off. ===== A mission of Anglican nuns from the Order of The Servants of Mary is invited by the Rajput ruler of a princely state to set up a school and hospital (to be called St. Faith) in the dilapidated seraglio where his father's harem was based, high on a cliff in the Himalayas. An order of monks has already tried unsuccessfully to establish themselves there, and the General's agent Mr. Dean makes the social and environmental difficulties plain. The ambitious Sister Clodagh is appointed Sister Superior and sent with four other nuns: Sister Philippa for the garden, Sister Briony for the infirmary; Sister Blanche, better known as "Sister Honey" to teach lace- making, and the emotionally unwell Sister Ruth for general classes. Mr. Dean is unimpressed, and gives them until the beginning of the monsoon before they leave. During their time setting up the convent, the nuns face troubles with the old building and with the local Hindu population, often clashing with the building's old native caretaker Angu Ayah. Among these is a holy man in their grounds, the General's uncle, who spends all his time staring into the mountains. They also take in a local girl called Kanchi to try and control her erratic spirit; and the General's current heir—referred to as the Young General—for classes to understand Western culture prior to a trip to Britain. Kanchi is whipped by Ayah for stealing, but the Young General stops her and ends up falling for Kanchi in a situation compared by Mr. Dean to the tale of The King and the Beggar-maid. Each member also has troubles of their own caused by their surroundings, which seem to magnify their emotions. Briony suffers from ill health, and Philippa loses herself in the environment and ends up planting the vegetable garden with flowers. Ruth, already highly strung, becomes increasingly jealous of Clodagh and obsessed with Mr. Dean, leading her to renounce the order. Clodagh remembers a failed romance from her home in Ireland which prompted her to join the Order. Honey's growing attachment to the children ends in disaster when she gives medicine to a fatally ill baby. Its death angers the locals, who blame and abandon the mission, and puts further strain on the nuns. Mr. Dean unsuccessfully tries to persuade Clodagh to leave before anything else happens. One night, Clodagh confronts the now-unstable Ruth, finding her in a modern dress she ordered to impress Mr. Dean. Ruth escapes Clodagh's watch and finds Mr. Dean. When he refuses her advances, she has a complete mental breakdown and goes back to the mission, intent on killing Clodagh. When Clodagh is ringing the bell for morning service located on a cliff edge, Ruth attempts to push her over the edge. In the resulting struggle, Ruth falls off the cliff to her death. The mission leaves just as the monsoon begins, with Clodagh's final request to Mr. Dean being to tend Ruth's grave. ===== The Elizabethan Age was also an age of plots and conspiracies, frequently political in nature, and often involving the highest levels of Elizabethan society. High officials in Madrid, Paris and Rome sought to kill Elizabeth, a Protestant, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic. That would be a prelude to the religious recovery of England for Catholicism. In 1570, the Ridolfi plot was thwarted. In 1584, the Throckmorton Plot was discovered, after Francis Throckmorton confessed his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England. Another major conspiracy was the Babington Plot — the event which most directly led to Mary's execution, the discovery of which involved a double agent, Gilbert Gifford, acting under the direction of Francis Walsingham, the Queen's highly effective spy master. The Essex Rebellion of 1601 has a dramatic element, as just before the uprising, supporters of the Earl of Essex, among them Charles and Joscelyn Percy (younger brothers of the Earl of Northumberland), paid for a performance of Richard II at the Globe Theatre, apparently with the goal of stirring public ill will towards the monarchy. It was reported at the trial of Essex by Chamberlain's Men actor Augustine Phillips, that the conspirators paid the company forty shillings "above the ordinary" (i. e., above their usual rate) to stage the play, which the players felt was too old and "out of use" to attract a large audience. In the Bye Plot of 1603, two Catholic priests planned to kidnap King James and hold him in the Tower of London until he agreed to be more tolerant towards Catholics. Most dramatic was the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. It was discovered in time with eight conspirators executed, including Guy Fawkes, who became the iconic evil traitor in English lore.J. A. Sharpe (2005) Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day, Harvard University Press ===== A roseate spoonbill After recovering from serious poisoning inflicted by the SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb (in From Russia, with Love) the MI6 agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, on an undemanding mission to the British Colony of Jamaica. He is instructed to investigate the disappearance of Commander John Strangways, the head of MI6's Station J in Kingston, and his secretary. Bond is briefed that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Doctor Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on the fictional island of Crab Key and runs a guano mine. The island has a colony of roseate spoonbills at one end while local rumour is that a vicious dragon also lives there. The spoonbills are protected by the American National Audubon Society, two of whose representatives died when their plane crashed on No's airstrip. On his arrival in Jamaica, Bond soon realises that he is being watched. His hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to the room—supposedly a gift from the colonial governor—and a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping. With the help of an old friend, Quarrel, Bond surreptitiously visits Crab Key to establish whether there is a connection between No and the disappearance of the MI6 personnel. Bond and Quarrel meet Honeychile Rider, who is there to collect valuable shells. Bond and Rider are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the doctor's "dragon"—a flamethrowing, armoured swamp buggy designed to keep away trespassers. Bond and Rider are taken to a luxurious facility carved into the mountain. No tells Bond that he is working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage US test missiles launched from Cape Canaveral. He had previously been a member of a Chinese tong, but after he stole a large amount of money from their treasury, he was captured by the organisation. The tong's leaders had No's hands cut off as a warning to others, and then shot him. Because No's heart was on the right side of his body, the bullet missed it and he survived. Interested in the ability of the human body to withstand and survive pain, No forces Bond to navigate his way through an obstacle course constructed in the facility's ventilation system. Bond is kept under observation as he suffers electric shocks, burns and an encounter with large poisonous spiders. Bond's ordeal ends in a fight with a captive giant squid, which he defeats by using improvised weapons. After his escape he encounters Rider, who has been pegged out to be eaten by crabs; they had ignored her and she managed to escape. Bond kills No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the flow of guano to bury him alive. Bond and Rider then escape from No's complex in the "dragon" buggy, sail back to Jamaica and notify the colonial authorities. ===== In March 1956 Fleming and his friend Ivar Bryce accompanied Robert Cushman Murphy (of the American Museum of Natural History) and Arthur Stannard Vernay (of the Flamingo Protection Society) on a trip to a flamingo colony on Great Inagua in the south of the Bahamas. The colony was of dense mangrove swamp and salt flats, home to flamingos, egrets and roseate spoonbills; the location inspired Crab Key. Much of the travel overland on Great Inagua was by a swamp vehicle, a Land Rover fitted with over-large tyres that became the model for the "dragon" used in the story. Fleming's inspiration for the Doctor No character was Sax Rohmer's villain Dr Fu Manchu, who featured in books Fleming had read and enjoyed in earlier years. Aspects of the plot were influenced by Rohmer's work, and Winder observes that the use of the centipede was "a straight steal" from a Fu Manchu novel; other devices from Rohmer's novels included Doctor No's secret lair and the use of the mad scientist trope. After Diamonds Are Forever was published in 1956, Fleming received a letter from Geoffrey Boothroyd, a Bond enthusiast and gun expert, who criticised the author's choice of firearm for Bond. Boothroyd suggested that Bond should swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK 7.65 mm, an exchange that made it to the novel. Boothroyd also gave Fleming advice on the Berns-Martin triple draw shoulder holster and a number of the weapons used by SMERSH and other villains. In thanks, Fleming gave the MI6 Armourer the name Major Boothroyd in Dr. No and M introduces him to Bond as "the greatest small-arms expert in the world". As he had done in his previous novels, Fleming borrowed names from his friends and associates to use in his book; Ivar Bryce's housekeeper, May Maxwell, became Bond's Scottish "treasure" May. One of Fleming's neighbours in Jamaica, and later his lover, was Blanche Blackwell: Fleming named the guano-collecting ship in Dr. No as Blanche. His friend Patricia Wilder found that her nickname of Honey Chile was used for the novel's main female character, and John Fox-Strangways—a friend from the gentlemen's club White's—saw part of his surname being used for the name of the MI6 station chief in Jamaica. Fleming also used the physical descriptions of people he knew; Quarrel, who previously appeared in the novel Live and Let Die, was based on a Jamaican fisherman who often took Fleming shark fishing. ===== A team from an air force base is deployed to recover a military satellite which has returned to Earth, but contact is lost abruptly. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The duty officer of the base tasked with retrieving the satellite suspects that it returned with an extraterrestrial contaminant and recommends activating "Wildfire", a protocol for a government-sponsored team of scientists intended to contain threats of this nature. The Wildfire team, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, believes the satellite—intentionally designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation—returned with a deadly microorganism that kills through nearly instantaneous blood clotting. Upon investigating Piedmont, the team discovers that the townspeople either died in mid-stride or went "quietly nuts" and committed bizarre suicides. Two survivors—the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and the constantly bawling infant Jamie Ritter—are biological opposites who somehow survived the organism. Jackson, Ritter, and the satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against microorganisms escaping into the environment. Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near the town of Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas, concealed in the sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station. Dr. Hall is the only scientist authorized to disarm the automatic self-destruct mechanism; he is an unmarried male and thus presumed to make the most dispassionate decisions during crisis. Further investigation determines that the deaths were caused by an extraterrestrial microbe transported by a meteor that crashed into the satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks the DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids present in all forms of terrestrial life, and directly transforms energy to matter with no discernible byproducts. The microbe, code named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biological properties. The scientists learn that the current form of Andromeda grows only within a narrow pH range; in a too-acidic or too-alkaline growth medium, it will not multiply. Andromeda's ideal pH range is 7.39–7.43, within the range found in normal human blood. Jackson and Ritter survived because both had abnormal blood pH (Jackson acidotic from consumption of Sterno and aspirin, Ritter alkalotic from hyperventilation). However, by the time the scientists realize this, Andromeda has mutated into a form that degrades the lab's plastic seals and escapes its containment. Trapped in a contaminated lab, Burton demands that Stone inject him with a "universal antibiotic"; Stone refuses, arguing it would render Burton too vulnerable to infection by other harmful bacteria. Burton survives because the mutated Andromeda is no longer pathogenic. The mutated Andromeda attacks the synthetic rubber door and hatch seals within the Wildfire facility, rapidly migrating toward the upper levels and the surface. The self-destruct nuclear weapon is automatically armed when it detects the containment breach, triggering its detonation countdown to prevent the spread of the infection. As the bomb arms, the scientists realize that given Andromeda's ability to generate matter directly from energy, the organism would be able to consume the released energy and ultimately benefit from a nuclear explosion, forming a large indestructible biofilm within a day. To halt the detonation, Hall must insert a special key he carries into an emergency substation, one of which should be accessible from any location in Wildfire. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a section which, due to an oversight, has no substation. He must navigate Wildfire's obstacle course of automatic defenses to reach a working substation on an upper level. He barely disarms the bomb in time before all the air is evacuated from the deepest level of the Wildfire complex, which contains the remainder of the team and their assistants. Andromeda is suspected to have eventually mutated into a benign form and migrated to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting its growth. The novel's epilogue reveals that a crewed spacecraft, Andros V, was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda had eaten its tungsten/plastic laminate heat shield and caused it to burn up. ===== Harry Potter has been living a difficult life, constantly abused by his surly and cold aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and bullied by their spoiled son Dudley since the death of his parents ten years prior. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid after previous letters had been destroyed by Vernon and Petunia. Hagrid details Harry's past as the son of James and Lily Potter, who were a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. Voldemort was not only unable to kill Harry, but his powers were also destroyed in the attempt, forcing him into exile and sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community. Hagrid introduces Harry to the wizarding world by bringing him to Diagon Alley, a hidden street in London, where Harry uncovers a fortune left to him by his parents at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He also receives a pet owl, Hedwig, various school supplies, and a wand (which he learns shares a core from the same source as Voldemort's wand). There, he is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and wizards as "The Boy Who Lived". A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station's secret Hogwarts platform, Platform . On the train, he quickly befriends fellow first- year Ronald Weasley and the two boys meet Hermione Granger, whose snobbiness and affinity for spells initially causes the two boys to dislike her. There, Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy, who shows prejudice against Ron for his family's financial difficulties. Arriving at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to Houses that best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor with Ron and Hermione, while Draco is sorted into Slytherin like his family before him. As classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers he has a talent for flying on broomsticks, and is recruited into his House's team for Quidditch (a sport sharing similarities to football) as a Seeker. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master, Severus Snape, who is also the Head of Slytherin House who acts with bias in favour of members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities to fail Harry and his friends. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into a duel in the trophy room to get them out of their rooms at night and secretly tells Filch, the school's caretaker, where they will be. Hermione unintentionally is forced to come along after her failed attempts to stop them, and they find Gryffindor student Neville Longbottom asleep outside the common area because he had forgotten the password to get in. After realizing the duel was a set-up to get them in trouble, they run away. They then discover a huge three-headed dog standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. The school's Halloween celebrations are interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which enters the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. However, she is saved by Harry and Ron and, as a result, Hermione is grateful and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor. Hermione forbids the boys from investigating for fear of expulsion, and instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape had jinxed Harry's broom, due to his strange behaviour during the match. After the excitement of winning the match has died down, Christmas arrives and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the cloak to explore the school at night to investigate what is under the trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his or her deepest desires come true. Within the Mirror, Harry sees himself standing with both of his parents. A visit to Hagrid's hut at the foot of the school leads the trio to find a newspaper report stating there had been an attempted robbery of a Gringotts vault—the same vault that Hagrid and Harry had visited when the latter was getting his school supplies. A further indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze in the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves. They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals he had been the one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his broom and then letting a troll into the school, while Snape had been trying to protect Harry instead. Quirrell is helping Voldemort, whose face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head but is constantly concealed by his oversized turban, to attain the Philosopher's Stone so as to restore his body. Quirrell uses Harry to get past the final obstacle, the Mirror of Erised, by forcing him to stand before the Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and surreptitiously deposits it into his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the boy's skin and breaks into blisters. Harry's scar suddenly burns with pain and he passes out. Three days later, he awakens in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore explains his survival against Voldemort is due to his mother's sacrificing her life in order for him to live. This left a powerful protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, which caused Quirrell's hands to burn on contact with Harry due to him being possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who sent Harry his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been left to die by Voldemort, who still lives, and the Stone has now been destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive for the summer, neglecting to tell the Dursleys that the use of spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays. ===== Rainbow Six is set in 1996 to 2000. Rainbow is a newly created multinational counter-terrorism unit, composed of elite soldiers from NATO countries, Brazil, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Australia, Russia, and Israel, formed to address the growing problem of international terrorism. The organization's director is John Clark, and the team leader is Ding Chavez. The term "Rainbow Six" refers to the director of the organization, John Clark. Soon after its inauguration, Rainbow finds itself responding to a series of seemingly unrelated terrorist attacks by the Phoenix Group, a radical eco-terrorist organization. Throughout its investigation, Rainbow is assisted and advised by John Brightling, chairman of the powerful biotechnology corporation Horizon Inc. However, Rainbow eventually learns that the Phoenix Group is actually a front for Horizon Inc itself. Brightling's company is developing a highly contagious strain of the Ebola virus called "Brahma", adapted from a strain killing Central African cattle (called "Ebola Shiva" in the novel) with the ability to kill every human being on the planet. In order to protect "mother nature", John Brightling is planning to kill most of the human race, sparing only Brightling's chosen few, who will re-emerge and rebuild the planet into a scientific and environmentally-friendly utopia. To achieve this goal, he has used the scattered terrorist attacks to create fear of terrorism, which he then exploited in order to get a security contract for his own private security firm at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Brightling's plan is for his "security personnel" to unleash the virus at the games, spreading it to all the countries of the world. Rainbow succeeds in preventing the release of the virus at the Olympics, but Brightling and his collaborators retreat to their Horizon Ark facility in the Brazilian jungle, from which they had originally planned to weather out the global holocaust. Rainbow infiltrates the facility, killing all of Brightling's collaborators and capturing Brightling himself. ===== The Marathon series of games was the first in its genre to place a heavy emphasis on storytelling through the use of terminals, which are computer interfaces included within the game through which players not only learn about and sometimes accomplish mission objectives, but also discover detailed story information. The textual form of this narrative conceit allowed for much more detail than the typically terse examples of voice acting in Marathon's contemporaries. Set in 2794, Marathon places the player as a security officer aboard an enormous human starship called the U.E.S.C. Marathon, orbiting a colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV. Throughout the game, the player attempts to defend the ship (and its crew and colonists) from a race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. As he fights against the invaders, he witnesses interactions among the three shipboard AIs (Leela, Durandal and Tycho), and discovers that all is not as it seems aboard the Marathon. Among other problems, Durandal has gone rampant and appears to be playing the humans against the Pfhor to further his own mysterious agenda; ultimately leading the S'pht, one of the races enslaved by the Pfhor, in a rebellion. Seventeen years after the events of the first game, in Marathon 2: Durandal, the artificial intelligence, Durandal, sends the player and an army of ex-colonists to search the ruins of Lh'owon, the S'pht homeworld. Lh'owon was once described as a paradise but is now a desert world after first the S'pht Clan Wars and then the invasion by the Pfhor. He does not mention what information he is looking for, although he does let it slip that the Pfhor are planning to attack Earth, and that being on Lh'owon may stall their advance. Marathon 2 brings many elements to the game that can be considered staples of the series such as: a Lh'owon-native species known as F'lickta, the mention of an ancient and mysterious race of advanced aliens called the Jjaro, and a clan of S'pht that avoided enslavement by the Pfhor: the S'pht'Kr. At the climax of the game, the player activates Thoth, an ancient Jjaro AI. Thoth then contacts the S'pht'Kr, who in turn destroy the Pfhor armada but, in revenge, the planet's sun is forced to go nova. Marathon Infinity, the final game in the series, includes more levels than Marathon 2, which are larger and part of a more intricate plot. The game's code changed little since Marathon 2, and many levels can be played unmodified in both games. The only significant additions to the game's engine were the Jjaro ship, multiple paths between levels, a new rapid-fire weapon that could be used underwater, and vacuum-enabled humans carrying fusion weapons (called "Vacuum Bobs" or "VacBobs"). Lh'owon's sun, which was artificially contained by an ancient gravity outpost, was a prison for an Eldricht abomination entity, the W'rkncacnter, which was set free when the sun went nova, and started to distort space time. The player traverses multiple timelines, attempting to find one in which the W'rkncacnter is not freed. In one timeline, the player is forced to destroy Durandal, and in another Durandal merges with Thoth. At the end of the game, an ancient Jjaro machine is activated that keeps the W'rkncacnter locked in the Lh'owon sun. Elements of the plot and setting of Marathon are similar to The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom. Both stories take place aboard colony ships orbiting Tau Ceti, where sentient computers have engaged crew and colonists in a fight for survival. While Ship in The Jesus Incident has achieved a higher level of omniscient consciousness, Durandal's rampancy parallels the "rogue consciousness" from Herbert's earlier Destination: Void. ===== The story begins when Kururin's brothers and sisters go missing, and it is up to him to find them. Kururin is initially unsure that he is up to the task because he has never left his home world before. Being the adventurous and helpful fellow he is, Kururin agrees to rescue his lost family. Teacher Hare trains Kururin in the art of controlling the Helirin, a stick-shaped helicopter that has a slow-spinning propeller. Piloting the Helirin through the different worlds will be a difficult task, but using Teacher Hare's valuable lessons, Kururin bravely sets out on his adventure to rescue his lost family. ===== In the future, in the Million-acre city of Metropolis, wealthy industrialists and business magnates and their top employees reign from 50 to 1,000-story skyscrapers, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the great machines that power the city. Joh Fredersen is the city's master. His son, Freder, idles away his time at sports and in a pleasure garden, but is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers' children to witness the lifestyle of their rich "brothers". Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder, fascinated, goes to the lower levels to find her. On the machine levels, he witnesses the explosion of a huge machine that kills and injures numerous workers. Freder has a hallucination that the machine is a temple of Moloch and the workers are being fed to it. When the hallucination ends and he sees the dead workers being carried away on stretchers, he hurries to tell his father about the accident. Fredersen asks his assistant, Josaphat, why he learned of the explosion from his son, and not from him. Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, brings Fredersen secret maps found on the dead workers. Fredersen again asks Josaphat why he did not learn of the maps from him, and fires him. After seeing his father's cold indifference towards the harsh conditions they face, Freder secretly rebels against him by deciding to help the workers. He enlists Josaphat's assistance and returns to the machine halls, where he trades places with a worker. Fredersen takes the maps to the inventor Rotwang to learn their meaning. Rotwang had been in love with a woman named Hel, who left him to marry Fredersen and later died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Fredersen a robot he has built to "resurrect" Hel. The maps show a network of catacombs beneath Metropolis, and the two men go to investigate. They eavesdrop on a gathering of workers, including Freder. Maria addresses them, prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can bring the working and ruling classes together. Freder believes he could fill the role and declares his love for Maria. Fredersen orders Rotwang to give Maria's likeness to the robot so that it can ruin her reputation among the workers to prevent any rebellion. Fredersen is unaware that Rotwang plans to use the robot to kill Freder and take over Metropolis. Rotwang kidnaps Maria, transfers her likeness to the robot and sends her to Fredersen. Freder finds the two embracing and, believing it is the real Maria, falls into a prolonged delirium. Intercut with his hallucinations, the false Maria unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder and stirring dissent among the workers. Freder recovers and returns to the catacombs. Finding the false Maria urging the workers to rise up and destroy the machines, Freder accuses her of not being the real Maria. The workers follow the false Maria from their city to the machine rooms, leaving their children behind. They destroy the Heart Machine, which causes the workers' city below to flood. The real Maria, having escaped from Rotwang's house, rescues the children with Freder's and Josaphat's help. Grot berates the celebrating workers for abandoning their children in the flooded city. Believing their children to be dead, the hysterical workers capture the false Maria and burn her at the stake. A horrified Freder watches, not understanding the deception until the fire reveals her to be a robot. Rotwang is delusional, seeing the real Maria as his lost Hel, and chases her to the roof of the cathedral, pursued by Freder. The two men fight as Fredersen and the workers watch from the street. Rotwang falls to his death. Freder fulfills his role as mediator by linking the hands of Fredersen and Grot to bring them together. ===== ===== Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank. As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost. Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality). The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert. On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law. ===== Richard MacDuff attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college St Cedd's, where he witnesses his former tutor, Professor Urban "Reg" Chronotis, perform an inexplicable magic trick in which he makes a salt cellar disappear, then reveals it by smashing a centuries-old clay pot that a young girl brought to the dinner. The dinner concludes with a reading of Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan", including a mysterious (and fictional) second part. Meanwhile, an Electric Monk and his horse find a mysterious door on an alien planet, which leads them to Earth. MacDuff and Prof. Chronotis find the horse in the Professor's bathroom, but this does not seem to overly surprise him. The Monk, misunderstanding a casual comment, shoots and kills MacDuff's boss Gordon Way. Way's ghost makes several attempts to contact the living. MacDuff returns to his London flat and engages in odd behaviour, including climbing a drainpipe to break into the flat belonging to his girlfriend, Susan Way, to erase an embarrassing message left on her answering machine. Susan returns from a night out with Michael Wenton-Weakes. Wenton-Weakes subsequently begins behaving strangely, becoming obsessed with Coleridge and intense feelings of aggrievement. The next day, MacDuff visits former schoolmate Dirk Gently, a self-claimed "Holistic Detective" who believes in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things" and is currently searching for a missing cat. Gently informs MacDuff that he is a suspect in the death of Gordon Way, and begins to unravel the mysterious chain of events. Gently concludes that MacDuff had been possessed by a ghost and that a time machine was involved. Ultimately, the two travel to St. Cedd's to meet with Prof. Chronotis, and a complex history is revealed. Four billion years in Earth's past, a group of aliens called Salaxalans landed on Earth; however, a mistake caused by their engineer – who used an Electric Monk to irrationally believe the proposed fix would work – caused their landing craft to explode, killing the Salaxalans. The ghost of the Salaxalan engineer roamed the earth, watching human life develop, searching for a way to undo its mistake, and waiting to find a sympathetic soul that it could possess. In the early 19th century, the ghost possessed Coleridge, and influenced his writing of "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", but found the poet too 'relaxed' on laudanum to be useful. It discovered that Prof. Chronotis possesses a time machine disguised as his rooms at the college. At the aforementioned Coleridge dinner, the ghost influenced Prof. Chronotis to use the time machine to perform the magic trick, using the opportunity to lure the Electric Monk and its horse to Earth. However, the ghost found the Monk unusable for its purposes. The ghost subsequently attempted to possess MacDuff, resulting in his odd behaviour, before finding its sympathetic host in Wenton-Weakes. The ghost, still in possession of Wenton-Weakes, arrives at Prof. Chronotis' quarters and convinces them to take him back in time to just prior to the explosion of the Salaxalan ship, so that he can make the proper repairs. As they watch the ghost take Wenton-Weakes' body out towards the ship, MacDuff gets a call from Susan and learns that Wenton-Weakes recently killed a professional rival (Susan having been conveyed the information by the ghost of Gordon Way). Gently realises that the similarity between Wenton-Weakes' jealousy toward his rival and the ghost's jealousy of humanity was what allowed the ghost to possess him. Gently concludes that the Salaxalans intended to settle permanently on Earth, and the explosion of their ship was what caused the beginning of life on the planet. In order to foil the ghost's plans, Gently, MacDuff, and Prof. Chronotis travel to the 19th century. Gently interrupts Coleridge, becoming the "man from Porlock" and preventing the full version of "Kubla Khan" from being written. Upon arrival back in the 20th century, Gently, MacDuff, and Prof. Chronotis find small changes as a result of their actions, including the existence of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which had not existed in their original timeline. Gently learns that the missing cat he was searching for never went missing, and sends his client a revised bill that reads, "To: saving human race from total extinction – no charge." ===== The fastidious and wholesome history teacher named Kate (Ryan) is living in Canada with her fiancé, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), a doctor. While waiting for her Canadian citizenship to come through, Kate has been busy planning their wedding and the purchase of their first house, complete with a white picket fence. When Charlie urges her to accompany him to Paris for an upcoming conference, she declines due to her fear of flying and her general intolerance for cheese, secondhand smoke, and the French. A few days later, Kate's plans for the future are crushed when she receives a phone call from Charlie, who informs her that he has fallen in love with a beautiful French "goddess" named Juliette (Susan Anbeh) and that he will not be returning. Determined to win him back, Kate boards a flight to Paris and is seated next to a crude Frenchman, Luc Teyssier (Kline), whose every word seems to annoy her. Unknown to Kate, Luc is smuggling a vine cutting and a stolen diamond necklace into France, hoping to use both to start his own vineyard. With the help of a few drinks, Kate is able to tolerate her "rude" and "hygiene-deficient" seating partner long enough to arrive safely in Paris. Before deboarding, Luc sneaks the vine and necklace into Kate's bag, knowing she will not be searched at customs. At the terminal, Luc is spotted by Inspector Jean-Paul Cardon (Jean Reno), who insists on giving him a ride during which he searches his bag. Jean-Paul knows of Luc's vocation, but feels "protective" of him because Luc once saved his life. Meanwhile, Kate arrives at the Hôtel George V, where she encounters new levels of French sarcasm and rudeness from the concierge (). While waiting in the lobby with a petty thief named Bob (François Cluzet), Kate sees Charlie and Juliette kissing in a descending elevator and faints. Bob steals her bag and leaves just as Luc arrives. After reviving Kate, Luc realizes that Bob now has the necklace, goes with Kate to Bob's apartment, and recovers the bag, absent her money and passport. Upset with Luc, Kate heads off on her own, and learns that Charlie is traveling south to Cannes to meet Juliette's parents. Luc, meanwhile, realizes that the necklace must still be in Kate's bag. He tracks her down to the train station, offers to help her "win back Charlie", and together they board a train to Cannes. After lactose- intolerant Kate samples some of the 452 official government cheeses of France, she becomes sick, and they get off the train at Luc's hometown of La Ravelle in Paulhaguet, where they stay at his family home and vineyard. Kate learns about Luc's past and how he gambled away his vineyard birthright to his brother in a single hand of poker; she also learns that while he may be a schemer, he knows a lot about wine, and dreams of someday buying land for his own winery. As they board the train to Cannes, Kate shows him that she, in fact, has the necklace. At Cannes, the two check into a room at the Carlton Hotel using a stolen credit card. Following Luc's advice, Kate confronts Charlie in front of Juliette on the beach, pretending to be indifferent to him. To make him jealous, Luc pretends to be Kate's lover, and the deception works. Later that afternoon, Jean-Paul approaches Kate and urges her to convince Luc to return the necklace anonymously to avoid jail. Luc was planning to sell the necklace at Cartier, but agrees to Kate's "new plan" to have her sell the necklace, as that would be safer. At dinner, Charlie apologizes to Kate and accompanies her to her room, where he tries to seduce her. Rejecting his advances, Kate realizes she no longer wants him, and that she has fallen in love with Luc. Meanwhile, in an effort to "ensure victory" for her, Luc takes an all-too-willing Juliette to bed, but his plan fails when he calls her "Kate". The following morning, Kate tells Luc that Charlie wants her back, but quickly leaves the room, saying, "Cartier is waiting". She returns the necklace to Jean-Paul and purchases a Cartier check for $45,782 with her own savings to create the illusion that she sold it. After giving the check to Luc, she leaves for the airport pretending to meet Charlie. Soon after, Jean-Paul approaches Luc and reveals the charade and all that Kate has done for him. Luc rushes to the airport, boards the plane, and confesses that he is in love with her and wants her to stay with him. Sometime later, Kate and he embrace in their beautiful new vineyard. =====