The story is a social comedy and concerns the activities of the villainous Captain Trefor, a con artist who convinces investors to speculate on lead mining schemes and pays himself a generous salary from the proceeds. After being abandoned by most of his previous investors, Trefor sets his sights on the naïve but successful shopkeeper Enoc Huws, who is in love with Trefor's daughter, Susan, and sees investing in Trefor's scheme as an opportunity to get close to her.

Sub-plots follow Enoc as he fights off the unwanted affection of his housekeeper, and a group of chapel elders wishing to appoint a new minister. The novel is set in the same nameless town as Owen's earlier novel Rhys Lewis, and features a few of the same characters, though it is not in any real sense a sequel.

The story is set in the reign of King Charles II of England and follows the experiences of Quaker leader Rowland Ellis who founded a Welsh colony in Pennsylvania after being forced to leave Wales because of religious persecution.

Rowland Ellis becomes a Quaker as a result of the influence of a neighbour, but his wife does not share his religious beliefs. Following her death, he marries a sympathetic cousin. He is betrayed to the authorities by a servant he has dismissed, who describes a "secret room" he claims to have seen in the house, containing objects of Catholic worship. However, this is not the main reason why the novel is named "The Secret Room", as it also refers to the secret room within one's heart where the inner light is found. Ellis and his fellow Quakers are imprisoned and illegally condemned to death, but are released following the direct intervention of the king. Nevertheless, they decide to leave Wales for a better life in America.

Following the battle of Sekigahara, Takezo (Toshiro Mifune) and his friend Matahachi (Rentarō Mikuni) find themselves on the losing side. Instead of the grand victory and glory Takezo had anticipated, he finds himself a hunted fugitive, having to assist a severely injured Matahachi. The pair seek shelter with a widow and her daughter who unknown to them are connected to local brigands. The brigands soon show up and ask for tribute from what the women have stripped off dead samurai, and Takezo has to fight them off. Both women attempt to seduce Takezo but are rejected. The widow then tells Matahachi that Takezo tried to assault her and convinces him to escort her and her daughter to Kyoto. Matahachi agrees even though he loves (and is betrothed to) Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa), a woman from his village.

Takezo thinks his friend Matahachi has deserted him, and he makes his way home - on the way breaking through a roadblock, injuring several of the local lord's men manning it - and returns to his village. He tells Matahachi's family that he is still alive but will not reveal why Matahachi has not returned. Matahachi's mother does not believe him, and sets a trap for his capture, but he escapes and she is arrested for treason along with many members of her clan. There is a village-wide search for Takezo, organized by the lord. Even after using his relatives as bait, the villagers cannot catch Takezo.

Otsu, meanwhile, gets a letter signed by the widow's daughter saying that Matahachi has gone off with her and to forget him, which leaves her devastated. Matahachi's mother, however, continues to insist that Otsu is her daughter-in-law and must live with her.

Takezo is finally captured by the Buddhist priest Takuan Sōhō, who tells the lord that he must be allowed to use his own methods to control him. The priest believes that he can straighten Takezo out, but Takezo again escapes with Otsu's help. Otsu now understands that Takezo was trying to shield her from the knowledge that Matahachi had abandoned her, and begs him to let her travel with him. They flee together but are soon tracked down. Otsu is captured, but Takezo fights his way out. Takezo learns that Otsu has been taken to Himeji Castle and breaks in to rescue her, but is once more tracked down by the priest Takuan. He is tricked and locked in a room in the castle for three years, told to study the ways of the samurai to earn his release while Otsu safely waits for him in a hiding place chosen by Takuan.

The end of the film shows Takezo being released and granted his samurai name 'Musashi Miyamoto.' He then leaves to search for enlightenment, leaving two messages for Otsu: "Soon I will be back" and "Forgive me."

Two years after the attempted Helghast invasion of Vekta, an ISA fleet led by Colonel Jan Templar is sent to attack Pyrrhus, the capital city of Helghan, with the goal of deposing and arresting Emperor Scolar Visari on charges of war crimes. Among the ISA units taking part in the attack is Alpha Squad, led by Jan's old comrade Ricardo "Rico" Velasquez. Sergeant Tomas "Sev" Sevchenko, a veteran of the ISA "Legion" battalion, is assigned to serve as his second-in-command.

Tasked with securing Pyrrhus against the fierce resistance of the Helghan Second Army, the team quickly discovers that the Helghast are well prepared for an invasion. Using Helghan's harsh environment to their advantage, they have developed new weapons and equipment, none of which the ISA has ever seen before. Furthermore, the planet's fog-like atmosphere, gritty deserts, and constant storms pose almost as much of a threat to the invaders as the enemy themselves.

Story

Led by Jan's flagship, the ''New Sun'', the ISA bombard Pyrrhus as cover for a massive ground assault on the city. Despite stiff resistance from well-armed Helghast divisions, they steadily advance towards the Imperial Palace, ultimately capturing both Visari Square and the Helghan Military Academy. Just as the main convoy is set to attack the palace, Colonel Mael Radec, commander of the Second Army, activates a network of arc towers hidden beneath Pyrrhus, killing hundreds of ISA soldiers and breaking their momentum.

Dante Garza, a member of Alpha Squad and close friend of Tomas's, retrieves a piece of a destroyed tower and sends it to ISA researcher Evelyn Batton, who learns that the towers are powered by Petrusite, a mineral capable of generating and channeling electricity. She also identifies an old mining outpost on the outskirts of Pyrrhus where the Helghast have been secretly extracting it for military use.

While working to restore the outpost's communication antenna, Tomas and Rico are separated from the rest of Alpha Squad, allowing Radec's men to capture them. The two fight their way through the refinery where the captives were taken, stumbling upon an interrogation overseen by Radec himself. Oddly enough, he demands that Evelyn give him the launch codes to a set of stolen nuclear warheads in Helghast custody. Rico loses his temper and surprises Radec, saving the captives but leaving Garza mortally wounded. Blaming him for his friend's death, Tomas and the squad return to the ''New Sun''.

Before Garza can be properly mourned, an elite Helghast battalion led by Radec mounts a surprise attack on the fleet, boarding or destroying several ships including the ''Sun''. The ship's crew manages to evacuate, but Radec reaches the bridge and executes Jan and Evelyn, downloading the codes before they can be deleted. With the last of his strength, Jan maneuvers the ship to crash into the center of Helghan's Petrusite distribution grid, causing it to explode and disrupt the arc network.

Seizing the opportunity, the survivors attempt to regroup, only to witness Visari detonate the warheads over Pyrrhus, destroying it and killing both the entire population and most of the remaining ISA forces.

With ISA captain Jason Narville leading an offensive on the remnants of the Second Army, Alpha Squad breaches the palace, where they encounter Radec and the imperial guard. After a pitched battle, the wounded commander and his men commit mass suicide out of disgrace, clearing the way to Visari's throne room.

As Tomas moves to arrest him, Visari gloats that he has still won, as the Helghast are now united against the ISA, and without him, they cannot be stopped. Overcome with guilt, Rico kills him on the spot.

Weary from fighting, Tomas exits the palace and sits on the steps. Above him, a large armada belonging to the Helghan First Army begins its attack on what is left of the ISA invasion force.

Las Vegas magician and wannabe gangster Buddy "Aces" Israel is in hiding at a Lake Tahoe hotel while his agent negotiates a potential immunity deal with FBI Deputy Director Stanley Locke. Special Agents Richard Messner and Donald Carruthers learn that ailing mob boss Primo Sparazza has issued a $1 million bounty on Israel and sent a mysterious "Swede" to bring him Israel's heart. A number of assassins also seek the reward: master of disguise Lazlo Soot; hitwomen Sharice Watters and Georgia Sykes, hired by Sparazza's underboss; mercenary Pasquale Acosta; and psychotic neo-Nazi brothers Darwin, Jeeves, and Lester Tremor.

Locke sends Messner and Carruthers to take Israel into protective custody. Bail bondsmen Jack Dupree, "Pistol" Pete Deeks, and Hollis Elmore have been hired by the law firm that posted Israel's bail to capture him as well. The bondsmen are attacked by the Tremors, and only Elmore escapes alive. Messner visits the murder scene while Carruthers proceeds to the hotel, which each of the assassins have infiltrated. Carruthers recognizes Acosta, disguised as a security officer, in an elevator and both are mortally wounded in the ensuing gunfight.

Soot gains access to Israel's penthouse, posing as his henchman Hugo. Sir Ivy, Israel's second-in-command, confronts Israel for agreeing to inform on Ivy and his entourage as part of the plea deal, and is subdued by hotel security. In Los Angeles, Locke abruptly withdraws from the deal with Israel and orders that Messner and Carruthers not be told. The Tremor brothers reach the penthouse floor and attack the security team and Ivy, who kills Jeeves and Lester. Israel, learning Locke has terminated the plea deal, attempts suicide.

Finding Carruthers and Acosta, Sykes is cornered when Messner sets up a position around the elevator. Watters provides cover from a nearby hotel with an M82 sniper rifle, outgunning Messner's team. Acosta wounds Sykes, but is shot by a dying Carruthers. Believing Sykes is dead, Watters continues shooting at the FBI. Sykes escapes to the penthouse, where she stops Darwin Tremor before he can kill Ivy. Tremor escapes, and Messner, distraught over Carruthers' death, stops Ivy and Sykes on the stairwell but lets them go. Seeing the pair alive and free through her rifle scope, Watters is gunned down by the FBI.

Locke and his team descend on the hotel and take Israel to the hospital. Soot escapes, while Acosta is carted away on a gurney, still alive, and Darwin is gunned down by Elmore. At the hospital, Messner learns the truth from Locke: the Swede is a prominent heart surgeon, and Soot was hired to retrieve Israel's heart as a transplant for Sparazza; Israel is Sparazza's illegitimate son and most compatible donor. Sparazza is revealed to be Freeman Heller, a former undercover FBI agent who was thought to have been killed by the mob. In reality, the FBI attempted to kill Heller for blurring the lines between mobster and agent. Heller survived, permanently adopting the identity of Sparazza.

Messner is furious over the unnecessary deaths of Carruthers and his fellow agents, and Locke's plan to complete the transplant, sacrificing Israel to save Sparazza and exploit his decades of criminal operations. Ordered to keep quiet, Messner instead locks himself in the operating room and takes Israel and Sparazza off life support, killing them both. As Locke and his men desperately try to break in, Messner lays his gun and badge on the floor, apparently resigning from the FBI.

Anthony Zimmer is a genius career criminal wanted by police around the world. He has used ingenious methods to launder money legally, using dummy corporations that file lawsuits against firms outside France. Zimmer is also being pursued by the "White Collar Barons"—a powerful Russian mafia with whom he once did business. Zimmer is an elusive character, however, with no known description of his appearance following his recent plastic surgery. One standout detective named Akerman is getting close to catching the criminal mastermind; he knows that Zimmer will risk everything to reunite with the lover he left behind, Chiara Manzoni, who has not seen him since his plastic surgery.

Anticipating a reunion with Zimmer, Chiara arrives at a restaurant, where she receives a message from her boyfriend, telling her to "pick up" a stranger whose general appearance matches his own in order to mislead his pursuers. Chiara boards a TGV high-speed train and chooses François Taillandier, a bland 38-year-old translator who reads detective novels and whose wife left him over six months ago. Fascinated by this beautiful mysterious woman, François has difficulty concentrating on his yogurt and reading. When they arrive at Cannes, Chiara invites François to stay over with her at the Carlton Hotel. She also gives him a watch that bears Zimmer's name on the back.

The next morning, François wakes up alone and finds himself the target of two hitmen. He frantically escapes and seeks shelter at a nearby police station. There, he befriends Lt. Camel Driss, who provides him with clothes and a room at a nearby hospital. They discover that Chiara checked out of the Carlton Hotel that day. Driss believes François' story after seeing a bullet hole in the hotel room, which is now occupied by members of the White Collar Barons and their leader, Nassaiev. Later that night, Driss is murdered.

When he sees Nassaiev and his goons outside his room, François escapes and unexpectedly reunites with Chiara, who takes him to a secret hideout in Nice. There, she explains that she set him up because he matches Zimmer's build, and she tells him to stay in the hideout for a few days. The next day, however, François leaves the hideout and stalks her outside the Hotel Negresco, hoping to get more answers from her. Soon François is nabbed by the police and interrogated by Akerman, who reveals to him that Chiara is in fact an undercover DGDDI agent. That night, Akerman secretly meets up with Chiara to discuss the rendezvous Zimmer proposed in a classified ad. Akerman tells her that while she will be at the rendezvous point, he will keep an eye on François.

With François in custody, Akerman and his men park their surveillance truck and post their snipers within the vicinity of the rendezvous point: Zimmer's old mansion. Chiara enters the mansion and confronts the White Collar Barons and Nassaiev, who threatens to kill her if Zimmer does not arrive within five minutes. François leaves the truck and rushes into the mansion to save her, but is immediately placed on the ground at gunpoint by Nassaiev's men. After Nassaiev rejects her claims that François is not Zimmer, Chiara gives the signal and the snipers shoot down the Russian mobsters.

As the police remove the Russian bodies from the scene, François reveals to Chiara that he is, in fact, Anthony Zimmer. She tells him to flee, but Zimmer refuses, even though he knows Chiara is an agent. He opens a secret safe and takes out a notebook filled with his banking information, and leaves it by the front door for Akerman—his way of giving up his life of crime for the woman he loves. Knowing what he's given up for her, Chiara decides not to reveal his true identity to the police, and the two drive away together.

Angel Sullivan is an outcast, unable to find any true acceptance anywhere - not at school and certainly not at home, where she's at the mercy of her alcoholic father's anger. When her aunt calls and the family moves to Roundtree, Massachusetts, everyone is hopeful that they'll be able to make a fresh start. Shortly after arriving Angel meets Seth, who is in a similar situation as he is also bullied by his schoolmates and has to put up with an abusive father. The two find solace in one another and it's through Seth that Angel discovers that her new home has a dark and sinister supernatural past that threatens to put an end to Angel and her family.

Major Ben McBride (Patrick Wayne) organises a mission to the Antarctic wastes to search for his friend Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure) who has been missing in the region for several years. A British naval survey ship takes them to Caprona. McBride's party: the paleontologist Norfolk (Thorley Walters), gunner and mechanic Hogan (Shane Rimmer) and photographer Lady Charlotte 'Charlie' Cunningham (Sarah Douglas) fly over the mountain wall of Caprona in an amphibious aircraft, but are attacked by a fierce giant pterodactylus and forced down.

They find themselves in a world populated by primitive warriors and prehistoric creatures, all of whom they must evade in order to get back safely to their ship. They meet a cave-girl, Ajor (Dana Gillespie), who can speak English (she was taught by Tyler); she leads them to the land of a race of samurai-like warriors called the Nargas, who are keeping Tyler prisoner. When the volcano that the Nargas worship erupts, they must escape the cataclysm engulfing the land. Tyler sacrifices himself to cover their retreat.

Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing), a British Victorian scientist, and his US financier David Innes (Doug McClure) make a test run of their ''Iron Mole'' drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles, the Mahars (Pterodactyls with parrot-like beaks), and full of prehistoric beasts and cavemen.

They are captured by the Mahars, who keep primitive humans as their slaves through mind control. David falls for the beautiful slave girl Princess Dia (Caroline Munro) but when she is chosen as a sacrificial victim in the Mahar city, David and Perry must rally the surviving human slaves to rebel and not only save her but also win their freedom.

Musashi walks alone from the mountains to the seashore, then to the farm fields, "in search of knowledge and to complete his character as a respectable samurai". It is evening as he stops by a hut and prepares a bandana on his forehead. He tells a young lad to go, but he refuses, saying that he lives there and knows Musashi will duel with Old Baiken nearby. Shisido Baiken arrives with two aides. The two men face off, Musashi with his katana, Baiken with rapidly swinging ball and chain and scythe (kusarigama). After a tense battle Musashi delivers a killing thrust. An old man passing by chastises Musashi, commenting that although he is a skilled fencer, he lacks chivalry and is not mentally relaxed, thus is not a true samurai.

The boy, whose name is Jotaro and is an orphan, follows Musashi on his journey. In Kyoto, Otsu still waits, selling fans by the bridge. Akemi comes by and notices her sadness, they talk, Akemi says she longs for a certain man also. Toji comes and grabs Akemi to take her back to entertain Seijuro Yoshioka, a wealthy Martial Arts School owner. Toji and Oko discuss how rich they will be by pimping out Akemi. Matahachi still hangs around the house also and sings a mournful song.

At the Yoshioka school Musashi keeps dueling with the students, laying a beating on them one by one. Believing all the students are not powerful enough, he demands a match with Seijuro, the school master. Later Seijuro arrives to see his wounded students, defeated by who they consider a back country fencer. Seijuro prepares for a duel but is stopped by Toji, who says Musashi is not good enough for the master. The men whisper and plan. They attack his room en masse but Musashi is gone. He left a note saying Seijuro is to post his time and place for a duel by Sanjuro Bridge the next day.

Back at the house, Oko and Toji try to cheer up a pensive Seijuro. Akemi delivers tea. Toji tells him to have his brother Denschichiro fight instead. Akemi sees Musashi's note and his signature, realizing it must be her Takezo. She goes to tell a stunned Matahachi, who sets out to find his old friend.

In a shop Musashi is trying to get his sword sharpened, the smithy calls Musashi a murderer and refuses to polish the weapon. The samurai leaves in anger, then pauses, returns and asks humbly, the smithy now agrees but says only the Master Koetsu Honami can polish the sword. At Honami's shop the master polisher is friendly and shows a recent job, a long sword nicknamed "the Clothes Pole". Musashi is interested in the owner, who is Kojiro Sasaki.

In a park Matahachi walks nervously. He sees a group of men attack a samurai, they cry out they made a mistake. The dying man gives Matahachi a package to deliver to Kojiro Sasaki.

At the house Seijuro punishes Akemi for loving his enemy, then he rapes her. Oko and Toji leave them alone. Afterwards, Akemi glares at her mother with hate.

In the dusk Musashi waits by the bridge. Otsu arrives by coincidence and the two meet once again, Otsu never wants to leave him again. A stoic Musashi admits he prefers his sword. Suddenly a large group of men approach Musashi. Vastly outnumbered, Musashi fights and retreats, demanding a fair duel. While he escapes by the riverbank, Sasaki crosses the bridge and says that Toji will lose against Musashi. Toji acts bossy until Sasaki suddenly takes his sword and quickly slices off Toji's topknot with the "Swallow Turn" move. Sasaki then strides away back across the bridge.

Otsu runs along the river calling for Takezo. Akemi is there also and hears her. The two women meet and Akemi realizes they both long for the same man. She lies to Otsu that Takezo had proposed to her. Sadly Akemi says she was going to kill herself but now will live for Takezo. Otsu weeps, not believing it.

Back at the temple she seeks guidance from Takuan the Buddhist priest, and wants to be a nun. Takuan tells her she doesn't have to and introduces her to Jotaro.

Akemi wakens at Sasaki's house. Startled, he tells her she is free to go but asks her to stay awhile. He grills her about Musashi. Toji and his men from Yoshioka school arrives to take Akemi back, but Sasaki threatens them with his long sword. In the resulting clash he strikes down two until Seijuro stops the fight, saying that he recognizes Sasaki by his fighting style.

Elsewhere in Kyoto, Koetsu Honami has taken Musashi to see the star courtesan Yoshino at the best nightclub in town. She performs her dance routine then comes to sit by Musashi. An ascetic Musashi declines any drinks, so the women make ribald double entendres and call him "Mr. Weak".

At the school Denschichiro comes to see his older brother, ripping him for the cowardice in not fighting the previous evening. All over town the men are looking for Musashi. Honami's mother tells Takuan Musashi is being kept occupied in the geisha quarters until the trouble passes. Finally two men discover where he is and deliver a summons from Denschichiro to duel at nine that night at Rengein Temple.

Denschichiro waits at the temple as Musashi arrives, and they start a swordfight. As a geisha sings, Musashi returns none the worse for wear, the geisha tells him he must visit with Lady Yoshino. Mushashi is shy beside the aggressive courtesan while she taunts him and questions his attitude towards women.

Seijuro sees his dead brother laid out and tells him he shouldn't have been so rash. He tells Sasaki he must now fight Musashi. Seijuro then goes to a bedroom and apologizes to a sad Akemi and asks for one kind word from her to help his spirit, she refuses and says she'll pray for Musashi.

Toji has 200 gold pieces and prepares to leave town with Oko, leaving Akemi behind. As the two run out they bump into Matahachi and scurry off. As Matahachi gets up his mother Osugi arrives. He shows his mother the scroll he took from the dying samurai, it is a diploma from the Chujo School and he claims it as his, and he has changed his name to Kojiro Sasaki.

Musashi relaxes by painting at Yoshino's place, but he hears the word on the streets that he's a coward, so he prepares to leave. Yoshino leaves him a farewell note, not being able to tell him goodbye since he is her true love. As soon as Musashi leaves the nightclub area, he is quickly surrounded by the people from Yoshioka school. Sasaki intervenes and introduces himself to Musashi. They agree to a duel with Seijuro at five the next morning at Ichijoji Temple, 19 February. The duel is posted for all to read.

Otsu prays at the temple, Takuan prepares to have her long hair cut to become a nun. As Takuan readies the razor Jotaro comes and tells her she must go the Ichijoji Temple for the duel.

Musashi cleanses himself by a well. In the dawn a large group of men confront Sasaki, who claims to be a witness of the duel but is rejected as he is not requested to do so by anybody. Sasaki realizes that they are to ambush Musashi, and leaves after commenting that the house of Yoshioka has no honour.

Osugi has convinced Matahachi to kill Otsu, they intercept her in the woods. Matahachi instead wants to elope, Otsu explains she loves Takezo. Enraged, Matahachi chases her with the long sword. Sasaki happens to come by. Boldly, Matahachi proclaims himself as Sasaki. The real Sasaki is amused and introduces himself.

Musashi stops briefly at a well and ponders the inscription. Akemi arrives and hugs him. Otsu also shows up and sees the two in a close embrace. Akemi tells him there are 80 men waiting for him, she tells him not to go. Otsu watches as Musashi pushes Akemi down and continues towards the duel.

He strides confidently through the bush and arrives behind the ambushers. He decides to go in as promised, demanding to see Seijuro. Defiant, he draws his blade and starts taking them down. Otsu arrives as more reinforcements also appear, while Sasaki and Akemi watch from a hillside nearby. Since archers land their arrows at Musashi`s feet, he retreats slowly across a rice paddy, the thick mud and water hampers the mob. He gets to dry land first and makes an escape.

As day breaks Takuan appears. Otsu announces she will not be a nun after all.

Somewhere in the woods a tired Musashi meets Seijuro, who claims that he is not a coward but his men stopped him earlier. As they start the duel, Musashi's first strike hurts Seijuro's left arm, causing him falls to the ground and at Musashi's mercy. Recalling the words from the people he encountered previously, Musashi relents and leaves Seijuro alive.

On the run, Musashi is exhausted and collapses at a stream. Jotaro sees him and calls for Otsu. Later, by a mountain stream Musashi awakens. Otsu is happily washing clothes by the water. The two are living their dreams. Overcome with emotion and thinking that Otsu feels the same way for him, Musashi attempts to make love right there, but Otsu tells him she is not ready to go all the way. Confused, Musashi quickly packs his swords and leaves. He then renounces his love of women and promise to never fall for a woman again as they are never clear on their intentions. High above, Sasaki sees him walking alone and wishes him luck in his next grand adventure.

The film contains interviews with the gender dysphoria pundit and caregiver Dr. Leo Wollman as well as transgender people, including the transgender rights activist Deborah Hartin. Between the interviews, there are staged dramatizations of the interviewees' experiences.

Miyamoto abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by the Shogun, Japan's de facto leader. He is also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Miyamoto agrees to fight Sasaki in a year's time but rejects the Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Miyamoto assists the villagers against a band of brigands.

In the large city of Edo in Japan, Sasaki kills multiple men in a battle in the street. The commotion resulting from the battle in the street garners the attention of Miyamoto who is nearby in the city. Miyamoto leaves his room to see what has occurred and notices the dead men in the street as well as a note from Sasaki claiming responsibility for the killing.

Sasaki and Miyamoto eventually meet one another and agree to a fight. However, on the day the fight is planned, Miyamoto decides to delay the fight for a year. During this year before the fight, Sasaki becomes acquainted with the upper class, while Miyamoto begins farming near a small village. Miyamoto seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest. Sasaki also travels to Ganryu Island for their fight.

During this fight, Miyamoto kills Sasaki and is victorious. However, Miyamoto is unhappy about killing Sasaki, calling him "the greatest swordsman" he ever encountered, and silently mourns for him.

Lorena (Mariana Garza) is an introverted girl who dreams of "reaching a star" - that star being singer Eduardo Casablanca (Eduardo Capetillo). She gets to meet him at a press conference to present his latest album and his first telenovela. Lorena begins to write anonymous letters to Eduardo while her classmates ridicule her bad looks. Eduardo struggles to maintain a relationship with his gold digger girlfriend Déborah (Kenia Gazcón).

Harry Evers and Marvin Ellison are long time friends who meet each Thursday to play poker and get away from their wives. After the weekly game breaks up over a disagreement, the two men decide to continue meeting for other activities, which leads to friendship and rivalry as the men's lives take on very different paths.

Laura Wing, an impoverished American girl, is visiting her sister Selina Berrington in London. Selina's husband Lionel, boorish and often drunk, is preparing to divorce his wife for her adultery with Charlie Crispin. Laura challenges Selina about her affair and doubts Selina's protestations of innocence. Lady Davenant, an elderly friend of the family, counsels Laura not to take her sister's marital troubles so hard.

Laura meets a pleasant but boring American named Wendover, who becomes a suitor. Eventually, after a tempestuous and (for the reader) entertaining scene at the opera, Selina leaves her husband and goes to Brussels with Crispin. Laura spurns Wendover's marriage proposal and pursues her sister to Brussels, where she accomplishes nothing. Laura finally goes back to America, where Wendover follows her though there is no assurance as to how their future will play out. The story ends with a reminder that the case of ''Berrington v. Berrington and others'' is upcoming in the courts.

A Greek military hero named Darios (Rory Calhoun) visits his uncle Lissipu (George Rigaud) on the island of Rhodes in the year 280 BC. Rhodes has just finished constructing an enormous colossal statue of the god Apollo to guard its harbor and is planning an alliance with Phoenicia, which would be hostile to Greece.

Darios flirts with the beautiful Diala (Lea Massari), daughter of the statue's mastermind, Carete (Félix Fernández), while becoming involved with a group of rebels headed by Peliocles (Georges Marchal). These rebels seek to overthrow Rhodes' tyrannical king Serse (Roberto Camardiel); but so does Serse's evil second-in-command, Thar (Conrado San Martín). He has Phoenician soldiers smuggled into Rhodes as slaves, and his men occupy the Colossus to secure safe entrance for the Phoenician fleet.

The rebels learn of this plan and decide to apply to the Greeks for help; Darios, who is forbidden to leave Rhodes as he is suspected a spy, is to serve as an unwitting message carrier. But as they try to exit the harbor under the cover of night, they are foiled by the Colossus's defensive weaponry and arrested; Darios is of course convicted as a fellow conspirator. However, just before the captives are to be executed, the rest of the rebels break them out.

In their hideout, Peliocles decides that the only way to stop the invasion is to control the Colossus and free their fellow rebels who have already been captured and sentenced to work as slaves beneath the Colossus; the release mechanism for the dungeons is located in the statue itself. Darios realizes that without reconnaissance the mission is doomed to fail and tries to enlist Diala's aid. Unfortunately, he foolishly tells her about the rebels' hideout. Diala, who longs for power, betrays Darios and has Thar have the rebels nearly wiped out – with the exceptions of Mirte (Mabel Karr) and Koros (Ángel Aranda), Peliocles' sister and brother, who have managed to hide.

Peliocles and his men are captured and forced to provide amusement in the local arena; but just when Darios arrives to publicly expose the traitor's plot, Thar executes his coup and kills Serse and his retainers. The rebels immediately set out to carry out their plan, but the rebellion seems doomed to fail: Darios is captured while he tries to work the release mechanism to the dungeons, and Koros, who accompanies him, is killed. An all-out assault of the rebels on the Colossus is foiled by its formidable arsenal, which forces them to retreat into the city. Thar's soldiers kill Diala's father, who does not want to see his life's work abused.

An earthquake and a violent storm hit the island just as the enemy fleet is visible on the horizon. Thar and his men flee the Colossus when a tremor shakes the structure violently, only to be slain by the rebels in the city streets. Diala, plagued with remorse, frees Darios but is soon afterwards killed by falling debris. As the quake continues, the Colossus finally topples over and crashes into the harbor bay.

After the fury of nature has passed, Darios and Mirte meet Lissipu outside the ruined city. Lissipu remarks that Darios is now free to leave, but his nephew announces that he will marry Mirte and stay in Rhodes to help make the island peaceful again.

The Swallows, Amazons and Ds are all on a sailing cruise with Captain Flint in the Outer Hebrides. While the older members of the party clean ''Sea Bear'', before returning her to the owner, the younger ones explore inland and a mysterious bird is seen nesting on an island in a loch. The question arises whether it is a great northern diver, which has never been known to nest in the British Isles, or a black-throated diver.

Mr Jemmerling, the expert whom they consult, turns out to be a deadly enemy of the birds, as he collects birds' eggs and stuffed skins of birds. Hence they try to protect the birds while gathering photographic evidence of their nesting. Complicating the matter is a misunderstanding with the local Scottish inhabitants or ''Gaels'' who are mostly Gaelic speaking, and believe that their visitors have been sent by rival landowners to spoil the deer-shooting (the local livelihood) by driving the deer from their traditional breeding grounds. While trying to distract Jemmerling and his employee, the children and Captain Flint are rounded up by the ghillies (gamekeepers or gamewardens) of the local laird (called "The McGinty") and locked in a barn. They succeed in attracting the laird's attention and eventually in explaining what is going on, and his conviction is reinforced by the sound of a gunshot, which angers the laird and alters his view. He turns out to be a person of impeccably good manners who apologises profusely to his visitors for the way they have been treated. His son Ian ("the young chieftain") also befriends the children, and everyone delights in the recovery of the divers' eggs and their restoration to the nest before they have gone cold. Ransome entrusts this task to Titty and Dick, the two characters whom his biographer Hugh Brogan considered to be Ransome's favourites, because they contained the most of his own personality. Ransome was personally a strong supporter of the protection of birds, and had previously advocated it in his novel ''Coot Club'' to which cross-reference is made in this book.

As the plot involves more excitement and violence than usual, with the egg-collector attempting to shoot the rare bird of the title and a sailor in his employ attempts to shoot dogs, some have classified this book as one of the metafictional stories in the series: a fantasy tale made up by the children themselves. The other two books generally agreed to be metafictional are ''Peter Duck'' and ''Missee Lee''.

However, Arthur Ransome himself made it clear that this story was not metafiction. Writing to Myles North, discussing the book's dedication, he says:

:...At all costs it must do nothing to weaken the '''''reality''''' ... nothing to suggest that it is a mere story and not the record of an actual happening, even if for bird protection's sake, the details are somewhat disguised. (AR's own emphasis)

Ottar Thor is the star player of the Icelandic football team KR (Reykjavík FC). He is a well liked player who causes a stir when he admits being gay to his teammates and then goes on a journey to discover himself (with the help of the local press). He soon finds himself on the bench for most of his team's matches and decides to call it quits with KR. He joins a small amateur team mainly made up of men like himself gay guys trying to play soccer in a straight world.

The director of KR, who happens to be Ottar Thor's father, tries everything in his power to persuade Ottar to come back and play for his team, but he needs to get himself back into the closet before playing pro football again. A struggle between father and son starts. Ottar Thor also has a son, a teenager who is not coping well with all the attention his father is getting for the wrong reasons.

Ottar Thor finally gives in to his father and returns to KR on the condition that KR plays one match against the gay team. His father accepts this condition, not realising that the match will take place on Gay Pride Day. KR wins the match 8–0.

Perhan lives with his devoted grandmother Khatidza, his lame sister Danira and his dissolute uncle Merdzan. Khatidza possesses a level of supernatural powers (mainly healing) and Perhan himself inherited some minor telekinetic abilities. He wants to marry a girl named Azra, but her mother will not allow it, as Perhan is the illegitimate son of a Slovenian soldier who had an affair with Perhan's late mother. Ahmed, the "Gypsy sheik," comes to the village with his brothers. Merdzan loses his clothes playing cards with Ahmed's brothers, and comes home desperate for money so that he can repay. It is raining and not finding any money, he accuses the grandmother of hiding the money from him and lifts the frame of the house up (using a rope and a truck), so that it is suspended in mid-air as the rain comes down on Perhan, his grandmother and Danira. Very soon after, Khatidza is summoned to use her powers to save Ahmed's sick son, Roberto, which Khatidza does. For repayment, she proposes a deal with Ahmed - to pay for Danira's leg to be healed at a hospital in Ljubljana. Perhan goes with Danira, promising his grandmother not to leave her, but Ahmed asks where will he stay and convinces him to go to Milan. At first Perhan wants to make money honestly, but after being dragged through the mud, Perhan begins stealing and squirreling money away in a shack.

After being double-crossed by his brother Sadam, Ahmed appoints Perhan boss of the operation. Now relatively rich, Perhan goes home, where he is enraged to find Azra is pregnant. Perhan refuses to believe that the baby is his. They marry with the condition that she would sell the baby. Perhan is also disappointed to find that the house Ahmed promised to build him is not being built at all, and that Danira was not operated on, but forced to be a beggar as part of Ahmed's money operation. On their wedding night, Azra tells him the child is theirs, and was conceived when they made love on the Feast of St George. Still wearing her wedding dress, Azra dies after giving birth to a boy while levitating mid-air (a sign that the boy, as he inherited the powers, is indeed Perhan's). Because Ahmed leaves with the baby, which we discover later is also named Perhan, he is raised by Ahmed's crew.

After four years of searching, Perhan reunites with Danira in Rome, who leads him to Perhan Jr., whom Perhan now accepts as his child. Perhan drops the children off at the train station, promising to meet up with them after buying an accordion for his son and a present (sponges) for grandmother. The boy tells him he is mad at him because he will not return, and he will not get an accordion. Perhan assures him he will, "Cross my gypsy heart," but immediately runs out of the station to settle the score with Ahmed, who is about to be married. Perhan arrives at the wedding and kills Ahmed with a fork, using his telekinetic powers. He also kills one of Ahmed's brothers, but he is in turn killed by Ahmed's new wife. At the funeral, the grandmother passes out drinks to everyone and Perhan Jr. goes outside the house, peers through the window at his dead father, breaks the glass and steals the golden coins put on his father's eyes. Merdzan notices, and follows him out in the rain, as the child runs away hidden under a cardboard box. Merdzan is about to catch him up and pick up the board, but seems to have second thoughts, stops, and starts running toward the nearby church.

Dr. Henryk Savaard is a scientist experimenting with bringing the dead back to life in a laboratory in his home. Bob Roberts, a young medical student, volunteers himself to be temporarily killed in order to test an artificial heart developed by Savaard. If successful, Savaard's invention could allow doctors to perform procedures that would otherwise be impossible to conduct on living patients. Bob's fiancée, Ms. Crawford, fears that the experiment will fail, and rushes to a police department to alert law enforcement. When the police enter Savaard's house, Savaard instructs his assistant, Lang, to take the artificial heart and hide. Despite his assertions that he can restore Bob's life, the police arrest Savaard for murder.

After a publicized trial, a jury declares Savaard guilty of first-degree murder, and he is sentenced to hang. Following the announcement of the verdict, the presiding Judge Bowman allows Savaard two minutes to speak, which Savaard uses to condemn those responsible for his conviction. On death row, Savaard is visited by Lang, and signs a release form that will allow Lang to take possession of his body after he is executed. Shortly thereafter, Savaard is hanged.

Some time later, Savaard is revived by Lang. Though he sustained a broken neck from the hanging, Lang was able to surgically repair it, an effort that Lang notes would have been unfeasible had Savaard been alive. Over the month following Savaard's execution, six of the jurors from his trial are found hanged in apparent suicides, a commonality noticed by reporter 'Scoop' Foley. Foley visits Savaard's house on a night when the surviving jurors—along with District Attorney Drake, Police Lieutenant Shane, and police surgeon Dr. Stoddard—have been asked to gather there, having been sent messages attributed to Judge Bowman. When Bowman arrives, he reveals that he received a telegram supposedly signed by Savaard's daughter Janet asking him to meet her there.

As the guests attempt to deduce who summoned them to the location, Savaard enters the room. Inviting them to stay for dinner, he explains to his guests, who are stunned to see him alive, that he could kill all of them and be protected by the alibi of his being legally dead. Judge Bowman tries to leave the house but is fatally electrocuted when he attempts to open a grille separating the guests from the house's front doors. Savaard disappears, and the remaining guests realize that they are trapped in the house.

Over an intercom, Savaard announces that each of them will be killed at fifteen-minute intervals. Kearney, the head juror, is killed when he answers a phone that thrusts a poison-tipped needle into his ear, piercing his brain. Savaard states that Ms. Crawford is next to die. Janet arrives at the house, and the trapped guests explain to her that her father is alive. Janet finds Savaard upstairs in his laboratory, and implores him to abandon his desire for revenge. Savaard reveals that he killed Lang after Lang threatened to expose his plan to kill those responsible for convicting him. Janet heads downstairs and, in spite of her father's pleas, purposefully touches the electrified grille, forcing Savaard to surrender.

Using Savaard's artificial heart apparatus, Dr. Stoddard revives Janet. Savaard, to the dismay of Dr. Stoddard, destroys his invention with a gun, and dies.

''Personal Velocity'' is a tale of three women who have reached a turning point in their lives. Delia is a spirited, working-class woman from a small town in New York state who leaves her abusive husband and sets out on a journey to reclaim the power she has lost. Greta is a sharp, spunky editor who is rotten with ambition. To spite the hated unfaithful ways of her father, she has settled into a complacent relationship and is struggling (not too hard) with issues of fidelity to her kind but unexciting husband. Finally Paula, who ran away from home and got pregnant, is now in a relationship she doesn't want. She's a troubled young woman who takes off on a journey with a hitchhiker after a strange, fateful encounter on a New York street.

The plots of the anime and the manga differ.

Anime synopsis

After seeing a rainbow as a child and being mesmerized by its beauty, Nana's grandfather has been trying all his life to capture the beauty of a rainbow within a crystallized form. After years of failed attempts and crazy inventions, such as a VCR toaster and vacuum cleaning mouse catcher, he finally discovers a way to make such a crystallized rainbow. His plan would work by separating the light from a rainbow into its seven basic colors and then reforming it into seven colorized crystals. His experiment was working too and only needed a few seconds in the microwave to be complete and finally fulfill his dream. That is when Nana, who was searching for the microwave in an attempt to bake a chocolate cake for Yuichi, opened the door before the crystal had fully hardened and caused an accident.

The crystal glowed and split into the seven colors of the rainbow, hitting Nana as one color and coming out of her in seven separate colors of the rainbow, creating seven different Nanas. Aspect of Nana's personality suddenly exist its own separate physical form, there is a giggly Nana, a sleepy Nana, a crybaby Nana, a grumpy Nana, one who is a bit of a flirt, and an intellectual Nana, who all standing alongside the original Nana. However, they are all also the same Nana, and all share the same feelings for the boy Yuichi, which is clearly seen as their first thought is to finally make that chocolate cake which they try to do and are working and talking in perfect sync with each other, as if they were still just one person, that is until the cake is done at which time they start fighting over who will give it to Yuichi.

Each Nana grabs one of the crystals that formed from the one crystal her grandfather was trying to harden in the microwave and realizes it gives her super powers, she can fly, has super strength and super speed. This leads to a chase between the original Nana, and the new six sides of her personality who are all fighting as they fly and destroy parts of town over who will give the cake to Yuichi. When they finally finish, they once again prove they are all parts of the same Nana as they are all too scared to approach him and hand him the cake.

The crystals also hold another power seen later on as Nana wears a costume from an anime she (and the other Nanas) loved as a child called the "Nana Rangers". While they are wearing the costume and at the same time carrying their crystals the prop costumes turn into the real "Nana Rangers" costumes allowing them at times to be Superheroes, and also all show themselves in public at once, since Nana and the others realize the danger of all being seen at the same time without masks or some way of hiding that they are all the same person.

After they had settled on their roles, the 7 Nanas also face the fact that if the crystals are not reintegrated within a year after the split, all 7 of them will disappear. Later, the 8th one appears causing chaos.

Manga synopsis

This story has no super power elements.

Nana Suzuki's father returns from a trip abroad, and he gives Nana a crystal that he had bought from a gypsy woman. He tells her the gypsy woman's warning, to never let the light of the moon pass through the crystal. That night Nana hangs the crystal in front of her window; there is a moon visible through the window. In the morning Nana wakes to find six other Nanas in bed with her.

Initially Nana Suzuki goes to school and the other six Nanas stay home. The six quickly rebel against that plan. They take advantage of an opportunity to blackmail the principal of the school into letting all of them attend school, in the same class. The Nanas also quickly realize that it is confusing for all of them to be called "Nana", so they agree on nicknames for each of them.

Yuichi isn't the least bit bothered that there are now seven Nanas in his class. He doesn't show any favoritism towards any one of the Nanas over the others.

In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains. After the death of Edward he becomes Richard III, King of England, and need only defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain power.

Johnny Damico (Broderick Crawford), a detective going home on a rainy night, finds himself just a few feet from a shooting on a dark street. The gunman claims to be a detective from another precinct, flashing a real badge, and then slipping away. Damico discovers that the victim of the shooting was a witness who was to have appeared before a grand jury investigating waterfront crime, and that the same man who shot him also murdered the chief investigator on the case just a few hours earlier (which is where the badge came from). Damico could lose his job, but instead he is given the chance to redeem himself by the police commissioner and district attorney.

The authorities then make plans to fly Damico to New Orleans with instructions to work his way "back up", all undercover, as a New Orleans tough-guy named Tim Flynn. Once he returns home by cargo ship, Johnny has the assigned task to discover there the true identity of the head of the waterfront racketeers. All that is known about the mysterious mob boss is that his name is "Blackie" Clegg. The city in which all the action takes place is unspecified, but it is "up" relative to New Orleans, though palm trees are shown. Upon his return, while still under cover, "Flynn" gets a job locally as a longshoreman and quickly makes connections to the mob's network of enforcers as well as to crews of surrounding dockworkers. He is befriended by Tom Clancy (Richard Kiley), a fellow longshoreman who lives at the same hotel. There the two frequently meet after work for drinks, which are invariably served to them by a bartender nicknamed "Smoothie" (Matt Crowley).

Damico, still posing as Flynn, now manages to hook up with union thug Joe Castro (Ernest Borgnine), who tries to frame Damico for murder by having his strong-arm goon Gunner (Neville Brand) temporarily seize the undercover cop's own pistol to shoot and kill a potential stoolie, Culio (Frank DeKova). Castro then has Gunner return the pistol to Damico, who the next day is arrested for the murder by a crooked police sergeant named Bennion (Walter Klavun), although Police Lt. Banks (Otto Hulett) manages to spring him.

After following one blind alley involving a federal agent—the man he knows as Tom Clancy—Damico is given a tip by the bartender Smoothie, who offers to drive Damico to meet the long-sought Blackie. Once the two men are at the mob boss's office of operations, Damico is shocked when Smoothie reveals that he is actually Blackie. A gunfight ensues, Blackie is wounded but escapes, and goes to a nearby hospital, where, under a new identity, he is admitted to have his wound treated. Damico's fiancee Mary, whom the mob had kidnapped earlier and had injured while interrogating her at Blackie's office, is taken to the same hospital. When Damico later visits her, the recovering Blackie confronts the couple in Mary's hospital room. He pulls out a pistol from his hospital robe's pocket. Just as he is preparing to kill the couple, a pair of police snipers in a nearby building fatally shoot Blackie as a stands near the hospital room's window.

While sailing, Sinbad comes across a golden tablet dropped by a mysterious flying creature. That night, he dreams about a man dressed in black, repeatedly calling his name, as well as a beautiful girl with an eye tattooed on the palm of her right hand.

A sudden storm throws the ship off course, and Sinbad and his men find themselves near a coastal town in the country of Marabia. Swimming to the beach, Sinbad encounters the man from his dream, an evil magician named Koura, who demands that he turn over the amulet. Sinbad narrowly escapes into the city, where he meets the Grand Vizier of Marabia, who has been acting as regent following the death of the sultan, who had no heir. The Vizier, who wears a golden mask to hide his disfigured face, explains that Sinbad's amulet is but one piece of a puzzle, of which the Vizier has another. The Vizier relates to Sinbad a legend, which claims that the three pieces, when joined together, will reveal a map showing the way to the fabled Fountain of Destiny on the lost continent of Lemuria. He who takes the three pieces to the Fountain will receive "youth, a shield of darkness and a crown of untold riches".

Sinbad agrees to help the Vizier in his quest for the Fountain and they join forces against Koura, who is bent on using the Fountain's gifts to conquer Marabia. Koura had previously locked the Vizier in a room and set it on fire, resulting in the disfiguring of the Vizier's face. The creature that dropped the gold tablet was Koura's minion, a homunculus created by his black magic. Koura uses the creature to spy on Sinbad and the Vizier and learn of their plans. When Sinbad and the Vizier discover and catch the homunculus, it destroys itself.

Shortly afterward, Sinbad meets the woman in his dream, a slave girl named Margiana. Her master hires Sinbad to make a man out of his lazy, no-good son Haroun. Sinbad agrees on the condition that Margiana comes along. Koura hires a ship and a crew of his own and follows Sinbad, using his magic several times to try to stop Sinbad. However, each attempt drains away part of his life force, and he ages noticeably each time.

On his journey, Sinbad encounters numerous perils, including a wooden siren figurehead on his ship, animated by Koura's magic, which manages to steal the map, enabling Koura to locate Lemuria. The wizard uses another homunculus to overhear the Oracle of All Knowledge describe to Sinbad what he will face in his search for the Fountain. Koura seals the men inside the Oracle's cave, but Sinbad uses a makeshift rope to get everyone out. Haroun manages to destroy the homunculus as it attacks Sinbad. After he is captured by hostile natives, Koura animates a six-armed statue of Kali, causing the natives to set him free. Sinbad and his men arrive soon after, fight and defeat Kali. As she falls and breaks apart, they find the final piece of the puzzle within Kali's shattered remains. The natives capture Sinbad and his crew, but after they see the eye tattoo on Margiana's hand, they instead decide to sacrifice her to a one-eyed centaur, the natives' God of the Single Eye and the Fountain's Guardian of Evil.

Koura arrives at the Fountain of Destiny. When he drops the first piece of the tablet into the Fountain, his life force is restored. He then summons the centaur, which fights the Fountain's Guardian of Good, a griffin. Meanwhile, Sinbad and the others escape, rescue Margiana and reach the Fountain. They watch as the centaur kills the griffin with Koura's aid, then Sinbad slays the centaur. Koura drops the second piece into the Fountain, which turns him invisible (the "shield of darkness"), and engages Sinbad in a swordfight. Sinbad is barely able to fend off his invisible foe, until Koura makes a fatal mistake by stepping in the Fountain itself, which reveals his silhouette, enabling Sinbad to kill him. Sinbad then drops in the third piece, and a jewel-encrusted crown rises from the depths. Instead of donning it, Sinbad gives the crown to the Vizier. When the Vizier dons the crown, his mask dissolves, revealing his restored, unscarred face.

Their quest completed, Sinbad and his crew journey back to Marabia. When Margiana asks him why he did not take the crown himself, Sinbad explains that he enjoys his freedom more than kinghood. With Margiana as his wife, and Haroun as a new member of his crew, they sail into the sunset.

The play is set in Australia, in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton and it details the events of the summer of 1953, in the lives of six central characters. The structure of the play is such that the nature of these characters and their situation and history is not revealed immediately, but rather gradually established as the story unfolds. By the end, the story and all its facets have been indirectly explained.

The summer that the story spans marks the 17th year of an annual tradition in the lives of the characters, wherein two masculine sugarcane cutters, Arthur "Barney" Ibbot and Reuben "Roo" Webber, travel south to Melbourne for five months of frivolity and celebration with two city women, Olive Leech and Nancy (Roo bringing with him as a gift for Olive a kewpie doll, hence the name of the play). One of the women, Nancy, has apparently married some months before, and she is not present in the play, so in her place Olive has invited Pearl Cunningham to partake in the tradition. The other women present in the play are Kathie "Bubba" Ryan, a 22-year-old girl who has been coveting Olive and Nancy's lifestyle from her neighbouring house almost all her life, and Emma Leech, Olive's cynical, irritable, but wise mother.

As the play progresses, it becomes obvious that, for many collective reasons, this summer is different from others; it is full of tensions, strains to recreate lost youth, and from what is said of previous years, not a fraction of the fun that others have been. Steadily things become worse; Roo is revealed to be broke and is forced to take a job in a paint factory. He is disillusioned with his age and weaknesses, while relations between Barney and him are in doubt, due to a recent question of loyalty. The situation is agitated in part by Pearl's uptight indignation and refusal to accept the lifestyle she is being presented with as "proper" or "decent".

The play ends with a bitter fight between Olive and Roo after he proposes marriage to her and she is affronted, threatened by the prospect of any lifestyle other than the one to which she is accustomed. In the final scene, the two men leave together, the summer prematurely ended and the characters' futures uncertain.

''Summer of the Seventeenth Doll'' is part of a trilogy generally referred to as the ''Doll Trilogy''; the story of ''The Doll'' is preceded by the prequels ''Kid Stakes'' (1975), set in 1937, which tells the story of the first year of the tradition and the origin of the gift of the Kewpie doll, and ''Other Times'' (1976), which is set in 1945 and includes most of the same characters.

Art Dodge (Antonio Banderas), a former artist, is struggling to make ends meet with his art gallery, ignoring bills and delaying to pay his assistant Gloria (Joan Cusack) and his artist Manny (Gabino Diego). To survive, he is reading the obituaries and trying to convince the widows that the deceased purchased a painting shortly before dying.

Things take an ugly turn when Art is trying this scam with mobster Gene (Danny Aiello) whose father just died. Not only does Gene not fall for it, but he tries to have his henchmen beat Art up. Art barely escapes by hiding in the Rolls Royce of Betty Kerner (Melanie Griffith), Gene's estranged two-time ex-wife and wealthy heiress. Betty is excited about helping the handsome stranger, and the two end up shortly thereafter making love. Betty being very impulsive, she wants to marry Art in two weeks. Because of the heiress fortune the news immediately makes the tabloids. Stuck between Betty who won't change her mind and Gene who still loves his ex-wife, Art doesn't like the idea of getting married with such short notice but decides to play along for now.

One morning, at Betty's mansion, Art seductively enters her shower naked, only to realize it's not Betty who's in there but her sister Liz (Daryl Hannah), an art professor. If Art is attracted to Liz, she stays very cold and distant, seeing him as nothing more than a gigolo who hit the jackpot. Art decides to invent a fake twin brother Bart (who wears glasses and has his hair down instead of wearing a ponytail) who is allegedly a painter who just got back from Italy. Bart and Liz instantly hit it off while Gene still tries to romance Betty. Bart and Liz can't stop talking about everything, he plays with her dog and even invites her to Manny's studio when he's not in, pretending to show her his art. When Liz's favorite painting in the studio turns out to have been actually made by Art (who gave it to Manny as an "advance" on what he owes him), Bart gives her the painting.

Thanks to his imaginary twin brother, Art manages to pursue a romance with both sisters. Because the two "twin brothers" must never be in the same place at the same time, it however involves a lot of running around, coming up with a lot of excuses and enlisting a very reluctant Gloria's help. One evening he needs to go out two separate dates with both Betty and Liz. At the restaurant with Betty, he decides to drug her wine, much to the horror of the sommelier (Vincent Schiavelli). This allows him to cut the date short and put a very sleepy Betty to bed. He then goes out with Liz (who chooses the very same restaurant) and ends up making love to her. The next morning, Art/Bart has to run back and forth between the two sister's bedrooms (whose two bathrooms share a private swimming pool) as he's supposed to be with them both at the same time.

In the evening before the wedding, Art spots Gene's two henchmen around his house and manages to escape them thanks to his dad's help (Eli Wallach). He tries to spend the night at Gloria's but he discovers she started dating Manny. Manny however gives him the keys to his studio where he can spend the night. At the studio, Art starts to paint again when he is interrupted by Gene's henchmen who found him and start beating him up, before Gene shows up. When Art proposes Gene to leave town, Gene tells him to go ahead with the wedding and threatens to break one bone for each tear Betty cries. After they leave, Liz arrives to the studio, thinking Bart got beat up. When Bart tells her he is Art, that he fell in love when he saw her in the shower and tries to kiss her, Liz thinks Art is trying to make a pass at her, not realizing Bart doesn't exist.

On the wedding day, Liz tells Bart his "brother" tried to kiss her, and that the wedding should be called off. Bart needs to "confront" Art in a study alone, with Liz and Gene listening outside -and, unbeknownst to anyone, also by Betty through the phone. When Gene enters the study, he confronts a lonely Art, and again threatens him if he doesn't marry Betty. He tells him that what Art or even himself want is irrelevant, and that the only thing that matters is Betty's happiness. During the wedding ceremony, Betty, shaken by Gene's selfless devotion, calls the wedding off and falls in Gene's arms acknowledging she still love him too. Gene and Betty elope. In the general confusion, Liz sees her dog wanting to play with Art and realizes Art and Bart are the same person. Bart then goes to see Liz, telling her a fake excuse to "go back to Italy" (which she of course doesn't buy), adding he's not worthy of her.

A few months later, Art's gallery has experienced a dramatic turnaround (Gloria owns and manages it, and Art is the artist) and is now very successful. At the inauguration of his work, Art notices Liz who still has feeling for him but is not sure who he is really. Art manages to convince her he is the one she had feelings for, and the movie ends with the two happily walking in the street, hand in hand.

After she loses her husband to a car bomb, newly widowed Dottie Thorson and her daughter Brandi team up to pick up where her husband Ralph left off, to hunt down criminals that operate above the law.

In a parallel universe, a fantasy world of Enchantia is suffering under the cruel rule of a powerful coven of wicked witches. Their vain and terrible queen, who managed to surpass the rest in depravity, seeks a live male child from another dimension as the main ingredient of her desired spell of eternal youth. Having borrowed magic powers from all the other witches in Enchantia on the promise to make them too young forever, she created an invisible portal connection to Earth. One day in the 1990s, a young English teenager named Brad plays a baseball practice with his sister Jenny when the witch spots him through the portal and incants a summoning spell, making him suddenly vanish in a flash of light. The game begins as Brad, dressed in medieval-style clothing, wakes up in a dungeon cell. But the boy soon manages to escape, and then sets out on a journey to return home safely. In the course of his surreal adventure, he braves various dangers, meets a host of friendly and hostile characters, and rises to become a reluctant hero who just might break the titular curse and bring down the evil's reign.''Zero'' 36 (October 1992), [https://archive.org/stream/zero-magazine-36/Zero_36_Oct_1992#page/n86/mode/1up page 87].

After breaking out from his prison, Brad falls into a moat before coming to a halt in a cavern maze. Reaching the surface, he arrives at a nearby village; this location is repeatedly revisited throughout the game, as Brad comes back there after traveling to the various corners of the land, encountering bizarre characters and experiencing absurd adventures: the Edge of the World cliff, the Ice Palace, and the Valley of the Lost (a place where all kinds of things lost on Earth have gone to), all while searching for an unlikely set of items that would help him emerge victorious from the game's final showdown (including a fire extinguisher and a mechanical fan). In the end, the boy enters the evil Queen's castle to find and defeat her once and for all. Once she is no more, he gets instantly transported back to the baseball field where it all had started.Tim Tucker, ''Amiga Power'' [http://amr.abime.net/review_19349 21], [http://amr.abime.net/review_17320 22], [http://amr.abime.net/review_20331 23] (the game walkthrough in three parts). Luis Luque, "Curse of Enchantia: Contra las fuerzas del mal. Os enseñamos a golpear a una bruja con un bate de béisbol." ''Micromanía Segunda Epoca'' issue 61, [https://archive.org/details/micromania-segunda-epoca-61/page/n60 pages 61-65].

Sivaji Arumugam is a rich Indian software engineer, who returns to India after working for 10 years in the United States. He aims to establish a non-profit trust called ''Sivaji Foundation'', which is to include a network of quality hospitals and educational institutions that serve the poor free of charge. A highly influential political leader and industrialist, Adiseshan, who runs profit-making educational institutions and hospitals sees Sivaji as his deadly competitor.

In the process of establishing the Sivaji Foundation, Sivaji is forced to pay bribes to several government officials and ministers to get basic approvals and sanctions done, and is eventually forced to mortgage his property and sell his belongings when the bribes demanded become very high. Sivaji is dragged by the State Government (under political influence of Adiseshan) to court when he starts sabotaging the Sivaji Foundation through his political influence, but at the court, he is forced to admit that he paid numerous bribes. The judge declares the verdict in favour of Adiseshan and shuts down Sivaji Foundation. Meanwhile, Sivaji falls in love with Tamizhselvi, a demure and traditional girl. Initially, Tamizhselvi and her family are scared of Sivaji's advances, but Sivaji soon manages to win Tamizhselvi's heart and her family's approval. However, when an astrologer checks Sivaji's and Tamizhselvi's horoscopes, he warns that their engagement will result in heavy financial ruin and further, their union will result in Sivaji's death.

Tamizhselvi initially refuses the proposal due to her concern for Sivaji, but he calms her fears and convinces her to marry him. Sivaji, reduced to utter poverty, decides to play the game his own way. With the help of his uncle Arivu, he acquires evidence of 2 billion worth of illegal earnings in Adiseshan's possession and uses the documents to blackmail Adiseshan into giving him half the money. Adhiseshan traps Sivaji with 50 goons, but Sivaji trashes them and leaves with both money and documents. Using the amount, he further obtains details on people who have illegal earnings across Tamil Nadu and blackmails them to give him half of their illegal wealth. He then transfers the money to New York, where he gives it to the bank accounts of his friends around the world by hawala forgery. They then deposit the money as donations to the ''Sivaji Foundation'', making the money usable and legitimate.

Sivaji informs the Income Tax Investigation and Vigilance Department about the details of the illegal money held by the tax evaders (including Adiseshan) and gets them arrested on the same day. He blackmails the minister and legally reopens the foundation and soon is able to provide free, good quality education, infrastructure, services and employment to people in every district of Tamil Nadu. Led by Adiseshan, those who were blackmailed by Sivaji exploit Tamizhselvi's innocence to silence him. Fearing for Sivaji's life, she hands over Sivaji's laptop to the CBI and Income Tax officers hired by Adiseshan with all the information regarding the illegal money transactions. With presentable evidence, Sivaji is arrested. Adiseshan and the police order Sivaji to unlock his laptop through the voice-detection program, which only opens on a particular command in Sivaji's voice.

When Sivaji refuses, Adiseshan tortures him so badly that he is almost killed. To cover this up, Adiseshan and the police organise for mercenaries to shoot at the police van that will carry Sivaji's body, making it look like a murder by a third party. Sivaji, however, is faking; he was informed of the plans to kill him by a sympathetic police constable prior to the interrogation. Left alone in the room, he electrifies himself and loses consciousness. Sivaji's friend Dr Chezhian, Tamizhselvi and Arivu intercept the police van after being informed by Sivaji through a MMS and replace Sivaji's body with a dummy before the mercenaries open fire. While everyone thinks that Sivaji is dead, Chezhian revives him using a defibrillator.

Following Sivaji's "death", Adiseshan and the CBI still try to open Sivaji's laptop by trying to fool the voice-detection program; they fail and all the data in the laptop is erased. A few days later, while everyone wonders about the future of the ''Sivaji Foundation'', the revived Sivaji returns to take control of the foundation in the guise of an NRI friend, M. G. Ravichandran (MGR). Though Adiseshan immediately realises that Ravichandran is actually Sivaji, he is unable to prove this to the police due to the proof of Sivaji's "death" and Ravichandran's identity. Later, Sivaji confronts Adiseshan and the two fight atop the terrace of Adiseshan's medical college. During the fight, Adiseshan inadvertently strikes the campus's terrace roof causing money hidden in it to fly around the campus. The students spot the money and go after it, causing a stampede in which Adiseshan is trampled to death. ''Sivaji Foundation'' soon becomes a frontier for India's economic and industrial rise.

In 1958 in Ferren Woods, a small backwater town, an old blind witch, Ms. Osie, feeds a deformed orphan named Tommy; he is the offspring of Pumpkinhead. As Tommy eats, a car of six thugs pull up and notice him. Convinced that he is some demonic monster, they chase him with switchblade knives and baseball bats; eventually, they corner him at an old iron mine, where they bludgeon him and drop him down into the mine, deliberately killing him.

Thirty-five years later, Sheriff Sean Braddock (who was friends with Tommy before his murder), his wife, and his daughter Jenny have come into town. Sean grew up in Ferren Woods and returned when offered a job as the local sheriff. Jenny has often gotten herself into a lot of trouble with the law, especially with her father, who was once a police officer.

At school, Jenny meets a group of wild kids, one of whom is Daniel "Danny" Dixon, whose dad was one of the greasers who had taken part in Tommy's murder 35 years ago and has since become the town judge. The teens sneak off one night and pilfer Sean's car. Danny inadvertently hits Ms. Osie, and when they go to her cabin to check on her, they find a spellbook and vials of blood, which she is planning to use to resurrect Tommy. After Ms. Osie catches them, she orders them out. Danny knocks her down and escapes with a vial of blood.

Danny and his friends attempt to resurrect Tommy's corpse. Jenny notices Ms. Osie's cabin on fire and Danny and his friends flee. Ms. Osie is badly burnt and ends up in the hospital. Unbeknownst to Danny and his friends, the spell they'd attempted worked, resurrecting Tommy in the form of Pumpkinhead. Soon, Judge Dixon's friends begin to meet grisly deaths.

Jenny's father investigates and begins to come to terms with the fact that Tommy is responsible for the murders. Ms. Osie dies, but not before revealing to Sean some clues. Sean discovers the connection between the victims and Pumpkinhead, realizing that the judge is next.

Judge Dixon calls his posse to assist him in killing whatever is murdering his friends. Before they can arrive however, Pumpkinhead brutally murders Judge Dixon, the leader of the Red Wings and the one who commanded his murder. Now that Tommy has avenged his own death, he begins going after Danny and his friends (for fleeing instead of helping Ms. Osie). Sean and the town doctor go into the woods to find Jenny. By this time, Pumpkinhead (Tommy) has murdered Danny and his 3 friends.

He then chases Jenny to the iron mine. Since Sean had saved his life years earlier as a boy, and because Jenny was innocent of hurting Ms. Osie, Tommy allows Jenny to step down to her father safe and sound. However, the judge's posse arrives and shoots Tommy back into the mine, where he had died 35 years earlier. Jenny later apologizes to her father for all the trouble she caused. Just then, Sean finds an old toy fire truck near the mineshaft that he gave to Tommy as a gift for saving his life.

British Professor Paris Catalano travels to Venice to investigate the whereabouts of the infamous vampire Nosferatu, whose last known appearance was during the Carnival of 1786. He is summoned there by the young Princess Helietta Canins, who believes that the vampire may be interred in a sealed tomb in the basement of her ancestral estate. Catalano believes that the vampire is searching for a way to end his immortal torment and actually be dead. Upon his arrival, Catalano notices that Helietta bears a striking resemblance to Nosferatu's long-lost love, Letizia. The Canins hold a séance at the house against the warnings of their Catholic priest, Father Don Alvise. The séance causes Nosferatu to awaken from his 200-year sleep, and escapes from his tomb.

Nosferatu roams Venice, soon locating Helietta's mother, Princess Catalano, and forces her out of her balcony, pushing her to her death below where she is impaled on an iron fence. During the elder princess's funeral, Catalano warns Helietta that Nosferatu can only be stopped by legitimate love. During a subsequent carnival celebration, Nosferatu stalks Helietta. He soon follows her home, and awakens her in her bed, seducing her. Meanwhile, Helietta's younger sister, Maria, witnesses part of the encounter.

The following morning, Helietta awakens and informs Catalano that Nosferatu has visited her. Later, in an alley, Nosferatu attacks Uta Barnveal, the wife of Father Alvise's peer, Dr. Barnveal, and chases her into an abandoned building, where he feasts on her blood. Nosferatu later approaches Catalano, Father Alvise, and his peer, Dr. Barneval, inside a castle. Barneval attempts to shoot Nosferatu to death, but Nosferatu's injuries disappear, and he proceeds to break Barnvela's rifle. Alvise, a cowardly priest, hides. Catalano fights back Nosferatu with his Holy Cross, but Nosferatu burns his hands while holding it. Nosferatu takes Helietta and leaves the castle. Despondent, Catalano packs his bags and leaves the Canins' mansion, announcing that only a pure woman willing to give Nosferatu her true love can destroy him. Subsequently, Catalano, who was dying of an unspecified illness, commits suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Grand Canal.

Maria, who is seeking to fight Nosferatu so she can save her sister's soul, climbs to a tower and jumps to her death in an attempt to catch Nosferatu's attention. Nosferatu saves Maria from the fall and abducts her, taking her with him to an abandoned villa. Nosferatu explains to Maria that he wishes to die, but to do so, a virgin woman has to give himself to him and love him unrepentantly, which Maria accepts. Meanwhile, Barneval, looking for his missing wife, travels to the villa with two friends. In the basement, they find what appears to be Nosferatu asleep in a coffin. When they drive a stake through his heart, however, his appearance morphs to that of Uta Barneval; they have in fact killed Uta, who had shapeshifted to appear as Nosferatu. Upstairs, they locate the real Nosferatu in bed with Maria. Barneval ineffectively shoots him, and the shot goes through Nosferatu's back, severely injuring Maria. Nosferatu, enraged, kills Barneval's friends. While fleeing the villa, Barneval is lured into a garden by Helietta. Posing as Helietta, Nosferatu seduces Barneval before revealing that he had shapeshifted into her, and killing Barneval while showing his true form.

Nosferatu leaves the villa with a nude Maria in his arms, walking along a Venice canal. Dying, Maria asks Nosferatu to turn her into a vampire. He apparently refuses, saying that doing so would be an eternal punishment, the same he has endured for centuries. They hold each other while Nosferatu keeps walking, and they eventually disappear in the morning mist, leaving both of their fates a mystery.

Charlie Castle, a very successful Hollywood actor, lives in a huge home with all the amenities associated with his stardom. Influential gossip columnist Patty Benedict visits him to get the lowdown on his marriage, but Castle refuses to confirm anything for her. His wife Marion has taken their young son and is living separately from him; she is, in fact, on the verge of filing for divorce. She has had enough of his drunken womanizing and of his having relinquished his ideals for lower Hollywood expectations.

Marion does not want him to renew his contract with powerful studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff, and will not agree to a reconciliation with her husband if he signs. An emotionally-tortured Castle wants desperately to win back Marion, who has been proposed to by writer, and friend of Castle's, Hank Teagle. Castle agrees, wanting to be free of the studio's grip on his life and his career, and to be able to do more inspiring work than the schlock films Hoff pushes on him.

He pleads with his needy agent, Nat, to help him be free. However, Nat is aware that Hoff and his right-hand man, Smiley Coy, have knowledge of the truth behind a hit-and-run accident in which Castle was behind the wheel and which resulted in a death. Castle's friend, Buddy Bliss, took the blame for the accident and served time for it.

Hoff and Coy arrive at Castle's house to close the deal. Castle's defiance enrages Hoff, who is willing to do anything, including blackmail regarding the accident, to force the actor to commit to a seven-year deal. In the end, the simple fact of blackmail works and Castle signs the new contract.

Buddy's aggressively flirtatious wife, Connie, comes by; despondent, Castle allows the darker side of his nature to prevail and he sleeps with her. Subsequently, Marion and Hank attend a gathering at Castle's place after which Castle prevails upon his wife to listen once again to his reasoning as to why they should reunite. She eventually leaves with Hank but is actually having second thoughts about Castle.

Meanwhile, Smiley, who has been attending a party at one of Castle's neighbors, drops in to tell the actor that Dixie Evans, a struggling starlet who happens to have been in the car with Castle the night of the accident, is threatening to reveal what she knows about the crash. Smiley suggests Castle invite her over, to talk and see if he can persuade her to keep quiet. Castle does so and is sympathetic to her feelings about being treated shabbily and disregarded as an actress. She wants to damage Hoff, not Castle.

Having had Hank take her back to Castle, Marion arrives while Dixie is there. The actress immediately leaves and the couple have an intense conversation; Marion makes it clear she is at least willing to try again to rekindle their marriage.

Subsequently, Dixie goes to Hoff's office and causes such an upheaval that the studio head and Smiley decide that she must be permanently silenced. Smiley lays out a plan to achieve this to Castle which involves murder. Finally spurred to stand up for his ideals, the actor summons Hoff and Nat and, with Marion present and now aware of Dixie's presence the night of the accident, defies these ruthless men who employ him. He also mandates that nothing should happen to Dixie.

Hoff and Smiley try one more extortion ploy, producing recordings secretly made of Marion with Hank. Neither Marion nor Castle are moved by this attempt and, finally, an outraged Hoff lets Castle go. "You're through," Smiley tells the actor. After a brief, quiet respite, Buddy storms in to reveal that he has discovered Castle's fling with Connie. Rather than take Castle up on his offer to allow himself to be hit, Buddy spits in his face.

Castle asks for a bath to be drawn and, after pledging to Marion "a better future", goes upstairs. Smiley returns to telephone Hoff and let him know that Dixie, staggering out of a bar and into the street, was struck and killed by a city bus.

Despite seemingly redeeming himself in many ways, Castle is devastated by his betrayal of a friend, sacrificed his integrity and anguished the woman he adores. Smiley, Marion, and Nat break into the bathroom. As Marion screams, Smiley gets on the phone and tells the studio that Castle died of a heart attack, while also saying to tell Stanley that he slashed himself three times. Marion grieves, as the camera pulls back and reveals we're watching her wails on a cinema screen.

The film emphasizes Mary's importance in Jesus's life, suggesting that his parables were inspired by stories she told him in his childhood. This, and similar details about Jesus's upbringing, cannot be confirmed, but are certainly not impossible. The resurrected Jesus also appears to his mother privately. This event is not found in the Gospels, but is probably based on an ancient Catholic tradition (not official teaching) that he appeared to her first of all people. The tradition influenced Ignatius of Loyola's ''Spiritual Exercises'' among others. The film closes with Mary suggesting the disciples should start preaching about her son.

''Dramacon'' focuses on Christie Leroux, a fledgling teenage writer who is debuting her manga with her artist boyfriend, Derek Hollman, at her first anime convention. Christie endures Derek ignoring her along with the culture shock of men in schoolgirl uniforms. During the three-day convention, Christie meets Lida Zeff, a famous manga artist and writer, who gives her advice on improving her manga, and Matt Green, a mysterious sun-glasses wearing cosplayer, whom she develops feelings for. Matt always wears sunglasses to conceal the fact that his eye is missing. Derek witnesses Matt and Christie kissing, and confronts her while drunk. During the argument, he attacks and attempts to rape her; however, she escapes to Matt's room, which leads Derek and Matt to fight. Christie spends her last day with Matt, his sister Sandra, and Greta, a friend of theirs. They have to wait another whole year before they see each other again since Christie is still in high school and lives on the east coast while Matt lives on the west coast and attends college.

A year later, Christie returns to the convention with Bethany, a new artist. Christie discovers that Matt now has a girlfriend named Emily. While Christie deals with her feelings for Matt, Bethany faces off with a disgruntled manga purist and is offered a job at Mangapop. Lida Zeff helps the two girls with advice for Bethany about living in a manga publishing world. Emily pulls off Matt's sunglasses in a crowded fast food restaurant after a feud with a bystander, and he is then horrified at the people staring at him, so he runs off. When Christie chases after him, Matt tells her to "piss off". The next day, Christie runs away from him when he tries to apologize, and refuses his kiss. They part without saying good-bye. Bethany and Christie leave the convention with a promise to cosplay the next year and to continue to work hard on their manga.

At the next convention, Christie meets up with Matt, but her friends follow her, and she constantly argues with Matt. She runs into Derek, which brings back the memories of him attacking her, but sees that he now has a pregnant fiancée. Matt and Christie try to control their tempers, with Matt particularly trying to hold his biting retorts, and they seem to have made up, even with Emily still around and finding ways to break into their dates as a form of payback for last year. Meanwhile, Bethany refuses to cosplay after learning that her mother is coming to the convention. She argues with her mother about her career choice; after her mom is in a car accident, Beth leaves the convention to be by her side in the hospital and they reconcile. Bethany gains her mother's blessing to pursue a job with Mangapop. Christie and company all leave the convention considerably happier than the past year.

Eight months into their stay on Mars, the life-sciences specialist discovers a microbial fossil. Subsequent to this, the crew begin to suffer various mishaps, including damage to mission property and direct attacks upon themselves. Complicating the situation is the apparent psychiatric breakdown of the mission commander and his definite attempts to injure or kill his fellow crewmembers.

On Earth, the Mars Mission Director, working with an agent of the FBI, races to discover who sabotaged the mission before the crew even arrived on Mars—and who might be trying to strand the crew on Mars now that they're on it. He is shocked to discover that his own Flight Director committed the initial sabotage—he was trying to seed Mars with a bacterium that would be taken as evidence of life on Mars, thus ensuring continued funding of Project Ares, the official name for the program.

But when the life-sciences specialist falls ill from an actual microbial infection—from live bacteria which she has subsequently discovered—the mishaps multiply, with a corresponding increase in the physical danger to the crew. Someone ''other than'' the Flight Director is responsible for this. At the very end, that someone is revealed to be a NASA engineer who fears that the crew, now on their way back to Earth, are bringing back a germ that could potentially kill millions of people—this although the crew clearly showed that the germ was sensitive to the antibiotics they had carried with them. The mission ends with the psychiatrically challenged commander sacrificing his own life to save the rest of the crew—and the marriage of the two mission specialists aboard their Earth Return Vehicle.

On the last day of 1899, Jane and Robert Marryot, an upper-class couple, return to their townhouse in a fashionable area of London before midnight, so they can keep their tradition of celebrating the new year with a midnight toast. Jane worries because Robert has joined the City of London Imperial Volunteers (CIV) as an officer, and will soon be leaving to serve in the Second Boer War. The Marryots' butler Alfred Bridges has joined the CIV as a private and is also leaving soon. His wife Ellen, the Marryots' maid, worries about what will become of her and their new baby Fanny if Alfred is killed or seriously injured. At midnight, the Marryot and Bridges families ring in the new century while Cook dances with other revelers in the street. While Robert is away at war, Jane's friend Margaret Harris keeps her company and gives her emotional support. Robert and Alfred return home unharmed and Robert is knighted for his service.

Alfred announces that he has bought his own pub with money partly provided by Robert, and he and Ellen will be leaving service and moving to a flat. As the downstairs staff have a cup of tea to celebrate Alfred's return, they receive news of the death of Queen Victoria.

A few years later, Alfred has developed alcoholism and is managing the pub poorly. Ellen plans a genteel social evening when Jane Marryot and her son Edward, who is now in college at Oxford, pay a visit to the Bridgeses' flat. Ellen does not tell Alfred about the visit and lies to the Marryots that he can't attend due to a leg injury. Alfred shows up drunk, acts rudely and destroys a doll that Jane had given Fanny, causing Fanny to run away. Alfred chases Fanny into the street, where he is fatally run over by a horse-drawn fire engine.

The following year, Ellen and Fanny Bridges encounter the Marryot family at the seaside, where Ellen and Fanny are living off the proceeds from the pub, now owned by Ellen. Fanny has become a talented dancer and singer. Edward Marryot has fallen in love with his childhood playmate Edith Harris. The family witnesses the historic flight by Louis Blériot over the English Channel. Edward and Edith marry and subsequently die in the Sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Robert and Joe Marryot both serve as officers in World War I. While on leave, Joe reconnects with Fanny Bridges, now a performer in a nightclub. Fanny and Joe fall in love and Joe spends most of his leave time with her, unbeknownst to his parents. He proposes, but she hesitates to accept due to the difference in their social classes. Just after armistice is announced in 1918, Ellen reveals the affair to Jane and demands that Joe marry Fanny when he returns. While Jane and Ellen argue, Jane receives a telegram informing her that Joe has been killed in battle.

The film ends on New Year's Day 1933, with Jane and Robert, now elderly, carrying on their tradition of celebrating the new year with a midnight toast to their memories, as well as to the future.

It is 1968, and Dr. Robert Morgan lives in a world where everyone else has been infected by a plague that has turned them into undead, vampiric creatures that cannot stand sunlight, fear mirrors, and are repelled by garlic. They would kill Morgan if they could, but they are weak and unintelligent. Every day Morgan carries out the same routine: he wakes up, marks another day on the calendar, gathers his weapons, and then goes hunting for vampires, killing as many as he can and then burning the bodies to prevent them from coming back. At night, he locks himself inside his house.

A flashback sequence explains that, in December 1965, Morgan's wife Virginia and daughter Kathy had succumbed to the plague before it was widely known by the public that the dead would return to life. Instead of taking his wife to the same public burn pit used to dispose of his daughter's corpse, Morgan buried her without the knowledge of the authorities. When his wife returned to his home and attacked him, Morgan became aware of the need to kill the plague victims with a wooden stake. Morgan hypothesizes that he is immune to the bacteria from a bite by an infected vampire bat when he was stationed in Panama, which may have introduced a diluted form of the plague into his blood.

One day, a dog appears in the neighborhood. Desperate for companionship, Morgan chases after the dog but does not catch it. Sometime later the dog appears, wounded, at Morgan's doorstep. He takes the dog into his home and treats its wounds, looking forward to having company for the first time in three years. He quickly discovers, however, that it, too, has become infected with the plague. Morgan starts burying the dog which is now impaled with a wooden stake. He sinks further into depression and loneliness.

After burying the dog, Morgan spots a woman in the distance. The woman, Ruth, is terrified of Morgan at first sight and runs from him. Morgan convinces her to return to his home, but he is suspicious of her true nature. Ruth becomes ill when Morgan waves garlic in her face, who claims that she has a weak stomach. Morgan's suspicion that Ruth is infected is confirmed when he discovers her attempting to inject herself with a combination of blood and vaccine that holds the disease at bay. Ruth initially draws a gun on Morgan but ultimately surrenders it to him. She tells him that she is part of a group of people like her infected, but under treatment and was sent to spy on Morgan. The vaccine allows the people to function normally with the drug in the bloodstream, but once it wears off, the infection takes over the body again. Ruth explains that her people are planning to rebuild society as they destroy the remaining humans, and that many of the vampires Morgan killed were still alive. Ruth desperately urges Morgan to flee, but he inexplicably refuses.

While Ruth is asleep, Morgan transfuses his own blood into her. She is immediately cured, and Morgan sees hope that, together, they can cure the rest of her people. Moments later, however, Ruth's people attack. Morgan takes the gun and flees his home while the attackers kill the vampires gathered around Morgan's home. Ruth's people spot Morgan and chase him. He exchanges gunfire with them and picks up tear gas grenades from a police station armory along the way. While the tear gas delays his pursuers somewhat, Morgan is wounded by gunfire and retreats into a church. As he stands at the altar, one of his pursuers finally impales him with a thrown spear. In his final moments, Morgan denounces his pursuers as "freaks" and, as Ruth cradles him, declares that he is the last true man on Earth. As Ruth walks away from Morgan's body, she notices a baby crying and tries to assure the child that everyone is safe now.

Beginning

As the novel begins, Dr. Valerie ("Valkerie") Jansen is on a field trip on the slope of Mount Trident on the Alaska Peninsula. In real life, this volcano has not erupted for many years—but in the novel, Mount Trident vents sulfur dioxide into the air, and this gas settles into the valley where Valkerie is encamped. She barely survives the experience, at one point taking the air from the tires of her Jeep, which is the only air available for her to breathe.

The next morning, the Chief Administrator of NASA, together with one of NASA's senior physicians, lands on the slope of Mount Trident in a helicopter. They are looking for Valkerie, because they wish to interview her for a position as an Astronaut Candidate. The conversation that follows is very confusing to both sides, chiefly because Valkerie is convinced that Mount Trident is about to erupt and all three must evacuate at once. Eventually, however, Valkerie climbs aboard the helicopter with the two NASA officials.

Eventually she is summoned to Houston, Texas, and reports for training at NASA's headquarters complex. A hot dispute between the NASA Administrator and Nate Harrington, the Mars Mission Director, results in her beginning a training regimen that is more grueling than usual, leading her to believe that Harrington wants her dropped from the program on any pretext he can invent. But in fact the NASA brass are very much impressed with her academic record and her seemingly unique ability to cope with "five-sigma" days—days remarkable for a series of dire, often life-threatening crises. (Her breathing the air in her Jeep tires to survive the fumarolic venting incident is a case in point.) As for Mr. Harrington, he has never wanted anything more than to have the NASA administrator respect his prerogatives as Mars Mission Director—and furthermore, he is distracted by a series of events that have nothing to do with Valkerie or her candidacy.

Nate's distractions include: a serious budget problem that has forced NASA to sell exclusive broadcast rights to a major television network, a clear threat from a prominent US Senator that he "has the votes" to terminate NASA's flagship program, a compromise of project security that darkly suggests a terrorist plot against NASA (and requires him to have an FBI agent as a semi-regular on the NASA campus)--and a controversy involving the crew selection for Ares 10, which is to be the first crewed mission to Mars. NASA's psychiatrists have abruptly demanded interviews with all members of the Ares 10 crew—Josh Bennett, Kennedy Hampton, Alexis "Lex" Ohta, and Bob "Kaggo" Kaganovski. Bob in particular fears that the psychiatrists want to remove him from the crew—because he has never felt entirely secure in his position, mainly because he does not have the devil-may-care abandon that is part of the "astronaut stereotype" and which Kennedy displays in overabundance. So when the psychiatrists call him in for an interview, he tells them that he would gladly obey any order given him by Josh, the assigned mission commander—not mentioning that he always reserves the right to act as he sees fit if he thinks that Josh, or any other commander, has issued a wrong order.

But the psychiatrists are not suspicious of Bob at all, but rather of Josh. Specifically, their protocols inform them that having one man, even the mission commander, dominate the crew is a recipe for disaster. Bob's interview, added to an earlier interview given by Kennedy, only add to their disquiet. During their deliberations, they then run a computer-based decision-analytic model on two possible crew complements—one including Josh, and the other removing Josh as mission commander and assigning Valkerie Jansen to the flight. To everyone's surprise, a crew complement that includes Valkerie scores very high on their decision-analytic indices.

Thus the psychiatrists issue their final "recommendation," which carries the force of an order: Josh Bennett is to be dropped from the crew, Kennedy Hampton is to be promoted to mission commander, and the crew will gain a new mission specialist: Valkerie Jansen.

Valkerie feels doubly guilty about accepting the assignment. First, she sees herself as usurping the place of another, more experienced astronaut (Josh). Second, she is afraid that a prior association will return to haunt her—specifically, her relationship with a fellow student at Yale University who killed himself in a laboratory explosion he had caused because of his notion of Christian duty. (This bombing incident took place during the heyday of Operation Rescue—and furthermore, the presence of a religious-motivated picket line at NASA's main gate only adds to her apprehensions about having her Christian associations revealed.)

Josh is ignorant of her fears concerning her Christian associations, but recognizes that she might feel guilty over supplanting him. So he takes her on a training flight to the Kennedy Space Center and there tells her that her primary duty is to Project Ares, which will shut down completely if she does not accept the assignment. He gallantly offers to take personal responsibility for her remaining training. With this assurance, she returns to Houston and tells Nate Harrington that she will accept the assignment.

Launch--and Disaster

In January 2014, Ares 10 launches into space. The launch is very violent, because the mission controllers decide to launch in the face of a crosswind that exceeds NASA's stated limits. This causes damage to multiple habitat systems, including the telemetry bus, the Ku-band antenna, and a solar panel. Valkerie develops serious doubts about continuing the mission, especially when she catches Kennedy in a lie about a chemical fluid spill (he says that he spilled juice from a snack container, but Valkerie knows better) and then appears to threaten her with the non-regulation acetylene blowtorch he has brought aboard. Bob is actually no more eager to continue than Valkerie. But Kennedy insists on continuing the mission and browbeats his crew into telling Houston that they are all agreed. Subsequently, they perform trans-Martian injection, thus committing themselves.

Three months later, they have repaired their data telemetry bus, and Kennedy and Bob perform an EVA to repair the Ku-band antenna, a repair that would have been pointless before. After completing the repair, they proceed to inspect the dual solar panels to see whether they can repair the damaged panel. Bob discovers some stray exposed wires that do not appear on anyone's schematics of the habitat. He proceeds to test them with a multimeter—and by a fateful error, sets the multimeter to measure resistance rather than electromotive potential ("voltage"). As a result, he inadvertently bridges a circuit between the wires—and thus causes an explosion. Someone has, quite simply, planted a bomb on board, and Bob has triggered it.

The explosion blows away the otherwise intact solar panel, compromises the hull, and dazes Bob and fills his arm with what turns out to be stainless-steel shrapnel—a detail whose full significance the astronauts will realize only much later. Valkerie, standing by in the EVA suit room, immediately suits up, places the unconscious Lex Ohta into a rescue bubble, hastily repairs the hull breach, and releases the remaining oxygen from the fuel-cell tanks. Only then can she open the airlock to admit Kennedy, who at first insists that Bob is dead. Valkerie, believing that Kennedy acted carelessly, goes outside to fetch him in.

Presently Bob recovers enough to discover that Valkerie's repair was incomplete, and simply asks her to help him make a more complete repair. But as a result of the original hull breach and Valkerie's incomplete repair efforts, the crew no longer has enough oxygen on board to survive the transit to Mars. Neither will they have sufficient power for all ship's systems from the remaining solar panel when they reach Mars. When NASA—represented by a very shaken Josh Bennett as CapCom—fails to inform them of this fact in a timely fashion, the astronauts bleakly conclude that they can no longer trust NASA.

A life-or-death choice

Josh Bennett refuses to give up on the crew. He remembers that an Earth Return Vehicle is on its way to Mars at the same time, and proposes to accelerate it to intercept Ares 10, so that the crew can use it as a lifeboat. Engineer Cathe Willison computes a solution for the intercept—but then points out that the oxygen will only last if two of the crew sacrifice themselves. Valkerie, however, proposes another solution: observing that Lex, who is still in a coma, is consuming less oxygen, she proposes that two other astronauts go into drug-induced comas, with one astronaut remaining awake to accomplish the rendezvous and then reawaken the rest of the crew. NASA's doctors conclude that Valkerie could in fact synthesize enough sodium pentathol to accomplish this plan. But this raises the question of which astronaut will remain awake.

That question is more than academic—because a review of surveillance tapes made inside the habitat prior to launch identifies six people only who could have planted the bomb—the four members of the crew, Josh Bennett, and Nate Harrington. No one suspects Nate or Josh (not yet), and so the astronauts suspect one another—and furthermore, Kennedy is deliberately manipulating his crewmates' emotions, even to the point of crudely demanding sexual favors from Valkerie (which she refuses to grant).

Two further items of evidence eventually decide the issue in Valkerie's favor. One, Josh Bennett discovers that Kennedy in fact manipulated NASA's psychiatric brass in order to have Josh removed from the crew. Two, a computer simulation predicts that if Bob is the one to stay awake, he'll use up all the oxygen.

Bob, ever reserving his right to act at discretion, secretly prepares a dose of sodium pentathol to use on Valkerie after she has sedated Kennedy. But at the last minute, Valkerie tells him that she forgives him for not trusting her. He cannot bring himself to rebel against Valkerie, and so allows her to sedate him.

Another disaster--and eventual landing

Valkerie now faces a problem with which she almost cannot cope: total isolation, with no one to converse with—not even Houston, because she must power down the radio to conserve energy. She spends most of the time in prayer, but mostly crying out to God to "send her an e-mail" and give her a reason to believe.

As the ERV continues its approach, Valkerie asks for and receives permission to revive Bob so that he can help her pilot the habitat to a rendezvous with the ERV. Unhappily, the ERV is approaching far too fast. Valkerie's attempt to match velocity with it ends in failure, and worse—she uses up more fuel than they can spare.

With the ERV speeding past the habitat, Bob and Valkerie suddenly remember that the ERV carries a crew re-entry vehicle with its own engine. They issue orders to detach it from the ERV and bring it to a slow rendezvous—and then Valkerie makes another spacewalk to cut loose its oxygen tank and bring it aboard. Bob, in turn, receives instructions to build a Sabatier scrubber—an ultra-low-power device for removing carbon dioxide from the ship's air.

They then reawaken Kennedy, who must regain his strength to perform the landing—and then decide that the only way they can land is to abandon the original mission profile calling for a Martian orbital capture, and instead dive straight down to the Martian surface. This is an incredibly risky maneuver, one which they almost do not complete because they are about to use an aerobrake deployment system that is non-functional. (Another failure of trust is responsible for this predicament, which they avoid only by some last-minute deduction of NASA's true intentions.) They intend to land in a camp that previous missions have already established—but they end up landing too far away. However, they manage to pool their remaining oxygen to give to Bob and Kennedy, so that they can retrieve a pressurized powered rover to rescue Valkerie and Lex. When the men return, they find the women unconscious and seemingly dead—but Valkerie has found Bob's hidden dose of sodium pentathol and uses that to put her and Lex into a coma once again—so that they survive, but Valkerie suffers multiple rib fractures when Bob attempts cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Finally, the astronauts realize the significance of the stainless-steel shrapnel with which Bob had been wounded in the initial explosion. None of the ship's systems was made of stainless steel—in fact, the lack of any material but plastic was a source of great frustration to Valkerie when she first attempted to seal the hull breach. Valkerie and Lex realize that the stainless steel must have come from a bacterial culture vial that Josh Bennett had received from a former girlfriend in Antarctica—and that the vial contained a radiation-resistant bacterium, the same one that in fact had contaminated some of the ship's systems after the explosion. Now the astronauts realize what has happened to them: Josh Bennett, fearing cancellation of Project Ares and the disbanding of NASA, sought to "seed" a radio-resistant bacterium on Mars for the astronauts to "discover." To accomplish this, he did plant a bomb on board, designed to detonate with the deployment of the aerobrakes. But the damage to the habitat on the rocky launch ultimately caused the bomb to detonate in transit. This also explains Josh's brittle emotional state—he realizes that his attempt to give the astronauts something to discover very nearly killed them instead. Bob ultimately tells Josh that Valkerie has figured it out, and that they all forgive him for what he did, knowing as they do that he never meant them any harm.

The last scene is a set-up for the sequel: Bob, who is now enamored of Valkerie, proposes marriage to her before a worldwide six-billion-strong television audience that has tuned into watch "the first two astronauts to walk on Mars."

Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the efforts of debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) at Wiley College, a historically black college related to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now The United Methodist Church), to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow laws were common and lynch mobs were a fear for blacks. The Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University. (In 1935, the Wiley College debate team defeated the reigning national debate champion, the University of Southern California, depicted as Harvard University in The Great Debaters).

The movie explores social constructs in Texas during the Great Depression, from day-to-day insults African Americans endured to lynching. Also depicted is James Farmer (Denzel Whitaker), who, at 14 years old, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school (and who later went on to co-found the Congress of Racial Equality). Another character on the team, Samantha Booke, is based on the real individual Henrietta Bell Wells, acclaimed poet and the only female member of the 1930 Wiley team who participated in the first collegiate interracial debate in the US.

The key line of dialogue, used several times, is a famous paraphrase of theologian St. Augustine of Hippo: "An unjust law is no law at all", which would later be the central thesis of Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King Jr. Another major line, repeated in slightly different versions according to context, concerns doing what you "have to do" in order that we "can do" what we "want to do." In all instances, these vital lines are spoken by the James L. Farmer Sr. and James L. Farmer Jr. characters.

After Lois has a pregnancy scare, Peter reluctantly agrees to get a vasectomy. Concerned they might eventually want another child, he decides to freeze some of his sperm before the surgery. At the sperm bank, he accidentally destroys all the existing samples, and replaces them with his own. A lesbian couple use one of the samples to conceive a child, giving birth to Bertram, who first appeared in the episode "Emission Impossible".

Bertram declares war with Stewie for control over the playground. They confront each other with F-117 Nighthawks and AH-1 Cobras, firing numerous bullets. After the air battle ends with no winner, Bertram resorts to biological warfare, using Stewie's new-found girlfriend to infect Stewie with chickenpox. After recovering, an enraged Stewie confronts Bertram, and they engage in a sword fight in the play area. Stewie eventually wins by disarming Bertram, and later that night, is seen suspiciously digging a hole with Christopher Moltisanti, but the hole is actually for a young tree. When Christopher questions Stewie on what happened to Bertram, Stewie claims that Bertram admitted defeat and ran away, with Christopher calling Bertram a mook.

Meanwhile, Peter loses his sex drive after the vasectomy, much to the frustration of Lois, who turns to food. After Peter makes fun of her slight weight gain, she deliberately gains more weight out of spite. Her increased appetite results in her becoming obese, which ironically ends up reviving their sex life. Peter feeds Lois copious amounts of food to make her even fatter. Eventually, Lois's heart gives out during sex and she is rushed to the hospital, where the doctors remove all of the excess fat and return her to normal size. Lois admits that eating is not a good way to solve problems, and Peter states he loves her no matter her size, but is later caught kissing the fat in a storage closet.

In 1969, a U.S. Army team is ordered to secure a village against North Vietnamese forces. Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) discovers members of his squad and villagers murdered, all with their ears removed. Deveraux finds his sergeant, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), who has gone insane and made a necklace of severed ears, and who is holding a young couple hostage. Deveraux, nearing the end of his tour of duty, tries to reason with Scott, who executes the man and orders Deveraux to shoot the girl to prove his loyalty. Deveraux refuses, and tries to save the girl, but she is killed by a grenade thrown by Scott. After shooting each other to death, Deveraux and Scott's corpses are recovered by a second squad and cryogenically frozen, their deaths classified as "missing in action".

Deveraux and Scott's corpses are reanimated decades later (but with their memories lost) and selected for the "Universal Soldier" (UniSol) program, an elite counter-terrorism unit. They are deployed via an Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy to the Hoover Dam to resolve a hostage situation. The team demonstrates their superior training and physical abilities against the terrorists, such as when GR76 (Ralf Möller) withstands close-range rifle fire. After the area is secured, Deveraux begins to regain memory from his former life upon seeing two hostages who strongly resemble the villagers he tried to save in Vietnam, causing him to disobey commands from the control team and become unresponsive.

In the mobile command center, the UniSols are revealed to be genetically augmented soldiers with enhanced self-healing abilities and superior strength, but they also tend to overheat and shut down. They are given a neural serum to keep their minds susceptible and their past memories suppressed. Because of the glitch, Woodward (Leon Rippy), one of the technicians on the project, feels removing Deveraux from the team until he can be further analyzed may be better, but UniSol commander Colonel Perry (Ed O'Ross) refuses. TV journalist Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker), who was fired while covering the Hoover Dam incident, tries to get a story on the UniSol project to get her job back. Roberts sneaks onto the base with a cameraman, discovering GR76 immersed in ice, still alive despite normally fatal injuries.

When her presence is noticed, Deveraux and Scott are ordered to capture her dead or alive. She flees to her cameraman's car, but they crash. Scott coldly murders the cameraman against orders before Deveraux stops him from shooting Roberts. Together, Deveraux and Roberts escape in a UniSol vehicle. Colonel Perry insists on preventing knowledge of the UniSol program getting out, and sends the remaining UniSols to find Deveraux and Roberts.

Deveraux and Roberts flee to a motel, where Roberts discovers she has been framed for the murder of her cameraman. Deveraux collapses from overheating and has to take an ice bath. The UniSols completely destroy the motel, but Deveraux and Roberts hide in a bed until they leave and steal a car. The couple flees to a gas station, where Deveraux has Roberts remove a tracking device from his leg. They set a trap and when the UniSols arrive the gas station explodes. Colonel Perry terminates the mission after this failure and Scott's previously insane personality resurfaces, causing him to kill Perry and all but two doctors. Deveraux and Roberts sneak onto the command center bus and steal UniSol documents. Scott then takes control of the mindlessly obedient UniSol team, commanding them to kill Deveraux and Roberts.

Using information from the stolen documents, Roberts contacts a doctor linked to the program. Roberts and Deveraux meet Dr. Christopher Gregor (Jerry Orbach), who informs them that the UniSol project was started in the 1960s to develop the perfect soldier. Although they were able to reanimate dead humans, they were never able to overcome the body's need for cooling. The other major problem is that memories of the last moments of life are greatly amplified; Scott believes he is still in Vietnam fighting insurgents. When Deveraux and Roberts leave the doctor's home, they are caught and arrested by the police. En route to jail, the police convoy is ambushed by Scott and GR76. A chase ensues, ending when the police bus and the UniSol truck both drive off a cliff in the Grand Canyon and explode, killing GR76. Deveraux and Roberts head to Deveraux's family farm in Louisiana.

After Deveraux is reunited with his parents, Scott appears and takes the family and Roberts hostage. A brutal fight ensues, and Scott's use of muscle enhancers enables him to beat Deveraux mercilessly. Roberts manages to escape, only to be seemingly killed by a grenade thrown by Scott. Deveraux grabs the muscle enhancers Scott used and injects himself. Now evenly matched, Deveraux fights back and impales Scott on the spikes of a hay harvester before activating the machine, which grinds Scott to death. Roberts is revealed to have survived the explosion, and Deveraux and she embrace.

The novel covers a young man's own perspective on being accused of rape, starting at the moment of accusation and jumping back through an unreliable narration of events, in which he seems himself as a good guy doing what is understandable.

The novel begins with Keir arguing with Gigi about the events which occurred the night before. It continues with Keir's first-person narration of his senior year in high school. Keir is crushed when he learns that Gigi has accused him of rape. He goes on to tell Gigi that he loves her, and would never do such a thing. The novel never mentions Gigi's point of view, so her feelings and thoughts are not taken into consideration through the use of dialogue.

As the novel unfolds, Keir becomes more unpopular because of his substance abuse, school behavior, and his infamous tackle on the football field giving him the nickname "Killer." Keir's self-image dissipates after he accidentally paralyzes an opponent, participates in bullying classmates, and then tries cocaine. First, he leans on Gigi because she listens to him and doesn't judge him. Once he learns about Gigi and her new boyfriend, he is angry and leans on his two sisters, Fran and Mary. Keir's older sisters have mixed feelings about his behavior. He leans on Fran the most because she sees the "good" in Keir despite his terrible actions.

One night close to graduation, after a night of partying and substance abuse, Gigi decides to accompany Keir on a visit to Fran's college and they end up in her dorm room alone. Gigi tells Keir that her boyfriend cannot go to the dance and she needs him to come with her to the dance. Keir thinks Gigi looks beautiful and the "inexcusable" action happens. Then, the setting reverts to the opening with the two arguing about what happened while they were sleeping next to each other.

After the death of his father, Rocco Parondi, one of the five sons of a poor rural Italian family, travels north from Lucania to join his older brother Vincenzo in Milan, led by the matriarch Rosaria. She is the "hand to which the five fingers belong," and she has a powerful influence on her sons. Presented in five distinct sections, the film weaves the story of the five brothers Vincenzo, Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca Parondi as each of them adapts to his new life in the city.

Vincenzo, the eldest brother, is already living in Milan when his mother and brothers come to join him expecting to move in with him. An initial scene ensues between the Parondi family and Vincenzo's fiancée Ginetta's family, and the whole Parondi family moves in together. Despite early friction between Rosaria and Ginetta, he soon gets married and starts a family of his own. After settling down, Vincenzo doesn't interact much with the Parondi brothers.

Simone, the second brother, struggles to adapt to urban life. He becomes attracted to a prostitute named Nadia, who urges him to pursue a career in boxing, which his mother also encourages, as a fast way to reach fame and wealth. Nadia, after initially pursuing Vincenzo only to find him happy in his new family life, turns her interest to Simone. Simone falls in love with Nadia and demands far more than a casual relationship, but she rejects him.

Rocco, the third brother, leaves to complete military service in Turin and meets Nadia, who has just been released from prison for prostitution. His innocence and purity of heart ignites her to give up her way of life and enter an exclusive relationship with him. When Simone learns of this, he attacks Nadia and Rocco with a gang of friends and rapes Nadia to "teach Rocco a lesson". Rocco subsequently sacrifices his relationship with Nadia, telling her that he did not realize how much their relationship hurt his brother. Rocco insists that Nadia return to Simone, and she reluctantly complies.

Ciro, the second-youngest brother, perhaps by observing the trials of Simone and Rocco, decides to learn from their mistakes and mimic his brother Vincenzo. Unlike Vincenzo, Ciro still lives with his mother and participates in family matters. To that end, Ciro finds steady work in Milan at an automobile factory and becomes engaged to a local woman from a good family.

Rocco often acts to preserve the well-being of family members at some cost to his own happiness. He continues a boxing career without enjoying it to provide for his family and he covers for Simone in a myriad of ways, such as returning an expensive brooch that Simone stole from Rocco's boss. After Simone loses the ability to compete as a boxer, because of his obsession with Nadia, his alcoholism, and dissolute lifestyle, Rocco agrees to sign a long term boxing contract in order to pay back money that Simone squandered and cannot repay. While Rocco fights and wins a championship bout, Simone kills Nadia in a jealous rage when she returns to prostitution and refuses to return to him.

As the family celebrates Rocco's victory, he shares an anecdote about masons, who, at the start of erecting a building, sacrifice a brick by throwing it into the shadow of the first passerby to ensure the structure will be sound and endure. Rocco's own habit of sacrificing his money and well-being can be likewise analogized, as attempts to preserve his family after their upheaval from country life. Simone arrives at the apartment and confesses to Nadia's murder. Despite his anguish, Rocco tries to protect Simone, but Ciro refuses to go along and leaves to turn Simone in to the police.

The youngest brother, Luca, does little but watch quietly in the background most of the time. By the end of the film he wants to return with Rocco to the south, despite spending the least time in southern Italy before the family moved to Milan. In one of the last scenes Ciro speaks to Luca outside his factory and tells him that Rocco won't return there, though he might, but will not find the south the same under the pressure of inevitable progress, and, though many people fear a changing world, he does not and believes that Luca will benefit from the changes.

''Albert Angelo'' tells the story of Albert Angelo, a substitute teacher who longs to be a professional architect. He has had to resort to teaching to make ends meet, as he is not an accomplished enough architect to make a living from it. Living in a flat in Angel in London, he finds himself teaching in increasingly tougher schools, and part of the story concerns his struggle with difficult pupils in class, mirroring Albert's struggle with life in general. Through the reproduction of some of their essays, we also learn the pupils' opinions of Albert and their attitudes towards him, which are often hilarious.

Albert devotes much thought to his ex-girlfriend Jenny, with whom he is still very much in love and who he feels betrayed him. He reminisces about her frequently. His friend Terry, whom he accompanies to late-night cafes, was also 'betrayed' by a woman, and their friendship is built upon this common experience.

The story is at times humorous and at others incredibly serious. As is usual in a Johnson novel sexuality is openly and frankly discussed. Johnson's writing technique allows us to view Albert's character from many angles.

In the future, a totalitarian government employs a force known as Firemen to seek out and destroy all literature. They have the power to search anyone, anywhere, at any time, and burn any books they find. One of the firemen, Guy Montag, meets one of his neighbours, Clarisse, a young schoolteacher who may be fired due to her unorthodox views. The two have a discussion about his job, where she asks whether he ever reads the books he burns. Curious, he begins to hide books in his house and read them, starting with Charles Dickens's ''David Copperfield''. This leads to conflict with his wife, Linda, who is more concerned with being popular enough to be a member of ''The Family'', an interactive television programme that refers to its viewers as "cousins".

At the house of an illegal book collector, the fire captain, Beatty, talks with Montag at length about how books make people unhappy and make them want to think that they are better than others, which is considered anti-social. The book collector, an old woman who was seen with Clarisse a few times during Montag's rides to and from work, refuses to leave her house, opting instead to burn herself and the house, so that she can die with her books.

Returning home that day, Montag tries to tell Linda and her friends about the woman who martyred herself in the name of books and confronts them about knowing anything about what's going on in the world, calling them ''zombies'' and telling them that they're just ''killing time'' instead of living life. Disturbed over Montag's behaviour, Linda's friends try to leave, but Montag stops them by forcing them to sit and listen to him read a novel passage. During the reading, one of Linda's friends breaks down crying, aware of the feelings she repressed over the years, while Linda's other friends leave in disgust over Montag's alleged cruelty and the ''sick'' content of the novel.

That night, Montag dreams of Clarisse as the book collector who killed herself. The same night, Clarisse's house is raided, but she escapes through a trapdoor in the roof, thanks to her uncle. Montag breaks into Beatty's office, looking for information about the missing Clarisse, and is caught but not punished.

Montag meets with Clarisse and helps her break back into her house to destroy papers that would bring the Firemen to others like her. She tells him of the "book people", a hidden sect of people who flout the law, each of whom has memorised a book to keep it alive. Later, Montag tells Beatty that he is resigning but is convinced to go on one more call, which turns out to be Montag's own house.

Linda leaves the house, telling Montag that she couldn't live with his book obsession and leaves him to be punished by the Firemen. Angrily, he destroys the bedroom and television before setting fire to the books. Beatty lectures him about the books and pulls a last book from Montag's coat, for which Montag kills him with the flamethrower. He escapes and finds the book people, where he views his "capture" on television, staged to keep the masses entertained and because the government doesn't want it to be known that he is alive. Montag selects a book to memorise, ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' by Edgar Allan Poe, and becomes one of the book people.

The film follows Chappelle during the summer of 2004, ending on September 18, 2004, when he threw a block party on the corner of Quincy Street and Downing Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The film features nearby sites, including the Broken Angel House in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn as well as areas in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The film was produced before Chappelle's highly publicized decision to walk away from a $50 million deal to continue his hit ''Chappelle's Show'', and gained prominence after the announcement.

Chappelle invited several hip hop and neo-soul musical artists to perform at the party, including Kanye West, Mos Def, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and The Roots along with The Central State University Marching Band. Lauryn Hill was also scheduled to perform at the party, but since Columbia Records refused to release her songs for use in the production, she decided instead to reunite The Fugees for the occasion. In addition, Chappelle performed comedy monologues and sketches in between the musical acts. Unbeknownst to the world, a young unsigned J. Cole was in the crowd watching as the legendary hip hop duo Black Star performing.

Set against the backdrop of New Mexico, the film follows a boy, Josh Townsend, who moves because of his father's job and becomes involved with a group of teens attempting to preserve the buffalo and Navajo traditions. Along the way he makes friends and learns important lessons about life. The movie teaches about a few Navajo traditions. Josh eventually enters a race against his rival and proves to be the better of the two; however, he quits the race after seeing the buffalo herd stampeding. Josh quickly gathers his friends to save the town, and while his rival refuses to help, his friends do. Together, they herd the buffalo away from the town and back onto their preserve. During the process, Josh's friend Thomas Blackhorse falls in front of a buffalo, but is saved by his sister who finally speaks for the first time in years to help calm the buffalo. Josh and his friends are hailed as heroes by the town and in recognition of his bravery, Josh is made an honorary member of the Navajo tribe with the name Rides With the Wind. He and Thomas, who he had trouble getting along with before, make a pact to keep the buffalo safe together.

The main plot of the story follows Ethan Truman, an ex-cop who now works as the head of security for the most famous actor in Hollywood, Channing Manheim, a.k.a. "The Face." Ethan is trying to track down the sender of several gruesome "messages" that were received in black boxes. Ethan now has six black boxes to figure out what the contents of the boxes mean. After chasing down leads and tracking the "ghost" of his dead friend Duncan "Dunny" Whistler (technically, Dunny is not a ghost, as he came back to life in the morgue), Ethan finally uncovers the plot and races to stop the kidnapping of Manheim's son, Aelfric.

Pemberton, a penniless graduate of Oxford, takes a job to tutor Morgan Moreen, aged eleven, a brilliant and somewhat cynical member of a wandering American family. His mother and father refuse to pay Pemberton as they jump their bills from one hotel to another in Europe. Pemberton grows to dislike all the Moreens except Morgan, including older brother Ulick and sisters Paula and Amy.

Morgan, who is afflicted with heart trouble, advises Pemberton to escape his family's baleful influence. But Pemberton stays on because he has come to love and admire his pupil and he hopes for at least some eventual payment. Pemberton finally has to take another tutoring job in London simply to make ends meet. He is summoned back to Paris, though, by a telegram from the Moreens that says Morgan has fallen ill.

It turns out that Morgan is healthy enough, though the fatal day arrives when his family is evicted from their hotel for nonpayment. Morgan's parents beg Pemberton to take their son away with him while they try to find some money. Morgan is ecstatic at the prospect of leaving with Pemberton, but the tutor hesitates. Morgan suddenly collapses with a heart attack and dies. In the story's ironic final note, James says that Morgan's father takes his son's death with the perfect manner of "a man of the world."

Madrid, Christmas 1970. The Spanish State has declared a state of emergency curtailing civil liberties. A young prostitute, Isabel Plaza Caballero, gives birth on a bus to a son she names Víctor. Twenty years later, Víctor Plaza shows up for a date with Elena, a junkie with whom he had sex a week earlier. Elena is waiting for her drug dealer to arrive and orders Víctor to leave, eventually threatening him with a gun. Enraged, Víctor wrestles the gun from her; in the process Elena gets knocked out, and the gun goes off. A neighbour hears the shot and calls the police.

Two cops respond to the report. The older cop, Sancho, is an unstable alcoholic who suspects his wife Clara of infidelity. The younger cop, David, is clean-cut and sober. Through the window they catch sight of Víctor physically struggling with Elena. Sancho is ready to storm the apartment, while David wants to call for a back-up. When they enter, Víctor holds Elena hostage at gunpoint. David tries to calm him down and get him to drop his gun, but Sancho sabotages his efforts by repeatedly threatening Víctor. Finally, David puts his gun to Sancho's head and gets first Sancho and then Víctor to put down their guns. David orders Elena to flee. Sancho then lunges for Víctor, and as they wrestle for the gun it fires.

Two years later, Víctor, in jail, watches a wheelchair basketball match. David, now partially paralyzed from the gunshot two years earlier, is a star player in the 1992 Summer Paralympics. Elena, now his wife, cheers him on from the sidelines. Víctor has made good use of his time in jail, taking a correspondence course in education, working out, and enriching his mind with a variety of subjects, including the Bible. Four years later, he is released. His mother has died, leaving him some money and a house in an area scheduled for demolition.

Víctor visits his mother's grave, where he encounters Elena at her father's burial service. Without identifying himself, he briefly offers her his condolences. Before leaving the cemetery he encounters Sancho's wife Clara, who has arrived too late for Elena's service. They leave together and she visits his apartment. They establish a tentative relationship.

Elena, now off drugs and operating an orphanage, tells David of her encounter with Víctor. David stops by Víctor's house and warns him not to go near his wife. Víctor challenges him to prevent him from doing whatever he wants, but David punches him below the belt. David leaves, but he sees Clara arriving and watches from a distance. Clara, drawn by Víctor's enthusiasm and good looks, agrees to teach him how to make love while pampering him with gifts and affection. She eventually falls in love with him.

Víctor is accepted as a volunteer by the orphanage, which accepts the qualifications he earned in prison and discovers he is very good with the children. Elena objects, but can offer no compelling argument against Víctor.

David continues to trail Víctor and discovers that he works at his wife's orphanage. He confronts Víctor again, and Víctor denies responsibility for firing the shot that put him in a wheelchair. He demonstrates how Sancho made him squeeze the trigger because Sancho knew David was having an affair with Clara. Afterwards, David tells his wife what Víctor said, admitting that he was having an affair with Clara. Elena is disgusted, but still plans to leave the orphanage to get away from Víctor. Víctor tells Elena that his original plan of revenge was to become the world's greatest lover, make love to Elena all night long, and then abandon her, but that he now loves her too much to do so.

Víctor tells Clara that they should stop seeing each other, and they break up. While Víctor is working overnight at the orphanage, Elena arrives to remove her belongings and offers Víctor a night of passion on condition he never contacts her again. Elena then tells David about this night of infidelity. She tells him she will remain his wife because he needs her more than Víctor does. David is nevertheless intent on avenging himself against Víctor.

Clara decides to leave Sancho. He confronts her and she shoots him. David arrives and helps Sancho clean his wound before showing him photographs he has been taking of Víctor and Clara. Sancho and David drive to Víctor's house, arriving just as Clara has finished writing Víctor a farewell letter. Sancho and Clara hold each other at gunpoint and fire. Clara falls dead and Sancho is wounded. Sancho finally kills himself.

In a voiceover David reads a letter written to his wife from Miami, where he is spending Christmas with some friends, apologizing for the way everything turned out. At the orphanage, a pregnant Elena goes into labor and on the way to the hospital, she and Víctor get stuck in heavy traffic. Víctor is reminded of the circumstances of his own birth, and tells his unborn child that the Spanish people no longer live in fear as they did at the time of his birth.

The film opens with a title card that jokingly claims that Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, and Charles Bronson are the stars of the film. This is followed by a cartoon professor delivering the line "ooh all these big stars, not one of them is in the picture."

Ben (Gary Imhoff), Larry (Jeffrey Byron), Alan (Dennis Quaid) and Steve (Lou Richards) are college seniors who are terrified at the prospect of working for a living. They create a plan to support themselves as graduate research students by getting a foundation grant to study sexuality in college-age women.

Told in two distinct segments, the first involves a discussion between two house servants about their employer's little boy, who has a history of running away. The second segment explores the mother's efforts to reassure her son and help him cope with his fears.

The story opens with the two house servants, Mrs. Snell and Sandra, discussing the homeowner's young son, Lionel. Sandra is very worried that Lionel will tell Boo Boo (Mrs. Tannenbaum), her employer, that Sandra has made some anti-Semitic remarks about Lionel's Jewish father (“gonna have a nose just like his father” ). Boo Boo finds Lionel in a dinghy preparing to cast off, and refuses to allow his mother to join him. Boo Boo pretends to be admiral of the imaginary ship in order to win Lionel over and discover why he is trying to run away. He resists, even going so far as to throw his uncle Seymour's old goggles into the lake.

Lionel tells Boo Boo that Sandra called his father a "big sloppy kike". While he doesn't know what this ethnic slur means, conflating the epithet “kike” with “kite”, he nevertheless grasps its derogatory connotation. Boo Boo, in an effort to reassure the boy and help him cope with the episode, succeeds in providing him insights into her own needs and the love she feels for him. At the end of the story, they race across the beach toward home, and Lionel wins.

The game begins on April 29, with the player Mr. Crowhurst (whose first name remains unknown) receiving a message from his brother, Pete Crowhurst, an architect working on the redevelopment of an abandoned train station and hotel in Dowerton, Dorset. Pete pleads for his brother to come to Dowerton, as something is wrong and he needs help. He mentions he is working with two ghost hunters, and says "I think whatever they were hunting has found them. I think it's found me, too." He then says "it" is outside the door, whispering his name, and he feels compelled to let it in. As the message ends, a door is heard opening.

The player heads to Dowerton by train. He falls asleep, and awakens in a train tunnel, where he hears the voice of a young boy, Timothy Pike. The boy guides him to the station, telling him he has lived in the area "since 41," and mentioning "the others are hoping you can help them. One of them knows you, your brother ain't it? He's the new one, only just arrived." He also says "it" doesn't know they're talking yet, but soon will. The player finds Pete's PDA, in which he writes about Nigel Danvers and Polly White, the ghost hunters. As the player explores the hotel, he discovers why it originally closed; its reputation never recovered from the night of April 29, 1947, when the guests and staff vanished.

As the player explores, it becomes apparent the area is haunted by the spirits of the people who vanished in 1947, amongst others (including a Roundhead soldier who died in the original inn during the English Civil War, Timothy, Polly, Nigel and Pete). The player learns George Crabtree, the owner of the hotel in 1947, was suspected of murdering the others and then fleeing. However, Crabtree had learned of an evil in the hotel and was planning to imprison it by using twelve symbols to recite an incantation. Each symbol was on a piece of vellum, which he distributed amongst the staff and guests, most of whom thought he was mad.

The player discovers "it" is known as the Dark Fall, and was accidentally released by Crabtree and his friend Arthur while they were in the cellar trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the soldier from the Civil War. In his journal, Crabtree writes,

It is not our fault, it can not be our fault. We were not to know. The chamber. It is not as we, or anyone, could understand. It is both extraordinary and baffling. Beyond faith and beyond reason. There is a power. A rippling energy that plays across its walls and ceiling. It is a godless power, and had no place in our world. A thousand voices whispered at us from beyond the stones. A thousand voices in perpetual confusion. We removed ourselves as quickly as possible. I fear it was not fast enough. There was time, just enough time. A splinter in fact. Enough for something to follow us back through the passage. Darkness with no form, or existence.

Arthur enlisted in the army, and was killed during World War II, but Crabtree worked to re-imprison the Dark Fall. In a journal entry dated April 29, 1947, he writes he is ready to use the symbols to recite the incantation. The player also finds Polly's electronic journal, in which she writes Nigel discovered a secret room in the cellar. However, several days later, they feel a "conscious" presence outside their door; Polly hears it calling her name, but Nigel hears it calling his. In her last entry, dated April 29, she says Nigel disappeared as they were fleeing from the cellar, and although she was able to get back to their room, she has decided to go out and look for Nigel and Pete.

The player ultimately finds his way into the antechamber and discovers the final journal entries of Crabtree, who speculates the Dark Fall may be connected to Hela, the being appointed by the Norse god Odin to guard the souls of the dead, but writes "if so, I fear that this 'guardian' gave up watching over the dead, and has acquired a taste for the living." He had come to believe the Dark Fall sustains itself on the pain of the souls it has trapped. In his final entry, Crabtree worries he may be incapable of imprisoning it.

The player enters the central chamber, resisting the Dark Fall, and recites the incantation, imprisoning it, and releasing the trapped souls. Timothy thanks him, and before he departs, tells him things may not have turned out as he thinks. All evidence of the spirits trapped by the Dark Fall throughout history disappear. The game then cuts back to the opening scene, as the player receives a message from Pete. In the message, Pete begins by saying he has something very important to tell his brother, but then forgets why he rang, and says the redevelopment of the hotel is going well, and he will be home shortly.

Earl Keese is a middle-aged, middle-class suburbanite with a wife, Enid, and teenage daughter, Elaine. Earl is content with his dull, unexceptional life, but this changes when a younger, less sophisticated couple, Harry and Ramona, move in next door. Harry is physically intimidating and vulgar; Ramona is sexually aggressive, and both impose themselves on the Keese household. Their free-spirited personalities and overbearing and boorish behavior endear them to Enid and Elaine, but Earl fears that he is losing control of his life and his family. Over the course of one night, the antagonism between Earl and his new neighbors escalates into suburban warfare.

The cartoon shows how the character, as the pleasant, friendly, and good-natured "Mr. Walker" who "wouldn't hurt a fly nor step on an ant", undergoes a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like change in personality to the violent "Mr. Wheeler, motorist" when he gets behind the wheel of his yellow car. As Mr. Walker, pedestrian, he's polite, safe, and good-natured while as Mr. Wheeler; he is very mean, reckless, and predatory. Upon reaching his destination in town (he apparently only wanted to buy a newspaper) and leaving his automobile, he reverts to the mild-mannered Mr. Walker, whereupon he is the victim of other motorists' unsafe (and sometimes even predatory) driving habits. However, once he returns to his car, he becomes Mr. Wheeler, motorist, again, seeking to impose his own will upon traffic, to the point of blaming the tow truck which hauls him away for his slow pace after his own auto accident, and breaks the fourth wall by telling the narrator, while educating him (and the fourth wall) on safe driving habits with, "Aw, shaddap!"

Patrick (David Hewlett) is single, loves his dog (Mars the Dog) and still lives in his parents' house ten years after their death. Shortly before Christmas, Patrick's sister Marilyn (Kate Hewlett) visits Patrick to introduce him to Ryan (Paul McGillion), a science fiction television star.

After accidentally knocking Ryan out with a cricket bat, Patrick is shocked to learn of Marilyn's engagement to Ryan. Patrick also overhears a dialogue excerpt that Ryan cites over the phone, which makes Patrick believe that Ryan wants to kill Marilyn. From this time on, Patrick tries everything in his power to protect his sister. But an apparently fatal accident happens: While Patrick is on the phone with Marilyn, Ryan tries to mount Christmas lights and falls off the ladder. Patrick panics and tries everything to hide Ryan's death from his sister, disposing of the body in the garden and in a nearby lake. But Ryan's dead body reappears each time. In an effort to interest Marilyn in other men, Patrick posts a fake online dating profile and arranges a blind date between Marilyn and a man named Chris (Christopher Judge). When Marilyn alerts the police that Ryan is missing, Ryan's aunt investigates Ryan's disappearance. After first suspecting Marilyn, Patrick's cover blows.

Because it looks bad for Marilyn, the siblings decide to dismember Ryan's body and give it to Mars and the neighbors' dogs as food. Finally, when Patrick admits that Ryan has basically always been a friend to him, Marilyn reveals her plan: She and Ryan just faked his death, and the body that Patrick has been trying to get rid of has been Marilyn's sex doll all the time. Ryan has assumed the role of his aunt.

Some time later, when Patrick grows comfortable with the idea to accept Ryan as his brother-in-law, Ryan's sister Elise (Amanda Byram) arrives but is not enthused with the upcoming wedding. A love at first sight between Patrick and Elise is apparent. While Marilyn shows her sister-in-law to-be the house, Ryan leads Patrick to the lake, with a moose figure behind his back.

Soyo (Chun Jung-myung) is a quiet, conscientious sixth form student. Although he doesn't enjoy school, he attends dutifully, without a word of complaint. And then, one day, he discovers inline skating. A complete beginner, he practices at first in a hidden corner of the park. Here, he meets a group of wild skaters and immediately, one skater, Mogi (Kim Kang-woo), catches his eye. His adventurous jumps and breathtaking loops defy all laws of gravity. Mogi is without doubt the star of the group. His stunts, his style and the cool way he executes even the most daring of figures are unrivalled. Mogi's girlfriend, Hanjoo (Jo Yi-jin), invites Soyo to join their team and he accepts enthusiastically.

No sooner does he become a member of the skaters than his life changes completely. The loneliness Soyo sometimes felt simply disappears – as does his quiet existence. He soon makes enormous progress as a skater. Soyo's life becomes faster and more exciting, and Mogi and Hanjoo turn out to be the kind of friends he always dreamed of having. The team are busy preparing for the world championships, in which Mogi is to take part. But then, disaster strikes. The film crew with whom Mogi is working on a commercial shoot is particularly condescending to him. He allows himself to be goaded into performing a particularly dangerous jump that ends in a bad accident. All at once, the whole team is completely absorbed with trying to scrape the money together to pay off their looming debts, and Mogi appears to have lost all interest in skating. Soyo's faith in his new friends dwindles and the once-successful team threatens to fall apart.

''Redeemer'' is set in the World of Darkness – a gothic-punk interpretation of the real world, where monsters exist and hide in plain sight – and takes place in the town of Ashcroft, ten years after the events of the first game. The team of hunters from the first ''Hunter'' video game – Deuce, Samantha, Father Cortez, and Kassandra – have teamed up with Kaylie Winter, who they saved as a child during the first game and who has been raised by Father Cortez. Kaylie spies on the Genefex Corporation's CEO Xavier Lucien as he oversees a shipment of products, when werewolves enter the warehouse and corner him. Kaylie and the other hunters drive the werewolves away, and they learn that werewolves have been attacking Genefex shipments for some time, since Genefex began hunting them in addition to the undead.

As Genefex shipments to Ripper's Nightclub have been intercepted, the hunters go there to investigate, and learn that it is a haven for vampires. They meet their nemesis there, the risen wraith Carpenter, who says he had to make a deal with a powerful being to be able to return to the world of the living after the events of the previous game, and that he is required to kill them. They defeat him and his vampire henchwomen in battle, and he tells them that the deal involved him having to oversee the club and mix an unknown substance shipped from Genefex Labs into the drinks served at the club, but that he does not work for Lucien. Having failed at his objective, he flees.

After protecting Genefex Labs from a werewolf attack and noticing that one of Lucien's staff is not human, the hunters sneak inside to investigate. They find and free the captive werewolf leader, who tells them that the substance is a spiritual poison used in Genefex products to turn humans into slaves to a powerful entity that Lucien has sold his soul to. The hunters join forces with the werewolves, and turn off Genefex pumps contaminating Ashcroft's water supply with the poison.

Lucien discovers that the werewolf leader has been freed, and sends his security team to the forest to kill the werewolves. The hunters help defend the werewolves and innocent humans, and infiltrate Genefex's headquarters, placing explosives throughout the building. They confront Lucien, who with the power of the entity has become demonic, and defeat him in battle. Father Cortez stays behind to kill Lucien, and the others escape the building before the explosives detonate.

Shirlee Kenyon is a dance instructor living in Arkansas. Fired for giving advice to her clients rather than teaching them dance, she attempts to convince her boyfriend (Michael Madsen) to move to Chicago with her. After he declines and belittles her, she decides to move there without him.

Once she arrives, she stands on a bridge enjoying the view of the city when she accidentally drops a twenty dollar bill. As she climbs over the rail to retrieve the money, Jack (James Woods), an investigative journalist, sees her from his office window and assumes she is trying to commit suicide. He runs out to rescue her, but as he attempts to grab and "save" her, Shirlee almost falls into the river and loses the 20 she had been trying to recover. Afterwards, she tells him about the 20. Jack tries to give her money, saying she must need it more than him if she is willing to risk her life to retrieve it. She refuses and they part.

Shirlee stops into a cafe for breakfast, and chats with another customer, Janice (Teri Hatcher), annoyed at having been stood up by her boyfriend the previous evening. Shirlee tells her he is taking her for granted, and advises her to end the relationship, only to realize that Janice's boyfriend is, in fact, Jack. When he shows up, Janice breaks it off. He thanks Shirlee for "wrecking his entire day", as he leaves.

After several job interviews, a manager at a local radio station (Paula Newsome) hires her as a switchboard operator, despite her lack of experience. On her first day, she inadvertently walks into a studio, and is mistaken for the station's new call in therapist. She is put on the air, and begins hesitantly talking with the show's callers. Upon completion of the show, the program director arrives, and fires Shirlee, along with the producer and engineer, who had put her on the air.

However, Shirlee's radio segment becomes in high demand with their audience, prompting the radio station boss, Mr. Perlman, to make Shirlee the new radio personality. Alan finds Shirlee and convinces her to do the show, offering an $800 per week contract. Shirlee accepts the position, but there is one condition: she must pretend to be a real clinical doctor.

She reluctantly accepts and becomes a popular radio figure as "Doctor Shirlee." Jack suspects something when he realizes the woman who was ready to risk her life for twenty dollars is a 'doctor'. Although his editor disagrees, Jack pursues the story. He begins to date Shirlee, initially in an attempt to get closer to uncover her story, but he soon falls for her. Her boyfriend from Arkansas arrives in Chicago to try to get her back, though his attempts fall short, and Shirlee and Jack make love.

As Jack has true feelings for her, he refuses to publish the story, resigning. However, Shirlee receives another visit from her ex, who tells her he remembered having previously met Jack in Arkansas, and that he was asking a number of questions about her. Shirlee realizes Jack is a reporter, and his interest may be purely to uncover her story. Storming off, she refuses to take his calls.

As Shirlee's popularity increases, a mishap involving some of her previous advice to a caller eventually causes her to confess the truth to everyone on air that she is not a real doctor, and she then leaves the show. Her listeners call in, wanting her back, regardless of her credentials. Someone calls in, suggesting everyone listening to honk their horns at midnight if they want Shirlee back. Jack tracks Shirlee down on the same bridge where they had first met and convinces her to take him back.

When she hears the horns, Jack tells her that they are for her. She eventually goes back to the radio show, but insists that she just wants to be called "Shirlee."

The Beginning of the End (OVA 1)

Fallen Angel (OVA 2)

Of the four OVAs in the series, ''Fallen Angel'' is the only one that does not relate to the events of the first.

Chihaya and Kagetsuya are staying in France for their current assignment, and lately Chihaya has been having some disturbing nightmares. As Kagetsuya tries to console his partner over breakfast, Aya and Miyagi show up on vacation, and decide to stay in France for a short while.

Chihaya and Kagetsuya's mission is to locate the exiled angel named Sapphire, who has been hiding on Earth ever since his wings became black with cancer. Chihaya discovers Sapphire's whereabouts, and, learning about the former High Angel's predicament with some shady dealings, he lets himself become involved, much to the dismay of Kagetsuya, who knows that every time something bad goes down with the Earthian, it is always Chihaya who suffers.

The partners struggle to help Sapphire while keeping everything a secret from their guests, but Chihaya's exceedingly strange behavior has not been lost on Aya, and she begins to make some deductions of her own. Both she and Miyagi are well aware of the fact that Sapphire's disappearance has not been taken lightly back in Eden, and as it is, any fallen angels are considered to be a huge disgrace.

In the midst of all this, Chihaya is also hiding a secret of his own; one that has to do with the frightening dreams he has been having. His fears are eating away at his heart, and he worries that what happened to Sapphire might be the same thing that caused the abnormal color in his wings and hair.

Angelic Destroyer (OVA 3)

Picking up where the 1st OVA left off, Chihaya and Kagetsuya are trying to infiltrate Dr. Ashino's lab in order to rescue two black angel children who are being held for interrogation by the mad doctor. The pair split up to search for the hostages, and while wandering through the corridors, Chihaya discovers, locked away in a side room, a black-winged angel like himself, attached to wires extending from the walls.

The angel's name is Messiah, and Chihaya, desperate to get the dormant figure's attention, exposes his wings at the window of the room. Messiah's memory chip, still in the process of being encrypted, takes in the image of Chihaya's transformation and fills Messiah's mind with strange emotions. He is compelled to approach the angel on the other side of the glass window, but cannot get out of the locked room.

An alarm begins to sound, and Chihaya and Kagetsuya meet up again, Kagetsuya carrying the two children. They are forced to evacuate the lab immediately, as it is about to explode. Elvira, the mother of the children, pulls up in her car and help them get away. Chihaya is deeply troubled that he was unable to save the black-winged angel.

One morning, while watching the news, Chihaya discovers that Doctor Ashino has arrived in the city accompanied by a strange man in a trenchcoat. Chihaya immediately recognizes the man as Messiah. Ashino has been having dealings with the military, and was commissioned into creating the ultimate weapon of destruction: Messiah. However, he is not in it just for the money. Troubled by the fact that Taki abandoned him, Ashino is plotting a revenge against the entire world, who stood by despite his suffering.

Final Battle (OVA 4)

Chihaya is reluctant to accept Messiah's disappearance, and no matter how Kagetsuya tries to comfort him, he can only ever think of the android whose wings were like his. Messiah, in the meanwhile, is making his living carrying out errands for a club of drug dealers. He feels accepted by these people, who are appreciative of his physical strength, but longs to find Chihaya again.

Using his connection to the world's computer database, Messiah searches for his friend. Chihaya, also online, discovers Messiah's call, and rushes to meet him in the sky. However, Ashino has also been tracking Messiah, and he sends in men to capture the runaway android.

Ultimately, Messiah needs to choose between staying with Chihaya and learning more about the emotions that confuse him, or give up his freedom in exchange for the assurance of Chihaya's safety, and become the weapon of destruction he was intended to be.

Writer Ben Rolf, his wife Marian, and their 12-year-old son Davey tour a large, shabby, remote neo-classical 19th-century mansion to rent for the summer. The home's eccentric owners, elderly siblings Arnold and Rosalyn Allardyce, offer them a bargain price of $900 for the entire summer, with one odd request: Their elderly mother, who they claim is 85 but could pass for 60, will continue to live in her upstairs room, and the Rolfs are to provide her with meals during their stay. The old woman is obsessed with privacy and will not interact with them, so meals are to be left outside her door.

The family arrives at the house at the beginning of summer along with Ben's elderly Aunt Elizabeth. Marian becomes obsessed with caring for the home, and eventually wears the Victorian era garments she finds in Mrs. Allardyce's suite, while distancing herself from her family. Of particular interest to her is Mrs. Allardyce's sitting room, which contains a collection of framed portraits of people from different eras, presumably former occupants of the house. Mrs. Allardyce's meals go mostly untouched, according to the concerned Marian. Various unusual circumstances occur during the summer: After Davey falls and hurts his knee playing in the garden, a dead plant starts to grow again; Ben cuts his hand on a champagne bottle, and a dead light bulb is mysteriously repaired; while playing in the pool; Ben is haunted by a vision of an eerie, malevolently grinning hearse driver whom Ben first saw at his mother's funeral years earlier. With each "accident," the house further restores itself.

Marian is becoming possessed by the spirit of the house. When Aunt Elizabeth suddenly becomes ill and dies, Marian does not attend the funeral. Ben angrily confronts Marian about her obsession with the house. When she denies it, he reveals his intention to leave the next day.

Ben later sees old shingles and siding falling away, replaced by new ones as the house rejuvenates itself. He attempts to escape with Davey but a tree blocks the road. When Marian drives them back to the house, Ben accuses her of being a part of what is going on, then sees her as the chauffeur and becomes catatonic. The next day, while Davey is swimming and a still-catatonic Ben is watching him, the pool water turns into vicious waves, pulling the boy under as Ben is unable to move. Marian rescues her son; the incident awakens Ben from his catatonia. Marian agrees that it's time to leave but insists on going back inside to inform Mrs. Allardyce. When Marian fails to return to the car, Ben goes inside to find her, but cannot. He decides to confront Mrs. Allardyce, whom he has never seen. He is horrified when he discovers that his wife has now become the old woman in the attic. Ben is thrown from an attic window, landing on the windshield of his car. In shock, Davey runs toward the house and is killed when one of the chimneys falls on him.

With the house and grounds now fully rejuvenated, the Allardyce siblings reappear and are heard marveling at the restored beauty of their home and rejoicing over the return of their "mother". The photo collection now includes photos of Ben, Davey and Aunt Elizabeth, the latest victims.

In the early morning hours on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murders his entire family with a rifle at their home of 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York.

One year later, George and Kathy Lutz, a young married couple, move into the property. George appears not to be strong of faith, but Kathy is a Catholic in name at least. She has three children from her prior marriage: Greg, Matt, and Amy. The couple turn to Father Delaney to quickly bless the home, but Delaney encounters troubles in trying to bless the home, including a room full of flies, out of season; violent stomach sickness; and later, blisters on his palm when trying to make a phone call to Kathy at their home. The experience eventually stops when a door is opened and a voice demands Delaney to leave the property. He rushes out of the house, but decides to continue helping the Lutz family. Delaney is later involved in a car accident resulting from mysterious malfunctions, and he becomes frustrated at the lack of support from his superiors in the diocese.

Kathy's aunt, a nun, comes by the house one afternoon, but becomes violently ill. George begins to be more sullen and angry over perceived cold in the house, and obsesses with splitting logs and keeping the fireplace stoked. Before Kathy's brother's engagement party one night, $1,500 to be used for the caterer inexplicably goes missing in the house. Meanwhile, the babysitter watching Amy for the evening is locked inside a bedroom closet by an unseen force. Further unexplained incidents occur when one of the two boys suffers a crushed hand when a sash window falls on it, and Amy having an imaginary friend, Jody, who seems to be of a malevolent nature. Kathy catches a glimpse of two red, swine-like eyes outside the daughter's second-story bedroom window. Even the family dog, Harry, scratches obsessively (causing his paws to bleed) at a brick wall in the basement.

George's land surveying business begins to suffer with his lack of attendance, and his business partner, Jeff, grows concerned. Jeff's wife, Carolyn, very sensitive to the paranormal, is both repulsed and intrigued by the things she feels when at the house. While in the basement of the house, Carolyn begins demolishing a wall with a hammer, revealing a small room behind the wall. Discovering the damage, George takes down the rest of the wall, observing a small room with red walls. Carolyn, in terror, shrieks that they have found "the passage... to hell!" – only her voice now sounds like Father Delaney's voice.

Back at the church, Father Delaney prays impassionately to stop the evil in Amityville, but is blinded and suffers a mental breakdown. He is next seen sitting at a garden in an unresponsive state, his mind completely gone.

Throughout the strange incidents, Kathy observes George's persistent waking up at 3:15 a.m., feeling he must go check on the boathouse. She also has nightmares, in which she is given details about the killings of the home's prior family. Research at the library and county records office suggest that the house is built atop a Shinnecock burial ground and that a known Satanic worshipper named John Ketchum had once lived on the land. She also discovers the news clippings about the DeFeo murders and notices Ronald DeFeo's striking resemblance to George.

Finally, the paranormal events culminate one stormy night. Blood oozes from the walls and down the staircase; Jody, appearing as a large, red-eyed pig, is seen through a window; and George attempts to kill the children with an axe, but regains his wits after Kathy disrupts him. After falling through the basement stairs into a pit of black sludge while rescuing Harry, George and the rest of the family drive away, abandoning their home and belongings. A final intertitle reads: "George and Kathleen Lutz and their family never reclaimed their house or their personal belongings. Today they live in another state."

After finding her husband asleep in bed with his mistress, Lucy Harbin decapitates them both with an axe. Her three-year-old daughter, Carol, witnesses the murders. Lucy is committed to a psychiatric hospital and deemed criminally insane. Twenty years later, after she is found to be mentally sound and reformed, Lucy is released from the institution. She takes up residence at the farm of her brother Bill Cutler and sister-in-law Emily. Carol, now an artist and sculptor, also lives on the farm, having been adopted by the Cutlers after Lucy was committed.

Carol swiftly makes attempts to bond with Lucy, encouraging her to dress and act the way she did in the past. When Carol attempts to introduce her wealthy fiancé, Michael Fields, however, Lucy is evasive. Lucy's stress is compounded by apparent auditory hallucinations in which she hears children singing a nursery rhyme comparing her to Lizzie Borden, as well as disturbing nightmares in which she finds herself lying in bed with her husband and his lover's severed heads.

Lucy eventually meets Michael at a dinner party, and Carol is angered when Lucy is overtly flirtatious with him. When Lucy has a subsequent emotional breakdown, her sanity is questioned by Dr. Anderson, the psychologist following her. Later that night, Dr. Anderson is brutally murdered and dismembered in the Cutlers' barn after visiting with Carol to discuss Lucy's mental health. When Dr. Anderson is reported missing, Carol hides his car on the farm, as Lucy fears she may have killed him during a blackout episode. Leo, the handyman on the Cutler farm, witnesses Carol hiding the car, and subsequently takes it for himself, threatening Carol with blackmail. He is subsequently decapitated in the barn.

Lucy and Carol visit Michael's parents' home for dinner, during which Lucy is harshly judged by Michael's mother, Allison, who believes Carol is of a low class and is not fit to marry into the family. This results in a confrontation, after which Lucy storms out of the house in a rage. She is pursued by Carol and Michael, leaving Michael's parents alone at their home. Michael's father, Raymond, is butchered by the killer while alone in his closet. Allison is subsequently confronted by the killer upstairs, donning a latex mask and dressed like Lucy — at this moment, Lucy herself also enters the room, having returned to the house. Lucy fights with the killer, removing the mask and revealing the murderer as Carol, who has been impersonating Lucy while committing the murders. Michael appears, and Carol admits to the killings, which were driven by a love-hate relationship with her mother. Carol hoped to murder Michael's parents and frame Lucy for the crimes, effectively allowing her to marry Michael.

Sometime later, Lucy, accepting responsibility for her daughter's mental illness and hatred, looks on at various props Carol created in an attempt to drive her mad, including a tape-recorded nursery rhyme, and fake severed heads she sculpted and placed in Lucy's bed. Lucy departs to visit Carol in the psychiatric hospital where she is now confined.

The series followed the Little Prince as he travels on a comet from his home planet, B-612, to Earth. He lands in Europe and embarks on a journey across the continent, where he helps various people along the way.

The premise was altered for the English version. It had the Little Prince traveling to Earth and planets that resembled it and returning home at the end of each episode, and helped people at the various places he went to. In addition to the premise, episode plots were also altered. Ever since Discotek Media acquiring the anime license in North America, all 39 episodes can now be watched on Crunchyroll in Japanese with English subtitles.

Set in the city of Prague in 1919, ''Kafka'' tells the tale of an insurance clerk who gets involved with an underground group after one of his co-workers is murdered. The underground group, responsible for bombings all over town, attempts to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society. He eventually penetrates the secret organization in order to confront them.

Bergman plays Karin, a displaced Lithuanian in Italy, who secures release from an internment camp by marrying an Italian ex-POW fisherman (Mario Vitale), whom she meets in the camp. He promises her a great life in his home island of Stromboli, a volcanic island located between the mainland of Italy and Sicily. She soon discovers that Stromboli is very harsh and barren, not at all what she expected, and the people, very traditional and conservative, many fishermen, show hostility and disdain towards this foreign woman who does not follow their ways.

Karin becomes increasingly despondent and eventually decides to escape the volcano island.

The family of Tom Williams takes a vacation in California and is later kidnapped by Eddie, his girlfriend Lonnie and Franklin Ross. They want 1.2 million dollars.

Police Lieutenant Collier Bonnabel of the homicide department explains that he only knows one way to solve a case: by applying pressure to all the suspects, playing on their strengths and weaknesses, until one of them snaps under the tension. He then cites a murder case involving Warren Quimby.

In flashback, the bespectacled Quimby, night manager of the 24-hour Coast-to-Coast drugstore in Culver City, is married to the unfaithful Claire. Saving and doing without, he is able to afford a nice house in the suburbs, but she is utterly unimpressed, refusing even to look inside. She eventually leaves him for the latest of her conquests, rich Barney Deager. Quimby foolishly goes to Deager's Malibu beachfront house to try to get his wife back, but she wants nothing to do with him. When Quimby persists, Deager beats him up.

He tells his sympathetic employee, Freddie, what happened. Freddie remarks that if it had been him, he would have killed the man. Deeply humiliated, Quimby takes up Freddie's idea. He constructs a new identity, cosmetics salesman Paul Sothern, buys contact lenses and flashier clothes, and rents an apartment in Westwood. As he is moving in, he meets his new neighbor, beautiful, sweet Mary Chanler, whom he starts dating.

One night Quimby, identifying himself as Paul Sothern, makes a phone call, leaving a message with Narco, Deager's servant, that he will get Deager for some unspecified wrong. On a later night, he hitchhikes to Deager's place, grabs a barbecue spit and fork and walks through the open patio door. He finds Deager asleep in a chair, but cannot go through with the killing. When he drops his weapon, Deager awakes. Quimby grabs the weapon and holds it to Deager's neck, explaining that he came to kill him, but suddenly has realized that Claire is not worth it. Then, seeing that his wife is absent, he mocks Deager, guessing that Claire has said she was going to the movies—the excuse she used while cheating on him. After Quimby leaves, Deager ponders his situation.

Claire later surprises Quimby by returning to him in their Culver City apartment. When he refuses to believe she has come back out of love, she tells him Deager has been murdered. Before Quimby has time to absorb the news, Bonnabel and his partner Lieutenant Gonsales arrive to question them. They know that Claire left the murder scene before they were called. She says that she only went to Deager's place as a day guest to swim regularly and that she and her husband were Deager's friends. Quimby is forced to play along to avoid suspicion. The police are looking for Paul Sothern, the prime suspect. However, following his stated policy, Bonnabel leads Claire on, pretending he is attracted to her.

The police get a break when Mary goes to the Bureau of Missing Persons, concerned about Sothern's disappearance. She brings a photograph. Bonnabel eventually realizes Sothern and Quimby are the same man. However, Deager was shot, and they do not have the gun. Bonnabel maneuvers Mary to Quimby's workplace to identify him, but she refuses to do so, and states that her faith in Sothern is unshaken.

The police arrest Quimby anyway. Under questioning, he tells them his story, but they find it hard to believe. Because of the difference in the couple's personalities, Bonnabel's suspicions against Claire causes him to set her up. Bonnabel tells Claire that they had to release her husband due to insufficient evidence; he plants the idea that the gun is the vital clue they need to convict Quimby. Claire retrieves the gun from its hiding place under a rock and plants it in Sothern's apartment. Quimby arrives, followed very shortly by the police. Claire claims she was searching for the gun, and Bonnabel encourages her to continue; she "finds" it under a chair cushion, but then Bonnabel explains that all the furnishings had been replaced and that Claire has incriminated herself. Claire is resigned to her fate, but defiantly walks out in the custody of Gonsales. Mary protests that nothing in the apartment has been changed; Bonnabel replies that it would have been too much work. Quimby and Mary are free to resume their relationship.

Charles Xavier sends five of his X-Men to sabotage various operations and structures on the Genosha island complex to liberate mutants in captivity. Further investigation reveals Queen Brood and Tusk involved in this matter and headed by Apocalypse.

After defeating all evil forces on Genosha. Xavier finds out that Magneto intends to destroy Genosha from his space station ''Avalon''. To prepare for the confrontation, Xavier tests the five X-Men in the Danger Room to defeat holograms of Omega Red and Juggernaut. After passing the tests, the X-Men go their separate paths inside ''Avalon'' facing and defeating Exodus and then battling Magneto and thwarting his plans.

King William and his friend Queen Uberta both have a child; Uberta has a son named Derek and William has a daughter named Odette. At the celebration of Odette's birth, the two make a plan to have them meet and spend every summer together in hopes that they fall in love and marry so that they can unite their two kingdoms forever. Meanwhile, King William's chancellor, sorcerer Sir Rothbart, plans to take King William's kingdom for himself by mastering a type of dark magic known as The Forbidden Arts. However, William discovers his plans and Rothbart is arrested. Despite calls for his death, King William spares Rothbart's life and banishes him forever. Before leaving, Rothbart swears revenge on King William, that he'll get his powers back and claim everything William has as his own.

William and Uberta put their plan into action. Unfortunately, this fails as Derek and Odette hate each other as children, but when they reach adulthood, they do fall in love. However, Derek can't think of anything besides Odette's beauty that he loves her for, causing her to reject him, and she and her father leave disappointed. On their journey home, they are ambushed by Rothbart, who got his powers back and transforms into a "Great Animal", kidnapping Odette and fatally injuring William. Derek arrives on the scene and the dying William tells him about the Great Animal ("It's not what it seems"), and that Odette is gone. After searching and finding no sign of Odette, the entire kingdom assumes that she is dead. Uberta tries to encourage her son to find another princess, but Derek is determined to find Odette, believing that she is still alive somewhere.

Derek and his best friend Bromley practice hunting every day in preparation to face the Great Animal, with help from Uberta's valet, Lord Rogers. Elsewhere, Rothbart is keeping Odette captive at the mysterious Swan Lake. After she refuses to marry him, he has cast a powerful spell that turns Odette into a swan during the day, while she can temporarily return to her true form at night if she stands on the lake when the moonlight touches it. During her captivity, she befriends a turtle named Speed, a French frog named Jean-Bob, who claims to be a prince, and an Irish puffin named Lieutenant Puffin.

Puffin and Odette (in her swan form) fly together to find Derek. By chance, they stumble upon Derek in the woods as he is searching for the Great Animal. Derek mistakes Odette for the Great Animal (having deduced that the creature is a shapeshifter), and tries to kill her. The ensuing chase leads Derek to Swan Lake, where he witnesses Odette reverting to a human when the moon rises. The two share a loving reunion, and Odette tells Derek that to break the spell, he must make a vow of everlasting love and "prove it to the world". Derek invites Odette to the ball at the castle the following night, hoping to declare to the world of his love for her. After Derek leaves however, Rothbart arrives, having heard the whole conversation, and tells Odette that she will never make it to the ball, for there will be "no moon" on that night. To make matters worse, Rothbart transforms his cheerful hag sidekick, Bridget, into a doppelgänger Odette, so as to fool Derek to make his vow to the wrong woman, which will kill the real Odette. On the night of the ball, Rothbart imprisons Odette (in swan form) in the dungeon of his castle, along with Bromley, whom he had found in the woods the other night, while the disguised Bridget arrives at the ball and dances with Derek, who is unaware of her true identity.

Meanwhile, Puffin, Speed, and Jean-Bob manage to free Odette from the dungeon through a duel with two hungry alligators and she flies to the castle to warn Derek, but is too late; Derek has made the vow to the wrong woman. Just then, Rothbart bursts in, gloatingly revealing to Derek the fake Odette's true form. Realizing his mistake, Derek follows Odette back to Swan Lake, where she finally transforms back into her human form one last time. As he holds Odette in his arms, she tells Derek that she loves him before finally dying. A heartbroken and furious Derek confronts Rothbart, demanding that he undo the spell, and Rothbart promises to do so, but only if Derek defeats him. Rothbart transforms into the Great Animal, and a battle ensues in which he overpowers Derek. However, Odette's animal friends retrieve Derek's bow, and Bromley, who has also escaped the dungeon, provides Derek with a single arrow, which Derek shoots into Rothbart's heart, killing him.

Afterwards, Derek tearfully confesses his love to Odette, realizing that it's the person Odette has become he loves about her, and she comes back to life; the spell on her is broken. Derek and Odette get married and they, along with Rogers, Bromley, Uberta, King William's servants, and the animals move into Rothbart's former castle. Meanwhile, Bridget redeems herself and falls in love with Uberta's lackey, Sir Chamberlain, Puffin becomes the general of an army of swans, Odette kisses Jean-Bob who goes into convulsions but does not turn into a prince, and Odette and Derek live happily ever after.

Mordecai C. Jones (Scott) a self-styled "M.B.S., C.S., D.D. Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty-Dealing!" is a drifting confidence trickster who makes his living defrauding people in the Southern United States using tricks such as rigged punchboards, playing cards, and found wallets. He befriends a young man named Curley (Sarrazin), a deserter from the United States Army, and the two form a team to make money. In their escapades, they wreck a town during a hair-raising chase in their stolen car, steal a truck loaded with moonshine whiskey that they sell, break out of a sheriff's office, and discover a riverboat brothel. In the ending scene, Mordecai explains how he sees himself.

After Gabrielle's daughter Hope kills Xena's son Solan in the previous episode, a rift grows between them, with Xena blaming Gabrielle for Solan's death.

At the start of the episode, Xena attacks and attempts to kill Gabrielle, only to be thwarted at the last moment when both fall into the sea and are brought to the land of Illusia. Both of them awaken completely nude, and are guided and given new clothing by Callisto and Joxer. Then Ares, Lila, and their associates try to set Xena and Gabrielle against each other.

The land of ''Illusia'' is never actually explained, though it is implied that it was created by a primordial divine force called 'Aleph', and by 'the fates'. The entire episode appears to be a ''deus ex machina'' to bring the two of them back together when nothing else could. Throughout the episode the two are forced to realize what drove them apart, and what is truly important to them. Ultimately realizing that the only thing separating the two of them is hate, and that they truly do love each other, and would sacrifice their own lives for each other.

Rocky Mulloy was sentenced to life in prison for a robbery and murder that he did not commit. He is released five years later when an "eyewitness", a one-legged ex-Marine named Delong, suddenly appears and provides a fake alibi. Delong is an opportunist who figures out that by freeing Rocky he can get a share of the missing $100,000 from the robbery. Rocky insists he was not involved and sets out to find out who framed him, hoping to free his friend Danny Morgan, still in prison for the same crime. Police Lieutenant Gus Cobb meets Rocky when he arrives in Los Angeles and tells him that he will be under 24-hour surveillance.

Rocky and Delong rent a place in a trailer park. Morgan's wife Nancy, a former girlfriend of Rocky's, lives there. Delong meets Darlene, a pretty resident.

Rocky knows that bookie Louis Castro is the mastermind behind the robbery and believes that he also the person who framed him and sent him to prison. He demands $50,000 at gunpoint; he was earning $20,000 a year when he was imprisoned, and figures Castro owes him half that for each year he spent in prison. Castro instead gives him $500 to bet on a longshot on a fixed horse race. The next day Rocky tries to find a witness who testified against him at his trial. He finds Mrs. Fletcher who tells him her husband has died two years earlier. She also tells him that after testifying at the trial her husband "inherited" $5,000.

Rocky then goes collect his winnings from the horse race. But after he spends some of the money, Cobb informs him that the money is from the payroll robbery and takes it back. Rocky realizes that Castro has framed him again, but when Cobb calls Castro to check his story, Castro blunders. He claims he did not even know Rocky was free again, which Cobb knows is a lie, because he tailed Rocky to Castro's office the night before.

Later, two men mistake Delong and his girlfriend Darlene for Rocky and Nancy. Delong is injured and Darlene is killed. Rocky then forces Castro to play Russian roulette, with the gun pointed at the bookie's head, until Castro breaks down and reveals half the robbery money is hidden in a safe under his desk. He also claims that Rocky's friend Morgan participated in the robbery and committed the murder and that Nancy knows the truth and has her husband's share. Rocky orders Castro to telephone Cobb and tell him he will make a full confession. Castro instead calls his henchmen, the ones who killed Darlene. However, Rocky is not fooled. He calls Cobb himself, and the two killers walk into a police trap.

Then Rocky goes to see Nancy and tells her he could not find Castro. Nancy confesses she has the money. She says she loves him and begs him to run away with her and the loot. Rocky pretends to agree, but when he finds Cobb waiting outside Nancy's trailer, Rocky tells him where she has hidden the money and walks away.

Ducky's relationship with her brother Spike becomes rambunctious and turbulent when he repeatedly keeps her awake at night with his snoring and after he ate her tree stars (which their mother packed specifically for her on their first day of school). She tells Cera about her feelings, and confides that she does not know how to express them; Cera agrees to teach her. Meanwhile, the children are attending a school in which they are taught by an old ''Pachyrhinosaurus'' named Mr. Thicknose, who professes to have been everywhere and seen everything. Littlefoot eagerly questions the topics they cover, to the old dinosaur's irritation. Eventually, Mr. Thicknose complains to Grandpa Longneck about Littlefoot's behavior. Littlefoot's Grandpa, knowing Littlefoot meant no harm, explains to him why he must be more respectful to Mr. Thicknose.

Meanwhile, as Ducky treats Spike coldly, Spike meets and befriends Tippy, a young dinosaur from a migrating Spiketail herd that has recently arrived in the Great Valley. Ducky begins to miss Spike when he spends more and more time with the Spiketail herd. One day, the entire Valley is surprised by an overnight snowfall. While the children together have fun frolicking in the snow, the adults complain that Mr. Thicknose, purportedly the wisest in all of the Valley, did not warn them about this impending weather, and suspect that he does not much as he claims.

As time goes on, the dinosaurs begin to suffer from the freezing temperatures (through the Big Freeze) and the lack of food growth. The Spiketail herd leaves, as they consume more food than most species. Tippy's mother asks Ducky and Spike's mother, Mama Swimmer, if she can take Spike along during the cold time; Mama Swimmer decides that Spike should choose between staying in the Valley or leaving with the Spiketails. Spike is unsure, so Ducky angrily tells him to leave, which he agrees to do. Afterwards, however, she regrets her actions, and later sneaks away to follow the herd.

When her friends find out, they head off into the Mysterious Beyond to find her, but are interrupted by Mr. Thicknose, who decides to accompany them. After several mishaps, they encounter a sharptooth (an ''Albertosaurus''), but the kids defeat it with a giant snowball. In the process, they join up with Ducky, who was being chased by it earlier. Soon, they come across a frozen pool of water that they accidentally break. Underneath the ice is a warm spring, and they notice there is lush food nearby. While they relax in the water and feed, Mr. Thicknose confesses that most of his knowledge comes from secondary sources; he listened to the stories of other travelers when he was a child, and in his adult years, he shared those stories to the children in the Valley.

The sharptooth from earlier attacks them again, but Mr. Thicknose saves the children by pushing a log off the hill, causing the sharptooth to trip onto it and roll off a cliff to its presumed death. Later, the group tries to contact the Valley's residents but find that a wall of snow has blocked them from entry. Ducky, remembering what Cera taught her, suggests that Cera gets angry. She does so, and her enraged screaming causes the snow to fall down, enabling the Valley's residents to pass through. Meanwhile, the Spiketail herd is starving until Spike picks up the spring's scent. He leads the Spiketails there and reunites with Ducky. However, he falls into a deep part of the spring, and as he is unable to swim, Mama Swimmer jumps in to save him. When she places him on dry ground again, Tippy's mother says that Spike should stay with his family, rather than her herd. Ducky promises to Spike that she will not get angry at him whenever he snores, ever again.

The story of ''Hantsuki'' focuses on the budding relationship between the seventeen year old Yūichi Ezaki and Rika Akiba. They are hospitalized in Yūichi's home town for their conditions. Yūichi has hepatitis A, while Rika has problems with a weak heart valve. These teens then fall in love while they spend time with one another. The story is based in Ise, Mie prefecture.

The work traces the death of Claudius, his ascent to heaven, judgment by the gods, and eventual descent to Hades. At each turn, of course, the author mocks the late emperor's personal failings, most notably his arrogant cruelty and his inarticulacy.

After Mercury persuades Clotho to kill the emperor, Claudius walks to Mount Olympus, where he convinces Hercules to let the gods hear his suit for deification in a session of the divine senate. Proceedings are in Claudius's favor until Augustus delivers a long and sincere speech listing some of Claudius's most notorious crimes. Most of the speeches of the gods are lost due to a large lacuna in the text. Mercury escorts him to Hades. On the way, they witness the funeral procession for the emperor, in which a crew of venal characters mourns the loss of the perpetual Saturnalia of the previous reign. In Hades Claudius is greeted by the ghosts of all the friends he has murdered. These shades carry him off to be punished, and the gods condemn him to shake dice forever in a box with no bottom (as gambling was one of Claudius's vices); every time he tries to throw the dice, they fall out, and he has to search the ground for them. Suddenly Caligula appears, claims that Claudius is an ex-slave of his, and hands him over to be a law clerk in the court of the underworld.

Galahad Threepwood is in residence at Blandings Castle, and finds his brother Lord Emsworth, the ninth Earl, beset by the usual collection of woes. His sister, Lady Hermione Wedge, has not only hired a secretary (Sandy Callender) to mind his affairs, but has also invited Dame Daphne Winkworth to stay and, as Galahad discovers, to reignite an old flame and take up permanent residence as the next Countess.

Joining the house party are Tipton Plimsoll, a young multimillionaire who is engaged to Lady Hermione's daughter Veronica, and Lady Hermione's nephew Wilfred Allsop, a struggling young pianist who is in love with Emsworth's pig-girl Monica Simmons. Wilfred and Tipton had met in New York several days earlier for an evening of dinner, drinks, and imprisonment. (They also met policeman Officer Garroway, from ''The Small Bachelor''.) Wilfred has been engaged by Dame Daphne to teach music at her girls' school, a prospect that Wilfred cannot refuse but is also anxious about, as Dame Daphne is intolerant of drinking among her staff.

Galahad's chief task at Blandings is to deal with sundered hearts, namely those of Sandy and her now-ex-betrothed Sam Bagshott. Gally has known Sandy for years, and was good friends with Sam's father "Boko" Bagshott, and is disturbed at their falling-out over a minor matter of a bet in the Drones Club marriage sweepstakes. Sam needs £700 to fix up his inherited family seat and sell it (to Oofy Prosser), and has drawn Tipton in the race for the next to be married. The other front-runners have dropped out, and Sam believes he has a sure winner, as Lady Hermione will not let Veronica lose her a multimillionaire son-in-law. Sandy, who knew Tipton from working for his uncle Chet Tipton in New York, believes that this engagement will go the way of all his others, and is upset at Sam for not selling his stake to a syndicate that has offered a firm £100.

If Sam would come down to Blandings, Gally believes, and plead his case with Sandy, all would be resolved. But when Sam does so, his first accidental encounter with Sandy proves disastrous: he chases her, she eludes him, and in giving up the chase he is confronted by the local constabulary. Constable Evans informs him, and he discovers that he cannot dispute, that in leaving the Emsworth Arms he made off with Sebastian Beach's gold pocket watch. (Beach had left it with the barmaid Marlene to admire, and she had been showing it to Sam when he spied Sandy). Already grumpy from Sandy's rebuff, Sam deals with the accusation by punching Constable Evans in the eye and fleeing on the constable's bicycle.

When Gally hears of this, he insists on bringing Sam into the Castle, and decides that he should enter under the name of Augustus Whipple, noted author of ''On The Care of the Pig,'' Emsworth's revered reference work for the care and feeding of his prize pig Empress of Blandings. On encountering Emsworth at the Empress' sty, Sam diagnoses her malady as not swine fever, but instead intoxication (from the contents of Wilfred's flask, intended to steel him for proposing to Monica Simmons but dropped when discovered by Dame Daphne's son Huxley.) In gratitude Emsworth invites Sam to stay at Blandings, while a boosted Wilfred wins his Monica.

Meanwhile, Lady Hermione has learned from Emsworth that Tipton had lost all his money in the stock market crash and is now impoverished. She rushes up to London to instruct Veronica to break the engagement in a letter to be delivered by the next post. When Colonel Wedge receives Tipton, who is driving a Rolls-Royce and brandishing an £8000 necklace for Vee, he asks Gally to intercept the letter, which Gally is pleased to do. Gally goes a step further and gives the letter to Sam. On Hermione's return, when Beach informs her that the man who stole his watch is at the Castle impersonating Augustus Whipple, Gally threatens to deliver the letter to Tipton unless Hermione allows Sam to stay. Hermione tries searching Sam's room, but only succeeds in losing Wilfed his job with Dame Daphne, when her son Huxley discovers him singing in the corridor as a signal to his aunt.

Sandy confronts Galahad, but ends up persuaded by him to take Sam back. They find him locked in the potting shed, where he has been imprisoned by Constable Evans. Sandy frees him from the shed and they are reconciled. But not all the couples remain happy: Emsworth discovers the fatal letter in his desk, where Gally had hidden it, and has it delivered to Tipton. Gally has hard work convincing Tipton that Veronica meant not a word of it, and Tipton phones Veronica and the rift is mended as quickly as made. Tipton takes Wilfred and Monica Simmons up to London to gather Vee and head to the registrar's for a double wedding.

Not everything is wrapped up, though. Emsworth is still in peril of matrimony from Dame Daphne, Sam still has to collect on his winning ticket, and the Law still looms over Sam's shoulder. Sandy hears that another Drones Club member has won the sweepstakes, and Sam's stake is worthless. Lady Hermione, having discovered that the letter was delivered and nullified, now announces her intention to expose Sam; Gally leads her to the library where he claims Sam is, and locks her in. He rushes to Emsworth, to touch him for the thousand pounds before Lady Hermione can summon aid.

He finds Emsworth rattled and deflated. In Monica Simmons' absence, young Huxley attempts to release the Empress from her sty. Having morning head after her bender, she responds by biting the lad's finger. Dame Winkworth deems her dangerous and demands that she be destroyed; Emsworth calls her a fool and telephones the veterinarian to find whether there was any risk of infection to the Empress. At that Dame Daphne leaves the household. Hermione, finding that Emsworth has driven away Dame Daphne, exposes Sam, declares Emsworth to be impossible to manage, and leaves as well.

The ninth Earl is reluctant now to lend money to an impostor, but Gally reminds him that he has now been freed of the threat of marriage to Dame Daphne, and of the supervision of their sister Hermione, and that if he lends the money to Sam all his troubles will be ended, as Sam will take his secretary out of his life. Emsworth gladly does so, and peace reigns over Blandings once again.

The novel is set in a nursing home. It follows part of a typical day for a group of elderly people, both male and female. Their thoughts, memories and opinions of each other and the House Mother (head matron) are explored as they go about their activities, from playing pass-the-parcel to dancing.

The play takes place in ancient Athens, but the world displayed is a complex construct which does not correspond to any particular historical period. Alongside references to classical Greece there are anachronisms and many elements particular to Western Europe, such as the jousting competition. The work is divided in the following five parts:

I. After several years of marriage, a daughter (Aretousa) is born to the King of Athens (Heracles) and his wife. The son of the faithful adviser to the king (Erotokritos) falls in love with the princess. Because he cannot reveal his love, he sings under her window in the evenings. The girl gradually falls in love with the unknown singer. Heracles, when he learns about the singer, organizes an ambush to arrest him, but Erotokritos with his beloved friend kills the soldiers of the king. Erotokritos, realising that his love cannot have a happy ending travels to Chalkida to forget. During his absence, his father falls ill and when Aretousa visits him, she finds in the room of Erotokritos a painting of hers and the lyrics he sang. When he returns, he discovers the absence of his drawing and songs and learns that the only person that visited them was Aretousa. Realizing that his identity was revealed and that he may be at risk, he stays at home pretending to be ill. Aretousa sends him a basket of apples to wish him well and as an indication she shares his feelings.

II. The king organizes a jousting competition for the entertainment of his daughter. Many noblemen from around the known world participate and Erotokritos is the winner.

III. The couple begins to secretly meet under the window of Aretousa. The girl pleads with Erotokritos to ask her father to allow them to marry. Naturally, the king is angry with the audacity of the young man and has him exiled. Simultaneously a marriage proposal for Arethusa arrives by the king of Byzantium. The girl immediately gets engaged secretly to Erotokritos before he leaves the city.

IV. Aretousa refuses to consider any marriage proposals and is imprisoned by the king alongside her faithful nanny. After three years, when the Vlachs besiege Athens, Erotokritos reappears, his true identity concealed through magic. In a battle he saves the life of the king and gets wounded in the process.

V. In order to thank the wounded stranger the king offers him his daughter as spouse. Aretousa refuses to accept this marriage and in discussion with the disguised Erotokritos she persists in her refusal. Erotokritos submits her to tests to confirm her faith and finally reveals himself after breaking the spell that concealed his identity. The king accepts the marriage and reconciles with Erotokritos and his father, and Erotokritos ascends to the throne of Athens.

The action takes place in the period between 1880 and 1914 against the background of the slate quarries of north Wales, the region where the author was brought up. The main character, Jane Gruffydd, is a mother of six forced to overcome many hardships in order to bring up her family.

An adaptation of the novel for Welsh television was directed by David Lyn.

As the narrative opens, we meet Comet Jo at eighteen years of age. He has spent his entire life in a "simplex" society on Rhys, a satellite of a Jovian planet orbiting Tau Ceti. (At first it might seem that "simplex" means "simple" or "unintelligent," but after Jo's encounter with the "Geodesic Survey Station" at the latest, it will be clear the notion is much more complicated.) Jo comes upon the wreckage of a spacecraft and encounters two survivors. The first is quickly dying and asks Jo to bring an important message to Empire Star moments before passing away. The other is a lifeform known as Jewel. Jewel is a tritovian in crystallized form, and in that state can easily view situations from several points of view, thus enabling narration from the point of view of the omniscient observer.

Jo quickly leaves Rhys in an attempt to deliver the message to Empire Star, and on his journey he meets several other characters along with a race of creatures known as the Lll. The Lll are incredible builders—not merely of structures, but of ecosystems, societies, and ethical systems. As such, they have been enslaved. However, in order to protect the Lll, the Empire has created a phenomenon known as “the sadness of the Lll”—any being who owns the Lll suffers from a constant, overpowering sadness. This sadness increases geometrically with each Lll owned and with how much each Lll builds, so it is only possible to own a few Lll at a time. Indeed, just being in the presence of the Lll is a heartbreaking experience for even non-owners, a lesson that Jo learns early in his travels.

The story then follows Jo over the next few months. Once he reaches a certain point in his maturity, knowledge, and ability to perceive events around him, the linear narrative stops and the reader is left with a few pages of important events not arranged in a strict order; by this point, the reader may have learned enough to sort out the tangle.

Along the way, several questions are raised, either explicitly or implicitly. What is the message that Comet Jo must deliver? Who is coming to free the Lll? Will the Lll ever actually be freed? Is the story a closed loop, or is there indeed an end (or at least a point at which events move on past the ones mentioned in the story)? Who, exactly, entered the Empire Star? How many of the events of the story are arranged by those people?

Two sailors sneak a talking duck aboard their ship. Complications ensue. The duck waddles all over the ship until he escapes.

After being kept behind in detention by his unpleasant French teacher, Mr Palis, Nicholas Simple (also known as "Nick Diamond") is visited by Chief Inspector Snape of Scotland Yard and his assistant, Boyle. They ask Nick if he would like to go to Strangeday Hall, an institution for criminals aged under 18, and befriend inmate Johnny Powers, a gang leader known as "Public Enemy Number One" following his recent conviction and 15-year prison sentence for armed robbery. They want Nick to find out the true identity of an unknown master criminal who controls all the buying and selling of stolen goods in London, known only as "the Fence". Nick refuses their offer and the police leave.

Soon afterwards, Nick visits Woburn Abbey on a school trip, but is framed for attempting to steal the Woburn Carbuncles, and despite his attempts to evade police, is arrested and sentenced to 18 months at Strangeday Hall. He has to share a cell with Johnny Powers - just as Snape and Boyle wanted, and no doubt arranged, to happen. Soon after he arrives, Snape and Boyle visit Nick and reveal that they arranged to have Nick framed. Nick manages to gain Johnny's trust after he saves Johnny from being killed by three followers of a notorious London gangster known as Big Ed.

Nick and Johnny soon escape Strangeday Hall with the help of Tim Diamond, Nick's brother (an unsuccessful private detective), and Ma Powers, Johnny's mother. They are pursued by the police but manage to escape. However, during the chase, Snape and Boyle appear and their car crashes and explodes, leaving Nick convinced that they are both dead and that he's the only person alive who knows he's innocent. Nick and Tim stay at Johnny's hideout in Wapping for a while, until Nick overhears Johnny telling Ma that he is going to see "Penelope". Believing Penelope to be the Fence, Nick follows Johnny into the Wapping tube station but loses him there. After making his way out onto the street, he is then captured by henchmen of Big Ed, who later tie him to a train track, intending for him to be killed by a train.

Nick is rescued by a man who cuts him free from the tracks just before the train passes. Nick knows that he had seen that man before, but doesn't know where, and the man has quickly disappeared. To prove his loyalty to Johnny, and take revenge on Ed, Nick burns the railway carriage which is their hide-out, by emptying an oil drum and starting a fire. Nick decides that he must go back to Johnny and Tim, but he is still determined to find the Fence, in the hope of being able to barter his freedom. Nick realises that Palis, his French teacher, could have seen Snape and Boyle on the afternoon that he was serving a detention. He heads for Palis's flat in Chelsea but is nearly caught by the police there; they had spotted him in a nearby street. Palis saves him, and Nick explains his mission to him. He stays the night at Palis's flat. Palis drives Nick back to Wapping the following morning and tells him to get in touch if he needs anything. At the hideout, Nick sees a doorbell. Not recalling one, he enters the house through the back and rescues Tim from a bomb rigged to go off if the newly installed bell had been rung.

Tim then explains that Johnny had come back the previous afternoon from wherever he had been to find Nick gone. They hadn't liked his answers, and during the night Johnny dragged Tim out of bed and tied him up before rigging the bomb. Nick and Tim discover that "Penelope" is actually a boat, and decide to keep a watch on the ''Penelope'' from a nearby derelict house. After seeing men storing objects aboard the ''Penelope'', Nick remembers that Johnny went to "Penelope" through Wapping Tube Station. Nick and Tim go there and discover a secret entrance to a tunnel, which Johnny lost Nick through. The tunnel leads under the River Thames to the Fence's hideout where the brothers see many valuable stolen articles.

They then encounter Nails Nathan, and Johnny appears on the scene, aware that Nick is working for the police. He ties them up and locks them in a room, but they soon escape. Nick has brought the bomb with him in his backpack, and uses it to destroy the door to the room they are locked in. On their way out, Johnny re-appears and is ready to shoot Nick and Tim, but they are stopped by Snape and a group of armed policemen, who have been tracking Nick through the tracking device in his prison shoes since he escaped. Snape, who survived the crash uninjured (and had also rescued Nick when he was tied to the railway track), is intent on arresting Powers and his gang, but the roof of the underground den collapses. Ultimately, Nick and Tim survive, Ma Powers is arrested, but Johnny and Nails Nathan escape, while the Fence is still nowhere to be seen and there is still no clue to his or her true identity, although the Fence's operation is destroyed. Nick is subsequently cleared of all charges.

After Nick returns to school, he is sitting in a French lesson when Palis instructs Nick to translate a French paragraph. While doing so, Nick realises from the message he reads that Palis is the Fence, and that Palis had told Johnny Powers that he had been working for the police. At the end of the lesson, Palis announces to the class that he is leaving the school. He dismisses the whole class except Nick, who realises that Palis wants to kill him. Palis chases Nick to the school's roof with a gun, but wastes all his bullets trying to kill him. Palis attempts to plough into Nick, but falls over the side of the building, and dies when he impales himself on a fence. With Palis dead, the story ends with Nick's troubles over.

The novel starts with a foreword that ''assures'' that everything in the story is a real account of the title character's exploits in the Underworld. The story is set, according to the book, in the Norwegian harbor town of Bergen in 1664, after Klim returns from Copenhagen, where he has studied philosophy and theology at the University of Copenhagen and graduated magna cum laude. His curiosity drives him to investigate a strange cave in a mountainside above the town, which sends out regular gusts of warm air. He ends up falling down the hole, and after a while he finds himself floating in free space.

After a few days of orbiting the planet which revolves around the inner sun, he is attacked by a gryphon, and he falls down on the planet, which is named Nazar. There he wanders about for a short while until he is attacked, this time by an ox. He climbs up into a tree, and to his astonishment the tree can move and talk (this one screamed), and he is taken prisoner by tree-like creatures with up to six arms and faces just below the branches. He is accused of attempted rape on the town clerk's wife, and is put on trial. The case is dismissed and he is set by the Lord of Potu (the utopian state in which he now is located) to learn the language.

Klim quickly learns the language of the Potuans, but this reflects badly on him when the Lord is about to issue him a job, because the Potuans believe that if one perceives a problem at a slow rate, the better it will be understood and solved. But, since he has considerably longer legs than the Potuans, who walk very slowly, he is set to be the Lord's personal courier, delivering letters and suchlike.

During the course of the book, Klim vividly chronicles the culture of the Potuans, their religion, their way of life and the many different countries located on Nazar. After his two-month-long circumnavigation on foot, he is appalled by the fact that men and women are equal and share the same kind of jobs, so he files a suggestion to the Lord of Potu to remove women from higher positions in society. His suggestion is poorly received and he is sentenced to be exiled to the inner rim of the Earth's crust. There he becomes familiar with a country inhabited by sentient monkeys, and after a few years he becomes emperor of the land of Quama, inhabited by the only creatures in the Underworld that look like humans. There, he marries and fathers a son. But again he is driven from hearth and home due to his tyranny and as he escapes he falls into a hole, which carries him through the crust and back up to Bergen again.

There, he is mistaken by the townsfolk to be the Wandering Jew, mostly due to a lingual misunderstanding (he asks a couple of young boys where he is in quamittian, which is Jeru Pikal Salim, and the boys think he is talking about Jerusalem). He learns that he has been away for twelve years, and is taken in by his old friend, mayor Abelin, who writes down everything Klim tells him. He later receives a job as principal of the college of Bergen, and marries.

On September 27, 1941, Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared top officials of the Nazi Party, an architect of the Holocaust and Hitler's possible successor, is appointed "Reichsprotektor" of Bohemia and Moravia. As a result of his brutality and oppression he is also called "The Butcher of Prague" or "The Blond Beast".

In the UK, a squad of agents is selected and trained before parachuting into Czechoslovakia. The team operates in Prague and plans the attack for about six months. The mission, Operation Anthropoid, is executed in the capital on May 27, 1942 in an ambush. It almost fails when one of their Sten guns jams, but Heydrich is severely wounded by a grenade. Heydrich eventually succumbs to his wounds and during the frenzied aftermath the German high command takes savage reprisals, including the massacre of 340 men, women and children of Lidice and the razing of the village. The group is eventually betrayed by one of its members and they are cornered in a church crypt in Prague. In the gun-battle that follows all agents commit suicide.

The narrator, an unnamed illustrator and aspiring painter, hires a faded genteel couple, the Monarchs, as models, after they have lost most of their money and must find some line of work. They are the "real thing" in that they perfectly represent the aristocratic type, but they prove inflexible for the painter's work. He comes to rely much more on two lower-class subjects who are nevertheless more capable: Oronte, an Italian, and Miss Churm, a lower-class Englishwoman.

The illustrator finally has to get rid of the Monarchs, especially after his friend and fellow artist Jack Hawley criticizes the work in which the Monarchs are represented. Hawley says that the pair has hurt the narrator's art, perhaps permanently. In the final line of the story the narrator says he is "content to have paid the price—for the memory".

Arsène Lupin III and his gang are attending the wedding of Goemon Ishikawa XIII and his fiancée Murasaki Suminawa. During the ceremony, the Suminawa family heirloom, a valuable antique urn, is entrusted to Goemon. Before the ceremony is completed, several ninja attack and attempt to steal the urn. Lupin and his colleagues fight off the ninja, but during the confusion, another group of ninja kidnap Murasaki and leave a ransom note proposing to trade Murasaki for the antique urn.

Meanwhile, Inspector Koichi Zenigata has retired to a Buddhist temple following the apparent death of his long-time quarry, Lupin. Kazami, a colleague from the police force, tries to persuade him to return to work. Zenigata has "no interest in a world without Lupin", but when shown a photograph of Lupin taken at the disrupted wedding, Zenigata comes out of retirement and resumes his lifelong pursuit of Lupin.

At the Suminawa household, Clan Elder Suminawa explains to Goemon that the urn holds the secret location of the Suminawa family treasure. The Fuma Clan ninja, who attacked during the wedding, have been trying to steal the urn for centuries. He refuses to trade the family urn for his granddaughter Murasaki, so Lupin steals it. Lupin and Daisuke Jigen discover that the urn contains a hidden drawing revealing the location of the treasure: a cave deep in the mountains. Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon follow the ransom note instructions and exchange the urn for Murasaki, but the ninja start shooting after Lupin attempts to double-cross them. Zenigata and his officers arrive in time to see Lupin his friends escape on a train. Wanting the treasure for themselves, Lupin and Jigen head on their own to the treasure, with Zenigata and the police in hot pursuit, while Goemon and Murasaki travel their own way, all trying to beat the Fuma Clan to the treasure.

Following a lead, Fujiko Mine tracks down the Fuma Clan headquarters, but they discover and capture her. Among the ranks of the Fuma Clan, Fujiko spots Inspector Kazami, who has secretly been working for the clan's Boss. The Fumas have also discovered the map on the urn, and now that the urn is useless, Kazami puts the urn over Fujiko's head to mock her. The Boss, Kazami, and the ninja leave for the treasure cave. Handcuffed to a thick post, Fujiko manages to escape, and in the process, bashes the urn on her head and notices a golden key among the urn shards. She takes the key and keeps it secret.

After initially discovering the urn is missing, Suminawa travels to the cave and destroys a key lock outside of it, before waiting inside. Later, the Fuma Clan arrive and Suminawa confronts The Boss, but he disarms Suminawa and has him thrown over the cliff. When Murasaki and Goemon arrive, they begin negotiating the trap-laden caves beneath the mountain to find the ancient treasure. Murasaki discovers a secret passage, but the Boss and the Fuma Clan ninjas follow them stealthily.

After reuniting with Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko, Goemon enters a hall lined with samurai armor, but his entrance has triggered the hall to fill with a hallucinogenic gas. The gas causes him to attack everyone, and in the scuffle he inadvertently injures Murasaki. After surviving the gas, Lupin and company enter a large cavern, where they find an old castle furnished from top to bottom with items of solid gold. They are ambushed by the Fuma Clan, with Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko dealing with the ninjas, while Goemon faces off against The Boss. During the escapade, Kazami captures Murasaki and holds her hostage at knife point. Not wanting to cause the death of Goemon, Murasaki throws herself off the castle roof, taking the treacherous Kazami with her, though Lupin and Jigen manage to rescue her before she falls to her death. At the same time, Goemon is able to defeat the Boss in battle.

At the cave entrance, Zenigata and his officers rescue Suminawa from the river at the base of the cliff. He explains that the cave is rigged to collapse unless the golden fail-safe key, the one Fujiko found, is inserted into the slot in the entrance, but since he destroyed it, it ensures the treasure's destruction and the Fuma Clan's demise. Zenigata tells him Lupin and company, as well as Murasaki, are in there, so the two rush into the cave, arriving at the castle just in time to tell everyone about the collapse. The Boss stays behind as everything is destroyed around him, dying in the rubble. Zenigata and Suminawa exit via the main tunnel, but Lupin's group exits through a distant tunnel, escaping from Zenigata and his officers once again. Fujiko managed to saved a gold roof tile for herself, and rides off on her motorcycle. Goemon bids farewell to his fiancée, declaring that he must undergo training to address his weaknesses; only then will he return to marry Murasaki. She calls out to him, declaring that she won't wait for him. Goemon looks back at Murasaki for a moment, then continues on his journey.

Each episode details a classic story in different cultures, which contains characters voiced by famous actors, actresses, comedians, singers, rappers, dancers, models, political activists, athletes, stunt performers, and other famous celebrities.

A teenager named Or (Dana Ivgy) works a variety of odd jobs to help support herself and her mother. When her mother, Ruthie (Ronit Elkabetz), returns home after a hospital stay, Or tells Ruthie she has found her a job cleaning houses.

However, Ruthie is unmotivated by her new poorly paid job and quickly returns to prostitution.

In the meantime, Or begins a burgeoning romance with her neighbour and childhood friend, Ido. After they sleep together, Ido's mother confronts Ruthie and makes it clear that though she likes Or she does not approve of their relationship.

Her relationship with Ido and his family crumbling, and finding herself unable to make rent and desperate to save her mother from the streets, Or begins to prostitute herself as well, first by offering sexual services to her landlord and finally by joining an escort service.

''Uzak'' tells the story of Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), a young factory worker who loses his job and travels to Istanbul to stay with his relative Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir) while looking for a job. Mahmut is a relatively wealthy and intellectual photographer, whereas Yusuf is almost illiterate, uneducated, and unsophisticated. The two do not get along well. Yusuf assumes that he will easily find work as a sailor, but there are no jobs, and he has no sense of direction or energy. Meanwhile, Mahmut, despite his wealth, is aimless too: his job, which consists of photographing tiles, is dull and inartistic, he can barely express emotions towards his ex-wife or his lover, and while he pretends to enjoy intellectual filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, he switches channels to watch porn as soon as Yusuf leaves the room.

Mahmut attempts to bond with Yusuf and recapture his love of art by taking him on a drive to photograph the beautiful Turkish countryside, but the attempt is a failure on both counts. At the end of the film, Yusuf leaves without telling Mahmut, who is left to sit by the docks, watching the ships on his own.

Dencombe, a novelist who has been seriously ill, is convalescing at the English seaside town of Bournemouth. He is sitting near the water and reading his latest book entitled, of course, ''The Middle Years''. A young physician named Dr. Hugh comes over to Dencombe and begins to talk about his admiration for the novel, though he doesn't realize that he's speaking to the book's author.

The weakened Dencombe suddenly loses consciousness. When he revives, he finds that Dr. Hugh has recognized him, and that the physician is also attending a wealthy woman referred to only as the Countess. Over the next few days Dr. Hugh pays more attention to Dencombe than to the Countess, and he is warned about this by the wealthy woman's companion, Miss Vernham.

A few days later Dencombe relapses. Dr. Hugh tells Dencombe that the Countess has died and left him nothing in her will. Close to death Dencombe whispers to Dr. Hugh the eloquent words quoted above. The tale's final sentence tells how Dencombe's first and only chance at life and art has ended.

Elizabeth Sawyer is a poor, lonely, and unfairly ostracized old woman, who turns to witchcraft after having been unjustly accused of it, having nothing left to lose. A talking devil-dog Tom (performed by a human actor) appears, becoming her familiar and only friend. With Tom's help, Sawyer causes one of her neighbours to go mad and kill herself, but otherwise she does not achieve very much, since many of those around her are only too willing to sell their souls to the devil all by themselves. The play is divided fairly rigidly into separate plots, which only occasionally intersect or overlap. Alongside the main story of Elizabeth Sawyer, the other major plotline is a domestic tragedy centering on the farmer's son Frank Thorney. Frank is secretly married to the poor but virtuous Winnifride, whom he loves and believes is pregnant with his child, but his father insists that he marry Susan, elder daughter of the wealthy farmer Old Carter. Frank weakly gives in to a bigamous marriage but then tries to flee the county with Winnifride disguised as his page. When the doting Susan follows him, he stabs her. At this point, the witch's dog Tom is present on stage and it is left ambiguous whether Frank remains a fully responsible moral agent in the act. Frank inflicts superficial wounds on himself, so that he can pretend to have been attacked, and attempts to frame Warbeck, Susan's former suitor, and Somerton, suitor of Susan's younger sister Katherine. While the kindly Katherine is nursing her supposedly incapacitated brother-in-law, however, she finds a bloodstained knife in his pocket and immediately guesses the truth, which she reveals to her father. The devil-dog is on stage again at this point, and "shrugs for joy," according to the stage direction, which suggests that he has brought about Frank's downfall.

Frank is executed for his crime at the same time as Mother Sawyer, but he, in marked contrast to her, is forgiven by all and the pregnant Winnifride is taken into the family of Old Carter. The play thus ends on a relatively happy note—Old Carter enjoins all those assembled at the execution, "So, let's every man home to Edmonton with heavy hearts, yet as merry as we can, though not as we would."

The note of optimism is also heard in the play's other main plot, centering on the Morris dancing yokel Cuddy Banks, whose invincible innocence allows him to emerge unscathed from his own encounters with the dog Tom; he eventually banishes the dog from the stage with the words "Out, and avaunt!"

Despite the optimism of the play's ending it remains clear that the execution of Mother Sawyer has done little or nothing to purge the play's world of an evil to which its inhabitants are only too ready to turn spontaneously. Firstly, the devil-dog has not been destroyed, and indeed resolves to go to London and corrupt souls there. Secondly, the village's voice of authority, the lord of the manor Sir Arthur Clarington, is represented as untrustworthy, and Mother Sawyer utters a lengthy tirade indicting his lechery (he has previously had an affair with Winnifride, which she now repents) and general corruption, a charge which the play as a whole supports.

''The Witch of Edmonton'' may be very ready to capitalize on the sensational story of a witch, but it does not permit an easy and comfortable demonization of her; it presents her as a product of society rather than an anomaly in it.

The Breen make their alliance with the Dominion known by attacking Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. Deep Space Nine's commanding officer, Benjamin Sisko, is concerned for the safety of his wife, Kasidy Yates, a freighter captain. Sisko pulls political strings to get Yates time off from her job; she protests, reminding him that her job is just as important to her as his is to him, and he apologizes and cancels his request. Meanwhile, Damar plots to free Cardassia from Dominion rule.

Dukat persuades Winn to read the Book of the Kosst Amojan, a forbidden text that contains secret information about how to release the Pah-wraiths. Winn's aide Solbor reluctantly brings her the book, but to her surprise, its pages are blank. Suspicious of Winn's interest in evil texts and of her new companion's influence on her, Solbor investigates "Anjohl" and discovers that he is actually Gul Dukat. Winn is horrified to learn the truth about "Anjohl". But when Solbor discovers that they have been trying to release the Pah-wraiths, Winn kills him. His blood drips on the Book of the Kosst Amojan and makes the text visible.

Emboldened by the alliance with the Breen, the Dominion launches an offensive to retake Chin'toka, a star system captured by the Federation some months earlier. In the ensuing battle, the Federation alliance suffers one of its worst defeats of the war. Sisko's ship, the USS ''Defiant'', is among the many ships destroyed by a new weapon unleashed by the Breen: an energy-damping beam that renders weapons and drive systems powerless. The Changeling in command of the Dominion forces allows the survivors to escape, reasoning that their reports will have a demoralizing effect on their comrades.

As the Federation tries to regroup from this devastating loss, Damar releases a public message announcing that Cardassia will revolt against the Dominion; he begins the rebellion by destroying a Vorta cloning facility. Sisko realizes that Damar's rebellion may be the key to defeating the Dominion.

On the eve of World War II, Ivan Chonkin, the most dispensable soldier, is sent to guard a disabled military plane that crash landed on a kolkhoz (collective farm). Forgotten by his command, he earns favors of a nearby kolkhoznik woman Nyura and moves in with her. Nyura's cow eats the patch of experimental tomato-potato hybrids of the local mad genius agronomist Gladyshev, and in a retaliation the latter sends an anonymous note to NKVD that Chonkin is a deserter.

When NKVDists come to arrest Chonkin, he, being a Good Soldier, refuses to leave the post, and arrests the NKVDists himself. Only after several days is the fact of missing secret police noticed, and the ''raion'' Party leader is told via phone that they have been arrested by "Chonkin and his ''baba'' (woman)", which he mishears as "Chonkin and his ''banda'' (gang)".

A regiment is sent against "Chonkin's gang", but Chonkin successfully fends them off until they use artillery. When general Drynov incredulously learns that Chonkin single-handedly (with his ''baba'') was holding off the whole regiment, he declares Chonkin a hero and awards him an order taken off his own chest. When the NKVD lieutenant shows the order for Chonkin's arrest, Drynov shrugs and tells them to carry out their duty, at which point Chonkin is arrested and carried off in the back of the truck to the "Right Place", leaving Nyura on her knees on the road weeping after Chonkin as the scene closes. The book ends with the joke on Gladyshev, whose misunderstanding of evolution (that monkeys became man through labor and intelligence) has been thoroughly unsettled by Chonkin's question why horses do not become men if they work harder than men do, finds a note attached to the bottom of a hoof of his dead horse which had earlier disappeared. Supposing the horse had evolved and written the note, he is spooked and crosses himself.

The land of Achar has prospered for centuries under the care of the one god, Artor the Ploughman. Now, however, disturbing rumors have reached the ears of Jayme, Brother-Leader of the Seneschal, head of the worship of Artor. Evidence suggests that the Forbidden, who were driven out of Achar long ago, have returned. Jayme is relieved to find that Axis, the leader of the Axe-Wielders, an elite force under the command of the Seneschal, has returned from his latest assignment. Others are not as welcoming, because Axis is the illegitimate son of the Princess Rivkah, sister of King Priam. Rivkah is thought to have died while giving birth to Axis, and he has been a thorn in the King's side ever since.

Meanwhile, Faraday, the beautiful daughter of Earl Isend, is also at court for the King's nameday celebration. The Earl manages to get a betrothal for her to Borneheld, Rivkah's legitimate son and Priam's likely heir. Faraday is far more interested in Borneheld's half-brother, Axis.

Axis embarks on an assignment to support the towns that may be facing the Forbidden. Faraday rides with him, but she is separated from Axis along the journey.

Faraday and her companions now travel to Gorkenfort, where her betrothed lives. She is unsettled by ideas and people she encounters, both along the way and by her husband's side. Though in love with Axis, she is told that it is vital to the future that she marry Borneheld. Even more confusing, she seems to have some kind of relationship with the forest, which all Artor-fearing Acharites hate.

As Axis continues his journey, he begins to encounter strange things that call into question everything he has devoutly believed all his life. In Smyrton, he meets two of the Forbidden who have been cruelly treated by the villagers. Touched by pity, he sings to the little girl, who is near death, and mysteriously saves her life. Even more disturbing than this, he is told that his fate is intertwined with a prophecy about a world in which the human and the Forbidden live side by side, and that he may be the one to defeat Gorgrael, who is mounting a campaign to take over Achar.

Category:1995 Australian novels Category:1995 fantasy novels Category:Novels by Sara Douglass Category:Voyager Books books

The book follows the story of two boys in their teen years, named Brian and Gregory (who are friends, but complete opposites) who visit a mansion in Vermont owned by Gregory's Uncle Max. Uncle Max is a strange and weird character who uses complicated words from the past such as "effluents" and "insalubrities" and acts very much like an Edwardian-era aristocrat. The two boys uncover the board of the Game of Sunken Places in the nursery and unintentionally set the game into motion. They also meet Gregory's cousin Prudance, a girl from the area. Thus they become involved in an age-old ritual conflict between enchanted supernatural races.

Once they go out into the woods and begin playing the game, they meet unlikely allies such as Kalgrash the troll and work together to accomplish all the challenges using the game board as a map. In the final challenge, Gregory is about to win and Brian is being strangled by Jack Stimple. By believing that Jack was their opponent, the two almost fell into his trap. Jack was not playing the game at all. Gregory was the player for the Thusser Hordes and was about to win when Brian stopped him. Jack Stimple was meanwhile being dragged away by monks for strangling Brian. Gregory trusts Brian, and lets him win the game and so another battle had been won in the name of the Norumbegans. Prudance is the one who actually came up with the idea of The Game in the first place.

In the climax of ''Killzone 2'', Emperor Scolar Visari is assassinated by ISA forces, triggering a full-scale attack by the Helghan First Army. Overwhelmed, ISA commanders order a full withdrawal, leaving thousands of their own soldiers to die on Helghan. With the Helghast now driven to seek revenge for Visari's death, the survivors must join forces to find a way home.

Story

After failing to save Visari's life, Sgt. Tomas Sevchenko and Rico Velasquez regroup with Captain Jason Narville outside the imperial palace. With Helghan cruisers preparing to attack their fleet, they are forced to fight their way through the ruins of Pyrrhus, sacrificing most of their remaining armor and manpower in order to reach an extraction point near the edge of the city. Admiral Orlock, commander of the First Army, is pressured by Jorhan Stahl, the chairman of arms manufacturer Stahl Arms, to either ensure the total destruction of the ISA or turn over control of the army to him. Meanwhile, Rico receives a transmission from Jammer, a sniper whose platoon has been cut off by the Helghast. Against Narville's orders, he goes to assist them. The rest of the force attempts to link up with the fleet, but enemy interference leads to several ships being shot down, forcing the remainder to leave without Narville's men.

Six months later, Stahl calls for a vote in the Helghan Imperial Senate to remove Orlock for incompetence, but his request is denied. Furious, Stahl ends his company's cooperation with the First Army and organizes his personal guard to hunt down the ISA, who have set up a base in a remote jungle near one of their destroyed cruisers. While working to restore the base's communication uplink, the soldiers learn that the UCN has agreed to a ceasefire with the Helghast, effectively abandoning them. The transmission is intercepted by Stahl's men, who subsequently attack the camp and kill everyone aside from Tomas and Narville, who are taken captive.

Rico and Jammer's platoon, now calling themselves the Raiders, ambush the convoy and free Tomas. They carry out several attacks against Helghan facilities in the area, eventually reaching the main campus of Stahl Arms. Learning that Stahl plans to publicly execute Narville, Tomas and Rico don Helghast uniforms and rescue him and his fellow prisoners. Accessing the company's mainframe, they discover that Stahl has built his own armada armed with weapons powered by irradiated Petrusite, powerful enough to tear living organisms apart. Believing himself to be Visari's rightful successor, Stahl intends to win the favor of Helghan by conquering Earth itself.

Fed up with Stahl's arrogance, the senate grants Orlock the title of Autarch, giving him Visari's throne instead. Stahl is ordered to surrender his ships to the First Army's fleet above Helghan so they may be used to attack Earth. The ISA comes under attack from a massive Helghan assault mech, and though they manage to defeat it, their numbers are reduced to just 60 men. Nevertheless, they deactivate the perimeter defenses around Pyrrhus's spaceport, allowing them to access the imperial orbit command center.

Aware of Orlock's plans to murder him after securing his weapons, Stahl double-crosses and kills him before launching an attack on the First Army, giving the ISA a desperately needed opening to steal several Helghast transports. Stahl orders his flagship to warp to Earth, but Tomas manages to destroy its warp coil, causing the ship to plummet towards Helghan's surface. A direct nuclear strike ordered by Narville obliterates the vessel, causing it to drop its Petrusite arsenal on Helghan. The resulting fallout destroys what remains of the Helghast, leading Tomas to comment on how many innocent lives must have perished as a result of their actions. With the war over, the last of the ISA returns to Vekta.

Around the same time, two Helghast soldiers recover an escape pod from Stahl's ship. Though the occupant's identity is not revealed, it is implied that Stahl is still alive, which is confirmed by the sequel.

Characters

Andrew Bowen as Sergeant Tomas 'Sev' Sevchenko. The main protagonist, Sev, along with Rico and Narville, lead the resistance against the Helghans. Charles Everett as Sergeant Ricardo 'Rico' Velasquez. Rico, along with Sev and Narville, helps lead the resistance against the Helghans and forms his own squad with Jammer, the Raiders, while stranded for six months on Helghan after being separated from Sev and the other ISA forces. James Remar as Captain Jason Narville of the stranded ISA forces on Helghan. Brian Cox as Scolar Visari. The dead Autarch of Helghan. Though absent in the game, he is seen and speaks during the intro (as in every game) in a scene which occurred before the nuclear explosion during ''Killzone 2''. Ray Winstone as Admiral Orlock. One of the two main antagonists, Orlock is the hot-tempered and strict commander in chief of the Helghan military and soon becomes its autarch. Malcolm McDowell as Jorhan Brimve Stahl. One of the two main antagonists, Stahl is the CEO of Stahl Arms, a weapons company, he seeks to become Helghans new autarch as he believes Orlock is a nothing more than a miserable excuse of an officer. He also holds little respect for the Helghan military as he looks at the soldiers as "fat", "lazy" and "careless" oafs among other qualities. La'Myia Good as Jammer. A resourceful female ISA soldier. Mac Brandt as Kowalski. An ISA soldier who helps Sev through the Kaznan Jungle. * Mark Engelhardt as Hooper. A rookie ISA soldier who helps in take down Stahls cruiser before the nuke is dropped on it. * Rob Brownstein as Bradshaw

The Federation must contain a "virogen" (plague) that is killing plant life, damaging animal young, and killing people on several vital systems that collectively supply food for the entire Federation. ''Avenger'' opens with the Federation trying to maintain a strict quarantine to contain the spread of the virogen as the Federation's reserves run low. The ''Enterprise''-E is assigned to a blockade of the Alta Vista system, home to the Gamrow Station, a research facility designed to house about 60 scientists which is temporarily being used as a refugee camp for 1400 people. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew attempt to stop a shuttlecraft, piloted by a Vulcan called Stron and a pregnant human woman, from fleeing the quarantined system, but the two appear to commit suicide by trying to jump into warp while caught in the ''Enterprise''-E's tractor beam. Picard, however, knowing that Vulcans believe suicide to be illogical, is unconvinced that the couple actually died in the warp core explosion.

Meanwhile, on the once-verdant planet of Chal (first referenced in The Ashes of Eden), a mysterious stranger walks through the desolation towards a Starfleet medical outpost. He meets with the commanding officer, Christine McDonald, and requests the location of the burial place of a native woman named Teilani. He discovers, with Christine's help, that Teilani is not dead, not yet, but will be soon with the virogen quickly working through her body. He goes to her and prepares an unusual herbal tea with dried leaves and hot water. Commander McDonald and the outpost's doctor, Andrea M'Benga, look on in amazement as Teilani begins to miraculously recover. The stranger reveals to M'Benga that the leaves are Trannin leaves, native to the Klingon home planet. Christine determines to send a message to Starfleet, announcing that a way to combat the virogen has been found. Christine's suspicions of the stranger's identity are aroused when Teilani calls the stranger "James." Her suspicions are further confirmed when she finds a plaque that the stranger had used as a tray for the tea, emblazoned with the name and number of the starship ''Enterprise'' from eighty years in the past. Christine confronts the stranger with her belief that he is actually James T. Kirk, which he does not deny, insisting that she only refer to him as "Jim," and that she reveal his real identity to no one. It is later revealed Kirk was saved by a fortuitous last-minute Borg transporter beam-out. Flung to another galaxy entirely, he materializes on a planet which is used as a dumping ground for the detritus of failed Borg missions. At the verge of death, on a planet near a galactic core, Kirk is discovered by beings who were able to release themselves from Borg assimilation. His body is purged of the Borg nanites which had been killing him, and after two years of working, living, and learning from, and with, the survivors, he discovers a Borg scout ship which he uses to return to the planet Chal.

Captain Picard dispatches a search party to an asteroid which was nearby to the explosion of the Vulcan shuttle to determine whether Stron and his wife really died there. Commander Data confirms that there are no traces of organic particles in the area, thus proving that Stron and his mate somehow escaped the shuttle prior to its detonation. However, the manner of their escape remains a mystery. Picard reports his findings personally to the commander of the Gamrow Station, Chiton Kincaid, by beaming down alone to speak with her. He realizes with horror as their conversation goes on that she was already, in fact, aware that Stron and the woman did not die in the explosion. Before he can react, she attacks him with a disruptor and he blacks out.

Back on Chal, Teilani is almost fully recovered, but still weak. Kirk cares for her faithfully, and is in the process of building a home. However, their peaceful life is jarringly interrupted when a wing of Orion pirates begin mercilessly attacking the medical base. Jim begins running towards the base, only to be beamed up to Commander McDonald's ship, the ''U.S.S. Tobias''. Christine insists that Kirk momentarily assume command and take out the Orion fighters. Reluctantly, Jim agrees on the condition that Teilani be beamed up immediately. Once he knows she is safe, he takes a course of action by bringing the ''Tobias'' into the planet's atmosphere and successfully outmaneuvering the pirate ships. To Christine's dismay, he insists on destroying all of the pirates, rather than letting the survivors flee. Jim explains that Orions are mercenaries, with no reason to attack Chal if there's no money in it; someone must have intercepted Christine's message to Starfleet about the Trannin leaves, and sent the Orions to ravage the base. Kirk's suspicions are aroused: there's no way in his mind that the rapid spread of the virogen is an accident.

It is soon discovered that the virogen outbreak was created intentionally by the Symmetrists, a group of eco-terrorists who have links to Captain James T. Kirk's past. The resurrected Kirk, along with Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and their respective crews, must unite to uncover the conspiracy that caused this before it undermines the Federation.

Ambassador Spock, concurrently, is on a deeply personal mission of his own. He is personally bound to find the murderer of his father Sarek, believing that a conscious decision, not a disease, sealed his father's fate. He and Kirk reunite to avenge Sarek's death. During this time, Spock, though not entirely of his own volition, occasionally releases all his emotional self-control. This lack of control, uncharacteristic for a Vulcan, is a signature trait of Bendii disease, the same affliction which (supposedly) killed his father. Kirk and Spock discover that the people who assassinated Sarek are now after Spock, having infected him with a disease very similar to Bendii. It is revealed that a personal aide to both Sarek and Spock killed Sarek by using a poison whose effects were nearly identical to those of Bendii syndrome. In the end, it is Kirk, accompanied by Spock, who avenges Sarek's death. After, Kirk returns to Teilani and Spock is given treatment to expunge the poison from his body.

The novel opens with Ambassador Spock on planet Veridian III following the events of ''Star Trek Generations''. He is standing at the site where Captain Jean-Luc Picard had buried Captain James T. Kirk, paying final respects to his fallen friend.

The story then flashes back six months before Kirk was believed to have been 'killed' on the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. ''Enterprise NCC-1701-B''.

Kirk is having trouble coping with retirement on Earth as the U.S.S. ''Enterprise NCC-1701-A'' is decommissioned for war games. Kirk is having difficulties finding ways to spend his spare time and finds it distasteful that Starfleet cadets are using holodeck simulations of his 'adventures' in training, insisting "they were just my job." Kirk later attends a party at Starfleet Headquarters with his old friends Spock and 'Bones' McCoy, where they are disappointed to learn that the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief has been awarded to Admiral Androvar Drake (a former colleague of Kirk who has no qualms about cruelly mocking him). Kirk spots a mysterious young alien woman at the party, but doesn't get a chance to talk to her.

Meanwhile, Chekov and Uhura are working undercover with a Starfleet Intelligence operative named Jade in Klingon territory. When Jade manages to obtain some information about something called the "Chalchaj 'Qmey", she betrays Chekov and Uhura, leaving them to die in a shuttle bay. Luckily, they are rescued by Sulu aboard the ''Excelsior'' (who have been secretly monitoring them during their mission) and, feeling they can no longer trust Starfleet Intelligence, return to Earth to report to Drake.

Kirk returns to his parents' farm in Iowa, which he intends to sell soon. He is surprised to be reunited with the woman from the party, who gives her name as Teilani and explains that her world needs a hero. Suddenly, they are attacked and Teilani is shot. Kirk and Teilani manage to defeat and apparently kill their attackers, who Teilani explains are anarchists disrupting the peace of her homeworld. This world is called Chal and was originally colonized by both Klingons and Romulans (the inhabitants are all Klingon/Romulan hybrids), but both empires have now abandoned them. Chal apparently has fountain of youth properties, which seem proven when Teilani's wound miraculously heals, and the anarchists want to sell it. Kirk accepts Teilani's offer to help protect Chal, seeing it as a second chance. Despite protests from Spock and Bones, Kirk resigns from Starfleet and goes to Chal aboard the ''Enterprise'', which Teilani got from the Federation as a 'goodwill gesture', being reunited with Scotty.

When Sulu and the others report to Drake, he informs them about Kirk's resignation. The Chalchaj 'Qmey is believed to be some kind of doomsday weapon and Drake warns that there is a conspiracy within Starfleet trying to undermine peace talks with the Klingon Empire. Kirk and the ''Enterprise'' may be intended to help use this weapon against the Federation, so the group (now joined by Spock and Bones) are dispatched to find Chal and the weapon. After they leave, it is revealed that 'Jade' is actually Drake's daughter Ariadne, and that Drake is manipulating Kirk, his former crew and Teilani to get the Chalchaj 'Qmey for himself.

Kirk arrives on Chal and quickly learns why its name is Klingon for 'heaven' - he starts feeling younger and more alive. The anarchists attack the power station in the center of Chal's only city and Teilani reveals that they are the older generation of her people - her group are fighting their own parents. Scotty puts down the attack from orbit, but starts to question the morality of the situation, so Kirk tells him about Chal's rejuvenation powers. However, Scotty does not believe him, leaving Kirk wondering if his revitalization and love for Teilani is just him denying his age. Later that night, Kirk leads a raid on the anarchists' camp and, having somehow survived being shot at point-blank range, takes a prisoner to the ''Enterprise'' brig for questioning. The prisoner, named Torl, explains that the people themselves are the Chalchaj 'Qmey, the 'Children of Heaven', and that the anarchists want to destroy their world's legacy, not sell it. Torl is shot dead by Teilani before he can tell Kirk more.

Kirk realizes that things aren't how they seemed and confronts Teilani. The 'attackers' from the farm actually work for Teilani (they stopped their hearts to fake death) and Teilani faked her wound. She also secretly equipped Kirk with a force field emitter to prevent him being shot. Kirk declares he only came to Chal for the challenge of saving a world and he is not in love with Teilani, breaking her heart. They are suddenly called to the ''Enterprise'' as the ''Excelsior'' (now joined by Drake and a Klingon escort) arrives in orbit. Despite being equipped with only outdated Klingon disruptors (Starfleet stripped down the ''Enterprise'' prior to giving it to Chal) Kirk engages and manages to destroy one of the Klingon ships, causing Drake to angrily order the destruction of Kirk's ship. However, Kirk and his former crew agree that Drake's orders are against Starfleet protocol and the ''Excelsior'' withdraws for a general inquiry.

Kirk and Teilani transport to the power station to find out the true secret of Chal. Lights and information displays are activated by Teilani's life signs, revealing that the power station actually contains weapons and that the Chalchaj 'Qmey were genetically created from not only Klingons and Romulans, but also stolen human tissue samples. Teilani is horrified, believing her people are little more than weapons themselves, but Kirk (who is shocked by a display depicting monstrous Starfleet agents brutally murdering Klingons and Romulans), discovers that they were actually created to be able to survive the contaminated environments the two empires believed would become the norm if the Federation conquered them. He comforts Teilani, assuring her that no-one can be held responsible for the world they are born into and that the important thing is to work to make the future better. Ariadne suddenly transports in, revealing that she and her father hope to make use of the Chalchaj 'Qmey by using them as living donor banks, using transplants from them to make immortality available to the Federation. She also tries to turn Teilani against Kirk, telling her that Kirk only came to Chal to gain immortality, but Kirk (who insists that his 'rejuvenation' was all in his mind) convinces Teilani to stop her heart. This puts the lights out, allowing Kirk to steal Ariadne's gun and use it to destroy the items and information so it can never fall into the wrong hands.

Drake then arrives, explaining his intent to secure the future of the Federation by provoking them into all-out war with the Klingon Empire and devastating the latter. Refusing to accept Drake's vision of the future, Kirk and Teilani transport back to the ''Enterprise'' and are surprised to find all the old crew there awaiting Kirk's orders (having figured out Drake is the true head of the 'conspiracy'). Drake returns to the remaining Klingon ship, but instead of engaging in a fair fight orders it into a slingshot maneuver around Chal's sun, hoping to go back in time and destroy Kirk the day he arrived. With Sulu at the helm, the ''Enterprise'' manages to prevent this, but both ships get trapped in the sun. Drake refuses to attempt escape until Kirk is dead, gleefully watching as the ''Enterprise'' explodes. However, Kirk and the others actually survived by transporting to the ''Excelsior'' at the last minute. Kirk advises Drake to drop his ship's shields so he and his crew can be saved, but Drake refuses and his ship is destroyed as they try to escape. Teilani is confused, noting that Drake believed Kirk and wondering why he refused help. Kirk explains "He was once a starship captain. And starship captains believe they're invincible . . . they have to be. It's their job."

Kirk visits Chal one last time, giving Teilani the ''Enterprise'''s dedication plaque (which he had ripped off the wall of the exploding bridge prior to its destruction) for safekeeping and advising her to tell her children about him. Back in Federation space, Kirk, Spock and Bones watch the construction of a new ''Enterprise'' and note how Drake's position will probably now be offered to Kirk. Kirk laughs at this, insisting that the adventure they've just had is proof he's not suitable. Bones reminds Kirk of how he's a living legend and how simulations of his adventures will be seen by Starfleet cadets for centuries to come. Kirk comments "I only hope they enjoy those adventures as much as I did", realizing that this way, he really will live forever.

The novel then flashes 80 years into the future. Spock is still at Kirk's gravesite when the bright flash of phaser fire illuminates the night sky directly above him, where the U.S.S. ''Farragut'' is orbiting the planet, leading salvage operations of the crashed remains of the U.S.S. ''Enterprise NCC-1701-D''. One stream of phaser fire is consistent with starfleet-type weaponry, and the other is green, clearly alien in origin. Spock conjectures that the ''Farragut'' is engaged in combat.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind envelops the gravesite, and Spock hears the unmistakable sound of a transporter beam activating, as Kirk's grave glows through the rocks from within. The grave then collapses in on itself, and the gust of wind stops.

Spock looks up towards the stars, unsure of what has just transpired, or why.

As this is a series of character sketches, the most effective way currently to describe this book is to list the contents.

Volume I

• The Author
• The Hall
• The Busy Man
• Family Servants
• The Widow
• The Lovers
• Family Reliques
• An Old Soldier
• The Widow's Retinue
• Ready Money Jack
• Bachelors
• Wives
• Story Telling
• The Stout Gentleman
• Forest Trees
• A Literary Antiquary
• The Farm-House
• Horsemanship
• Love-Symptoms
• Falconry
• Hawking
• St. Mark's Eve
• Gentility
• Fortune Telling
• Love-Charms
• The Library
• The Student of Salamanca

Volume II

• English Country Gentleman
• A Bachelor's Confessions
• English Gravity
• Gipsies
• May-Day Customs
• Village Worthies
• The Schoolmaster
• The School
• A Village Politician
• The Rookery
• May-Day
• The Manuscript
• Annette Delarbre
• Travelling
• Popular Superstitions
• The Culprit
• Family Misfortunes
• Lovers' Troubles
• The Historian
• The Haunted House
• Dolph Heyliger
• The Storm-Ship
• The Wedding
• The Author's Farewell

''MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat'' is set in 3057, shortly after the Battle of Tukayyid between the Inner Sphere and invading Clan armies. The plot revolves around an ideological conflict inside the Clans. It focuses on the Clans Jade Falcon and Wolf, which represent either Crusaders and Wardens, respectively. The Clans are the descendants of the Star League Defense Force, most of which was led by their commander Aleksandr Kerensky into the unknown regions of space in an attempt to prevent the warring nations of the Inner Sphere from obliterating each other. These forces eventually splintered and formed 20 groups called Clans, creating a society based around warfare and creating warriors for their advanced BattleMechs. During the years of isolation, two ideologies divided the Clans; Crusader Clans wished to return to the Inner Sphere as conquerors, forcing the nations to unite and recreate the Star League. The Warden Clans believed the Clans should act as protectors of the Inner Sphere, only intervening if a threat of sufficient magnitude was encountered.

Eventually, the Crusader faction won and the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere as an invasion force containing a small fraction of the clans including the Jade Falcons, Clan Wolf, Smoke Jaguars and the Ghost Bears. The invasion force consisted of Crusader and Warden Clans, chiefly Clan Wolf. The Wardens participated in an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by the Crusader Clans. The invasion continued until the invading Clans were challenged by the ComStar organization to a fight on the planet Tukayyid. If the Clans won, they would gain control of Terra, which was controlled by ComStar; if they lost they would halt the invasion for 15 years under a truce. The Clans lost the battle and their invasion was halted for 15 years. In the wake of the defeat, Ulric Kerensky, the leader of the invasion and warlord of the Clans, as well as a staunch Warden and member of the Warden-leaning Clan Wolf, was charged with treason and accused of purposely losing by the Crusader elements of his Clan. They claimed because Ulric was a Warden, he engineered the defeat to sabotage the invasion, and also accused him of genocide.

The basis Clan law was "might equals right" so matters could be settled by combat. Ulric challenged the Crusaders to uphold his status within the Clan Council and, as a result, maintain the Truce of Tukayyid. The Jade Falcon Clan, the strongest of the Crusader Clans and historic enemy of Wolf Clan, took up the challenge. In the conflict, which became known as the Refusal War, the Jade Falcons fight to uphold the Council's judgment of guilt, allowing an immediate resumption of the Invasion against the still-weakened Inner Sphere. Ulric and the Wolves, however, are determined to fight a war of extermination against the Falcons and weaken them so they cannot threaten the Inner Sphere.

The game's protagonists are members of the "D.S.G. (Digital Security Guard)". Based on Digital Monster X-Evolution, it is immediately revealed that a computer virus known as the "X-virus" is spreading quickly and is infecting many Digimon. "The Yamato Server" has disappeared, and a new server known as "The Doom Server" has taken its place. They are sent to the first area of the game named Death Valley to search for Chief Leomon. When it is completed the player finds out that The Doom Server may in fact be The Yamato Server. The player is then sent to destroy the "Doom Dome". This is where the first real boss appears, Apocalymon. The player is then sent to Dry Land to stop the X-Virus spreading and must defeat MaloMyotismon. They are then sent to the Venom Jungle to stop the Dread Note from launching and must then defeat Lucemon. They are then sent to the final area of the game Machine Pit to destroy the final boss Mecha Rogue X.

Conceptual artist Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) creates electronic pieces that flash evocative statements. Her work has begun to attract major media attention. Driving home one night, Anne suffers a blowout on a road near some isolated industrial factories and, while looking for help, witnesses a mafia hit supervised by Leo Carelli (Joe Pesci), who kills another mobster and his bodyguard. Leo spots Anne, but she escapes and goes to the police.

Two of the mobsters, Greek (Tony Sirico) and Pinella (John Turturro), go to Anne's house to silence her, but manage only to kill her boyfriend, Bob (Charlie Sheen). FBI agent Pauling (Fred Ward) -who's been after Carelli for some time- offers Anne a place in the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, but when she sees another mobster, Carelli's lawyer John Luponi (Dean Stockwell), at the police station, she disguises herself with another woman's wig and raincoat and flees. Meanwhile, mob boss Lino Avoca (Vincent Price), Carelli's boss, summons top-of-the-line hitman Milo (Dennis Hopper) to silence Anne. Milo purchases one of Anne's artworks and ransacks her house, discovering intimate Polaroids taken of her.

Months pass. Anne has severed all ties with her past and re-established herself in Seattle as an advertising copywriter. Milo, who never gives up, recognizes the tagline of a lipstick ad as one of Anne's catchphrases, and tracks her down. Pauling and the police also track Anne down, but she manages to once again elude all the men who are pursuing her. Shortly after, Milo tracks Anne to New Mexico. There, he is followed by Pinella, who is tracking Milo's whereabouts for Carelli, and whom Milo quickly kills. This time, Milo corners Anne and offers her a deal: he'll let her live, if she'll do anything and everything he asks. Milo's interest in Anne, it turns out, is more than professional, but not exactly what she thinks; he doesn't want her to be his sex slave, though sex is part of the equation.

A man obsessed, Milo has fallen in love with Anne. And he has no idea how to cope with the unfamiliar emotion. Astonishingly, after a rocky start, Anne realizes that she has also fallen for him. At the same time, when failing to kill Anne as he was hired to do, Milo has marked himself for death. Anne and Milo flee together to an isolated farm that Milo owns. Avoca's men track them there, and they narrowly escape.

Milo and Anne realize that in order to be free, they must return and confront their pursuers. They concoct a plan leaving Avoca, Carelli and all of their men dead. Anne and Milo escape together to a new life, presumably in France.

Alternative ending (''Backtrack'')

Milo and Anne return together to the refinery by the side of the road where Anne witnessed the mob hit that made her run. The refinery in fact belongs to Mr. Avoca and bears its name. Milo contacts Leo Carelli, tells him that he killed Anne and wants to "make peace" with Carelli, whom he asks to meet in the Avoca factory. Pauling, who has a wiretap on Carelli's house, spies on the conversation and travels there with the police.

Avoca and his men wait near the factory. Pauling and the police also wait in another sector of the same zone. Carelli, his henchman Greek and Luponi go inside and find Milo waiting for them. When Luponi tries to shoot Milo in the back, Anne shoots from far away and wounds him with a scoped rifle. She reveals to be clothed in a special fire proximity suit, as well as Milo. They seem to let Carelli and Greek get away in order for them to run and trip on a wire connected to explosives. The refinery is blown to pieces, and Carelli, Greek, and Luponi die while Anne and Milo escape. Avoca sends his men after Anne and Milo but the police surround and arrest them. Nevertheless, Avoca escapes in a helicopter, and Pauling goes after Anne and Milo in his car, but misses them as they move in the sewer system nearby.

Milo and Anne move away and start a new life, presumably in France. The end credits show one of Anne's electronic signs spelling THE END in several fonts.

Marion Perkin Warbeck, referred to as "the doomed man", has discovered children with supernatural powers, which he calls "genius". He is pursuing one Stuart Buchanan, a ten-year-old boy who he believes can lead him to these children. Warbeck is a school principal who read an essay by Stuart that describes his friends inventing gadgets beyond known science. When Warbeck attempted to find Stuart, not only had the boy disappeared but all records about him had vanished, and nobody who was closely involved with him remembered anything about him.

Warbeck tries to solve the mystery by going door to door in Stuart's old neighborhood, talking to people named "Buchanan" under various pretexts to avoid drawing attention to himself. He is waylaid by a gang that runs a fraud on people with that name, and has to explain his reasons to them to save his life. Once they understand that there might be a fortune to be made, they employ their own methods to track Stuart's family's sudden move to Brooklyn. However, as the gang conduct a search they disappear one by one. Warbeck is left calling Stuart's name in the street. Unknown to him, Stuart is participating in a game of hide-and-seek nearby. Hearing his name, he uses his "genius" to stay hidden.

Warbeck finds himself trapped on a "road cleaving infinitely through blackness". The boy wished to be left alone, and formally wished so with the "Star Light, Star Bright" nursery rhyme. The story closes by stating that Stuart unknowingly has a genius "for wishing".

The story describes a fraud known as the "Heirs of Buchanan", in which confidence tricksters approach people with the name "Buchanan" and offer them, for a fee, a chance to participate in the legacy of President James Buchanan, who is often believed to have died without leaving a will.

The play opens one year after the suicide of Rosmer's wife, Beata. Rebecca had previously moved into the Rosmer family's manor, Rosmersholm, as a friend of Beata, and she lives there still. It becomes plain that she and Rosmer are in love, but he insists throughout the play that their relationship is completely platonic.

A highly respected member of his community, both by virtue of his position as a clergyman and his aristocratic family, Rosmer intends to support the newly elected government and its reformist, if not revolutionary, agenda. However, when he announces this to his friend and brother-in-law Kroll, the local schoolmaster, the latter becomes enraged at what he sees as his friend's betrayal of his ruling-class roots. Kroll begins to sabotage Rosmer's plans, confronting him about his relationship with Rebecca and denouncing the pair, initially in guarded terms, in the local newspaper.

Rosmer becomes consumed by his guilt, now believing he, rather than mental illness, caused his wife's suicide. He attempts to escape the guilt by erasing the memory of his wife and proposing marriage to Rebecca. But she rejects him outright. Kroll accuses her of using Rosmer as a tool to work her own political agenda. She admits that it was she who drove Mrs. Rosmer to deeper depths of despair and in a way even encouraged her suicide—initially to increase her power over Rosmer, but later because she actually fell in love with him. Because of her guilty past she cannot accept Rosmer's marriage proposal.

This leads to the ultimate breakdown in the play where neither Rosmer nor Rebecca can cast off moral guilt. She has acknowledged her part in the destruction of Beata. They can now no longer trust each other, or even themselves.

Rosmer then asks Rebecca to prove her devotion to him by committing suicide the same way his former wife did—by jumping into the mill-race. As Rebecca calmly seems to agree, issuing instructions about the recovery of her body from the water, Rosmer says he will join her. He is still in love with her and, since he cannot conceive of a way in which they can live together, they will die together. The play concludes with both characters jumping into the mill-race and the housekeeper, Mrs. Helseth, screaming in terror: "The dead woman has taken them."

Subsidiary characters

The actions of Brendel and Mortensgaard do not take the plot forward, although Mortensgaard reveals to Rosmer that Beata sent his newspaper a letter denying any rumors that her husband was unfaithful with Rebecca: the suggestion that his wife even considered such unfounded suspicion, which may have contributed to her decision to kill herself, upsets Rosmer greatly.

Brendel, returning for the first time in many years, calls at Rosmersholm before going on to preach political freedom and reform in the town, but his audience, somewhat drunk, beats him up and leaves him in the gutter. Returning to the house after the incident, he acknowledges that his ideals have not survived the encounter. He now recommends the approach of the pragmatic Mortensgaard, who demonstrates his own lack of ideals by urging Rosmer to support the reform movement while still professing to be Christian, though in reality Rosmer has lost his faith. Mortensgaard needs Rosmer's public support to show that there are prominent, respectable, pious citizens who agree with his policies.

Researchers at a remote jungle island outpost discover the natives are practicing voodoo and black magic. After killing the local priest (James Sampson), a voodoo curse begins to raise the dead to feed on the living in retribution. The researchers on the island are killed by the newly risen zombies, except for Jenny (Candice Daly), the daughter of a scientist couple. She escapes, protected by a magical necklace charm given to her by her mother shortly before her death.

She returns years later as an adult with a group of mercenaries (Tommy, Dan, Rod, and Rod's girlfriend Louise) to try to uncover what happened to her parents. Shortly after arriving at the island, their boat's engine dies, stranding them. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the island, a trio of hikers – Chuck, David, and Maddis 'Mad' – discover a cave, the same cave leading to the underground temple where the original curse was created. After accidentally reviving the curse, the dead return to kill any who trespass on their island. The zombies eat David, and Mad is also killed before he can escape the tunnels. The mercenaries encounter their first zombie, who injures Tommy.

Taking shelter in the remains of the old research facilities' medical quarters, they are soon joined by Chuck (Jeff Stryker), the only surviving hiker. Arming themselves with weapons left behind by the long-dead research team, they make their stand as the dead once again rise. Rod is bitten by a zombie and later turns into one and kills Louise. A zombified Louise kills Dan before Chuck reluctantly kills him. Tommy stays behind and blows up the facility with himself and the zombies in it while Jenny and Chuck flee, the only survivors remaining. They stumble upon the cave again, where the zombies appear and attack. Chuck is killed, and Jenny apparently becomes an advanced zombie. The ending is unclear.

The film began with a prologue where the narrator explains to the viewers about how the Dragon Balls, seven orange balls with different number of red stars on each one, were forged and scattered throughout the Earth. The prophecy said that when all seven are gathered together, the Eternal Dragon named Shenron; the Dragon Balls' guardian, will rise from his fiery lair and grant whoever summoned him any one wish. Afterwards, the Dragon Balls will again scatter all over the world while Shenron returns to his lair until another "brave or foolish soul" will find and reunite these magical balls.

In the present, the soldiers of King Gurumes are destroying the homes and lands of farmers within his kingdom to look for "Blood Rubies". His two main enforcers are Pasta and Bongo (Raven and Major Domo in the 1995 dub), whom he has also tasked with finding the Dragon Balls. Since finding the Blood Rubies, Gurumes has fallen under a curse that turns him into a large, purple monster and makes his hunger insatiable. He hopes to wish the curse away with the Dragon Balls. A rebellious little girl named Pansy (Penny in the 1995 dub), after her father gets a brutal beating by Bongo in defending her, decides to go and find help.

Goku, a young monkey-tailed boy with special strength, is living alone in the wildness of Mount Pazou. There, he was found and raised as a baby by his late Grandpa Gohan, who trained his adopted grandson in martial arts. At this time, he had a magical staff called the Power Pole which will grow its length on his command, and unknowingly owns a four-star Dragon Ball which was thought to have his grandfather's spirit inside. While Goku is catching a giant fish, a blue-haired teenage girl named Bulma is also searching for the Dragon Balls with the help of a device called a Dragon Radar. Before she can reach for the next ball after spotting the fighter jet of Pasta and Bongo heading the same direction toward its location, she runs into Goku. Thinking Bulma is a monster, Goku prepares to attack her to not let her steal his fish, but Bulma convinces him that she is a human. After learning that Bulma is a girl, Goku tells her that his grandpa gave him the Dragon Ball before he died. Pasta and Bongo arrive at Goku's home and steal his Dragon Ball, just before he and Bulma arrive only to find a gold coin which Pasta put on as payment. They flee in their fighter jet, and Bulma and Goku give chase in Bulma's jet. The duo is easily gaining the upper hand, but they are shot down by Pasta. As they both fell, Goku saves Bulma by sending her to a nearby cliff with his Power Pole while he plunges into the river.

Later that night, Goku and Bulma are looking for food in the forest when they find Pansy being accosted by a large monster named Oolong, who has the ability to shape-shift into any other forms. Oolong flees when Goku proves his strength by destroying a large tree, but he chases the shape-shifter and, knocking him down with his Power Pole, finds out that his true form is that of a pig. While snapping at the curious Goku, Oolong freaks out when he realizes they have landed in the territory of Yamcha the Desert Bandit. Then suddenly, Yamcha and his sidekick Puar, Oolong's former classmate from the shape-shifting school where he was expelled for stealing the teacher's panties, attacks the duo. Goku battles Yamcha through weapon fighting which later moves onto their special moves such as Yamcha's Wolf Fang Fist and Goku's Rock-Scissors-Paper, but their duel is cut short when Bulma arrives. Yamcha has a paralyzing fear of beautiful women upon seeing Bulma and, chipping off his tooth after crashing down from the cliff where he and Goku are standing on to fight, he and Puar retreat. In Oolong's campout, Pansy tells Bulma and the others about her people's plight and how she must find the great Master Roshi the Turtle Hermit to help her put a stop to King Gurumes' cruelty. But little do the group know is that Yamcha and Puar have returned, overhearing everything about the Dragon Balls. The next day, Yamcha and Puar prepares for their trip to Master Roshi's island in order to get rid of Goku and his friends while going after the Dragon Balls for themselves. As part of their scheme, Yamcha vows that he will wish away his shyness around girls so he could either get married or have a few dates, despite Puar's protest over the unnecessary choice of needing all the treasures or ruling the world. Back at his palace, King Gurumes now possesses five of the Dragon Balls and ensures that the last two will go next.

The team arrives on Master Roshi's island, but Yamcha has arrived first and tricked Roshi into thinking Goku is there to steal his shell. To find out who's telling the truth, Roshi summons the Flying Nimbus Cloud, a magic cloud which only an honest person can ride. After Roshi's failed attempt as a demonstration, Goku successfully rides it and clears his name; Yamcha flees again, vowing that he will be back. Master Roshi also says he will give Bulma his Dragon Ball, but only if she shows him her boobs. In order to avoid Roshi, Bulma uses Oolong to transform into her in order to trick the Turtle Hermit, and it works. But Pasta and Bongo arrive in a submarine and attack the island. One of Bulma's two Dragon Balls is stolen, and Roshi's house is destroyed. Angered by the destruction of his house, Roshi powers up to the max and uses the Kamehameha to destroy the submarine, while Pasta and Bongo flee in an escape jet. Pansy asks Roshi to help her defeat King Gurumes, but he declines, saying that he is an old man, and assures Pansy that Goku and Bulma will be all the help she needs. That night at King Gurumes' palace, Pasta states her report about the arrival of the final Dragon Ball, much to her master's delight.

The next day, the team journey to King Gurumes' palace and are immediately attacked by the king's air force. Bulma, Oolong, and Pansy are shot down while Goku has an aerial duel with Bongo, in which the monkey-tailed fighter destroys Bongo's hovercraft. Yamcha and Puar also arrive and infiltrate the palace, where they meet up with the group. Yamcha is attacked by Pasta, but is unable to fight back because of his phobia of beautiful women, so they flee with Pasta in hot pursuit. Goku defeats Bongo by knocking him through a wall with his Power Pole, and they all end up in King Gurumes' throne room. Fueled by both his own curse and hunger, Gurumes grows to his gigantic size before the very eyes of the group, and after crushing Bongo flat, he attacks Goku to get the last Dragon Ball. Goku tries the Kamehameha [which he already learned from Master Roshi] but it fails to destroy him. Bulma realizes the other six Dragon Balls are inside Gurumes' stomach, so she throws her Dragon Ball into his mouth. Shenron erupts from Gurumes' body and offers to grant one wish. Pansy wishes for her land to be peaceful and beautiful again. Shenron then removes all the Blood Rubies and makes the land fertile again. After granting the wish, the dragon vanishes, and the Dragon Balls are scattered across the Earth again. Gurumes' curse is lifted, as he is reduced to a small, bald man; Yamcha and Bulma decide to date much to Puar's joy and Oolong's annoyance; and Goku, after returning the gold coin to Pasta, heads off to Master Roshi's island to train with the Turtle Hermit. After the film's credits, the land is shown to be fertile and beautiful again.

The story begins with Beatrix Potter nervously packing her portfolio and narrating that she is a London spinster, and that her ambition to become a children's author meets with wide disapproval. She and her chaperone, Miss Wiggin, visit the publishing house of Harold and Fruing Warne, who decide to publish her ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit''. Beatrix is thrilled and returns home, taking a drive through the parks to celebrate. However, it is revealed the Warne brothers think her book is ridiculous and will no doubt be a failure. The only reason they agreed to publish it is because they promised their younger brother, Norman, a project.

When Norman visits Beatrix, they make decisions about her book regarding size, colour and price. Norman admits he has never done anything like this before but has given her book a great deal of thought. Beatrix realises what Norman's brothers have done, but she and Norman become determined to prove them wrong. Norman takes Beatrix to the printer, and she has her drawings reproduced and copies of her book sold. Beatrix and Norman visit the Warne family, where Beatrix meets wheelchair user Mrs. Warne, and Norman's sister, Millie. Millie has decided that she and Beatrix are going to be friends and is overjoyed that Beatrix is a spinster, as is Millie, who believes men to be nothing but bores. The family befriends Beatrix, yet Helen Potter, Beatrix's social-climbing mother, is unhappy about her daughter spending time in the company of tradesmen.

When she returns home, Beatrix and Helen bicker about Beatrix's decision not to marry. Beatrix reminds her mother of the book she wrote, and her mother retorts she believes the venture will fail. However, the book sales are very successful and copies are displayed in many store windows. Norman encourages Beatrix to submit other stories for publication. Even Beatrix's father, Rupert, buys a copy of ''The Tale of Two Bad Mice'' after hearing how his friends at the Reform Club were buying them. Encouraged by this success and her father's support, Beatrix invites Norman and Millie to her family's Christmas party. At the party everyone enjoys themselves and Beatrix shows Norman a story she is writing especially for him, "The Rabbits' Christmas Party". She shows him a drawing from the story and shows him her studio where she writes and draws. Miss Wiggin falls asleep from too much brandy (a generous portion of which had been added to her coffee cup by Norman), and Norman plucks up the courage to propose to Beatrix. Mrs. Potter interrupts before Beatrix can reply, and they join the other guests in the drawing room. Beatrix confides in Millie about Norman proposing, and Millie encourages her to say yes. Beatrix then tells the guests of the stories she writes and they are delighted and amused. Mrs. Potter, however, can not see what all the fuss is about. As the guests leave, Beatrix whispers her agreement to marry Norman, who is overjoyed.

Norman visits Rupert Potter at his club to ask his consent and is dismissed within minutes. At the Potter household, Beatrix and her parents argue about her decision to marry Norman. Beatrix is adamant. Mrs. Potter tells her no Potter can marry into trade, but Beatrix reminds her that her grandfathers were both tradesmen. When Mrs. Potter threatens to cut her daughter off financially, Beatrix reminds them of her brother, Bertram, who married a wine merchant's daughter and was not disowned. She states she can survive on her own with her books. Mr. Potter attempts to reason with his daughter, but she tells him she wants to be loved and not simply marry someone because he can provide for her.

Beatrix inquires with the bank about her royalty earnings, wondering if she would perhaps someday be able to buy a house in the country. She is amazed and delighted to learn that her book sales have made her wealthy enough to buy several estates and a house in town if she wishes. When she returns home her parents make a proposition: that Beatrix keep her engagement to Norman a secret and holiday with them in the Lake District for the summer. If she still wishes to marry him at the end of the summer, they agree that they will not object to the marriage. Beatrix agrees to the proposition and is quite convinced that she will not change her mind, telling her parents to prepare for an October wedding.

Norman and Beatrix kiss each other goodbye at the railway station (Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell Line) and write many letters during their time apart, until one day a letter arrives from his sister Millie, informing her that Norman is ill. Beatrix travels back to London only to find that Norman has died. Overcome with grief, Beatrix shuts herself up in her room. She turns to her drawing, but discovers that her characters disappear off the page. Millie comes to visit and comfort her, and Beatrix decides she must leave the house.

Beatrix buys a farm in the country in the Lake District and moves there to resume her work. She hires a farmhand to run the farm and finds comfort in her surroundings. With the help of her solicitor, William Heelis, she outbids developers at auctions and buys many other farms and land in the area to preserve nature. In captions, it is explained that eight years after moving to the Lake District she marries William (to her mother's disapproval) and the land she purchased eventually forms part of the Lake District National Park in North West England.

Caught after a series of dynamite-fuelled bank robberies in the dying days of the Old West, Barney (Scott McGinnis) and Luke (Jeff Osterhage) are forced into conscription in a US unit being sent to the trenches in France in the middle of World War One.

In the maelstrom of the frontlines, Barney and Luke use their gunslinging skills to shoot the pilot of a low-flying German bomber. Using the chaos to abscond from their unit, they impersonate two British RFC officers to sneak into an officer's mess, whereupon after a night of drinking they are challenged to prove themselves by piloting a Vickers F.B.5 (known as a "Gunbus"). They succeed in flying the plane, getting lost and briefly glimpsing a huge experimental German airship hidden in the clouds. Landing by coincidence at an RFC squadron base, their sighting of the airship proves enough to persuade the squadron's commander to offer them a place in his unit.

Still seeking a way out of the conflict, Barney and Luke use their newfound position to steal two planes at gunpoint, intending to fly to Switzerland. On their route they accidentally find themselves at the airship's hangar, where Luke is shot down and captured. Barney turns back to find his squadron's base has been destroyed by the airship, along with all of the squadron's planes. Defying orders once again he recovers the Gunbus and flies off, secretly landing near the hangar. Finding Luke is being held captive inside a bank, he uses his previous familiarity with blowing open bank vaults to break Luke free, before the two of them attempt to destroy the airship.

The airship takes off, and Barney and Luke pursue in the Gunbus. In the air they are joined by the rest of the squadron, who are flying an array of improvised novelty planes designed by the squadron's crazy engineer Fritz (Ronald Lacey). The squadron engages in an aerial battle with the airship as Barney and Luke land on top and use their six-shooters and dynamite to force the airship's captain to surrender.

Back in the Old West, Barney and Luke blow another bank up before racing off on horseback as they had before the war. As a posse hunt them down they are surprised however to see the pair disappear only to reappear flying over their heads in a Gunbus. As the credits roll, Barney and Luke continue to argue with each other over whether to fly to Mexico - itself deep in the midst of its own war.

Set immediately after the events of Mister Monday, Dame Primus informs Arthur that six months have passed in the House since he left and Grim Tuesday, the second of the Morrow Days, has found a loophole in the Trustees' agreement to conquer the Lower House. Dame Primus tells Arthur that he must return to the House to restore order.

With help from Leaf, Arthur returns to the House and travels to the Far Reaches, a vast and expansive cavern filled with forges and a large spring of Nothing, which are used to create and ship out the supplies that maintain the House's various functions. However, Tuesday's greed has grown such that he dug out the spring even further, creating a highly toxic and unstable massive pit that threatens the foundation of the House. Nevertheless, Tuesday continues to plunder the pit and the Secondary Realms for more wealth, which he then hoards in his Treasure Tower.

Upon his arrival, Arthur is mistaken for one of Tuesday's indentured servants and forced to work in the pit, where he meets Japeth, who provides information about the Far Reaches. Suzy Turquoise Blue finds them and takes them to Tuesday's tower, which holds the second Will fragment and the Second Key. The three decide that Japeth will take Suzy's vehicle to catch up with the work gang while Arthur and Suzy break into the tower. They reach the tower by crossing the ceiling of the Far Reaches, only to find that the tower is surrounded by a giant glass pyramid. Soot, a large mass of Nothing that used to be Tuesday's eyebrow, gives them a diamond to cut through the glass pyramid, in exchange for helping it into the Treasure Tower so Soot can consume Tuesday's treasures.

Arthur and Suzy break into the treasure tower, where they meet Tom Shelvocke, also known as the Mariner. He is the second son of the Architect and the Old One and he has been blackmailed into guarding the Will for Tuesday. As revenge on Tuesday, The Mariner agrees to transport Arthur and Suzy to a worldlet inside a bottle, in which the second part of the Will is located. They retrieve the Will, which is in the form of a lazy sun bear, and return to the tower. As a reward for freeing him, the Mariner gives Arthur a whalebone disc that can summon the Mariner three times and obtains him aid from any sea-faring Denizen.

Tuesday finds them and the four escape through a weirdway into another part of the glass pyramid. Arthur and Suzy are then notified by one of Grim Tuesday's servants that the East Buttress of the Far Reaches is giving out, and that if it is not repaired, its collapse will lead to the destruction of the House and the Secondary Realms as well. Tuesday catches up to them and the Will declares a contest between Arthur and Tuesday in order to decide to whom the Will and the Second Key will go to. The contest is to create something original with the Second Key, a pair of silver gauntlets with the power to create anything desired by the wielder. Tuesday creates a beautiful tree of precious metals while Arthur creates a xylophone, which he then uses to compose a simple melody. The Will declares Arthur the winner, because he created something original while Tuesday copied another artist's work.

Arthur then hurries to mend the eastern buttress, where he encounters a mysterious high-ranking Denizen, whom Arthur assumes was sent by Superior Saturday. The two fight and Arthur stabs the Denizen, which drives it away. Arthur finishes repairing the buttress and then collapses from exhaustion.

When he awakens, Arthur is officially declared Lord of the Far Reaches; as with the Lower House, he appoints Dame Primus (who has now absorbed the second part of the Will) as his steward. Arthur learns that his time in the house and his use of the Keys has caused him to slowly begin the transformation into a Denizen, thus losing his humanity. At Arthur's request, Dame Primus reverses the effects but in doing so, Arthur becomes severely weakened. Upon his return to the Secondary Realms, Arthur is hospitalized.

When he wakes up after a long rest, Arthur discovers an invitation from Drowned Wednesday asking to meet.

Lord Emsworth is aghast to learn that his younger son Freddie is back in England from America, sent over to push "Donaldson's Dog-Joy" to the English dog-owning public. He is less worried to hear that his niece Prudence Garland is being called a "dream rabbit" by unknown men over the telephone. Freddie meets Prudence, and learns her caller was none other than Bill Lister, an old pal of Freddie's and godson of his uncle Galahad, with whom Prudence plans to elope.

The elopement is scuppered, however, when Prudence's mother Lady Dora has her sent to Blandings to cool off. Freddie and Galahad arrange for Lister to be near her, getting him a job painting Lord Emsworth's pig, Empress of Blandings. Freddie's wealthy American friend Tipton Plimsoll, after a lengthy binge celebrating his new-found wealth, decides to lay off the booze after mistaking Lister's gorilla-like face for an apparition, and heads down to Blandings with Freddie, who hopes to sell dog-biscuits to Tipton's stores.

At Blandings, Colonel and Lady Hermione Wedge are excited by the prospect of their beautiful daughter Veronica meeting such a wealthy man, even more so when the two hit it off immediately. Plimsoll, however, is thrown off by the reappearance of the face (Lister having come to gaze up at his beloved's window), and by Veronica's intimacy with Freddie, to whom, he learns, she was once engaged.

Lister's style fails to please Lord Emsworth, and the two fall out, but Freddie, at Gally's suggestion, smuggles him back into the castle disguised as a false-bearded gardener, having paid off Angus McAllister. Lister soon ruins things, however, when after scaring Plimsoll once more and terrifying Veronica, he mistakes her mother for the cook and tries to bribe her to pass a note to Prudence.

Gally heads to Blandings himself, for Veronica's birthday, and soon brings her and Plimsoll together by the simple expedient of putting the Empress in her bedroom. He also brings Lister with him, introducing him as another artist by the name of Landseer, counting on Emsworth's poor memory and the thick false beard to keep him from being recognised, but Freddie blows the gaff to Lady Hermione, while Gally is off bribing Pott the pig man to keep quiet, and Lister is asked to leave.

Also thanks to Emsworth's distracted nature, Freddie accidentally gives Veronica his wife's expensive diamond necklace (while the pendant he had bought for her was sent to Aggie in Paris). Gally smooths over a resurgence of jealousy in Plimsoll on seeing Vee in the necklace, by claiming it is false, and Plimsoll gives it to Prudence for the church jumble sale.

With Freddie desperate to get the necklace shipped over to his increasingly irate wife, and threatening to disrupt Plimsoll and Vee's happiness, Gally proposes to hold the family to ransom, getting the family's blessing for Prudence and Lister's marriage in return for the jewels. Lister, lurking in the gardens, glimpses an overjoyed Prudence on a balcony, but cannot catch her attention, so he fetches a ladder and climbs to the balcony. He is spotted by Colonel Wedge, who mistakes him for a burglar and fetches footmen and his revolver.

Lister, hearing the Colonel, tries to flee along a ledge to a drainpipe. He climbs down the drainpipe safely, but lands on Pott the pig man, who keeps him there until Wedge arrives. When Wedge hears Lister's story from Gally, he is impressed with the man's spirit and leaves him. Gally reveals he has lost the necklace, but hopes to bluff his sister.

Plimsoll arrives to confront his nemesis, and is delighted to learn Lister is real. Hermione approaches, and Gally successfully fools her into thinking he still holds the necklace; Emsworth, hearing his son is in danger of getting divorced and returning home for good, hurriedly pays for Lister's business. When Gally tells Hermione where the necklace is (in the flask taken from his room by Plimsoll), she is annoyed to realise she had it all along, Plimsoll having handed it to her when he still thought Lister was an hallucination.

Brothers Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), Reese (Justin Berfield), and Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan) wake up to a typical school morning - the three siblings fighting over waffles at breakfast and their mother Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) carelessly shaving their father Hal's (Bryan Cranston) excessive body hair. While walking to school, Malcolm and Dewey lay eyes upon the school bully, Dave Spath (Vincent Berry). In class, Malcolm's teacher (Merrin Dungey) comments on his talent for painting; in an act of jealousy, Spath pours red paint on his chair. Malcolm sits in the paint just before being called to see the school counselor, Caroline Miller (Catherine Lloyd Burns), and is ridiculed by everyone he passes on the way to her office. Caroline states her intentions to run some tests on Malcolm, and does so by holding up a tampered picture with several mistakes in it. Still annoyed at Spath's prank, Malcolm launches into a tirade, angrily yet correctly naming all the mistakes before yelling about the paint on his clothes. In an excited manner, Caroline stops her watch that she was using to time him.

After school, Malcolm arrives for a "play-date" with Stevie Kenarban (Craig Lamar Traylor). Realizing that Stevie's mother Kitty Kenarban (Dungey) is very protective, Malcolm concludes there is nothing to do until Stevie reveals he has a closet full of comics. The discovery instantly sparks a friendship. The next day, a topless Lois, after lecturing Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson) about smoking, is met by Caroline, who wishes to speak to her. After misconstruing that she wants to put Malcolm in a special class for intellectually disabled children, Lois is informed (off-camera) of Malcolm's academic capabilities. At the dinner table, Lois persuades a reluctant Malcolm to join the accelerated learning class ("the Krelboynes"), stating that it is important for him to join, as he will no doubt have a better future as a result.

The next day, Malcolm's teacher informs his non-interested class about how he is a success, and Malcolm finds himself surrounded by geniuses only a short while later. After accidentally insulting Stevie, Malcolm tries to make amends with him but Spath once again picks on Malcolm. This causes Malcolm to lose his temper and begins to insult Spath, telling him he's worthless. As the two break into a fight, Malcolm ducks as Spath's fist accidentally and softly brushes against the cheek of Stevie's face. Stevie overhears Spath's friends talking and then falls over in his wheelchair, turning the crowd against Spath despite his claim that it was an accident. As Malcolm and Stevie smile at one another, Malcolm realizes there are things worse than being a Krelboyne.

Afterwards, Malcolm then mentions what happens to Spath afterwards and debates whether he feels sorry for him or not. Dewey, who is under an overturned trash can on which Malcolm is sitting, yells to Malcolm to let him out.

On Christmas Eve, Winnie the Pooh is having trouble setting up his Christmas tree. Pooh slips and falls, and breaks a shelf holding a present he made for Piglet. When Piglet suddenly arrives, Pooh desperately searches for a new hiding place for the present (since the broken shelf can no longer stay up) as more of his friends arrive. Although they are able to find Pooh eating honey, they decorate his house. Rabbit points out that he made a present for Pooh, that is a Honeypot. After they settle down to tell stories, piglet is able to explain a story that he managed to find his way back home during a snow storm. Pooh tries to hide his honey pot in the broken cupboard but it causes a Honeypot Avalanche.

Rabbit Hosts a Christmas tree decorating contest where Tigger gets Tangled Up in Bells. Eeyore and piglet create a windy snow storm so that they could return back to their own homes but it causes havoc. By guilt, Pooh accidentally uses gopher's hole for refuge for piglet's gift where gopher points out that honey pots do not belong in holes. Everyone begins to wonder where is Pooh and what is taking him so long so they decide to hold an expedition (just like in the Tigger movie and Piglet's Big Movie). While they search, they all get lost and build a campfire. However Eeyore and roo also wander off and get lost. Pooh sadly begins moping about being lost, but after falling off a cliff, he goes flying off with piglet's gift. The friends do not notice Pooh's cry for help and search for Eeyore and roo. When they hear the sound of a Backson (that is like in Winnie the Pooh), they all split up to hide where they find Roo and Eeyore hiding in a tree.

After finding them, they all begin searching for Pooh where they find him about to be abducted by bees. They all rescue him with Tigger bouncing to grab hold of a scarf the bees were using to abduct him and luckily get him down from the tree. They all begin to make their way home but soon a snow storm hits. Everyone is frightened that they might get lost, but piglet uses a flashlight so they can find themselves out of the snowstorm. They still make it back to Pooh's house and celebrate Christmas. Pooh suddenly remember Piglet's gift and goes to get it. By the time he returns, piglet opens the gift to find a musical box that he made for him. They all hug and sing we wish you a Merry Christmas just as the film closes.

Deanna Troi is kidnapped and brought aboard the Romulan Warbird ''Khazara''. After waking up, Troi looks in a mirror and is horrified to find that she's undergone cosmetic surgery to make her look like a Romulan. Subcommander N'Vek, the ''Khazara'' first officer, privately explains that he has no intention of harming her, but needs her to pose as Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence service and secret police. N'Vek has secret cargo meant for the Federation, and needs Troi to act her role to convince the ''Khazara'' commander, Toreth (who is not aware of N'Vek's plan) into complying. Troi, as Rakal, is able to sway Toreth to head for a planned rendezvous in the Kaleb sector under threat of intense interrogation techniques.

Aboard the ''Enterprise'', the crew brings aboard Stefan DeSeve, a human who had served as an ensign in Starfleet before defecting to the Romulans. Now he has returned with a message from Ambassador Spock. Captain Picard, wary of his prisoner's motives, considers Spock's message regarding a meeting in the Kaleb sector that would be prudent for the Federation's interest, and directs the ship there.

As the ''Khazara'' is en route, N'Vek shows Troi the secret cargo - Vice Proconsul M'Ret and two of his aides, held in stasis. They wish to defect to the Federation, and his presence there would aid further Romulan dissidents to flee the Empire. The plan is to transport the stasis chambers to a Corvallen cargo ship at the rendezvous point, who will subsequently deliver them into Federation space. When the ''Khazara'' meets up with the cargo ship, Troi senses its captain is not trustworthy, and N'Vek fires upon it, destroying it. He claims he was ordered by Major Rakal. Troi later explains to Toreth that she recognized the captain of the cargo ship as a known Federation spy. N'Vek, in private, explains to Troi that their only other option is to travel to Draken IV, an entry point for the Federation, where Troi can use her Starfleet codes to allow the ship to enter undetected. Troi gives this order to Toreth, who reluctantly agrees to it. However, their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the ''Enterprise''.

The ''Enterprise'' arrives at the designated time and coordinates, but finds no trace of the cargo ship. They start a search, soon finding the wreckage of the vessel. As the ''Enterprise'' moves in, Toreth takes this as a sign of Troi's truthfulness. Troi wants to hold position, but the commander points out that with the wreckage nearby, they will be detected, and has the ship travel some distance away while the ''Enterprise'' continues to search. Troi is worried that the ''Enterprise'' will not be able to follow them, and has N'Vek create a trail of the cloaked ship.

Toreth learns of the ''Enterprise'' trailing them, and suspects that they've been detected. She orders a collision course for the vessel in order to test their reaction. When the ''Enterprise'' moves to avoid collision, Toreth orders the ship to decloak and attack. Troi steps in as Rakal and takes command from Toreth, then orders the ship to decloak and hails the ''Enterprise'', offering to discuss the matter. The ''Enterprise'' crew, though they recognize Troi, feign ignorance and take down their shields. N'Vek fires on the ''Enterprise'' with low-powered weapons, appearing to damage the vessel but in reality as a means to mask the transport of the stasis chambers to the ''Enterprise''. Toreth, realizing that she is being deceived, executes N'Vek and retakes control of the ''Khazara''. Before the Romulans can leave with Troi as their prisoner, Troi is safely transported to the ''Enterprise''. In sickbay, Troi's cosmetic surgery is reversed, and she contemplates the value of N'Vek's efforts to aid the Federation.

Darius Britt is an intelligent but disillusioned graduate of the University of Washington who lives at home in Seattle with her widower father and works as an intern at ''Seattle Magazine''. One of the magazine's writers, Jeff Schwensen, proposes to investigate a newspaper classified ad that reads: Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED.

Jeff's boss Bridget approves of his story idea and Jeff selects his team: Darius and Arnau, a studious UW student interning at the magazine to diversify his résumé for medical school applications. They travel to the seaside community of Ocean View to find and profile the person who wrote the ad. Jeff's ulterior motive for this out of town assignment is to track down his long-lost love interest who lives in town.

Darius discovers the ad was placed by Kenneth Calloway, a stock clerk at a local grocery store. Jeff's attempt to approach Kenneth alienates him, so Jeff orders Darius to make contact. Darius' disaffected attitude serves her well, and she quickly endears herself to Kenneth as she poses as a candidate to accompany him on his mission. While Kenneth is paranoid and believes secret agents are tracking his every move, Darius gains his trust as she participates in a series of training exercises in the woods around his house and she begins to develop feelings for him. She tells Kenneth about losing her mother when she was young and her mission is to prevent her mother's death. Kenneth says his mission is to go back to 2001 and prevent the death of his old girlfriend, Belinda, who was killed when someone drove a car into her house.

Meanwhile, Jeff tracks down Liz, a fling from his teenage years. Although she is not as attractive as he recalls, they reconnect and sleep together. He asks her to come back with him to Seattle, but she believes this is just another fling for him, so she refuses. Upset by her rejection, Jeff takes Arnau out on the town and they pick up some young women. Jeff tells Arnau to not waste his youth and convinces him to spend the night with one of the women.

The next morning, Jeff receives a phone call from Bridget, who has been following up the team's notes on the story. She informs Jeff that Belinda is still alive and lives an hour away from where they are. During an interview, Darius learns Belinda was only friends with Kenneth and Kenneth actually was the one who drove into her then-boyfriend's house, yet no one was injured. After the interview, Darius is questioned by two government agents who have been following Kenneth and believe that he may be a spy because of his communication with government scientists. They know Kenneth has been breaking into labs and stealing equipment.

Darius returns to Kenneth's house to confront him, but Kenneth rationalizes Belinda is now alive because his time travel mission succeeded. Jeff runs in to warn them that the government agents are also on the property. Kenneth panics and runs into the woods. Darius follows Kenneth, who has boarded his time machine, which has been integrated into a small boat on the lake. Darius apologizes for lying to Kenneth, tells him everything else they shared was real, and joins him on the boat. Kenneth tells Darius that his mission is now only to go back for her. Jeff, Arnau, and the agents watch as Kenneth and Darius activate the time machine and vanish. A filmed interview, presumably from earlier, shows Kenneth explaining why he chose to enlist a partner for his time travels.

Harry Collings and Arch Harris are two saddle tramps who have grown weary after seven years of wandering through the American Southwest. Along with a younger companion, Dan Griffen, they stop off in Del Norte, a ramshackle town in the middle of nowhere run by the corrupt McVey. Harris and Griffen discuss traveling to California to look for work when Collings abruptly informs them he has decided to return to the wife he left years before. Griffen leaves the two in a bar and goes to buy supplies. Some town thugs shoot him to death out of pure meanness. Collings and Harris escape, but they return that night. Collings shoots McVey in the feet, crippling him.

After riding hundreds of miles back to his old house, Collings finds a cold welcome from his wife Hannah. In order to be allowed to stay, he offers his services simply as a "hired hand". Hannah agrees and quickly puts him to work. Gradually, the distrust and unease caused by years of estrangement slip away, and the two begin to become close again. For the first time, Collings feels willing to settle down, but Harris leaves, wanting "to see the ocean".

McVey and his troupe of hooligans interrupt his life. Learning that they have kidnapped Harris, Collings leaves Hannah again, this time to save his friend. In a brutal shootout with McVey's gang, all of the villains are killed and Collings is fatally wounded. Harris rides alone to Hannah's house.

The game revolves around Bolt, an agent from Canewood's Lab. His first research expedition leads him to discover rare Karakuri robots known as Tokobots, one of which is Zero, a prototype gigantic, planet-destroying robot programmed for evil. Bolt must discover the secrets of the ruins, find Zero, and destroy it before it can destroy his world.

There are three human villains in the game who own robots and battle Bolt with large Karakuri robots: Flames, Bart, and Colonel Fuel (in order of appearance).

Kazuto Izuka is an average 14-year-old boy who one day encounters an abandoned puppy that turns into a space alien creature but is saved by schoolmate named Narue Nanase. When he goes to thank her, he discovers she too is a space alien whose father was part of a galactic exploration team. With the encouragement of his friend, Masaki Maruo, Izuka asks Narue out on a date. Narue is reluctant at first, but after Kazuto confesses his love to her, and assures her that he is not bothered by her alien heritage, Narue agrees and they start dating. They must deal with classmates who do not look favorably upon aliens, including Hajime Yagi, Narue's classmate and ufologist, who does not believe Narue is really an alien and thinks that she is lying to get attention. Narue's half-sister Kanaka moves to Earth along with Kanaka's caretaker Bathyscaphe who is an android spaceship. They also interact with other assorted characters, some of whom are aliens.

Every year, all of the classic Hollywood monsters (consisting of Frankenstein's monster, his wife Repulsa, a Mummy, the Witch Sisters, Bone Jangles the Skeleton, Dr. Jackyll/Mr. Snyde, Swamp Thing, and Dragonfly) gather at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania for the "Monster Road Rally", a road race similar to Wacky Races, awarding the winner with the "Monster of the Year" award as well as many other macabre prizes as announced by Dracula's wife and co-host, Vanna Pira. However, this year, Dracula receives a postcard from the Wolfman stating that he has retired to Florida and thus will not be participating in any more races.

Dracula fears they will have to cancel the race due to this sudden absence. Luckily, Dracula's wolf-like minion Wolfgang also notifies him of a way to create a new werewolf. After searching an old book for information, it is revealed that the full moon comes into the perfect position to transform a human into a werewolf every five centuries, on three nights in a row that begin the following night. The one next in line to become the next werewolf is revealed to be none other than Shaggy Rogers, who recently demonstrated his skills on the racetrack by winning a car race with the help of his pet dogs that serve as his pit crew, a talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo, and Scooby's young nephew Scrappy-Doo.

Dracula sends his hunchbacked henchmen, "The Hunch Bunch" (consisting of the unintelligent, incomprehensible Crunch and the sly, well-articulated Brunch), to America on a mission to turn Shaggy into a werewolf and bring him back to his castle for the race. On the first night, the Hunch Bunch attempt to cut a hole in the roof above Shaggy's bedroom to let the moon shine on him. However, Scooby learns of their plan prior and rescues Shaggy just in time before his transformation could begin, but fails to convince Shaggy and Scrappy of the Hunch Bunch's presence. The second night, they go after Shaggy while he is shopping with Scooby at a supermarket, but they again miss their window due to their own incompetence. On the final night, while the trio is at a drive-in movie, along with Shaggy's girlfriend Googie, the Hunch Bunch manages to expose Shaggy to moonlight by dropping the sunroof of his customized race car with a push of its button, causing Shaggy to be transformed into a werewolf.

However, an unexpected anomaly cuts the Hunch Bunch's celebration short when they learn that Shaggy’s hiccups force him to alternate between human and werewolf. Not noticing Shaggy's transformations into a werewolf, Googie sends Shaggy to a nearby snack bar for something to cure his hiccups, and he attracts horror from the other movie watchers along the way. Hearing them speaking of a werewolf loose in the theater, Scooby hides in a nearby car. The Hunch Bunch attempts to abduct Shaggy, who flees from them and is then chased by the crowd when they see him as a werewolf. Upon meeting Scooby and seeing his reflection, Shaggy flees the drive-in with his car, Scooby, Scrappy, and Googie in tow, escaping his pursuers with the car's customized features losing his hiccups in the pursuit and thus remaining trapped in werewolf form. The Hunch Bunch then knocks the group out with moon dust from their vehicle, the "Bat-Copter", and fly back to Transylvania, towing the car.

Upon reviving the group, Dracula informs Shaggy that he was turned into a werewolf in order to fill the missing slot in his monster road rally. Shaggy, having no desire to be a werewolf, is displeased and refuses to participate in Dracula's plans. After several failed attempts to bribe, blackmail, and coerce Shaggy, Dracula finally offers him a bargain: if Shaggy agrees to drive in the race and wins, Dracula will change him back to a human and allow him and his friends to leave. The deal is made, but Dracula is still determined to double-cross Shaggy and keep him as his werewolf.

The gang is then given good lodgings, treated as guests in the castle, and allowed all the food they wish for breakfast. Dracula then shows them the trail that Shaggy will have to follow for the race and consents to let them navigate the track in their own racecar, with the "Werewolf Wagon" currently undergoing maintenance for Shaggy. Dracula attempts to rig the track by sending the Hunch Bunch to implement traps, but despite their efforts, Shaggy completes the course expertly, making the Count worry that he may lose his werewolf. He subsequently changes the racecourse, sabotages the Werewolf Wagon, and has the Hunch Bunch deprive Shaggy of sleep.

The next morning, Googie energizes Shaggy with a kiss, and he repairs the Werewolf Wagon shortly after the race begins. Everyone conspires against Shaggy and Scooby throughout the race, from the Hunch Bunch's booby traps to some of the monstrous racers shrinking them or shooting lightning at them to Dracula himself putting up false detour signs and stealing their engine. But thanks to Googie and Scrappy, who follow along in their own car as their pit crew, as well as the incompetence of Dracula, the Hunch Bunch, and the racing monsters, they often end up doing more harm to themselves than him. After numerous failed attempts, Dracula loses his patience and unleashes his secret weapon: Genghis Kong, a towering ape-like beast. Genghis Kong grabs Scooby, much to his and Shaggy’s horror. As the other racers near the finish line, Googie and Scrappy return and rescue Shaggy and Scooby, then both pairs work together to make the monster fall onto the other cars, leaving an easy path to victory for Shaggy.

Furious to see all of his schemes have failed, Dracula refuses to revert the spell, stating that there is no way to turn Shaggy back. However, after Vanna Pira reveals that the solution is in Dracula's spellbook, the gang steals the book and make an escape. Dracula chases after them in his weaponized car and then his own plane after the car is destroyed in the chase. The four barely manage to dodge Dracula's powerful gadgets, and seconds before Dracula gets the best of them, a thunderstorm ensues. Dracula's plane is struck by lightning, sending him plummeting into the ocean below, where a shark chases him off.

In the end, back home, Googie uses the book to change Shaggy back to normal. That night, the gang all sit down to watch another horror movie and eat pizza. In this final scene, Dracula and the Hunch Bunch sneak up to their window and menacingly announce their return, ending the film on a cliffhanger.

The story circulates around a mysterious and dangerous island referred to simply as "G". A long time ago, a powerful god named Gestalt was banished to the earth and he had found refuge in the island known as G. To utter the name for which it stands is forbidden, for people were so afraid of the wrath of the god that they considered his name a curse. Father Olivier is a priest who has left his order and traveled to the island of G in order to discover the truth behind it. He ends up making the acquaintance of a young girl named Ohri, who turns out to be quite adept in magic.

Meanwhile, the head of the order has hired a dark elf, Suzu, to track down Olivier and bring him back. Suzu finds him easily enough. However, she hadn't anticipated the powerful sorceress in his company, Ohri. The girl disposes of Suzu for the moment, and she and the Father continue on. As if things weren't rough enough, the island of G has its share of monsters and magic-users to get in the way of their travels.

Dr. Kaff (or Dr. Cops; 카프 박사 in Korean), an evil scientist bent on world domination, creates an army of giant robots to kidnap world-class athletes and conquer the world. To fight off this attack, Dr. Kim creates ''Robot Taekwon V''. Kim Hoon, the taekwon-do champion and the eldest son of Dr Kim, pilots Robot Taekwon V either mechanically or through his physical power by merging his taekwon-do movements with the robot.

Comic relief is provided by Kim Hoon's younger buddy, elementary school student Kim Cheol. He has fashioned himself as "Tin-Can Robot Cheol" by cutting eyeholes in a tea kettle and wearing it on his head. Kim Hoon's girlfriend, Yoon Yeong-hee, is a pilot and taekwon-do practitioner. She can also operate Robot Taekwon V with buttons and levers, and pilots Kim Hoon in and out of the robot.

Specifications of Taekwon V

Robot Taekwon V's Digital Restoration According to the film's homepage, it is 56 meters tall, weighs 1400 tons, and power is 8.95 million kilowatts. According to an article published on May 31, 1999, 39 to 42 meters in height and 3,500 tons in weight (when viewing the height of the TaekwonV is 40 meters), the power is up to 31,700 kilowatt hours per hour.

Plagiarism

The Japanese giant-robot manga and anime ''Mazinger Z'' was popular in South Korea at the time of ''Robot Taekwon V'''s creation, and Kim Cheong-gi freely discusses the plagiarism of ''Mazinger Z'' on his animated film, saying he wanted to create a Korean hero for Korean children. In order to emphasize the Korean ties of the film, he had leading characters perform the traditional martial art, taekwondo, and gave the robot the ability to do taekwondo kicks.

The sequel, ''Super Taekwon V'', took designs from ''Gundam'' and ''Xabungle''.

The Digital Accident Tactics Squad (DATS) is a government organization established to maintain the peace between the Real World and the Digital World, transporting any Digimon back to the Digital World. Marcus, a junior high school student, becomes one of the members for the organization. He learns that the Digimon Merukimon is opposing mankind. However, the past is revealed that the scientist Akihiro Kurata was responsible for invading the Digital World. He gained the support of the government to oppose all Digimon species, claiming they were a threat to mankind. When Kurata uses Belphemon, Marcus defeats them. Before dying, Kurata uses a bomb to make the Digital World merge with the human world. While the Digimon BanchoLeomon prevents the collision, Marcus meets King Drasil (Yggdrasil), the supreme ruler who attempts to protect the Digital World by destroying mankind, since they cannot exist in both dimensions. Marcus learns that his father, Spencer, was trapped in the Digital World for ten years, because Drasil possessed Spencer's body and BanchoLeomon kept the latter's soul. After Marcus defeats Drasil, Spencer's soul returns to his body. With both worlds restored, all Digimon partners return to their own world. Five years later, Marcus and his friends embrace their future.

The protagonist of the previous two games is officially assigned a name, Colonel Christopher Blair. Thrakhath nar Kiranka, Crown Prince of the hostile Kilrathi Empire, presides over the execution by disintegration of a group of Terran Confederation prisoners of war. One, however, is left alive: Blair's lover Colonel Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux, due to her status among the Kilrathi as a respected warrior. On the planet Vespus, Blair and Brigadier General James "Paladin" Taggart inspect the downed wreckage of the TCS ''Concordia''. The carrier is a total loss.

It is the year 2669, and the Terran-Kilrathi War has been going for over thirty years, with no signs of stopping. Blair, by orders of Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, is transferred as Wing Commander to the TCS ''Victory'', a ''Ranger''-class carrier twice as old as Blair. Her captain, William Eisen, has been with her for many years, and is proud of his ship. There are a few old faces—Colonel Ralgha nar "Hobbes" Hhallas, and Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, but all the other pilots and staff are people Blair has never met. Among those on board, Blair meets Lieutenant Robin "Flint" Peters and Chief Fighter Technician Rachel Coriolis.

The ''Victory'' is assigned to the Orsini System, away from the front. Shortly after Blair's arrival, test pilot Major Jace "Flash" Dillon arrives on board the ''Victory'' with his prototype warcraft, the F-103A Excalibur heavy fighter. When Flash fails to respond to an attack on the ''Victory'', willfully napping through the crisis, Blair commandeers the Excalibur in defense of the ''Victory'' and, in an ensuing argument with Flash, accuses him of being a coward and repeatedly insinuates that he has no flying skills. This angers Flash who challenges Blair to a simulator duel. If Blair wins the duel, he forces Dillon to request reassignment to the ''Victory'''s flight wing. Immediately afterward the ''Victory'' is rerouted to the Locanda System, where the Kilrathi are deploying a potent pair of new weapons: the "Skipper" cruise missile, equipped with a cloaking device, and a genetically-engineered bioweapon for use against the Locanda colonies, the home of Flint. Blair and his wing are scrambled to defend Locanda against several of these missiles. Even if Blair destroys the missiles, Flint breaks formation and attacks the Kilrathi forces in an act of revenge. The player is given the option to follow her, though she returns safely in either case.

Thrakhath appears with a squadron of Pakthan bombers and taunts the ''Victory'' over subspace radio, calling Blair "the heart of the tiger"; the Confed pilots gather the Kilrathi have bestowed this name on him as a sign of respect. Admiral Tolwyn rendezvouses with the ''Victory'', escorted by several destroyers. Tolwyn is responsible for the escort and defense of the TCS ''Behemoth'', an extremely large vessel (essentially a titanic particle accelerator with engines) capable of destroying a planet. Following a successful field test of the ''Behemoth'' in the Loki system, the ''Victory'' jumps to Kilrah and Tolwyn prepares to use the ''Behemoth'' on the Kilrathi home world. Thrakhath's forces attack the Behemoth. A traitor aboard the ''Victory'' has transmitted targeting data to the Kilrathi revealing the ''Behemoth's'' weakpoints, and the ''Behemoth'' is destroyed. Thrakhath then challenges Blair in single combat. He taunts Blair with a recording showing how he personally disemboweled Angel after her colleagues were disintegrated. Blair's instinct is to accept, but Lt. Ted "Radio" Rollins warns him that the ''Victory'' is leaving the system. When he returns to the Victory, the player chooses between getting drunk or talking to Rachel about his loss. If Blair gets drunk, he must then fly an emergency scramble drunk, with the game controls not responding reliably, making combat virtually impossible.

After a retreat to the Alcor System, Paladin arrives. He reveals that before Angel was captured, she transmitted data indicating that the Kilrathi home world is seismically unstable. Paladin suggests a weapon called the Temblor Bomb which, if dropped in the right place, will cause the planet to shake itself to pieces. Before they can complete the bomb, Hobbes kills one of the ''Victory'''s pilots, Lt. Laurel "Cobra" Buckley, steals her fighter and makes for Kilrathi space with news of the planned T-Bomb attack. Blair has the choice of chasing him or letting him go. If he gives chase, he kills Hobbes, the carrier is attacked, and Lt. Mitchell "Vaquero" Lopez is killed in the fight. Either way, afterwards Blair finds Hobbes left a message locker, explaining that he was brainwashed long before he met Blair, and this brainwashing led him to defect to the Confederation. His original personality was reactivated by the code phrase "heart of the tiger", the Kilrathi name for Blair.

Blair has the option to choose to initiate a romance with Flint or Rachel. Flint refuses to fly with him if he chooses Rachel, Rachel refuses to help him with his missile loadouts if he chooses Flint, and both are bitter with him if he chooses neither. Blair launches against Kilrah, with up to three wingmen of the player's choice. This attack comes just as the Kilrathi prepare for a massive and devastating strike against Earth, intending to finally force humanity into submission with the loss of their home planet. After successfully downing Prince Thrakhath above Kilrah (and Hobbes, if he was not killed earlier), Blair descends to the surface and delivers the bomb. The resulting explosion destroys Kilrah and wipes out nearly the entire Kilrathi armada assembled in orbit, but damages Blair's fighter as well; a surviving Kilrathi capital ship tractors him in. Morally devastated by the destruction of their home planet, the Kilrathi, commanded now by Thrakhath's retainer Melek nar Kiranka, surrender to Tolwyn. The surviving Kilrathi begin to colonize a new homeworld and now want to live in peace and harmony with humans while Blair and his romantic interest make plans to start their new lives together.

1000 years ago, the Strega appeared in the small country of Zamuel. These Strega possessed mysterious powers, and passed their knowledge to the people of Zamuel, transforming the poor country into a prosperous nation. They bestowed upon them mystical objects, known as Jeno, which would enable ordinary humans to exercise powers to their own. However, the Strega underestimated the overwhelming drive of human ambition and greed. With this new power, the people of Zamuel would invade their neighboring lands. In no time, the entire continent transformed itself into a world of destruction and death.

Through the millennium, the continent struggled to return to the golden age of prosperity it enjoyed before the ''Jeno War''. Then one day the objects (now called Relics) were discovered in the Empire of Ipsen. After learning that these objects could allow a person to wield great power, the Emperor ordered Lord Zauber to restore them. News of the revival reached the descendants of Strega, and they pleaded with the Emperor to suppress the Relics. The Emperor responded by declaring war on the Strega. In the ensuing battle, most of the Imperial family, a great number of the high-ranking ministers, and many Strega were killed. Almost immediately, the other lords began vying for power, but the contest was a short one. Using the power of the relics, Zauber easily crushed the opposition. Having seized control, he appointed himself Prime Minister and began eliminating anyone who posed a potential threat. Fearing that the Strega would try once again to seal off the power of the Relics, Zauber began to systematically hunt down any survivors...

Onion John is an unusual man: a European immigrant who lives in a hut made of stone and furnished with bathtubs. He befriends young Andy Rusch, the only person in Serenity who can understand his speech. As Andy comes to know Onion John (so named because he grows the best onions in town, and eats them like apples), he finds that the man believes some odd things. In Onion John's world, friendly spirits live in the clouds, and evil spirits can be banished by smoking them out. His needs are few, since the townspeople are happy to give him castoff clothing after someone dies, and he earns a little money by doing odd jobs around Serenity. Andy and his friends are always happy to go along with whatever Onion John says.

Life turns upside-down for Onion John when Andy's father decides to get the Rotary Club to build Onion John a new modern home, complete with electricity, running water, stove, and only one bathtub. The whole town signs on, committees are created, and the house goes up on the site of John's old stone hut. Almost immediately after moving in, John, unused to modern appliances, leaves newspaper on the stove. The ensuing fire destroys the house. Mr. Rusch is determined to rebuild the house, never noticing that Onion John was uncomfortable and unhappy in his new surroundings. He wants to fumigate the whole town. Andy suggests to Onion John that for the people of Serenity to leave him alone, he should run away from town. However, Andy wants to run away with him. Onion John eventually leaves the town of Serenity.

In a small Mexican town, Vargas Diaz uncovers a hidden Aztec temple deep in the nearby mine. Luring the townspeople in, he blows up the entrance, trapping those inside forever. In exchange for the sacrificing the townspeople, Vargas receives eternal life.

Years later, a college couple vacationing in Mexico comes across the town, empty of people. After accidentally running into what appears to be a funeral procession, they uncover the deadly truth of the town's past. Every year on the Day of the Dead a human sacrifice is presented at the local church to appease the spirits of the town's original inhabitants; however, this year the couple interferes with their sacrifice. With nothing to appease the dead, they return to kill the transgressors.

Calling two of their friends for help, the four are left to fight off the growing hordes of the undead besieging their hotel, while trying to uncover the secrets hiding within the hotel's rooms.

Angel (Daryl Hannah) wishes for a baby of her own or a foster child to take care of, but her messy, dysfunctional existence makes this an impossible dream. Jo (Jennifer Tilly) is pregnant, wants an abortion, and can barely contain her rage at the world, which is useful in her moonlighting as a dominatrix. Jasmine (Sandra Oh) writes beautiful poetry on the side and finally finds a boyfriend. She tells him she's a stripper, but he maintains that he is all right with it. However, once he sees her dance at the club, he disapproves silently and leaves.

Jesse (Charlotte Ayanna), the youngest and newest stripper looks for acceptance and love among the strippers and customers, but is eventually beaten by her boyfriend, leading her to drink and depression. Stormy (Sheila Kelley) is having an incestuous relationship with her brother.

The film follows Josh Arnold (Thomas), whose family relocates to Corazon Sagrado, New Mexico, during World War II. The title of the book/film comes from a line in an ancient mariner's rhyme, ''"Red sky at morning, sailor take warning"''

The novel centres on three very different men:

• David (Davey) Fenwick comes from a mining family but is drawn towards politics, aspiring to help his people, and becomes a strong supporter of nationalisation. Initially, he finishes up his bachelor's degree and is a teacher at a school for the children of miners.
• Joe Gowlan begins as a miner, drifts and then becomes upwardly mobile as a bookie's assistant and a war-profiteer.
• Arthur Barras is the son of Richard Barras, the unscrupulous owner of the Neptune Colliery. He is unhappy with his father's values but also feels too weak to do much about it.

Reactions to the failure of industrial action on safety issues in the coal mines are crystallised in the characters of Davey and Joe, who take vastly different routes in escaping from the working class. While Davey becomes an MP to fight for nationalisation of the mines, Joe essentially joins the mine owners.

Jenny Sunley is Davey's indifferent wife who craves social status, and other characters have short but distinct tales of their own. Cronin shows a broad sympathy for the workers and a dislike of the bosses, but also allows that at least some of the bosses can be decent at a personal level.

Central to the story is the Neptune coal mine and a catastrophe that occurs there. The Great War is also a factor: do you volunteer to fight, volunteer for non-military duties, use trickery to evade service or openly defy the system by refusing call-up? There is a brief description of one of the tribunals that examined conscientious objectors, often refusing to accept their objection as valid. There is also a clear commitment to the idea of nationalising the mines, replacing the mass of small private owners that existed at the time.

The novel ends with most of the men much changed, and it is an excellent description of working-class life in the North of England during that period.

During a post-graduation party of a college student obsessed with serial killers, the guests are murdered one by one.

A young research doctor named Tom Gray is on the verge of a genetic cure for cancer. Nurse Casey Gordon is desperate to save the life of a child in her care and seduces Tom into testing his therapy. Early success brings romance into Tom's life for the first time, but Casey has a secret lover whose jealous anger puts their lives in danger, and Tom finds his cure has a dark side.

35-year-old Tripp still lives with his parents Al and Sue in Baltimore. His best friends Demo and Ace also still live in their parents' homes and seem proud of it. Tripp has many casual girlfriends. When he’s tired of them, he invites them to “his place"—and when they realize he still lives at home, they promptly dump him.

Al and Sue are fascinated when their friends, whose adult son recently left home, reveal they hired an expert to get him to move out. The expert is Paula, who believes that men continue to live at home because they have low self-esteem. Her approach is to establish a relationship with the man to build his confidence, then transfer his attachment from his parents to her.

However, Tripp does not fit her previous profiles, as he has normal social skills, good self-esteem, and a good job he enjoys. After an awkward encounter with his parents, Paula thwarts Tripp's attempt to dump her and has sex with him, while developing real feelings. She and Tripp find themselves in unfamiliar waters and confide in their friends.

Paula's vocation exasperates her roommate Kit, who thinks Paula took the job because a man broke her heart who lived with his parents. She is shocked to learn why Tripp lives at home: His life collapsed when his fiancée suddenly died, and his family has been his solace ever since.

Ace discovers what is going on and blackmails Paula for a date with Kit. Although Kit is more attracted to Demo, she and Ace wind up falling in love. Ace then "outs" Paula to Demo, who then tells all to Tripp. Tripp angrily confronts his parents and breaks up with Paula. Wracked with guilt, Paula refunds Al's and Sue's money. After an awkward confrontation, Tripp forgives his parents, but can't forgive Paula.

Tripp's parents and friends devise a plan to reconcile the two. They tie up and gag him, locking him and Paula together in a room. Paula pours her heart out, and he finally forgives her. The film ends with Al and Sue in their empty nest, happily singing "Hit the Road, Tripp". This fades into the closing credits over the Ray Charles song "Hit the Road, Jack", and we see Tripp and Paula sail away on his newly purchased boat.

In 1990, friends Braling and Smith take a walk one evening, much to the surprise of the latter, as Braling's wife generally tries to keep him from doing things he enjoys. Braling reveals to Smith that he has been using a robot duplicate of himself, Braling Two, to fulfill his obligations as a husband while he pursues his personal interests. His wife is completely unaware of the duplication. He plans to visit Rio de Janeiro for a month while his robot covers for him at home.

Smith, fascinated by this new (and technically illegal) technology, considers buying a duplicate to deal with his own wife, Nettie, who in the last month has been overly affectionate. Braling gives him a contact card for Marionettes, Inc. Smith goes home and finds his wife sleeping. He briefly wrestles with the ethics of deceiving his wife before getting out his bankbook to set aside the $8,000 he would need to purchase the duplicate. To his surprise, Smith finds that $10,000 is missing from their account. He checks the sleeping Nettie and realizes that she herself is a robot duplicate of his wife.

When Braling tries to return home and hide Braling Two, the robot resists him, expressing a love for his wife. Realizing that the duplicate is trying to replace him, Braling panics. The story ends ambiguously in the Bralings' bedroom with "someone" kissing Mrs. Braling affectionately.

A fictionalised version of author R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) is approached on a city street by a strange man (Vincent Price) who turns out to be a starving vampire named Eramus. Eramus bites the writer, and in gratitude for the small "donation", takes his (basically unharmed but bewildered) victim to the titular club, which is a covert gathering place for a multitude of supernatural creatures. In between the club's unique music and dance performances, Eramus introduces three stories about his fellow creatures of the night.

The Shadmock

A young, financially struggling woman (Barbara Kellerman) takes a job at a secluded manor house owned by Raven (James Laurenson), a hybrid creature called a Shadmock, who leads a troubled and tragic existence and is notorious for its demonic whistle. As time goes by, the girl, Angela, develops a friendship with the mysterious Shadmock, and he eventually proposes to her. Alarmed, Angela refuses, but her controlling boyfriend (Simon Ward) forces her to go through with it to gain the Shadmock's vast wealth. On the night of the engagement party, Angela is caught robbing the Shadmock's safe and screams that she could never love him. Heartbroken, the Shadmock whistles and destroys Angela's face. Her boyfriend is driven insane and locked away in an asylum upon seeing her.

The Vampires

The timid son (Warren Saire) of a peaceable family of vampires lives a miserable, lonely life where he is bullied at school and his father (Richard Johnson) spends little time with him. The son discovers his father is a vampire, being relentlessly, if ineptly, hunted by a team of bureaucratic undead-killers, The Blini or B-Squad, led by Pickering (Donald Pleasence). The hunters break into the house and stake the vampire father, but the tables are turned when the father bites Pickering, meaning that he will now have to be staked by his own assistants. A chase ensues, and Pickering is staked. After his men take his body away, the timid son and his mother (Britt Ekland) return to the basement to find that the father faked his death using a stake-proof vest filled with tomato ketchup.

The Ghouls

A movie director (Stuart Whitman) scouting locations for his next film pays a horrifying visit to an isolated, decrepit village, Loughville, where the sinister residents refuse to let him leave. He discovers to his horror that the village is inhabited by species of corpse-eating demons called ghouls who unearth graves for food and clothes. And now there are no more graves to plunder, and the ghouls are hungry for flesh. While imprisoned by the ghouls, he meets Luna (Lesley Dunlop), the daughter of a ghoul father (Patrick Magee) and a deceased human mother, making her a Hum-ghoul. Luna advises him to hide in the church, as ghouls cannot cross holy ground. Whilst in the church, the director discovers the terrifying truth of Loughville; centuries before, a swarm of ghouls invaded the village, mated with the humans, and made their nest there. With the aid of Luna, the director attempts to escape and almost succeeds - only for Luna to be killed by the ghouls and the director captured again and returned to the village by ghoul policemen.

At the end of the film, Eramus cheerfully lists to the other club members all the imaginative ways that humans have of being horrible to each other and declares that humans are the most despicable monsters of all. Thus Chetwynd-Hayes is made an honorary monster and member of the club.

Monsieur Brunel, a French detective on an exchange scheme in London, is assigned to investigate the apparent murder of novelist John Morlar. As they examine the crime scene, Brunel discovers the victim is still alive in spite of his severe head injuries and has him rushed to hospital.

With the help of Morlar's journals and Dr. Zonfeld, a psychiatrist Morlar was consulting, Brunel reconstructs Morlar's life. Seen in flashback, it is filled with seemingly inexplicable catastrophes and the sudden deaths of people he disliked or who grievously offended him. Morlar has become convinced that, consciously or unconsciously, he himself willed the things to happen. He had become even more convinced when a supposed psychic examined his hands, became greatly unsettled at what he foresaw, and refunded Morlar's fee. Dr. Zonfeld scoffs at this explanation, asking Morlar if he seriously believes in palmistry as a means of predicting the future.

As flashbacks continue, it becomes shown that Morlar has powerful psychokinetic abilities. Morlar's earlier legal career is seen to have halted in a courtroom defence speech that reveals his disgust at the world and offends the judge resulting in a lengthy imprisonment for his client. He inadvertently curses the judge, who soon after dies of a heart attack with a look of unaccountable terror. Later, he proves to Dr. Zonfeld that he is the instrument of disaster when, with her watching, he forces a Boeing airliner to crash into a London office tower, killing everyone on board.

Brunel eventually concludes that Zonfeld has attempted to kill Morlar in order to stop him causing more disasters, the most recent, at the time that he was attacked, involving American astronauts on a space mission that is being widely broadcast in the media. Failing to get him to stop, she had bashed in Morlar's skull with a blunt object and left him for dead. Brunel confronts her and she admits trying to kill Morlar. Brunel does not arrest her right away, partly because he is also becoming convinced of Morlar's telekinetic powers. Later, Brunel returns to Dr. Zonfeld's office, but he discovers she has committed suicide, having left a note apologizing to him for leaving such a mess to deal with. From his hospital bed Morlar manages to bring down a cathedral on the "unworthy heads" of a VIP congregation attending a fundraising event for the crumbling building's restoration. Brunel races to the hospital and tries to kill Morlar to end the destruction, just as Zonfeld had, but he, too, is unsuccessful. Morlar, who is inexplicably still alive, writes on a pad the name of his next target: Windscale nuclear power station. It will be Morlar's most destructive disaster yet.

To relieve his boredom, Emperor Ming the Merciless of the planet Mongo declares that he will play with and destroy Earth by remotely causing natural disasters. On Earth, New York Jets football star Gregory "Flash" Gordon boards a small plane, where he meets travel agent Dale Arden. Mid-flight, the cockpit is hit by a meteor and the pilots are lost. Flash takes control and manages to crash land into a greenhouse owned by Dr. Hans Zarkov. Zarkov believes that the disasters are being caused by an extraterrestrial source pushing the moon towards Earth, and has secretly constructed a spacecraft that he plans to use to investigate. Zarkov's assistant refuses to go, so Zarkov lures Flash and Dale aboard. The rocket launches, taking them to Mongo, where they are captured by Ming's troops.

The trio is brought before Ming, who orders Dale be prepared for his pleasure. Flash tries to resist, but is overpowered. Ming orders Zarkov be reprogrammed and Flash executed. Ming's beautiful daughter, Princess Aura, seduces Ming's surgeon into saving Flash, with whom she fell in love at first sight. As they escape, Flash sees Zarkov being brainwashed by Klytus, the metal-faced head of the secret police. Aura and Flash flee to Arboria, kingdom of Prince Barin. En route, Aura teaches Flash to use a telepathic communicator to contact Dale. He lets her know he is alive, while Aura starts kissing him. Dale is locked in Ming's bedchamber but, encouraged by Flash, she escapes. Klytus sends Zarkov to intercept Dale, who tells him and Klytus that Flash is alive. Zarkov then reveals he resisted the brainwashing, and escapes Mingo City with Dale. They are quickly captured by Prince Vultan's hawkmen and taken to Sky City.

Aura and Flash arrive at Arboria. Aura asks the Prince to keep Flash safe. A distrustful Barin, in love with Aura, agrees not to kill Flash, but then forces him to perform a deadly ritual. Barin and Flash take turns sticking their hands into a hollow stump with a giant scorpion-like wood beast inside. When Flash has to take an extra turn, he pretends to be stung as a distraction and escapes. Barin follows, but they are both captured by the hawkmen.

Klytus informs Ming that Gordon is alive and is given authority to find the responsible party. Aura returns and is taken prisoner and tortured by Klytus and General Kala. They force her to confess and Ming orders her banished to the ice moon Frigia once his wedding to Dale has taken place. Meanwhile, Flash and Barin are taken to Sky City, where Flash and Dale are briefly reunited. Flash is forced to fight Barin in a death match, but Flash instead saves Barin's life, causing Barin to join him. Klytus arrives, and Flash and Barin kill him. Knowing this will bring retribution, Vultan orders the hawkmen to evacuate, leaving Barin, Flash, Dale and Zarkov behind. Ming's ship arrives and he orders Barin, Zarkov and Dale to be taken aboard. Ming is impressed with Flash and offers him lordship over Earth in exchange for loyalty. Flash refuses and Ming gives the order to destroy Vultan's kingdom along with Flash. Flash finds a rocket cycle and escapes before Sky City is destroyed.

Flash contacts Vultan, who is hiding on Arboria, and they plot an attack on Mingo City. Flash pretends to attack Mingo City alone on his rocket cycle. General Kala dispatches the war rocket ''Ajax'' to kill Flash, but the hawkmen ambush and seize the rocket. Meanwhile, Princess Aura overpowers her guard and frees Barin and Zarkov from the execution chamber. Flash and the hawkmen attack Mingo City in ''Ajax'' and Kala activates the defenses as Ming's and Dale's wedding begins. Mingo City's lightning field can only be penetrated by flying ''Ajax'' into it at a suicidal speed. Flash volunteers to stay at the helm to ensure success and enable the hawkmen to invade the city.

Barin and Zarkov enter the control room and confront Kala, who refuses to cooperate. She attempts to kill Zarkov, but Barin shoots and kills her. Barin tells Zarkov to hold the fort while he heads to Sector Alpha 9 to deactivate the lightning field. Zarkov tries, but is unable to deactivate the shield from Kala's control room.

Barin fights through Ming's guards and gets to Sector Alpha 9 and deactivates the lightning field before ''Ajax'' hits it. Flash flies the rocket ship into the city's wedding hall and the ship's bow impales Ming. He drags himself off the rocket nose, seriously wounded, and Flash offers to spare his life if he will stop the attack on Earth. Ming refuses and attempts to use his power ring on Flash, but his power falters and nothing happens. He then aims the ring at himself and is seemingly vaporized by its remaining power, seconds before the counter to the destruction of the Earth reaches zero. A huge victory celebration ensues.

Barin and Aura become the new leaders in Ming's place. Barin names Vultan the general of their armies. Flash, Dale and Zarkov discuss returning to Earth. Zarkov says he does not know how they will get back, but they will try. Barin tells them all they are welcome to stay, but Dale says she is a New York City girl, and it is now too quiet around Mongo.

The final frame shows Ming's ring being picked up by the hand of an unseen person. Ming's evil laugh echoes as the ending credits roll. Following the credits, the text "The End" is shown on the screen before a question mark (?) is appended.

J G Miller, Jeff to his friends, takes on his first case at law with the aid of the father of his fiancée Myrtle Shoesmith. Miller’s performance questioning a witness is so lively that it is reported in the newspapers. Myrtle visits him to end their engagement, giving up on her project of moulding him. Jeff is relieved and happy. He celebrates with a drink, not tea, and tosses the rock cakes into the office across the way, which appears to be empty. He did not want to hurt his landlady’s feelings because he did not eat them. When the occupant of the office shows himself present and angry, Jeff races over to apologise. Chimp Twist, the detective in the office of J Sheringham Adair, thinks Jeff is coming to attack him and hides in a closet. Jeff arrives to the empty office, sits in the chair, and is present when Anne Benedick arrives to engage a detective. He falls in love with her on the spot and agrees to the job, as Jeff Adair.

Her uncle George, Lord Uffenham, follows his niece. Niece and uncle explain how Shipley Hall is rented presently to Clarissa Cork, employer of Anne, and a woman on a crusade to get people to eat a vegetarian diet, excluding even chocolates, as the African tribe she admires did not eat them. Lord Uffenham has turned the family wealth into a stash of diamonds, and following a car crash, he has yet to recall where he last hid the diamonds. He is known as Cakebread the butler to Mrs Cork, and she cannot fire Cakebread as a term of the lease. Cakebread spends time searching the Hall, including guest rooms, which has led Mrs Cork to hire a detective. Anne does not want Jeff to reveal that Cakebread is her uncle. Once at the Hall, Mrs Cork expands Jeff's tasks to watching her nephew Lionel Green and Anne Benedick, as she fears they are romantically involved. Lionel Green was the witness Jeff questioned with such unlawyer-like verve. To work with this man he dislikes, Jeff uses his gifts for quick thinking and talking to make terms with Green, including a few meat meals for Lionel. Lord Uffenham likes Jeff, and tells him about Anne’s engagement to Green, and encourages him to pursue Anne.

Mrs Cork sought a detective at J Sheringham Adair because Dolly Molloy, a guest at the Hall, recommended the firm. Dolly and her husband know Chimp Twist personally, and tell Jeff they are surprised to see him. Jeff says he bought the practice that day. The next day, Mrs Molloy goes to London to learn Chimp is still in business and that he heard the whole story about the mislaid stash of diamonds. The three plan to find the diamonds first, being small time crooks from Chicago. Mr Soapy Molloy has talked Mrs Cork into buying the phony oil stock he sells. Jeff makes terms with the Molloys; neither will expose the other. Nevertheless, Mrs Molloy drops heavy items that just miss Jeff, so he purchases accident insurance.

Jeff talks with Anne often in the days he is at the Hall, professing his love. She recalls having seen him somewhere, and finally realizes it was at a rugby football game the previous fall where he played for England, and the program listed him as J G Miller. She is quite angry at J G Miller for making a fool of her fiancé in court. Jeff kisses her once before she can walk away.

Mrs Cork sees Jeff kissing Anne. This scene persuades her that her nephew is not seeing Anne and Mrs Cork then heads to tell her nephew she will give him the loan he wants to buy to become a partner in the interior decorator shop with Mr Tarvin. Lionel has kept the engagement secret, wanting that loan more than he wants his fiancée. Anne is not pleased with him, especially when she discovers the deal Lionel made with Jeff, explaining why Lionel had not revealed Jeff's true name.

The crisis arises when Chimp Twist arrives at the Hall. Mrs Molloy sets up Chimp Twist to be caught by Cakebread, but Twist eludes capture by Cakebread and meets Mrs Cork when she calls him out of the wardrobe in Mr Trumper's room.

Jeff tells Mrs Cork that he came to the Hall under false pretenses because he is in love with Anne, and Mrs Cork allows him to stay. Then when she learns his correct name from her nephew, she orders him out. He then asks her to autograph his copy of her book, and she relents.

Cakebread leads the Molloys to think he left the diamonds in a jar with Pond's tobacco, as they find him and Jeff in the process of finding that jar. A tussle with a gun happens, Jeff is hit on the head, and Anne cries out for Jeff's sake. After the Molloys drive away with the jar, Uffenham comes up after releasing Mrs Cork and Mr Trumper from the cellar. While in the cellar, the two got engaged. The true location of the diamonds occurs to Lord Uffenham, the bank of the pond at the Hall and he retrieves them from that spot. Anne agrees to marry Jeff.

Annie is 18 and Carl 20. Although both of their families are against their marriage, the couple weds anyway. They move into a rented room near the college campus where Carl is enrolled in law school.

The novel deals with the first years of a couple who married young, Carl’s struggle to continue and keep up with his studies while he supports a spouse, and Annie’s struggle to learn the basic housekeeping skills then expected of a wife, contribute to their income despite her job skills, and attempts to better herself through education.

The college dean, initially skeptical of his student’s youthful marriage, approves of their willingness to work and bear their hardships, and befriends them. He offers helps from time to time, encouraging Annie to audit classes and finds a job for Carl that better accommodates his class schedule.

Annie befriends various townspeople, such as the grocer and florist. She audits a college writing class and tries to improve her education, and finds a job working in a dime store. The young couple manages to get by until Annie falls pregnant.

Carl’s overbearing mother disapproved of their courtship and marriage, accusing Annie of promiscuity. Annie’s mother accused her of eloping over pregnancy, so Annie keeps it secret for awhile. The Dean helps Annie get medical care for free at the university’s teaching hospital.

Annie and Carl manage to navigate youthful marriage and parenthood until Carl graduates. A friend of the Dean asks him to find someone, preferably married, to take over his law practice for a year while the friend travels. The Dean recommends Carl, pointing out that a year of general law practice will benefit him. When the year is up he will help Carl enter a local law firm while Annie attends university as a special student. Annie, Carl, and their child head off to the new law job with hopes for a happy future.

In the late 1920s, 18-year-old Annie McGairy travels from Brooklyn to a college town in the Midwest to marry her boyfriend Carl Brown, a law student, at the local courthouse. The newlyweds must overcome many obstacles, including disapproval from their parents (who knew each other before emigrating to the U.S. from Ireland), financial problems, and Annie's sexual insecurities. Due to the marriage, Carl's law school cuts off his loans, and his father cuts off support from home, forcing Carl to work multiple jobs on top of studying. Annie causes gossip in the town by befriending a lonely, gay florist and babysitting for the mistress of a married businessman.

Annie discovers she is pregnant, but before she can tell Carl, the couple have a heated argument caused by the stress of his night job interfering with the couple's marital intimacy. Annie leaves Carl and returns to her mother in Brooklyn, without telling Carl she is pregnant, not wanting to burden him while he finishes his education. Devastated by the loss of Annie, Carl's schoolwork suffers, putting him in danger of failing all his classes. When Carl's father discovers the situation, including Annie's now-obvious pregnancy, his attitude toward Annie softens, and he convinces the couple to reconcile. Annie helps Carl to catch up in his studies and pass his exams on the same day Annie gives birth. Carl graduates, and he and Annie celebrate a church wedding with family and friends before happily riding away with their new baby son.

The novel opens with a brief flashforward of Bertie and Jeeves driving home, with Bertie remarking that there is an expression, something about Joy, that describes what he has just been through. Jeeves helpfully supplies the phrase, "Joy cometh in the morning". Bertie proceeds to narrate the events that occurred.

Jeeves wants to go fishing at the village of Steeple Bumpleigh, but Bertie refuses because his fearsome Aunt Agatha and her second husband, the irascible Lord Worplesdon, live there at Bumpleigh Hall. Bertie makes it up to Jeeves by buying him a gift, a new edition of the works of Spinoza. In the bookshop, Bertie meets Florence Craye, Worplesdon's daughter, a serious, intellectual woman to whom Bertie was once engaged. She mistakenly thinks that Bertie is trying to improve his mind by reading Spinoza and her own book ''Spindrift'' that the bookshop keeper mistakenly gives him. Shortly afterwards, Bertie meets his college friend D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright, who is engaged to Florence. Meanwhile, Jeeves has been consulted by Worplesdon, who wants to arrange a clandestine meeting with an American businessman, Chichester Clam. Jeeves suggests that Bertie stay at a cottage (called Wee Nooke) in Steeple Bumpleigh, where the two businessmen could meet in secret. Bertie is incensed but calms when he learns there is a fancy-dress ball and that his Aunt Agatha is away from Bumpleigh Hall. She does, however, instruct Bertie to pick up and deliver a brooch as a birthday present for Florence, her step-daughter.

Bertie goes to Steeple Bumpleigh with his friend, Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood. She is engaged to Bertie's friend George "Boko" Fittleworth, who lives in the village. Lord Worplesdon, Nobby's guardian, does not approve of Boko and therefore has not consented to the marriage. On arrival, Bertie runs into Stilton who is a village policeman. Stilton believes Bertie is attempting to woo Florence and threateningly tells him to leave. Nobby tells Bertie that Florence wishes that Stilton be an MP but he refuses adding tension to their engagement. At Wee Nooke, Bertie encounters Florence's troublesome young brother Edwin, a boy scout. As one of his daily acts of kindness, Edwin attempts to clean the chimney only to burn down the cottage after using gunpowder and then paraffin. Lord Worplesdon blames Bertie for the fire and ruining his meeting with Clam. He invites Jeeves to stay at the Hall, leaving Bertie to lodge with Boko. Bertie later discovers that he has lost the brooch, so he sends Jeeves to London to obtain a replacement.

After welcoming Bertie to his cottage, Boko tells Bertie his plan to win Worplesdon's approval: he will pretend to stop a burglar at the Hall with Bertie playing the role of burglar. Despite his misgivings, Bertie agrees. Before he can break in, Bertie is interrupted by Edwin. He then runs into Jeeves, who says that Worplesdon and Clam plan to meet in the potting shed as Wee Nooke has been burned down. Boko mistakes Clam for an intruder and locks him in the shed, enraging Worplesdon. When Worplesdon insists that the imprisoned Clam is not a burglar, Boko (unaware of the plan) heavily berates him, straining their relationship even more. Jeeves devises a new plan where Boko come to Worpleson's defense while Bertie insults Worplesdon, but Bertie refuses. Edwin tells Bertie that Florence and Stilton have fallen out and that he found the original brooch and gave it to Florence. Florence confirms the engagement is over after Stilton criticised Modern Enlightened Thought. Bertie tries to reason with her but instead she kisses him believing that he is being selfless and that the brooch was a present from him and renews their engagement, much to his horror.

Boko, once engaged to Florence himself, agrees to disclose how he alienated her if Bertie insults Worplesdon. Jeeves, however, discovers that Boko alienated her by kicking Edwin. Bertie decides to do the same, yet Florence actually approves, as Edwin had messed up her scrap album. Nobby promises Bertie to show Florence a letter in which he insulted her if Bertie insults Worplesdon. Bertie visits his uncle's study, but before the plan can proceed Boko is escorted from the grounds by a gardener. Worplesdon receives Bertie warmly after hearing he kicked Edwin. Jeeves advises that Bertie suggest to Worplesdon that he and Clam meet in disguise at the fancy-dress ball to take place that night. Worplesdon wears a Sindbad the Sailor costume that Bertie had brought for himself. Boko drives to London to buy himself and Bertie new costumes but brings back the wrong bag. Jeeves steals Stilton's police uniform for Bertie so he can attend the ball and persuade Worplesdon to approve Nobby marrying Boko. Worplesdon's negotiations with Clam are successfully concluded by the time Bertie arrives. Worplesdon warms to Boko when he hears that he has also kicked Edwin and will shortly be starting a job far away in Hollywood, six thousand miles away. He approves the marriage.

In the morning, Bertie discovers that Worplesdon has been accidentally locked in Boko's garage overnight. Worplesdon emerges furious with Boko and withdraws his approval of the marriage. Worplesdon is horrified, however, when Jeeves informs him that Aunt Agatha, who disapproves of all fancy-dress balls, has returned unexpectedly and wants to know where Worplesdon has been. Jeeves suggests that Worplesdon say he spent the evening discussing the wedding plans with Nobby and Boko, then slept at Boko's cottage overnight. Worplesdon agrees, consenting to the marriage again. Stilton arrives on the scene and tries to arrest Bertie for stealing his uniform, but Worplesdon gives Bertie a false alibi. Nobby informs Bertie that Edwin has destroyed the insulting letter that Bertie wanted her to show to Florence. Stilton resigns from the police force in disgust at Worplesdon's underhanded behaviour which causes Florence to reconcile with him to Bertie’s delight. Bertie prepares to face his Aunt Agatha with Worplesdon but Jeeves confesses that he lied about her returning.

With no reason to stay, the pair escape from Steeple Bumpleigh by car. Bertie tries to remember an expression which he feels sums up recent events, something about Joy, but notes that he already narrated all this before.

Part I

Shade, Marina and their friends in the Silverwing colony fly in the middle of the winter in hopes of finding Shade's father, Cassiel. The bats find a Human building, and fly inside, thinking that Cassiel might be there. Inside, they find an artificial forest filled with many other kinds of bats. The Silverwings discover that they cannot escape and that Cassiel is not there. Panic arises when several bats disappear, including Shade's friend, Chinook. Shade and Marina escape by way of a river that runs through the forest and find another artificial forest, this one filled with owls.

Upon arriving in the other dome, Shade and Marina befriend Orestes, a boreal owl and the son of the owl king. Owls begin to disappear, as well, and Shade discovers that humans are experimenting on them. Shade has a run-in with Goth, whom he is surprised to find alive, let alone in the same facility. Eventually, Shade, Orestes and Goth are captured by the humans while Marina escapes. The humans shave a patch of Shade's fur, attach a disc to his belly and a stud to his ear, and put him in an airplane flying south. Inside, he finds Chinook, who is confused about the purpose of the metal discs and studs.

Part II

Marina is clinging to the plane, but is soon thrown off by the turbulence. She breaks Frieda, Ariel and two other Silverwings out of the building. They then encounter a Graywing colony and learn that the owls have laid siege to Hibernaculum, believing the actions of Goth and Throbb to have been perpetrated by Silverwings. Devastated at this news, they decide to recruit additional helpers in Bridge City, which is possibly the only safe haven left for bats.

In the plane, Shade and Chinook escape to see that they are on the outskirts of a city beside a massive jungle, which Shade realizes to be Goth's homeland. They see that the other bats wearing the earpiece are induced to fly into a target building. Shade reels back when he sees that the metal discs explode when the bats carrying them reach the target. Shade and Chinook are able to free themselves of the discs and find a group of survivors who are hiding from Goth's species, the ''Vampyrum spectrum''. Shade begins to learn more about them from a weakened bat named Ishmael.

Part III

Goth, reaching his home in an ancient Mayan pyramid, is anointed king and told of a prophecy by his priest, Voxzaco. According to the prophecy, if a hundred hearts are offered to their god, Cama zotz, the coming solar eclipse will last forever, allowing Zotz to rule both the Upperworld and Underworld. Meanwhile, the Silverwings make their way to Bridge City and hold a council of war about the rumoured threats to the bats. The northern rat king, Romulus (now estranged from Remus), agrees to help them. He puts them in touch with Cortez of the Southern rats, who can access waterways to Central America.

Shade hastens to rescue his father, who they discover is now a captive of Goth's clan. On the way, both Chinook and the owl prince, Orestes, are captured by a small group of ''Vampyrum spectrum''. While contemplating the loss of Chinook and Orestes, Shade notices something burrowing into Statue Haven and finds himself reunited with his mother and Marina. Shade, Marina, Ariel and a group of rats led by General Cortez enter the pyramid and a battle ensues. Shade discovers his father and Ishmael sacrifices himself to save his trapped brother. Voxzaco realizes that there is no way to sacrifice one hundred hearts before the brief eclipse ends, except by using the explosive disc brought by Goth. He therefore attempts to drop it on the pyramid. As it falls, Shade uses sound waves to keep it in place just long enough for most northern bats to escape. Exhausted, Shade lets it drop afterward, destroying the pyramid and killing all inside.

Victorious, the northern group returns to Bridge City and meets with the owl king for a truce. With Orestes' help, Boreal agrees to let bats fly in daylight. Afterward, Frieda, the eldest of the Silverwings, dies peacefully. A new Tree Haven is then built with Shade's mother, Ariel, as the new elder. Shade gets to know his father and the family adopts Chinook, who was orphaned by the bombing. In the last scene, Marina reveals to Shade that Chinook had offered to make her his mate. She says that she refused, intending to be Shade's mate instead.

Los Angeles is being struck by a crime wave. There seems to be no link between the victims and their cause of death - burning from the inside out. Supernatural powers seem to be involved.

Angel investigates the deaths, and Cordelia tries to find a band of child thieves. Both searches lead in the same direction - a rich slumlord who is imprisoning the children's immigrant parents.

Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia all have difficulties in L.A., but they realize it's much harder for these immigrants. Angel hopes to help before it is too late.

After saving a young woman from her rogue bodyguards, Angel is hired by a big Hollywood studio head, Jack Willitts, to guard the girl in question; his daughter, Karinna. Angel is persuaded when his co-workers point out there is rent to deal with, and Cordelia even convinces Jack to give her a job (Unfortunately, it is as a tour guide rather than an actress).

Angel takes Karinna to several popular nightspots, writing her off as a spoiled brat. Cordelia believes Angel is getting too close to the case, but the situation soon worsens. Karinna gets into trouble while Angel and company are being tracked by an unknown creature, trying to destroy anything getting in its way.

Angel eventually finds himself trapped in a supernatural struggle for power and immortality, as an Irish magician, Mordractus, reveals that he has been tracking Angel. Mordractus is attempting to summon a powerful demon, but the spells are draining his life energy, and he will soon die unless a way of surviving is found. Knowing that Angel is immortal, yet retaining a soul, Mordractus attempts to steal Angel's 'essence' to allow him to duplicate that feat, but Angel escapes and Mordractus is banished to Hell.

In nineteenth-century Macao, Mr. Clay (Orson Welles) is a wealthy merchant at the end of his life. His only constant companion is his book-keeper, a Polish-Jewish emigrant named Levinsky (Roger Coggio). One evening, while reading to Clay before bed, Levinsky recites a prophecy by Isaiah. Clay declares his hatred of prophecies and begins to tell a story he once heard on a ship of a rich old man who offers a sailor five guineas to impregnate his wife, however Levinsky completes the story, having heard it himself from multiple other seamen. Clay becomes obsessed in making that legendary tale come true, and Levinsky is dispatched to find a sailor and a young woman who will play the part of Clay’s wife.

Levinsky approaches Virginie (Jeanne Moreau), the daughter of Clay’s one-time business partner. Clay’s ruthless dealings drove Virginie’s father to bankruptcy and suicide, and she is eager to participate in this action to get her revenge. The destitute sailor, a young Dane named Paul (Norman Eshley) recently rescued from a desert island, is discovered on the street and recruited. Having heard the story himself as well, Paul at first refuses to participate, but agrees when Clay reminds him that he needs the money.

Virginie and Paul find an emotional bond in their brief union, but go their separate ways – Virginie is exorcised of her bitterness against Clay while Paul disappears into Macao’s teeming streets. Before doing so, he asks Clay to give Virginie a shell he found on his desert island that will play a “song” if she holds it to her ear. Levinsky goes to inform Clay about what took place, but discovers the old merchant has died. He puts Paul’s shell to his ear, and remarks to Virginie that he has heard the song before but cannot remember from where.

Angel, better than most, understands the importance and meaning of the soul. Angel's soul have driven him on his journey of redemption. Now Angel discovers those who would pay for a soul.

Doyle, Cordelia, and Angel find a girl whose soul has been taken away from her. It seems a soul trade is developing its own black market; the soul is an item of wealth to gamblers, junkies, and others in L.A.'s vast underworld. The soul of an innocent girl is a desirable item... until Angel appears on the scene, with a soul that is- literally- one-of-a-kind.

A wealthy actress, Whitney Tyler, requests the help of Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle. She plays a vampire on a popular TV show, and a small number of viewers seem to believe she is actually a real vampire and have made attempts to kill her.

Doyle is pleased the case isn't relying on painful visions and Cordelia is starstruck, but Angel is confused; Whitney resembles someone he knew two centuries earlier.

The attempts to kill Whitney continue, while Angel, Doyle and Cordy discover a symbol that links the attackers to an ancient battle. Angel must put the pieces together.

Doyle has a vision of a seismic shift, and everyone's guard goes up. After investigation, Angel is led to a group of Serpentine demons who live locally in a wealthy and private community. Despite close associations with telemarketing, this group of 'monsters' seems harmless and has no enemies, yet it has become the target of a clan of underground quake demons. The quake demons can reduce living things to a crushed mess.

Cordy and Doyle are dubious of their new clients, but Angel soon finds out he has much in common with this community.

A decayed corpse at a Hollywood construction site appears to be a harbinger of more supernatural evil. Meanwhile, Doyle has a vision which leads him to a strange address. He, Angel and Cordelia start tracking a cigarette girl, Betty McCoy. Mike Slade, a new P.I. in town, is also tracking this girl. He dresses and acts behind the times, yet his agenda is modern, and he opposes local officials. Angel and his team soon find their research leads them to Slade. They must piece together a story involving the cigarette girl, a water commissioner, and a host of disappearing demons.

Cordelia suggests beginning a Web site for their detective agency, but Angel is hesitant—as Doyle points out, "people in trouble want to interface with a face." Meanwhile, the police discover a trail of corpses across the city. The only connection between these victims (apart from the cause of death) is their hobby of online chatting. It seems a techno-savvy demon must be on the prowl, hoping to complete a ritual going even beyond a World Wide Web.

On July 3, at the Uneeda medical supply warehouse, foreman Frank tries to impress new employee Freddy by showing him military drums of toxic gas called Trioxin that wound up in the basement of the building. Frank accidentally unleashes the toxic gas in one of the barrels, which seemingly melts the cadaver inside and reanimates another cadaver stored in a meat locker. Joined by their boss Burt, the three discover that every part of the zombie can survive independently. Burt has the zombie incinerated at a nearby mortuary by his friend Ernie, but this inadvertently causes the deadly gas to contaminate the air, creating a toxic rainfall that reanimates the corpses in a cemetery.

Meanwhile, Freddy's girlfriend Tina and his friends Spider, Trash, Chuck, Casey, Scuz, and Suicide arrive at the cemetery to meet Freddy at his job. While Trash starts stripping on a Gravestone, Tina goes to the warehouse first and wanders into the basement, where she encounters the reanimated but horribly disfigured cadaver from the barrel that was assumed to have dissolved. The rest of the group arrives shortly after and saves her in the nick of time, although Suicide is killed. After Casey realizes she saw Freddy entering the mortuary, the group attempts to reach him through the cemetery, where they are attacked by the re-emerging zombies. Trash is killed and Chuck and Casey flee back to the warehouse, but Spider, Tina, and Scuz reach the mortuary. The three discover Frank and Freddy growing ill from their exposure to the gas, with a medical test implying they are no longer alive. When Burt and Ernie learn of the dead rising from their graves, they barricade the mortuary thereafter. Scuz is killed while protecting the barricade and the zombies eat the paramedics and police who arrive on the scene.

With Frank and Freddy showing signs of becoming zombies themselves, Burt has them locked in the chapel, accompanied by Tina when she refuses to abandon Freddy. Freddy soon attempts to eat Tina, prompting Burt, Ernie, and Spider to rescue her by reopening the chapel. Frank manages to escape during the chaos and, still having control over his mind, commits suicide by immolating himself. Burt and Spider flee the mortuary in a police car, but the large number of zombies forces Burt to leave Ernie and Tina behind. Ernie and Tina hide in the mortuary's attic, while a blinded Freddy attempts to break in.

Burt and Spider manage to get back inside the warehouse where they find Casey and Chuck. After incapacitating the basement zombie, whom Spider names "Tarman", Burt attempts to contact the police but learns they are massacred by the zombies after being overrun. Burt then decides to call the number on the military drums, which reaches military officer Colonel Glover. Notified that the zombies have taken over the area, Glover has the town destroyed by nuclear artillery on the morning of July 4, effectively killing Burt and the other survivors.

In the wake of the nuclear strike on Louisville, Colonel Glover is heard telling his commanding officer that everything went as planned and that the results couldn't be more positive. Only a small area was destroyed, he says, and casualties are limited; plus, the toxic rain - which, again, is burning skin on contact - is putting out the fires. As he speaks, more zombies in Resurrection Cemetery are heard screaming in their graves, indicating that the invasion is about to begin again.

In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew", reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Prew is a career soldier (a "thirty-year man") with six years' service, an excellent bugler, and a former boxer. He was transferred from his last unit, a Bugle Corps, with a reduction to the lowest rank after complaining that a less skilled bugler, who was a friend (possibly a romantic partner) of the Chief Bugler, had been made First Bugler over him.

G Company's commanding officer is Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes, the regimental boxing coach, who chose Prew for his unit because of Prew's past history as a talented welterweight boxer. Holmes thinks that winning a boxing championship will greatly help his chances for promotion and concentrates on building a strong team, offering incentives such as promotions to men who box well. However, Prew swore off boxing after accidentally blinding his sparring partner and even transferred out of a past regiment to get away from boxing. Prew refuses to box for Holmes' team, resulting in his being given "The Treatment" by his platoon guide Sergeant Galovitch and others. "The Treatment" is a daily hazing ritual in which Prew is constantly singled out for extra drill exercises, unwarranted punishments, and undesirable work assignments in hopes of breaking him down through exhaustion. Despite the abuse, Prew stubbornly refuses to change his mind about boxing.

Holmes' First Sergeant Milt Warden is a career soldier, who, as the ranking non-commissioned officer, does most of the work of running the company while Captain Holmes is off pursuing either his promotion or women. Warden is both efficient at his job and understanding with the men under him. He comes to respect Prew, and at one point even stays out late getting drunk with him and then makes sure he gets home safely without being disciplined. Warden has also heard that Holmes' beautiful wife, Karen, has slept with a number of other men in his unit and begins an affair with her himself. Warden finds out that Karen's promiscuous behavior is due to her husband's cheating and giving her gonorrhea a few years after their marriage, forcing her to have a hysterectomy as part of the cure. Karen and Warden fall passionately in love, and Warden continues to see her in secret despite the risk to his career and a possible military prison sentence at Leavenworth if her husband finds out. Holmes realizes that his wife is having an affair but does not suspect that it is with Warden. Karen wants Warden to take a training course to become an officer so she can divorce Holmes and marry Warden, something that Warden feels would be improper on top of his already mixed feelings about officers. Over time, the strain of keeping the relationship secret also begins to put a damper on their feelings.

Prew befriends a new young soldier, Private Angelo Maggio, whose temper and impetuous behavior sometimes get him into trouble. Returning from a drunken night on the town, Prew and Maggio encounter military policemen (MPs), and Maggio fights them. As a result, Maggio is sentenced to a term in the stockade, the local military prison. At a local brothel catering to servicemen, Prew meets a beautiful prostitute, Lorene, whose real name turns out to be Alma Schmidt. Lorene is planning to save the money she makes and use it to establish herself in respectable society back in her Oregon hometown and eventually marry a man who is so respectable that no one would ever believe she had been a prostitute. Over time, she and Prew fall in love, but she refuses to marry him because she does not think he is respectable enough.

Just before the company's big boxing match, Prew gets into a fight with Private first class Isaac Bloom, one of the boxers, and beats him so badly there is a concern that Bloom can no longer box. However, Bloom boxes and wins his match with a quick knockout. Later, Sergeant Galovitch attacks Prew with a knife while Prew is unarmed. Prew knocks out Sergeant Galovitch but refuses to testify that Galovitch had a knife; as a result, Prew is sentenced to three months in the stockade. While Prew is in the stockade, Bloom, a closet homosexual, commits suicide.

In the stockade, Prew sees prisoners routinely beaten and abused by Staff Sergeant "Fatso" Judson, the prison second-in-command. Prew reconnects with Maggio, who is in the "Number Two" barracks where the hardest and most recalcitrant prisoners are kept. Maggio has undergone repeated beatings and solitary confinement in the prison and is now hardened as a result. Prew schemes to be transferred into Number Two by committing an infraction and then being beaten and then spending time in the "Black Hole", a dark solitary confinement cell where prisoners are fed minimal bread and water rations. When he comes out, he is placed in Number Two and forms a camaraderie with the other prisoners there. Maggio finally schemes to get out of the prison and out of the Army altogether by pretending to have gone crazy. He is repeatedly beaten for many days by Judson, who strongly suspects that he is faking and is trying to get him to admit it. Judson fails to get an admission out of Maggio although Maggio manages to get a message back to his friends that he is all right. Maggio is finally given a Section 8 dishonorable discharge, and Prew never sees him again.

Judson interrogates one of the other Number Two prisoners, Blues Berry, and ends up torturing and beating Berry to death in front of his Number Two barracks mates including Prew. Prew vows to kill Judson when he himself is released. Shortly thereafter, Prew is released and returns to Company G, which is much changed. Holmes received a promotion and left the company, and Galovitch was reduced in rank after the knife fight incident. After a few days, Prew goes into town, finds Judson, challenges him to a knife fight and kills him, but Prew sustains severe injuries. He goes AWOL to Alma's house to recover and stays there after he is well even though his relationship with Alma is slowly deteriorating. Prew no longer wishes to make the Army his career but has no other ideas about what he might do, and Alma is making plans to return to Oregon without him. Prew is afraid of imprisonment for killing Judson, but during a clandestine meeting with Warden, he finds out he has not been suspected in the killing. However, Warden tells Prew he might have to serve a month in the Stockade for the time he spent AWOL, causing Prew to go back into hiding at Alma's to avoid returning to the stockade.

The Japanese suddenly attack Pearl Harbor although most of the damage is done at the harbor and Hickam Field rather than the Schofield Barracks. Prew decides he must return to his unit and says goodbye to Alma forever. On the way back, he is stopped by guards and because he has no identification, they begin to arrest him. Not wanting to go back to the stockade, he runs and is shot dead. Warden comes to identify him and collect his personal effects.

Warden bids a fond farewell to Karen since he will be involved in combat in World War II, and she is returning to the mainland United States. The two are sad to be breaking up but better off for having known and loved each other. On the ship leaving Hawaii, Karen meets a beautiful and elegantly dressed girl, who says that she was an executive secretary on the island and that her fiancé, named Robert E. Lee Prewitt and from "an old Virginia family", was a bomber pilot killed in the attack on Hickam Field who posthumously received the Silver Star. Karen, told by Warden about Prew, realizes that the girl is the former prostitute, Lorene.

The film opens with a fictional depiction of a real-life incident, the "Hood event". On July 4, 2003, the Turkish soldiers believe they are receiving an ordinary visit from their NATO allies, but a sudden change occurs, and 11 allied Turkish special forces soldiers and 13 civilians are arrested by Colonel Sam William Marshall (Billy Zane), in the northern Iraqi town of Sulaymaniyah. They are forced to wear hoods while in detention, and are released some time later.

A Turkish officer named Suleyman Aslan, who was a member of the special forces troops involved in the Hood event, is unable to bear the shame of what happened, and commits suicide. Before doing so, he writes a letter saying goodbye to his friend, Polat Alemdar (Necati Şaşmaz). Alemdar is a former Turkish intelligence agent who has recently severed links to the government agency for which he worked. Determined to avenge his friend's humiliation, Alemdar travels to Iraq along with several of his colleagues, seeking vengeance on the American commander whose actions led to Aslan's suicide.

At a checkpoint, Alemdar and his team kill three Iraqi Kurdish paramilitary Peshmerga soldiers. They attach explosives to the foundation of a hotel, to which they demand Colonel Sam William Marshall, who was responsible for the hooding incident, come. When Marshall arrives, Polat wants him to put a sack over his head and to publicly leave the hotel with him, allowing journalists to take photos, taking the same insult he committed to Polat's dead friend. The group threatens to blow up the hotel unless Marshall and some of his men let themselves be led out of the hotel while hooded. Marshall refuses and brings in a group of Iraqi children as human shields. Alemdar gives in and leaves.

Marshall raids an Arab wedding on the pretext of hunting "terrorists". When the usual celebratory gunfire starts, one soldier states: "Now they are shooting, now they are terrorists"; they attack a wedding party, where a small child named Ali sticks a branch up the barrel of one of the soldiers' guns. At first, the soldier just hushes the boy away; the second time, he opens fire and afterwards looks astonished as he sees the little child dead. The rest of the soldiers panic and open fire on the wedding guests, beat up the bride, shoot the groom, the guests and children. The survivors are captured and forced into an airtight container truck and sent to Abu Ghraib prison.

En route to Abu Ghraib, an American soldier complains that the prisoners might be suffocating in the truck. One of Marshall's men then fires on the truck, spraying the detainees with bullets. "See, now they won't suffocate to death", he says. When the soldier threatens to report the incident, he is promptly shot. In Abu Ghraib, a group of American soldiers, among them the sole female Westerner in the film (a clear reference to Lynndie England and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal), is making naked human pyramids from those arrested in the wedding, aided by an Arab interpreter. The prisoners are washed with high pressure nozzles in what appears to be cattle stalls.

In a later scene, the execution of a Western journalist by Iraqi rebels is about to take place, but the sheikh Abdurrahman Halis Karkuki, who is esteemed by the rebels, prevents it, and offers the journalist the opportunity to kill the rebel who was about to kill him. The rebel does not resist, but the journalist declines the offer. Thereafter, the bride who survived the earlier massacre, Leyla, wants revenge by becoming a suicide bomber, but is talked out of it by the Sheikh. Leyla hurries to a market to stop her brother-in-law Abu Ali, the father of the child killed at the wedding, from blowing himself up in the place where Col. Marshall is having a meeting, but she arrives too late. Alemdar and his men, who are there to assassinate Marshall, are led to safety by Leyla.

Alemdar and his team then attempt to kill Marshall again by rigging a bomb in a piano (which once belonged to Saddam Hussein) that is being delivered to Marshall as a gift. The bomb explodes prematurely, and Marshall survives. Alemdar and Leyla then go to a mosque, to meet the sheikh. Marshall tracks them down, however, and a big firefight ensues. The entire village and mosque are destroyed by heavy gunfire. Together they manage to kill Marshall, but Leyla is also killed by Marshall.

The game takes place fifteen years after the defeat of Nobunaga Oda at the end of ''Onimusha 3: Demon Siege''. Nobunaga's former vassal, Tokichiro Kinoshita takes the name of Hideyoshi Toyotomi as he unites Japan and brings an end to the Sengoku Period. But the peace comes to an end when the "Omen Star" appears in the sky: Several natural disasters occur as Hideyoshi sends his armies to attack the mainland Asia as the Genma resurface. Hideyoshi, like his master before him, uses the Genma to enforce his power while they gather "cherry trees" across Japan to Kyoto. Only Hideyoshi's illegitimate son, Yūki Hideyasu, refuses to follow his father and fights him under the name of Soki. With a bagworm creature named Minokichi as his sole companion, Soki spends two years burning the trees that the Genma are transporting with Danemon Ban among those Soki killed in battle.

Soki eventually comes across Akane "Jubei" Yagyū, a young member from the Yagyu clan who inherited Oni powers from her grandfather. Joining forces with Soki to infiltrate where the trees are being prepared for travel to Kyoto, Jubei is revealed to have been sent by her grandfather to assassinate their clan's traitor Munenori Yagyū. As Jubei fails to defeat Munenori, Soki encounters his childhood friend Ohatsu and attempts to convince her that Hideyoshi is evil by revealing the "cheery trees" to be Genma Trees: structures created from human bodies that produce Genma Insects which control whoever ingests them. But Munenori incites Ohatsu to remain by his side as Soki is forced to run off to save Jubei. The two later come across a monk named Tenkai Nankobo who has been searching for the one who carries the power of the "Black Oni", the God of Darkness. The group proceed to the castle of Hideyoshi's retainer Mitsunari Ishida, facing the lord's brainwashed warrior Sakon Shima as they save Roberto Frois, a Christian missionary from Spain who wants to take revenge on his guardian Luís Fróis for allying himself with the Genma. During their journey, Soki also sees a mysterious man in white.

When the group attempts to go after the Mother Genma Tree in Kyoto, Tenkai watches his party fall apart when Jubei and Roberto are each captured while going after their respective nemesis as Soki runs off to face Hideyoshi. Ultimately, with Ohatsu siding with Soki, Tenkai seemingly sacrifices himself while instructing Soki to go to a temple at Mt. Hiei. There, learning Ohatsu was infected with Genma Insects as they are now effecting her body, Soki meets a tengu girl named Arin who enables him to become the "Onimusha", the Oni warrior capable of saving mankind, to save Ohatsu. Soki and Ohatsu manage to save Jubei and Roberto as they learn that Hideyoshi is only a puppet used by the Genma Triumvirate: Claudius who is symbiosis with Mitsunari, Rosencrantz who took over Fróis's body, and Ophelia. While Roberto destroys the Dark Stone powering Hideyoshi, Claidus reveals there is another stone and that his kind's goal is to resurrect their god once the Omen Star descends on the world.

Rejoined by Tenkai as they head to the other Dark Stone, Soki's group encounter Lady Yodo, Ohatsu's sister and Hideyoshi's royal concubine. But to Ohatsu's dismay, she learns her sister is dead and that her corpse is inhabited by Ophelia herself. After defeating Ophelia, the group arrive to the Genma laboratory where they confront Cladius as he stops Roberto from attempting to destroy the remaining Dark Stone. But a restored Sakon arrives at the last second to purge Cladius from Mitsunari's body, the Genma assuming his true form before being slain and causing an explosion that obliterates Rosencrantz with Fróis finally at peace. But the group find themselves in a difficult situation as they have six days to reach Hideyoshi, Minokichi sacrificing himself to enable his friends to reach Kyoto.

Upon reaching Kyoto as it is now consumed in Genma energies while they sally forth, Roberto, Tenkai, and Ohatsu remain behind to face the resurrected Genma Triumvirate while Jubei settles things with Munenori after he ingested enough Genma Insects to possess the power of both the Genma and his Oni heritage. Soki reaches Hideyoshi, who reveals to possess the Genma Seed that would allow him to become the vessel to the Genmas' god. However, upon being defeated, a mortally wounded Hideyoshi is betrayed by Ophelia as she rips the Genma Seed out of him before she is destroyed by Lady Yodo, whose soul was sealed in the Mother Genma Tree as it attempts to consume everyone within its reach. Though the group save Yodo and Soki makes peace with his dying father, the group find that Munenori stole the Genma Seed during the commotion and resurrects the God of Light: The Genma Lord Fortinbras. Tenkai gives Soki his gauntlet, which contains the soul of another Genma Lord, to give Soki enough power to destroy Fortinbras before he is fully reborn. But the attempt fails as Fortinbras, killing Munenori when he attempts to assassinate him for power, is revealed to be the mysterious man in white. Refusing to bow before the omnipotent foe despite the odds, Soki manages to kill Fortinbras before leaving Jubei and the others to sacrifice his life to destroy the Genma trees. The world then returns to peace and Soki's allies continue with their lives: Ohatsu marrying into another family while tending to her nephew and Yodo, Roberto returning to his homeland to ensure the Genma do not establish a place of power there, and Tenkai departing with Arin to parts unknown (revealed that they are actually Samanosuke Akechi and the tengu Ako). As for Jubei, she continues her journey to find someone.

Elmer Fudd has purchased Bugs Bunny at a local grocery store (with a sign visible in the window offering a special on "Fresh Hare") and is taking him home to make a meal. As he walks along, he sings the tune of "Shortnin' Bread", substituting "Wabbit Stew". Bugs emerges from Elmer's basket, munching on a carrot that was in there with him, and asks, "Eh, whatcha got in the basket, doc?" Elmer replies, "I got me a wabbit! I'm gonna cook me a wabbit stew!" Bugs states his "love" of rabbit stew (though he is clearly a rabbit) and then begs to see Elmer's rabbit. When Elmer opens his basket and finds it empty (Bugs had quickly climbed out), Bugs pushes him into his own basket and then sings the tune Elmer had been singing — but then Elmer realizes he has been tricked, and so he re-reverses the switch.

Once at home, Bugs easily secures his escape by distracting Elmer, tricking him into thinking the phone has rung. However, just as he's about to leave, he decides that the setup's too easy and he just can't leave. He decides to stay and heckle his would-be devourer. Bugs effects a radio broadcast that warns of the dread disease "rabbititis", which is contracted from rabbits "sold within the last three days" and which causes people to see spots and have "delusions assuming the characteristics of rabbits", which is followed by the onset of schizophrenia and depersonalization disorder. This frightens the gullible Elmer and he informs Bugs that he is free to leave. Bugs, however, decides he doesn't want to leave by saying "Oh, no, Doc. Wouldn't think of it. We're gonna brew a stew, remember?", only to make Elmer back away, forcing him to hide on top of his door: "Oh no! Pwease, Mr. Wabbit! Go away! Don't come any cwoser! D-Don't come near me! ''Nooooooooo!''". Bugs, thinking he has B.O., sniffs his glove and tells the audience "Oh, goodness! Don't tell me I offend." just as Elmer pleads with Bugs to "Make twacks. Scuwwy away. ''SCWAM!''" to which Bugs angrily replies as he leaves "Okay! I can take a hint! I know when I'm not wanted! Goodbye!". But when Bugs returns, Elmer reminds him that Bugs has to "scwam", but Bugs points to a new sign on the front door that states "Quarantined for Rabbititus (RAbbititis). No one may leave premises."

Thus Bugs stays to torment Elmer, and many hijinks ensue, including Bugs posing as Elmer's shower faucets and a doctor ("Dr. Killpatient", parodying Dr. Kildare), painting a room with red, yellow and blue spots to make Elmer think he sees spots before his eyes and pretending to be Elmer's reflection in the mirror (like the mirror scene in the Marx Brothers' film, ''Duck Soup'') and his own ''rabbity'' image reflected at him in a mirror that's really just Bugs after the glass has been removed. And when Dr. Killpatient (Bugs) tests Elmer's reflexes, Elmer goes into a familiar Russian kick dance, and Bugs decides to join him in a busby hat and boots. Finally, Elmer sees Bugs' game and chases him out of the house with a shotgun. But Bugs quickly halts the chase and, in an unusually lengthy breaking of the fourth wall, even by Bugs' standards, he convinces Elmer that members of the audience are now afflicted with rabbititis by saying "Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Look, the people out there in the audience - the lady there with the long ears. They're getting longer all the time. And the guy back there in the seventeenth row with the cute tomato - he's gettin' all fuzzy. Yeah, they've got it. Everybody out there's got rabbititis! Yaah!" which causes Elmer to flee back into his house in a terror of panic.

Bugs then addresses the audience and says the whole thing was "just a gag, of course" and that if the audience really had rabbititis, they would see swirling red and yellow spots, whereupon red and yellow spots are seen swirling on the screen, and the underscore starts to build dramatically. Immediately after Bugs says, "And then suddenly, everything'd go black!" the screen does suddenly go black, and the music stops abruptly and dramatically, followed by a second or two of dark silence. Bugs snickers and the cartoon ends.

, in this history the Spanish-imposed Queen of England Shakespeare, actor and renowned playwright, is contacted by Nicholas Skeres on behalf of members of an underground resistance movement who are plotting to overthrow the Spanish dominion of England and restore Elizabeth I to the throne. To do this, they employ Shakespeare himself, tasking him to write a play depicting the saga of Boudicca, an ancient Iceni queen who rebelled against the Roman invasion of Great Britain in the 1st century A.D. The conspirators hope that the play will inspire its audience, Britons once again under the heel of a foreign enemy, to overthrow the Spanish.

The plan is complicated by the Spaniards who, also recognizing Shakespeare's talents, commission him to write a play depicting the life of King Philip II of Spain and the Spanish conquest of England. Now Shakespeare must write two plays—one glorifying the valor of England, the other glorifying its conquest and return to the Catholic Church—at the same time. There is also a subplot of the exploits of the skirt-chasing Spanish playwright and soldier Lope de Vega, who is tasked by his superiors in the Spanish military hierarchy to keep an eye on Shakespeare and while he does so flirts from woman to woman. De Vega even acts in Shakespeare's ''King Philip''.

Despite danger at every turn from both the Spanish Inquisition and a home-grown English Inquisition, the secret play comes to fruition, and despite qualms from Shakespeare and his fellow players it is performed. As the conspirators had hoped, the audience is roused into an anti-Spanish fury and rampages through London, killing any Spaniard they see and freeing Elizabeth from the Tower of London. Despite this victory and England's reclaimed freedom, there is considerable loss of life on both sides.

Shakespeare is rewarded by the reinstated Queen Elizabeth with a knighthood and an annulment of his unhappy marriage to Anne Hathaway, which frees him to marry his longtime mistress. The queen also grants his daring request that his ''King Philip'' play, which he considers to contain some of his best work, be staged. At the end of the story, Shakespeare uses his new status to facilitate the release of Lope de Vega from English captivity, provided that he immediately return to the Continent.

One thousand years ago, the Five Kingdoms (Weigard, Illes, Iscar, the Far Reaches, and Shadoan) were united under the benevolent rule of the Elder Kings until the evil wizard Sorsabal allied himself with dark forces from the land of Shadoan. With their dreadful power, Sorsabal destroyed the Elder Kings and claimed Shadoan as his own domain. The Elder Kings preserved their power by parting the Hand of Quoid (pronounced "kwode") - the great Amulet that was the source and focus of all true magic - and creating the Five Relics. They concealed one Relic in each of the Five Kingdoms knowing that, if Sorsabal possessed the Hand, he would wield absolute control over all he surveyed. Indeed, Sorsabal and his dark minions are searching for the Relics. As Thayer Alconred - a sorcerer's apprentice and the last survivor of the Elder Kings' bloodline - the player must find the Relics and restore the Amulet of Power before Sorsabal does.

During the game, Thayer visits only three of the kingdoms and finds their relics.

Psychiatrist Dr. Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire) does his friend Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy) a favor by taking on his fiancée, Amanda Cooper (Ginger Rogers), as a patient. Amanda, a radio singer, can't seem to make a decision about Stephen's many proposals of marriage, so Tony probes her subconscious mind to interpret her dreams. When Amanda dreams of dancing with her doctor, she's convinced that she's in love and to avoid telling Tony about the dream, makes up a wild dream. This leads Tony to believe that Amanda has serious psychiatric problems and he anesthesizes her to act on her subconscious impulses. By some chance, Stephen comes by, not knowing that she's under the influence of the anesthetic and Amanda is crazy in public, destroying property and kicking a cop. The next day, there is a party and Amanda gets Tony to dance (the Yam) with her and in the process of trying to tell Stephen that she's in love with her doctor, Stephen thinks that she's saying that she's in love with him. Amanda then dances with Tony, telling him that "something terrible has happened, and you're mixed up in it." Tony hypnotizes Amanda, saying that Tony does not love her and that "men like him should be shot down like dogs." Tony, while Amanda is still in a trance, realizes that he's in love with her, but while he is talking to himself in another room, Amanda has gotten out again. She finds Stephen at the country club, using a shotgun at targets. She takes one and starts shooting at Tony, who arrived desperately trying to undo what he has done. Stephen accuses him of trying to take his fiancée away. At Amanda and Stephen's wedding day, Tony sneaks in and wants to punch Amanda so that she is unconscious and he can hypnotize her but can't bring himself to do it. Stephen barges in, aims a punch at Tony but smacks Amanda unconscious instead. Tony then tells Amanda that he loves her, and they get married.

Frank Warren is a treasury agent assigned to put an end to the activities of a powerful mob crime boss. The agent struggles to put together a case but is frustrated when all he finds are terrified witnesses and corrupt police officers. Although most informants end up dead, Agent Warren gets critical information about the mob from an unlikely source.

A husband and wife are having marital problems and find themselves stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Alabama. To their relief, they come across what looks like a beautiful Victorian House, and enter. To their horror, they find it is haunted. Jack and Stephanie think that working together is the key to survival outside of the House haunted by the Masked Man named White. They cannot learn to work together until they first self reflect on their inner demons that haunt them in the House. Inside, characters accompany their journey that show and lead them through that self reflection. Through a series of haunting events, Jack learns to let go of his anger, bitterness and unforgiveness towards his wife Stephanie for taking away the one he loved most, and Stephanie learns to forgive herself, let go of regret and rekindle that romance fire with her husband. Jack and Stephanie learn to love each other again, could that love push them to work together and escape the House, and White?

The Dominion has deployed a new weapon that can disable starships with one shot; only Klingon ships can be made resistant to it as yet, and so the entire defense of the Alpha Quadrant is in the Klingons' hands for the time being. Klingon Chancellor Gowron visits DS9 to honor General Martok, the commander of the Klingon fleet, by inducting him into the Order of Kahless; but after the ceremony he announces he is assuming command of the fleet himself. He outlines his plan for a new offensive into Dominion territory in order to seize glory for the Klingon Empire, ignoring Martok's objections that they are badly outnumbered by Dominion forces and are overextended already merely defending the border.

To aid Damar's revolt against the Dominion, Captain Benjamin Sisko sends Kira, a veteran of the Bajoran resistance against Cardassian occupation, to teach the Cardassians the techniques of guerrilla warfare; she is to be accompanied by Odo and by exiled Cardassian spy Elim Garak. Anticipating the Cardassians' objections to being advised by a Bajoran former terrorist, Sisko has Kira given a Starfleet commission to lend her more authority. When she arrives at Damar's camp, his men object to her presence—especially when she tells them they must be willing to attack fellow Cardassians if they collaborate with the Dominion—but Damar is willing to take her advice seriously.

Bashir, examining a tissue sample from Odo, discovers that Odo is infected with the same disease plaguing the Founders. Attempting to develop a treatment, Bashir requests a copy of Odo's full medical records from Starfleet. Starfleet bureaucrats stonewall his request, claiming that the records are classified and questioning Bashir's loyalty for trying to cure a disease that primarily threatens the Federation's enemies. When Starfleet eventually sends Bashir a file, he recognizes it as a fake. Extrapolating the history of the infection in Odo's system, Bashir conjectures that Section 31, Starfleet's secretive black ops division, deliberately infected Odo with the virus so that he would transmit it to the Founders.

Kai Winn is studying the forbidden Text of the Kosst Amojan to learn how to release the Pah-wraiths from their confinement. Dukat sneaks a look at the book and the Pah-wraiths punish him by blinding him. Winn throws Dukat out to live as a blind beggar, telling him he can return when his sight is restored.

Katie is a thirteen-year-old girl, whose parents are divorced. Her mother and David, Katie’s mother’s boyfriend, are workaholics, so Katie hasn’t got anyone to talk to. Katie likes swimming a lot and she spends most of her free time on training for competitions. If she is at home she connects her computer to the internet and visits chat rooms. She meets someone, whose nickname is “Vallleyguy” and who pretends to be a twenty-three-year-old guy named Mark, and she chats with him a lot. She knows well about the risks of chat rooms and she is sure about she would never give out her real name, her address or her phone number to someone she meets in a chat room. Finally Katie gives Mark her telephone number, because he makes her believe that he hasn’t got a connection to the internet for more than a week. Next night, Mark calls and says he missed her much. Finally Katie agrees to meet Mark in hotel, where she stays for a week for a swim competition. They meet in his room, where he grabs her. Afterwards, there is an investigation and Mark, whose real name is Frank Kufrovich and who is 41 years old, has to go to jail for 18 months, because he grabbed at least three other girls and one boy and pornography has been found on his computer. During the following years, she asks herself various times about why only “Mark” was guilty and she is not. The book ends after Katie has given a speech about the story of her live in front of over 600 pupils.

The series focuses on Flight Lieutenant Harrison, a young up-and-coming RAF officer, whose job is to survey and then recommend RAF stations for closure. The latest on the list is RAF Auchnacluchnie, Nuclear Command Bunker No. K553/44FS, a massive concrete Cold War facility and airstrip, which looms over the isolated Scottish fishing village of Auchnacluchnie. Far from being staffed by the 300 crew he expects, he is horrified to find the site is actually occupied only by the eccentric, obtuse and war-ready Wing-Commander Campbell-Stokes and his gauche junior Airman Tench. All the other staff have been siphoned off over the years and never been replaced, resulting in RAF Auchnacluchnie receiving the full quota of supplies and budget for its supposed population. Campbell-Stokes and Tench have been left to eat from 100 pint tins of baked beans, make tea from 100,000 bag boxes of tea-bags, and keep ready for a war that will never come.

The startling state of affairs is considered just as bad by the local villagers, who see the site as an English establishment foisted upon them. Harrison decides to file a report recommending the site's closure, but meanwhile becomes smitten with Eilidh, the pub landlord's beautiful daughter. She single-handedly runs the local school while her boyfriend, the impressively muscular and unseen Hamish, is away working on an oil rig. Alongside his romantic longings, Harrison realises that closing the site will have a profound impact on the village's school (which only stays open because Eilidh pretends she cares for the children of the 300 site staff). Falsifying his report to London, he is dismayed to find it has not only been accepted but also that he has been posted to the station permanently. Campbell-Stokes and Tench quickly accept him into the fold.

The film opens with a black crowd burning alive a black police officer, from a nearby ghetto that they regard as a traitor. It then switches to the peaceful home of Micah "Baba" Mangena, a black sergeant in the South African Police.

His son Zweli Mangena increasingly questions Micah belief and Micah's wish that Zweli would follow him into the police. Micha's wife also has doubts as the once-peaceful township gets polarised and her neighbours start treating her as an enemy.

The initial issue is the use of Afrikaans in the all-black school. The school children speak English, Afrikaans and their own African language, but they resent being taught Afrikaans. To reply in English is an act of rebellion.

Zweli dislikes the system but fears the consequence of open opposition. He arranges a meeting between some of the hot-heads and Pule Rampa, a respected figure who has been in prison for anti-Apartheid activities. He seems to be trying to calm the situation, but the police have learned of the gathering and break it up, arresting some of the students and also Pule Rampa. He had been trying to slip away quietly, but Micah anticipates this and arrests him. Micah is in charge of the operation and has attempted moderation, letting some of the students go free.

Micah wants to conduct his own questioning. But two members of South Africa's Special Branch have recently arrived and take over. They employ much more brutal methods. Both Micah and his white superior suggest to the Special Branch men that they are perhaps provoking opposition rather than quelling it, by torturing and hanging Pule in his cell.

The situation does indeed escalate. Micah and Zweli are increasingly on opposite sides of a widening gap, even though each of them genuinely cares for the other.

Aging George Stransom holds sacred the memory of the great love of his life, Mary Antrim, who died before they could be married. One day Stransom happens to read of the death of Acton Hague, a former friend who had done him a terrible harm. Stransom starts to dwell on the many friends and acquaintances he is now losing to death. He begins to light candles at a side altar in a Catholic church, one for each of his Dead, except Hague.

Later he notices a woman who regularly appears at the church and sits before his altar. He intuitively understands that she too honours her Dead, and they very gradually become friends. However Stransom later discovers that her Dead number only one: Acton Hague. Hague had wronged her too, but she has forgiven him. When his friend realises Stransom's feelings about Hague, she declares that she can no longer honour Hague at Stransom's altar. Stransom cannot bring himself to resolve the issue by forgiving Hague and adding a candle for him. This disagreement drives the two friends apart. Stransom's friend ceases visiting the altar, and Stransom himself can find no peace there.

Months later, Stransom, now dying, visits his altar one last time. Collapsing before the altar, he has a vision of Mary Antrim, and it seems that Mary Antrim is asking him to forgive Hague: "[H]e felt his buried face grow hot as with some communicated knowledge that had the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him contrast that very rapture with the bliss he had refused to another. This breath of the passion immortal was all that other had asked; the descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a great compunctious throb for the descent of Acton Hague."

He turns and sees his friend, who has finally become reconciled to him, having decided to visit the altar to honour not her own Dead but Stransom's. Stransom, dying, tries to tell her that he is ready to add a candle for Hague, but is able only to say "One more, just one more". The story ends with his face showing "the whiteness of death." Thus Stransom's last words are rendered ambiguous.

''Rolling Stone'' reporter Adam Lawrence (John Travolta) is sent from New York to Los Angeles to write an article about a businessman arrested for dealing drugs. During his stay in L.A., Adam sees a chance to collect material for another story about how "Fitness clubs are the singles bars of the '80s". He visits "The Sport Connection," a popular gym where he meets workout instructor Jessie Wilson (Jamie Lee Curtis) and asks her for an interview. Because of a previous bad experience with the press when she was a competitive swimmer, Jessie declines.

Adam joins the fitness club and soon coaxes other club members to tell him about the gym and its impact on their love lives. Some, such as fun-loving Linda and Sally, are all too candid about their experiences with the opposite sex. Although she doesn't agree to be a part of his story, a romance does ultimately develop between Jessie and Adam, resulting in a moral dilemma; as a journalist he has lost his objective point of view.

Jessie comes to trust him. Less cynical than before, Adam makes a concerted effort to show Jessie that not all journalists are out for the cheap sensation. He writes an in-depth, fair-minded analysis of fitness clubs as a singles meeting scene. But it is deemed unacceptable by his boss, Rolling Stone's editor in chief Mark Roth (Jann Wenner).

Adam's article is turned over to others for editing, using material supplied by his colleague Frankie, a photographer. She finds an old magazine article featuring embarrassing details about a romance involving Jessie. Adam travels to Morocco for another assignment, unaware of the changes being made in his story; he finds out too late to stop it. This has devastating impact on Jessie, as well as on others like Sally and Linda, described as "the most used piece of equipment in the gym."

Adam tries to explain the whole situation to Jessie, but can't. Meanwhile, he must attend a trial at which he's supposed to testify. As a reporter, using rights granted by the First Amendment, he decides not to comply with a judge who orders Adam to hand over tapes from the businessman's interview. Adam is jailed for contempt of court.

Jessie can see that Adam is a man of his word and believes him that he did not write the article the way it appeared in ''Rolling Stone''.

Employees and customers spend time at a small gas station-diner in a fictional town next to a nuclear power plant unaware it is the last day on Earth. Young Otto Quartz has received ownership of the failing business in his recently deceased father's will. His employee, Lionel Switch, is the garage's goofy and bumbling auto mechanic who dreams of being a rock star. "I can do it!" Lionel often exclaims. After some modest character development and a collage-like dream sequence there is a tongue-in-cheek choreographed musical finale while nuclear war begins.

At the destroyed gas station-diner post nuclear holocaust, Booji Boy is the lone survivor, but after his cynical prose the opening credits are a return to present time prior to apocalypse. [Some edits of the film place this scene at the end, including the most recent Director's Cut.]

At the nuclear power plant nuclear garbage men (members of Devo) reveal that radioactive waste is routinely mishandled and dumped at the nearby town of Linear Valley. They sing a remake of "Worried Man Blues" while loading waste barrels on an old truck. Meanwhile, Lionel and his buddy Fred Kelly (Russ Tamblyn) ride bicycles to work. Fred states that Old Otto's recent death was by radiation poisoning. They remain unaware of the implications as Lionel laments it should have been himself that died because he has worked on "almost every radiator in every car in town."

Early in the day at the diner Young Otto announces he must fire an employee for lack of money. He chooses waitress Kathryn, who has a tantrum and refuses to leave. She sits down weeping at a booth that has a picture on the wall of Old Otto and chooses on the juke box the song "The End of the World". Later, waitress Irene, overhears Young Otto's plans to fire everybody, destroy the buildings and collect on a fraud insurance claim. Irene demands to be included in the scheme and to seal the deal with a kiss.

Although Lionel has a crush on the waitress Charlotte Goodnight, she has a crush on the milkman Earl Duke. After an earthquake Duke, dressed in white, enters the diner with a delivery. He flirts with her saying, "Charlotte ...on my way over here this morning I thought about you and the earth moved." She replies, "You felt it too!" He also offers her a milk bath. While he is there a dining Arab sheik offers him wealth in return for his "whiteness."

A limousine stops at the gas station. After Lionel learns his rock star idol, Frankie Fontaine, is in the limousine he insists the vehicle will need work. After meeting rock star Frankie, who appears to lead an opulent, sequestered and drug influenced life-style, Lionel says to the wooden Indian in his shop, "Now there's a real human being!"

Lionel receives a bump on the head while working on Frankie's limousine and enters a dream. He becomes a rock star with a backup band of wooden Indians. Back stage he is given a milk bath by Irene. Lionel travels with his band (the wooden Indians) and crew (all people from his waking life) by trucks through the desert. The wooden Indians become missing.

During "Goin' Back" (a song by Young) the entourage recreates in the desert near a Pueblo. Native Americans prepare a bonfire to burn the wooden Indians which had been missing. Soon Lionel is playing music and dancing around the bonfire which appears to have become the center of a Pow-wow. "Goin' Back" ends gazing into the bonfire of burning wooden Indians. "Hey, Hey, My, My" is a ten-minute studio jam performance of Devo and Young.

Lionel wakes from his dream surrounded by concerned friends much like Dorothy in ''The Wizard of Oz''. Soon there is the start of global nuclear war. No one is sure what is happening until it is announced by Booji Boy, as "the hour of sleep." He then provides shovels and commands everyone to "dig that hole and dance like a mole!" The cast then enters a choreographed adaptation of "Worried Man". The planet is engulfed in radioactive glow and the cast, still festive, climbs a stairway to heaven accompanied by harp music.

as "Lionel Switch" riding a stationary bike against a surreal backdrop, an example of the film's "hyper-real sets."

JC seems to have it all figured out. By day he runs a surf school, at night he lies down next to his beautiful girlfriend Chloe, his lifelong dream is to travel the world surfing. However, when old mates arrive from London unannounced it releases tensions which have long been simmering under the surface of JC and Chloe's seemingly perfect relationship. Chloe decides to buy the local surfer cafe and settle down, His friends, especially drug-dealer Dean are intent on causing mischief and sucking JC back into surfing a dangerous reef, which he had attempted before, seriously injuring his back. It turns out that Dean had a job as a journalist, and setting up JC was to get a story.

To keep his job, he had to get a big story, preferably with a life or death situation involved. JC refuses to surf the 'boneyard' which prompts Dean to try it himself as he had already arranged media coverage, and his boss had decided to watch. Dean fails to surf the reef, hitting his head when smashed under by a huge wave. JC then dives in to rescue Dean and in doing so, successfully surfs the 'boneyard' therefore saving Dean's life and job at the same time. However Dean's boss gets knocked out by the local guru for his highly offensive attitude and remarks.

JC's friend Terry, having been given drugs by Dean, has radically rethought his life and buys JC's round the world tickets for him and his fiancé. JC then uses the money to buy a cafe for him and Chloe, deciding that his relationship with Chloe is more important than impressing his friends.

Elmer's hunting dogs have Bugs cornered when Elmer receives a telegram that says that his uncle, Louie, is dying and promises him $3 million in his will, but only if he doesn't harm any animals, especially rabbits. Elmer sets Bugs free and heads home. When Elmer arrives home, he hears Bugs singing in the shower and tries to kill him, but Bugs pokes out a sign that reminds Elmer of Uncle Louie. Elmer tries to get Bugs to leave the house and eventually tricks him out.

Bugs then pretends to die, causing Elmer to take him back in, fearing that any chance of receiving the money may have vanished into thin air. Elmer rocks Bugs and sings him a lullaby when a letter comes which says that Uncle Louie died, and Elmer now inherits $3 million. However, a list of estate taxes, income taxes, and other legal fees have depleted the entire inheritance. Elmer also owes Uncle Louie's attorney an additional $1.98. Enraged at having put up with Bugs’ shenanigans for nothing, Elmer chases Bugs around the house and Bugs eventually runs out. A few seconds later, a postman arrives and gives Elmer a giant Easter egg, which pops open and reveals many tiny Bugs Bunnies who jump out and run around the house.

Two huge interplanetary ships on an expedition into deep uncharted space receive a distress signal emanating from Aura, an unexplored planet. Both ships, the ''Galliott'' and the ''Argos'', attempt to land on the surface of the fog-encased world. While entering the planet's atmosphere, the crew of the ''Argos'' becomes possessed by an unknown force and try to violently kill each other. Only Captain Markary has the will to resist, and is able to force all of the others aboard his ship out of their hypnotic, murderous state. After the ''Argos'' lands on the surface, the crew disembarks and explores the eerie landscape in search of the ''Galliott''. Thick, pulsating mists, lit by ever-shifting eerie colors, saturate the terrain. When they finally arrive at the other ship, they find that the crew members have killed each other. Markary's younger brother, Toby, is among the dead. They proceed to bury as many of the corpses as they can, but several bodies are locked inside the ship's bridge. Markary departs to get tools for opening the sealed room, but the corpses disappear by the time he returns.

Some of the ''Argos''' crew are found dead. Tiona sees their corpses walking in the ship, and becomes paralyzed with fear. Markary advises the survivors that they must escape from Aura. Unfortunately, the ''Argos'' incurred serious damage during the landing, and repairs will take time. During the waiting period that ensues, several more killings occur. In a private tape recording, Markary admits that he suspects none of them will survive. While exploring Aura, Wes discovers the ruins of a spaceship a few miles from the ''Argos''. Markary, Sanya and Carter investigate. Inside the ship, they discover large skeletal remains of the long dead crew and thus realize that they are not the first ones to have been drawn to the planet by the distress beacon. Markary and Sanya are temporarily trapped inside the ship, but manage to escape and return to the ''Argos''. Carter inexplicably vanishes.

Two crew members of the ''Galliott'', Kier and Sallis, arrive at the ''Argos'' to steal the ship's Meteor Rejector device. Kier escapes with the machine, but Markary fights Sallis. Markary tears open Sallis' uniform, exposing his putrescent body. He learns that Sallis' corpse is being manipulated by an Auran, who reveals that the two ships were lured to the planet in order for the Aurans to escape from their dying world. With the crew of the ''Galliott'' under their complete control, they plan to use the ship to escape to the humans' home planet. Markary vows to stop them. Markary and his crew rush to the ''Galliott'' to retrieve the Meteor Rejector. They are successful, and manage to place explosives in the ship. During a struggle with the Aurans, Dr. Karan and Tiona are killed. Markary and Sanya return to the Argos and manage to escape as the ''Galliott'' is destroyed. After takeoff, however, they reveal themselves to be possessed by Aurans. They ask Wes, the last survivor, to join them. Wes refuses and tries to sabotage the Meteor Rejector, but fatally electrocutes himself while doing so. Because the device has been broken beyond repair, Markary and Sanya decide to change course for a nearby planet: Earth.

While the boys are vacationing in Paris from working in a fish market in Des Moines, Ollie falls in love with Georgette (Jean Parker), the beautiful daughter of an innkeeper. She turns down his marriage proposal because she is married to a Foreign Legion officer named Francois (Reginald Gardiner). Heartbroken, Ollie contemplates suicide. He is joined by his friend Stan in sinking himself into a river. (In some versions this proceeding is complicated by the presence of an "escaped shark".) Stan repeatedly interrupts Ollie as he is about to throw the weight in, and asks him to consider the possibility of reincarnation. Ollie decides his preference is to be reincarnated as a horse. Francois catches sight of them and convinces them to enlist in the Foreign Legion in order to forget Ollie's failed romance (little does Francois know that his wife was the object of Ollie's obsession). When Stan asks how long it will take Ollie to forget, Francois says it will only take a matter of a few days.

The commandant (Charles B. Middleton) introduces Ollie and Stan to their daily legionnaire duties, for which their daily wage is 100 centimes, which, translated into American currency amounts to only three cents. Ollie and Stan attempt to negotiate for a higher wage. For this uppity attitude they are sentenced to menial labor, washing and ironing a mountain of laundry, with legion officers constantly on their backs. Finally and 'miraculously', Ollie forgets his broken romance completely. His and Stan's purpose in joining the Foreign Legion fulfilled, they abandon their task, discarding the still hot iron, which unintentionally sets the laundry pile aflame. Angered by the hard work and low pay of the Foreign Legion, Ollie writes the commander an insulting farewell letter and signs it.

After leaving the commandant's office, they meet Georgette again. Ollie, delighted that she has seemingly changed her mind and come back to him, proceeds to embrace and kiss her. Francois witnesses this and informs him that Georgette is his wife and warns him to stay away from her. After Francois leaves, the commandant appears and, having discovered their farewell note and the mountain of burning laundry, pronounces them under arrest for desertion. They are taken to the prison, locked up and sentenced to be shot at dawn. Stan amazes Ollie by playing "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" on the bedsprings. As he is about to play another piece, the jailor yells at them to be quiet. Later in the evening, someone throws a note that says they can escape by means of a tunnel leading from their cell to the outside wall. Stan brings on an accidental cave-in which causes the underground path to lead to Francois and Georgette's dwelling. The whole legion engages in hot pursuit of the boys, who flee to a nearby hangar and hide out in an airplane, which Stan accidentally starts up. The boys fly it until it crashes. Stan emerges unharmed from the crash, but Ollie has died, seen ascending into Heaven. However, Stan later bumps into Ollie, reincarnated as a horse in accordance with the wish he expressed during his aborted suicide attempt. Stan is elated to find his friend alive, but Ollie grumpily remarks, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."

In 1817, a young Spanish aristocrat, Tessa Alvarado, returns to Spanish California after the death of her father and finds her home in ruins, her father's manservant reduced to stealing. The town where she was born is run by a militaristic governor who abuses his power, resulting in the miscarriage of justice and the poor living conditions of his subjects. Upset about the state of her birthplace and the murder of her father, Tessa's path is revealed to her in a mysterious dream where her father comes to her and talks of his murder, his hidden gold, and of his "avenging angel". She will take up arms to protect the people from the town's governor and to avenge her father's death. Tessa will do this in disguise behind a mask, becoming that avenging angel, the Queen of Swords.

As the Queen of Swords, Tessa becomes a vision of hope for the people who live in her long oppressed town.

Graham Dorn, a successful mystery writer, finds to his dismay that his most famous literary creation, a suave detective named Reginald de Meister, has become real. He usurps Dorn's life and even attempts to steal his fiancee. Graham counters by rewriting his current manuscript so that De Meister is married to the flashing-eyed, svelte, jealous Sancha Rodriguez, who promptly appears and accuses De Meister of two-timing her. The two characters disappear back into the world of fiction and Graham's life becomes his own again.

Playwright Ivan Travalian has a Broadway play (''English with Tears'') in rehearsal and the backers want rewrites. His wife, Gloria, moves out, leaving him with custody of five children: four from her previous marriages and his son. His two stepdaughters and his stepson, Spike, return to their respective fathers, but two of the boys, his biological son Igor and his stepson Geraldo, accompany Ivan.

The stage producer lies to the investors, claiming that popular film actress Alice Detroit has signed on to play the lead on Broadway. Ivan meets with Alice, where she confesses that she is a big fan of his and would love to perform in his new play. They start dating and she eventually moves in with him and the remaining two children. One night, Ivan explains to her that he was an abandoned baby who was adopted by a family with the Armenian name "Travalian". Alice becomes depressed because she misses her former social life, so she and Ivan agree that their relationship has run its course and she moves out.

His two stepdaughters run away from their father's home to live with Ivan and the police come to retrieve them, but Ivan and the children stage a standoff on the roof of their building, convincing the police and their father to let the girls stay. Spike returns to the house with his father’s blessing, meaning all the children can stay with Ivan. Ivan decides that his wife should return as well so he takes a taxi to Gloucester, Massachusetts to retrieve her. He finds her painting on a snowy dock with her new boyfriend, where she resists his efforts to force her to return for the good of the children. Realizing her selfishness, Ivan leaves her in Gloucester, returns to New York City and promises his stepchildren they will always have a home with him. They attend the opening night of the play which receives a rave review in ''The New York Times''.

During Gensokyo's summer, there occurred an incident called the Night Parade of Ten Thousand Demons Every Four Days (三日置きの百鬼夜行). In this incident, the sakura trees have since shed their blossoms, but the hanami kept on going, with feasts being hosted day after day with no end in sight. Additionally, each time the feast is held, an unknown restless spiritual aura in Gensokyo also increases, but this spiritual aura itself had no effect, leading to suspicions of those who went to investigate it. As such, everyone who goes to the feast, be it human or yōkai, appear to be very suspicious. Three days before the next feast, the player character sets out, each on their own, and attempt to investigate.

Bertie's overbearing Aunt Agatha orders him to go to Deverill Hall, King's Deverill, Hants., to stay with some friends of hers and perform in the village concert. Jeeves, who knows about Deverill Hall because his uncle Charlie Silversmith is the butler there, says that Esmond Haddock, his aunt Dame Daphne Winkworth, four other aunts, and Dame Daphne's daughter Gertrude Winkworth live there. Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle will also go there. Gussie is upset because his fiancée Madeline Bassett was supposed to accompany him, but had to visit a friend, Hilda Gudgeon, instead.

Another friend of Bertie's, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, an actor, wants to marry Gertrude. However, the aunts disapprove of actors. Catsmeat thinks Esmond is wooing Gertrude and asks Bertie to keep them apart. In exchange, Catsmeat will keep Gussie from brooding about Madeline; Bertie does not want Gussie and Madeline to split up because Madeline is resolved to marry Bertie if she does not marry Gussie. Bertie is also visited by Catsmeat's sister, Corky, who is arranging the village concert and wants Bertie to play Pat in a comedic Pat-and-Mike crosstalk act. Corky loves Esmond but won't marry him until he stands up to his domineering aunts, who disapprove of Corky because she is an actress. She believes Esmond has moved on to Gertrude. While drunk, Catsmeat makes Gussie wade through the Trafalgar Square fountain, and Gussie is sentenced to fourteen days in jail. To keep Madeline from learning about this, Jeeves suggests Bertie stay at Deverill Hall pretending to be Gussie. Bertie does so, taking Corky's dog Sam Goldwyn (a reference to film producer Samuel Goldwyn) with him at Corky's request.

At Deverill Hall, Bertie ("Gussie") learns that Esmond is in love with Corky and not Gertrude. Esmond hopes to win applause at the concert by singing a hunting song to impress Corky. Catsmeat, wanting to be near Gertrude, comes to the Hall pretending to be Bertie's valet Meadowes. The next day, Gussie, who was let off with a fine, arrives, pretending to be Bertie, along with Jeeves, who acts as "Bertie's" valet. Jeeves, believing that applause at the concert would give Esmond the courage to defy his aunts and marry Corky, starts assembling a claque. Gussie will take Bertie's place in the crosstalk act, with Catsmeat as his partner. Bertie will take Gussie's place by reciting Christopher Robin poems.

Catsmeat tells Bertie that Bertie's Aunt Agatha is coming to the house. Following a plan from Jeeves, Catsmeat asks Corky to invite Aunt Agatha's young son Thomas to visit her; Thomas, a fan of Corky's, runs away from school to see her, and Aunt Agatha cancels her trip when she learns her son has disappeared. Catsmeat tries to cheer up Queenie, the Hall's parlourmaid, who is distraught after ending her engagement to the local policeman Constable Dobbs, because he is an atheist.

Gussie, who has fallen for Corky, writes to Madeline ending their engagement. Bertie intercepts the letter, despite briefly running into Madeline and Hilda, and returns to King's Deverill. Thomas has arrived. He has a rubber cosh and hopes to hit Constable Dobbs, since Dobbs arrested Corky's dog Sam after Sam bit him. Silversmith announces that Queenie, his daughter, is engaged to Catsmeat ("Meadowes"); Queenie had to tell her father they were engaged after he saw Catsmeat trying to comfort her with a kiss.

Gussie and Catsmeat, both despondent, perform miserably at the concert. Esmond is very successful. Bertie, having forgotten the Christopher Robin poems, consults Jeeves, who has taken away Thomas's cosh. They get Esmond to read the poems. Gussie leaves to retrieve Sam for Corky while Dobbs is at the concert. When Jeeves learns that Dobbs has gone home early, Jeeves and Bertie try to stop Gussie. Sam is freed and picked up by Corky. Gussie, chased by Dobbs, climbs a tree, and Dobbs waits below. Jeeves knocks Dobbs unconscious from behind using the cosh. After his ordeal, Gussie's affections turn from Corky back to Madeline.

Esmond and Corky become engaged. Dobbs claims he has become religious after being knocked out by a thunderbolt and reconciles with Queenie. Dobbs is also looking for "Bertie" for taking Sam Goldwyn, but Jeeves provides an alibi for Bertie. Dobbs then assumes it was Catsmeat who stole the dog; as Jeeves predicted, Gertrude rushes to defend Catsmeat. Corky reveals Catsmeat is her brother. Esmond, an influential Justice of the Peace, makes Dobbs drop the case. The aunts disapprove, but Esmond stands up to them. Aunt Agatha followed Thomas and is now waiting downstairs. Jeeves advises that Bertie escape by climbing down a water pipe, but Bertie, inspired by Esmond's example, goes to face her.

L.A. is shocked when a woman attacks a priest. The woman had just confessed to the priest that she had murdered her own son. Meanwhile, Angel and Co. get reports of a woman fighting with teens across L.A. The woman appears to be everywhere, a 'bruja' - a witch. She may be an embodiment of "La Llorona," known in Spanish lore as the "Weeping Woman."

The priest soon goes into a coma, but Angel Investigations is busy with other matters: Doyle has a vision of a young mother and her son in danger at the docks. Meanwhile, Cordelia's looking for a big-shot producer's missing wife. Angel must find the connections between the missing wife and recent events.

Doyle's at the supermarket when his latest vision comes. He sees images of fear, fire, death, and an ornately engraved old amulet. The Powers That Be are not being too specific. When Doyle awakens an anxious young woman named Terri Miller is helping him.

Terri is a shy woman from a small town, and new to Los Angeles. Soon after meeting Doyle, who disappears without saying thank-you, a charismatic man invites her to meet him at a club to which he belongs.

Meanwhile, Angel and his team are investigating a murderer who seems to be burning his victims beyond recognition. Several of the dead are connected to Terri's newfound friends, and Cordy suddenly finds herself with an amulet that seems very familiar.

Cordelia Chase has a vision of a child being attacked by a squidlike demon. Meanwhile, Gunn is trying to rescue a young artist; the artist's studio is being attacked by vampires. Cordelia goes to investigate the mansion from her vision. She soon finds herself surrounded by baby products, portraits, and chased by a tentacled monster.

When Angel arrives on the scene, he is surprised to discover that he recognizes some of the portraits. He holds distant memories of him and Darla spending a night with storytellers and artists. Angel reveals that he and Darla were present at the party where Mary Shelley was inspired to write ''Frankenstein''; indeed, they witnessed the event that gave Mary the initial idea.

An old evil is trying to use a painting to preserve the life of its body, which, in the terms of the story, inspired the novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray''. In their efforts to save a child the villain is focused on, Team Angel will learn not to judge everything by its image.

Cordy's finally getting a big break—she will be a contestant on some "reality programming". She must spend five days and four nights in an apparently haunted house. Living with a ghost and catching demons for a living, she sees this as an easy challenge. However, there is more going on than Cordy knows. In a vision on her first night, she sees one of the applicants who didn't make it to the show. She secretly communicates the scenario to Angel and Co., who are instantly on the case.

Angel, Wesley and Gunn search for the missing actress as supernatural activity at the house increases. Soon, Wolfram & Hart also get involved and Cordelia is forced to consider her priorities.

Wesley opens a strange package that arrives by special delivery, which instantly sends him into a slumber. It seems likely he is the victim of a spell. Angel leaves with Gunn to investigate. They discover that other people who might be able to assist, such as magick-shop owners, have also fallen victim exactly like Wesley.

Meanwhile, Cordy is struggling to research without Wes available. She soon begins to uncover a plot to plunge Earth into eternal darkness, so that vampires might rule over humans. Wesley is in the midst of a horrifying nightmare. If he cannot awaken, humankind may be in for a struggle.

L.A. is divided between the haves and the have-nots. Those in luck seem to have tanned good looks, toned bodies, riches and more. Some have-nots are beginning to grow tired of it.

Lily Pierce is a motivational speaker who founded New Life Foundation, an organization sweeping across the country. Its mantra is: "Erase doubt. Erase fear. Become pure of purpose. Perfect in execution. Attain your dreams." Cordy's not impressed with Lily's message, but she doesn't suspect Lily is holding a secret of epic proportions.

Wolfram & Hart puzzlingly soon want Angel's help to stop the insanity, but is Lily's hope of a perfect world tempting to Angel?

Cordelia has become used to being shaken by visions of horror, thanks to the Powers That Be. However, she is especially disturbed to see a vision of Faith being hunted in prison by the supernatural. Chaz Escobar, a game hunter, soon arrives at Angel Investigations looking for his wife Marianna, a vampire. He had hoped to cure her vampirism on a distant small island, but she escaped. He thinks she might be the monster harassing Faith.

When Faith's out of jail it seems she may fall into Marianna's claws, but Angel's team and Chaz are off to the island to save her. Chaz's goal is to rid the world of all vampires, and Angel realises this may be a chance to right all his wrongs.

This novel features a flashback to shortly after Angel fled from Darla when she attempted to make him feed on an innocent baby to prove himself. Making contact with a sorcerer, Darla attempted to have him remove Angel's soul, but the man refused, sensing that Angel's soul didn't ''want'' to be separated from his body, and noting that he had the potential to become a good person despite his vampire status.

It seems a quiet day at Angel Investigations until a desperate man arrives, chased by a demon. The gang kills the monster, which decomposes as soon as it dies. The man seems to have fallen victim to a stolen identity scam; he's been approached by a false Angel and is now distrustful of the real thing, so does not want to give up the ancient stone he's found.

Angel's worried by the notion of an impersonator, but Cordy's just curious why he didn't impersonate more worthy celebrities. Meanwhile, Lorne reports some bad mojo from Caritas, and needs help. Something is getting under local demons' skins, and even bothering Angel, heightening the aggression of normally rather pacifistic demons.

As their research continues, Cordelia and Fred learn that the Angel-impersonator- a photography student called David who saw Angel in action during his early days in Los Angeles- is impersonating Angel for no reason other than the power trip he gets when defeating demons, and doesn't truly understand the reasons why Angel does what he does. The stone that David's client possesses is later revealed to be the burial stone of a race of demons whose nature causes them to disintegrate upon death caused them to start using the stones as a memorial, the stones 'recording' their feelings at the moment of death. The stone the client possesses contains the rage and hostility of an honoured warrior who recently died in battle; in their home dimension, the stone's 'emissions' would normally be controlled by various spells, but without those spells the emotions are spilling out and 'infecting' every demon in the area.

In the final confrontation, as Angel and his associates attempt to aid the stone's owners in acquiring the stone while holding off a mass of demons, Angel nearly surrenders to his rage, but David's act of sacrifice during the battle, giving his life to save Angel's, gets through Angel's rage and allows him to focus long enough to allow the stone to be destroyed, thus ending the wave of hostility.

The characters of Angel Investigations are shocked to find themselves euphoric after a long night they cannot remember. Their clothes are bloody and torn, their bodies bruised, but their memories of the previous evening are hazy. They soon determine that they've been affected by demon pixie dust.

Angel, however, finds his superhuman healing failing him, and seems to be recovering at the rate of an average human. Unable to confide in his friends, Angel finds himself keeping secrets and collaborating with demons. If his friends go looking for another high in a battle of fearlessness, Angel is unsure if he can protect them.

Characters include: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne

Angel and Co. are enjoying some downtime at the karaoke bar Caritas when a loud explosion occurs. The gang and the rest of the bar are attracted outside. A building nearby is on fire. It seems that it may have been a diversionary tactic to distract from a drive-by shooting. When the smoke clears, Fred has gone missing.

It seems Fred has been kidnapped, so Team Angel questions everyone nearby. Around a dozen demons were direct eyewitnesses, but each one has a different story. Whether it was gangs, monsters, or a runaway Fred, the team soon realize demons do not make the most reliable eyewitnesses.

A series of perfect clones of members at Angel Investigations are lurking in the city, planning to kill the originals. Team Angel must find out where the replicas are coming from and why, before the murder spree hits the whole city. Thanks to Wesley's research, the gang realise that they are facing the 'Seven Sinners', dimension-jumping demons who travel to other worlds, steal the negative aspects of the souls of some of the greatest heroes of that world, and subsequently gain power by killing the originals and absorbing their souls into their power source. Once they have been copied, only the original can kill 'their' Sinner, with other attempts simply incapacitating the Sinners until they can regenerate. The Sinners have targeted Angel Investigations with the intention of duplicating Angel, as they feel that only Angelus would possess the necessary skills to lead them in their destruction of this world. However, the final seven clones- consisting of Angelus, Lorne, Wesley, Connor, Fred, Gunn, and Lilah- are all killed by their templates, Angel subsequently destroying their power source.

In the fictional small town of Sand City, Kansas, the body of Harvey Merrick, a famed sculptor, is brought back to his parents' house. Only Jim Laird, Harvey's old friend, and Henry Steavens, his student, have any real emotion. While the mother cries out in overdone and insincere grief, Steavens and Laird talk, and we learn Laird never made it out of the town. Later, the mother, showing her cruelty, yells at her maid for forgetting to do the salad dressing. As the men sit up with the body, they moralize and criticize the deceased. This angers Laird, who comes into the room and points out how each of them are guilty, then exposing the corruption of their towns' leaders and how much they had hated Harvey. The next day, Laird, who is disgusted with himself for never having found a life elsewhere as Harvey had done, is too drunk to attend the funeral. The story ends with the notation that Laird dies of a cold shortly thereafter.

The widow Mildred Finster has been a fan of "cozy" mystery novels for years. At the age of seventy-one she decides she would like to become a real private detective. She finds a business card for Angel Investigations and likes the name.

Team Angel is busy with its own personal problems, and has little time to deal with Mildred offering her services. Later a truckload of valuable antiquities is stolen and they assume a simple theft. The arrival of ruthless killers from afar soon gets the attention of the gang.

They must cope with being followed everywhere by a well-meaning old lady, fight off poltergeists, and try to set aside their personal differences (at least temporarily) so that they can overcome the supernatural foe which is responsible for a centuries-old mystery.

Huge numbers of demon-killers are descending upon L.A., provoked by outspoken radio host Mac Lindley. They plan to rid the city of demons as rapidly and violently as possible.

Angel Investigations is finding these angry mobs more of a hindrance than a help. Cordy knows bits and pieces but Angel Investigations is focusing on solving a case of a family who came to Los Angeles from Iowa; they were murdered together as Angel raced to try to save them.

Soon Lorne is attacked and Connor goes missing. Angel realizes that the demon-hunters cannot tell the difference between a good demon and a bad one. None of them are safe from the crazy pack of do-gooders.

Like other parents, Angel wishes he could understand his son, Connor. But father-son bonding time is short because Angel is overworked, Connor is embarrassed by his father's blood-drinking, Hyconian demons are running rampant across L.A. - and a huge monolith suddenly appears on Hollywood Boulevard.

Nobody understands this massive rock. It has two demon faces carved into it. The news stations assume it is a clever publicity stunt for a newly released movie, and religious extremists worry that it might be a sign of the impending apocalypse. As the staff of Angel Investigations tries to understand what the rock means, it soon becomes clear that Connor and Angel will have to work together for survival.

Characters include: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, Lorne and Connor.

One of Fred's old friends from graduate school contacts her for help at a big scientific facility. Fred has conflicted feelings about her past, and the life she might be able to lead independent of demons. However on the night they are supposed to meet, her friend is shot down, a seemingly innocent victim of a misdirected hit.

Angel and the others wish they could help Fred, but are needed to investigate a series of murders among a group of wizards. The wizards are the only ones standing against an apocalyptic breach; they are literally holding the walls of reality together from more-deadly worlds. Fred leaves the investigation and takes the place of her friend as researcher to try to uncover her murder. Soon the supernatural and the scientific research collide, and Fred realizes she might be the only one who can stop the coming end-time.

Wes has loved books since childhood. When a former colleague, Adrian O'Flaherty, arrives in town and invites him to a secret auction of rare occult books, Wes immediately agrees.

However Adrian wants more than dusty old books at the auction. He wants revenge. Before the Watchers' Council was blown up (seen in 'Never Leave Me'), Rutherford Sirk took a number of rare books from the Council's libraries and killed the librarian who was Adrian's father.

Wes buys a number of old books at the auction including one of the most famous books of magick, ''The Red Compendium'', which is infamous for absorbing those who read it. Wes has always been a sucker for literature and soon finds he can't put it down even if he wants to.

The novel is set on the planet Pandora which is famous for its animated biosphere. Humans have built a base on it that serves as a biological laboratory and a hunting resort. The base is located at the top of 2 km high crag on a continent otherwise covered by forest. Biologists do not understand most of the processes occurring in the forest. Humans hunt in the forest for sport in the face of serious dangers.

The novel is divided into two parts: life in the base and life in the forest. The director of the base is Paul Gnedykh. He is responsible for overall safety, supply, and communication with Earth. He replaced the previous director after several deaths occurred on the base. One of the deaths was the biologist Mikhail "Athos" Sidorov, Gnedykh's childhood friend. Some biologists claimed they saw people in the forest, but nobody took them seriously (partially because such visions were seen when the bioblocade of the observer was weakened or expired). The forest is rapidly changing, such that maps completely obsolete in two years. Some trees move from place to place, while others show signs of feeling the "pain" of other trees. Leonid Gorbovsky stays on Pandora believing that the forest is dangerous. He wants to be near when the forest "starts acting" to be able to influence the process. Gorbovsky is upset because the base staff are being negligent about the forest, not taking the forest seriously enough.

One day a female hunter and gamekeeper becomes stranded in the forest and calls Paul Gnedykh for help. She calls from the same forest sector where Athos sent his last bearing signal. When Gnedykh and Gorbovsky arrive at the site, they see a mysterious organism that caused the helicopter crash. The organism is attracting trees and animals and eating them. It gives birth to several "children" every 87 minutes. The children are amorphous white creatures that move by means of pseudopods. The children first move from the parent uniformly in one direction. Gnedykh and Gorbovsky follow the children until they reach a lake and drown themselves. While observing the lake, Paul thinks he sees a human in the water, and records a video of the scene.

In the forest segment of the novel, Athos attempts to return to the base after living in a village in the middle of the forest. The villagers are in foggy states of mind but have abilities to "grow" themselves food, clothes, and houses; and control the flora around them. Athos was brought to the village seriously ill by Hurt-Martyr and Broken Leg - two village natives - and given a wife named Nava. Athos too has troubles with his memory. He encourages two villagers, Fist and Broken Leg, to make a trip to The City, a mysterious place, where Athos hopes to get information about how to return. Hurt-Martyr went to The City before, but never returned. The tribe tries to talk Athos out of his journey, citing the rumored Dead Ones walking around in the forest. Slightly before the planned trip, he goes on reconnaissance, and Nava follows him. They are attacked by a group of bandits, and after a brief fight they escape. They end up in another unfamiliar village where Athos meets people he recognizes as Karl and Valentine, other biologists from the base. He is unable to talk to them, as some uncontrollable fear compels him and Nava to run away from the village, now engulfed in violet fog.

When Nava wakes up the next morning she finds a scalpel in her hand. She is afraid of it, and Athos hides it in his clothing. Athos wants to return to the unfamiliar village, but when they do, they find it sinking into the water, the process referred to as Overcoming. After the trip to the sinking village, they meet three women, one of whom is Nava's mother who was captured by the Dead Ones before. Athos and Nava realize that the Dead Ones who capture women from the villages are actually droids that serve women who live in The City. These women (calling themselves Glorious Helpmates) consider men (and many other biological species) as useless, a "mistake", since the woman are able to breed non-sexually without men. These women profess control over "little ones", and control the violet fog, which is made up of bacteria that can be used for diverse purposes including communication and assassination. The Glorious Helpmates are participating in a battle with unspecified enemy. The front of this battle separates Athos from the base. The front is allegedly so biologically active that any living creature (even the Glorious Helpmates, who are protected) are likely to die there. The women take Nava from Athos. During the conversation he remembers several important experiences.

Athos is attacked by a Dead droid, which he kills with his scalpel and flees. He returns to his village, where he again encourages Fist and Broken Leg who unite and travel to the base at Devils Crag. Athos now understands that the villages will disappear because of Overcoming (the process led by the Glorious Helpmates) and wants to prevent this mass murder. Broken Leg does not want Athos to go since he believes Athos will die. In the entire section of the novel, there is almost not a single object iⱱn the forest that is not a mutable living thing. One can grow clothing from the forest, eat the ground itself as a meal, and so on.

The origin of people in the forest is unknown.

Valeria Brinton marries Eustace Woodville despite objections from Woodville's family; this decision worries Valeria's family and friends.

Just a few days after the wedding, various incidents lead Valeria to suspect her husband of hiding a dark secret in his past. She discovers that he has been using a false name, "Woodville", when his true surname is "Macallan". Eustace refuses to discuss it, leading them to curtail their honeymoon and return to London where Valeria learns that he was on trial for his first wife's murder by arsenic. He was tried in a Scottish court and the verdict was 'not proven' rather than 'not guilty'. This implies that though Eustace is guilty, the jury did not have enough proof to convict him.

Valeria sets out to save their happiness by proving her husband innocent of the crime. In her quest, she comes across the disabled character Miserrimus Dexter, a fascinating but mentally unstable genius, and Dexter's devoted female cousin, Ariel. Dexter will prove crucial to uncovering the disturbing truth behind the mysterious death.

Harry Morgan (John Garfield) is a sport-fishing boat captain whose business is on the skids and whose family is feeling the economic pinch. He begins to work with a shady lawyer, Duncan (Wallace Ford), who persuades him to smuggle eight Chinese men from Mexico into California in his boat, the Sea Queen. Harry also meets a tramp by the name of Leona Charles (Patricia Neal). When his plan with Duncan goes wrong, Harry comes even more under the influence of the lawyer, who blackmails him into helping the escape of a gang of crooks, who pull a racetrack heist, by using his fishing boat to get them away from authorities. Harry convinces himself that his illegal activities will financially help his family. His wife, Lucy (Phyllis Thaxter), suspects Harry is breaking the law and urges him to stop for the sake of the family. Harry refuses and walks out.

As Harry waits for Duncan and the crooks on his boat, Harry's partner, Wesley Park (Juano Hernandez), arrives. Not wanting Wesley around when the crooks arrive, Harry tries to send him on an errand. The crooks arrive before Wesley leaves, though, and kill him. Harry is horrified, but is forced at gunpoint to transport the crooks out to open sea without drawing the attention of the Coast Guard. Harry also learns that Duncan was killed during the escape from the heist. Wesley's body is dumped overboard. Harry uses a ploy to get his hands on two guns he had hidden away prior to the journey and kills all the crooks in a dramatic shootout.

Harry, however, is critically wounded. Authorities find his boat the next day and tow it to port. Lucy rushes to Harry's side and tries to convince Harry to allow his arm to be amputated to save his life. Speaking with difficulty, Harry reaffirms his love for Lucy and then closes his eyes. Paramedics arrive and carry Harry's motionless body into an ambulance. As they walk away from the wharf, Lucy pleads with the Coast Guard officer for assurance that Harry will live. The officer says nothing, as sorrowful music plays on the soundtrack. In the final scene, Wesley's son, who was briefly introduced earlier in the film, stands alone on the dock looking around for his father.

When a photojournalist (David Cubitt) in the fictional Bay City photographs a mysterious stranger performing an act of bravery, the act quickly becomes headline news and the town dubs the stranger "John Christmas". After seeing the photo, Kathleen McAllister (Valerie Bertinelli) becomes convinced that the mysterious stranger is in fact her long-lost brother Hank (William Russ), a former firefighter. With the town's help, Kathleen and Noah set about to find the stranger's true identity with the help of Max (Peter Falk), a Christmas angel.

Filmed in Nova Scotia, Canada, the film featured a scene of a burning school based on the real Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago, Illinois in 1958.

In 1956, a girl named Lewellen lives with her stern, religious grandmother who is known as Grannie, who has taken it upon herself to raise the girl, as neither of Lewellen's parents can provide her a stable home. Her father, Lou, loves her and tries to please her, giving her gifts such as Elvis Presley recordings. Although he battles with alcoholism, he tries his best to give Lewellen a stable home. He even tries to provide a motherly figure in Lewellen's life by dating a mysterious girlfriend, Ellen, who promised one night to rescue Lewellen from life in the rural South should the relationship falter. We later learn that Ellen is in fact Lewellen's aunt, her mother's sister.

Lewellen is able to maintain her innocence by finding consolation in playing with her best friend Buddy, idling away her last pre-teen summer with typical outdoor rural pastimes such as swimming in the pond and exploring the woods, meeting a new friend, Gwendalyn (often known as either Wanda or Grasshopper), who is spending the summer with her grandparents. Lewellen begins to idolize Elvis Presley, even more so after she learns he is making a homecoming tour in the South. Her town is one of the venue stops. Lewellen finds that singing Elvis' music is a way to channel her trauma into something constructive and creative. Charles (Afemo Omilami) acts as a mentor, imparting wisdom of his snake handler religion to explain this emotional channelling to her — in other words, how to create something positive out of something venomous and deadly.

Lewellen is challenged by many problems besides living in a "broken home". Ellen leaves one day and breaks Lewellen's heart, burdening her with the responsibility to be a "mother" despite not having one herself. Her father suffers a terrible accident, and is handicapped to the point of infantile retardation, but the thought of Elvis coming to town gives her the resolve to carry on despite this newest of many traumatic circumstances. Buddy tells Lewellen that Wooden's Boy has an Elvis ticket and is willing to give it to her if she does her Elvis dance for him, naked. When she finds out the deal, she questions doing such an act for a moment. She then agrees to do the act. Unbeknownst to Lewellen while she is dancing - Wooden's Boy unzips his trousers - she asks for her ticket, but Wooden's Boy instead rapes her.

The sexual assault causes life-threatening emotional trauma, that manifests as an illness. Her loved ones, Charles and Grannie, are distressed by her sudden decline in health. In fits of feverish illness, she hallucinates she is being attacked by venomous snakes, and she also vomits after church. Enraged by hearing the cause of Lewellen's descent into figurative hell, Charles overhears Buddy talking to Wooden's Boy about what he had done to her, he then resolves to rescue his young friend from the depths of despair and tries to help her reclaim her stolen paralyzed voice by encouraging her to sing "Hound Dog". He nurses her back to health. Ellen soon returns to the town to keep her promise to Lewellen. Lewellen bids farewell to her father and departs for a better life with her new mother.

Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) defies his father (Tom Hanks) and leaves law school to pursue his dream of becoming a writer in Los Angeles. To support himself, he takes a job as a road manager for "The Great" Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a fading mentalist. Troy comes to enjoy traveling with Buck to performances in smaller venues such as Bakersfield and Akron. In particular, Troy sincerely admires Buck's signature trick: having someone in the audience hide his fee for that night's performance, which he then unfailingly discovers. (Kreskin is said to have actually performed this feat 6,000 times, only failing to find the money nine times.)

A reluctant publicist, Valerie Brennan (Emily Blunt), is sent to join them in Cincinnati as a replacement for a more senior colleague to promote Buck's still secret attempt to resurrect his career. Valerie is disgusted by Buck's verbal abuse towards her and Troy, with whom she becomes romantically involved. Buck reveals that his comeback will involve putting "hundreds" of people (actually only a few dozen) to sleep and then awakening them as if from the dead. The trick works, but despite a large press turnout, no one is there to record the act, since the news media is called away at the last second to cover a car accident involving Jerry Springer. Furious, Buck unfairly blames the mishap on Troy and Valerie, and then faints from exhaustion. In the hospital, Buck and Troy discover that the media absence actually worked in Buck's favor, as rumors reported by the news media exaggerate the scope of Buck's act; as a result, Buck returns to the limelight as a retro-"hip" phenomenon. He appears on television shows such as those of Jon Stewart, Regis Philbin, Conan O'Brien, and more. Buck is reunited with his estranged friend, George Takei, who sings "What the World Needs Now".

Buck finally gets the call he has been waiting for: To perform once again on ''The Tonight Show''. He previously had performed with Johnny Carson 61 times during the height of his career, but never since the show has been hosted by Jay Leno. Buck is bumped by Tom Arnold, who has too much material and uses up Buck's time. Buck refuses an immediate offer to come back and appear on ''The Tonight Show'' the following week, but agrees to receive an offer to headline a date in Las Vegas. When the limelight on Buck dims once more after he fails to find his money for the first time ever during his Las Vegas premiere, Troy leaves him and through Valerie's connections, lands a job with a celebrated TV writer (Griffin Dunne). After some time, Troy sees from an ad in the paper that Buck is doing his show again in Bakersfield. Buck is clearly back where he feels most comfortable, and once again successfully performs his signature trick, leaving Troy to wonder whether Buck doesn't have some mysterious talent after all.

After her first client, Albert Osborne (Robert Benchley), makes a heavy pass and refuses to take “No” for an answer, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) quits her job as a Revigorous System scalp massager and decides to leave New York City and return home to Stevenson, Iowa. At the train station, she discovers she has only enough money to cover a half fare, so she disguises herself as a twelve-year-old girl named Su-Su. When two suspicious conductors catch her smoking, Su-Su takes refuge in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland) who, believing she is a frightened child, agrees to let her stay in his compartment until they reach his stop.

When the train is detained by flooding, Philip's fiancée, Pamela Hill (Rita Johnson) and her father, his commanding officer at the military academy where he teaches, drive to meet him. Pamela boards the train and finds Su-Su sleeping in the lower berth. Imagining the worst, she accuses Philip of being unfaithful and reports his transgression to her father and the board. Amused, Philip introduces Su-Su to the assembled authorities. Pamela insists that she stay with them.

Pamela's teenaged sister Lucy (Diana Lynn), a student of biology, immediately sees through Susan's disguise. She promises to keep her secret if Susan will help her sabotage Pamela's efforts to keep Philip at the academy instead of allowing him to be assigned to active duty. Pretending to be Pamela, Susan calls one of Pamela's Washington, D.C., connections and arranges to have Philip's status changed.

Susan becomes popular with the cadets, most of whom have refined a technique for stealing kisses using a description of the fall of the Maginot Line. Philip tries to explain to Susan why she should not encourage them, losing himself in a metaphor of lightbulbs and moths. At one point, he looks at her through his bad eye and tells her she will be a “knockout” one day.

At the big school dance, Philip thanks Pamela: He reports for active duty in a week. She does not deny her role but refuses to marry him at such short notice. Cadet Clifford Osborne introduces Susan to his parents: His father is the client whose behavior prompted her to quit her job. It takes a while for Osborne senior to recall, but he eventually recognizes Susan and reveals her identity to Pamela.

Susan arranges to meet Philip after the dance. She rushes back to Lucy's room to change. Pamela tells Philip that Su-Su is sick, and Susan finds Pamela waiting instead. Pamela threatens to create a public scandal that will destroy Philip's career, unless Susan leaves immediately. Susan makes Lucy promise never to tell Philip about her.

Susan returns home, but continues to daydream about Philip, staring for hours at the moths fluttering around the porch light, much to the frustration of her fiancé, Will Duffy (Richard Fiske), and the mystification of her mother (Lela E. Rogers). When Philip phones from the train station, Susan identifies herself as Su-Su's mother; Su-Su is at a school play. He is on his way to San Diego to report for active duty; he has a frog from Lucy. At the house, he is astonished by Mrs. Applegate's resemblance to her daughter. He delivers best wishes from everyone at the school and tells her that Pamela married someone else. Pamela was right about one thing: A man heading into war has no right to marry. He tells her about an officer on his train who is traveling with his girl. They will stop in Nevada to be married, she will see him off, and he will be gone. Mrs Applegate tells him that he underestimates women.

At the station, the train draws near. Susan is standing at the far end of the platform. He approaches her, cautiously, starting to smile as the pieces fall into place. Her name? Susan Kathleen Applegate. She is going to marry a soldier—if he'll have her. She has a theory about the Fall of France... As she draws nearer, he looks at her with his bad eye. They kiss. “Su-Su!” he cries. “Come Philip!” she replies, and they run for the train.